People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#131

Post by creato » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 12:43 AM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #122

didericis wrote: post #111

The worst thing about widespread fake information is the ease with which you can convince yourself that everything you don't like is fake. We don't really have a defense against it that allows for people with opposing perspectives to coexist. I wonder if it's possible to somehow create a "consistency checker" that can check to see what claims are compatible with what other claims. Not a truth checker; that's far too…

My solution is to just hang out in meatspace, and assume everything I can't physically observe doesn't exist. This has been a surprisingly effective solution.

This seems like it is how (non-ironic) flat earthers come to be.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#132

Post by ProAm » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 12:45 AM UTC

txcwpalpha wrote: post #11

ProAm wrote: post #2

What age demographic still really uses facebook? American's 35+? All my friends us Messenger and the rest is on other social media platforms for content. edit dont know why this got downvoted, it was a legit question because everyone knows who the primary age group of votes is, so Im wondering if there is data on age demographics of actual FB use.

>All my friends us Messenger and the rest is on other social media platforms for content. Be cognizant of your bubble. All of my friends (aka people I actually regularly interact with) don't ever use FB anymore, but a quick glance at my FB feed shows that a huge population of people from my high school (people in their mid-to-late 20s), mostly the ones I haven't interacted with in years, still use it heavily.

I agree, that is why I asked the question. Has there been real research done to determine who the most active deep users of the platform are. Im not judging people that do or dont use it, for any reason, just curious about the efficacy of these fake users trying to shape a platform for an election (I assume that is what the fraudulent accounts are for).

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#133

Post by DonHopkins » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 12:47 AM UTC

alexpetralia wrote: post #50

dilyevsky wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world has gone full Philip K Dick

For those interested in understanding the reference here, I found this useful: https://expressiveegg.org/2017/01/03/four-kinds-dystopia/

It's Always Sunny in Phildickia.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#134

Post by Buge » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 12:53 AM UTC

digi59404 wrote: post #119

pera wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have 20 friends who use such tools Wait, do you have 20 friends that ran StyleGAN2 for a couple of hours to generate human faces? Can't they just avoid uploading a profile picture? When I used Facebook my avatar was an anime and my name was an obvious joke. I didn't need to simulate a natural person identity.

One of these friends works somewhere Edward S worked. A building with guards and guns. You tell me.

How is that relevant? Why would working for a military contractor with guards and guns mean you should use an image from thispersondoesnotexist.com instead of an anime picture? Especially when your 100 friends also use an image from thispersondoesnotexist.com , drawing attention to a weird group of people who then all become admins of the same groups.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#135

Post by ksm1717 » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 12:57 AM UTC

mherdeg wrote: post #48

tabtab wrote: post #3

Fake people reading and writing fake news on fake websites? If this keeps up, we'll end up with a fake President. Don't give me negative points, for this is a fake reply.

In Neal Stephenson's "Anathem" he proposes a distant alternate-history future where a priest-like cult of technical experts set themselves up to do effective human-aided Google searches which were necessary because the Internet was full of machine-generated disinformation. I genuinely thought this was an implausible, hokey premise when I read the book in 2008. I felt similarly about Orson Scott Card's plot in "Ender'…

Yet you give two examples of the future being predicted

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#136

Post by dzhiurgis » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 1:13 AM UTC

Ironically, zuc's new photo looks like it's been generated: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10111007623865331&se...

Catching faces from thispersondoesnotexist is easy - just poll the their site every 1 second and collect all faces. Others are probably trickier but FB is sophisticated enough.

My real question is how can one specify Z vector that generates a specific (say myself's) face? http://podgorskiy.com/static/stylegan/stylegan.html#wMUUPtHj...

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#137

Post by boring_twenties » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 1:19 AM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #110

boring_twenties wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WTF man? Not everyone has read everything already...

While I am fine with the social conventions that hold spoiling recent works as anathema, or even older works within limited contexts (for instance, /r/WoT tries to allow readers to talk about the early books without instantly being spoiled for the later ones), the absurd demands people make to not "spoil" any book or movie people still read or watch recreationally -- and not just as a homework assignment -- is harmfu…

While I appreciate your thorough and heartfelt response here, what I don't understand is how your comment would have been diminished in any way without the explicit spoiler?

Anyone who has already read the book would get it anyway. Everyone else wouldn't be any worse off, since that simple summary doesn't help understand the nuance of why it reminded of the ending. The only thing it does is spoil the ending.

> If finding out the ending of a story is the only reason to read it, you were probably done a favor by having it "spoiled"

False dichotomy much? It's not the only reason, but it's certainly a decent sized factor in the enjoyment of a novel. I certainly don't feel like you did me any favors.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#138

Post by klyrs » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 1:27 AM UTC

digi59404 wrote: post #125

klyrs wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that you were already downvoted after zero minutes supports your thesis. Alternative theory: multiple dissenting comments explain how GP is possibly oversimplifying the situation, and some downvoters have similar takes.

To be clear - I’m not saying that misinformation bots and such exist. I absolutely think they do. They probably use this tactic as well. But I’m trying to offer an alternative viewpoint. Just like bots who spread misinformation exist and try to blend in with actual people. Actual people who don’t want to be found try to blend in with the noise.

Unless your friends are creating fake-name accounts in bulk, they're statistically insignificant. If they are, and they're also using those accounts to spread political misinformation, then you've proven nothing. Either way, I'm not moved by this apparent meta-misinformation.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#139

Post by randomsearch » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 1:28 AM UTC

didericis wrote: post #111

The worst thing about widespread fake information is the ease with which you can convince yourself that everything you don't like is fake. We don't really have a defense against it that allows for people with opposing perspectives to coexist. I wonder if it's possible to somehow create a "consistency checker" that can check to see what claims are compatible with what other claims. Not a truth checker; that's far too…

The worst thing about widespread disinformation is that it convinces many people to vote in a way that conflicts with their interests.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#140

Post by knzhou » Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 1:36 AM UTC

mistersquid wrote: post #113

knzhou wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a catch-22, isn't it? The common definition of "winning the social media war" is to get a lot of users. That is inherently contradictory to "cultivating" a "selective group". Just as water flows downhill, there will inevitably be a few most popular social networks, which will inevitably be driven by clickbait and moral panic and targeted by all bad actors. I already saw that happen with atheism. When I was yo…

> Now about a hundred million Americans are effectively athiests and we're no more rational than before. The US has approximately 330 million people. Asserting more than 1/3 of all adults (330 million includes children) in the US are atheist is a bold and, in your comment, unsubstantiated claim.

By survey, over a quarter of Americans are "nones" when it comes to religion. Much fewer actively take the label of athiest, but there's functionally no difference.