Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 129 posts

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#91

Post by drewcoo »

vharuck wrote: post #87
olivermarks wrote: post #77

Unfortunately I no longer find NPR credible, they are too reliant on donations from large corporate donors and are openly partisan in their politics. I occasionally listen to their radio shows to get 'the establishment view' but that' about it...

I've found their bias mostly comes through in word choice (which is actually a big problem if you aren't actively questioning it) and stories on certain topics. I avoid any articles by Code Switch or Goats and Soda (they often focus on those topics). They've recently been leaving info out of headlines, which annoys me. Feels like the "click to find out more" behavior on ad-supported news sites. Otherwise, I still lik…

Strangely, only a reported misidentified as undercover police was mentioned. As if to mislead us into thinking there must not be undercover cops present. Is this piece "disinformation disinformation?"

Yes, their bias does show.

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#92

Post by stcredzero »

EVdotIO wrote: post #9

It seems like there is some serious disinformation/psych ops working overtime across the internet right now; the tone is weirdly hostile. I would hope people would question the motivation of obviously divisive rhetoric, but it's clear that is a resounding no. As they say, people always buy with their emotions. I'm afraid the days of an open internet are quickly closing.

It seems like there is some serious disinformation/psych ops working overtime across the internet right now; the tone is weirdly hostile

As someone who has been online since the late 1980's, this sentence can easily apply increasingly to the Internet since around 2014 onwards.

I'm afraid the days of an open internet are quickly closing.

That ship sailed years ago. You're just not in one of the groups being actively censored or "good as lied about" yet.

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#93

Post by jimkleiber »

djaque wrote: post #90
schalab wrote: post #30

I have found if you have nothing constructive to do, then twitter sucks you in and is very addictive. But after a few years or so of constant nonsense, you become adapted to the addiction and just ignore everything on it. Atleast thats what happened to me. I went from constantly checking twitter to deleting my account and just going to the feed of one or two people once a day to keep informed. I now laugh at how work…

I've mostly avoided the really bad platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but I caved and started going on some of them for the past week. They are so awful. It feels like they were built from the ground up to discourage thoughtful conversation and to just create outrage. On all of these (and with youtube comments as I recently realized, although they have a placebo downvote) there is no way to downvote trolls (or bad/…

I think one of the ways to stop them is to create a platform that the influencers/posters find more attractive so they jump ship. Apparently only like 1% of users post the majority of content.

What are the main features you'd like to see on a new platform?

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#94

Post by sillysaurusx »

I see a lot of hate against Twitter. A lot of it is probably justified.

Here's my small thread: https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1267631457792479237

We're in Seattle. I went to go pick up my script from the local Walgreens. When we stepped out of the Uber, we were greeted with a freshly-shattered window and a freshly-closed Walgreens.

It's one thing to know "unrest is happening" in the abstract, but it's quite another to see it in person. So we walked through the business district and snapped some photos.

Business after business was boarded up, sometimes literally, sometimes with whatever they could use. Chairs, or shopping carts, for example.

More than that, the whole district had a remarkably different feel. Just a few months ago, it was humming and bustling with the usual energy of a semi-big city. Now it's like people are preparing for... well, nothing good.

I'm not sure there's another platform where you can tell a story like this, is there? Not with photos and text, anyway. Sure, I could put up a website and call it "My stroll through Seattle," but why? I suppose Imgur would work, but it doesn't really feel like a community to me. On Twitter you get a few "Be safe!" shoutouts from the people you know, at least.

I guess my point here is that Twitter doesn't need to be read-only. Go participate! You don't even have to post anything noteworthy.

The platform has also helped change my mind about some things. For example, it helps to consider the situation from the point of view of someone who's afraid to call 911. I was pretty far in the camp of "Let the police do their jobs" before this was pointed out.

A lot of VCs do good work on Twitter too. For example, Patrick Collison is starting to gather some info about which organizations might be effective in reducing police violence: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1267516891330838528

pg donated $1M to coronavirus efforts, but unfortunately I can't find the tweet right now. It was quite something seeing someone drop $1M on a cause they care about, though. And I only heard about it indirectly, due to the front-line workers thanking pg for his donation.

It's true that there's a lot of hate on the platform, and a lot of sadness, and disinformation. But I wanted to try to highlight some positive aspects, for whatever it's worth.

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#95

Post by _y5hn »

happytoexplain wrote: post #71
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on where the violence is directed. People are protesting police killing a black civilian. Now, if Antifa were to show up, who would they attack, the protesters or the police? The police. If the alt-right showed up, who would they attack? The protesters. Well, who's getting attacked? Not the protesters. So that fits with it being Antifa rather than the alt-right... ... unless it's a false flag, or alt-r…

You're implying that attacking a police officer, by definition, makes you antifa, which is more than a little convenient.

We have always been at war with antifa. 1984

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#96

Post by jimkleiber »

EVdotIO wrote: post #9

It seems like there is some serious disinformation/psych ops working overtime across the internet right now; the tone is weirdly hostile. I would hope people would question the motivation of obviously divisive rhetoric, but it's clear that is a resounding no. As they say, people always buy with their emotions. I'm afraid the days of an open internet are quickly closing.

I think one of the main goals of disinformation is to make us dehumanize others. To believe that they are super powerful evil beings or good but weak beings.

So I think one of the best strategies is to remember that we are all humans who ultimately have no idea what we're doing. We are powerful and weak, and mostly hurting other people because we hurt ourselves.

At least believing this seems to help me, maybe it will help some of y'all.

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#97

Post by Melting_Harps »

schalab wrote: post #30

I have found if you have nothing constructive to do, then twitter sucks you in and is very addictive. But after a few years or so of constant nonsense, you become adapted to the addiction and just ignore everything on it. Atleast thats what happened to me. I went from constantly checking twitter to deleting my account and just going to the feed of one or two people once a day to keep informed. I now laugh at how work…

> I now laugh at how worked up everyone gets, and all the play acting and rival factions involved. Its almost like an iq test, where you pass if you dont play the game.

Isn't that social media in general? I admit I got sucked in this weekend (I don't have an account) and it was... alarming to say the least as it coincided with an amazing successful mission and milestone by SpaceX and subsequently one of the more darker sides of what people flagrantly toss around as 'Anarchy:' to be clear, wanton violence and looting have nothing to do with the ideals and principals upheld by Anarchism that has spanned millennia.

Instead what we've seen is the failure of all Nation State's to respond adequately to it's populace demands after having been violently disenfranchised, marginalized and subjugated to such a degree that protests rapidly turn to riots when the Police use the violent tactics that have been upheld as the norm to maintain order.

Personally, I thought this weekend was a vastly missed opportunity for the entire Human Species to get some much needed Perspective and come together and realize what we can accomplish when we collaborate. I'm still pretty down because of it, if I'm honest.

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#98

Post by oars »

blhack wrote: post #40

The level of disinformation I'm seeing around this is like nothing I've ever seen before. The thing is: many of these protests have dozens of people livestreaming the entire thing. You can see what is happening in real time, and it makes a lot of the disinformation extremely obvious. I think a lot of the disinformation is just a function of how twitter (and to a lesser extent facebook) encourage misunderstanding/rage…

Didn't Donald Trump retweet this fact as well? That's where I first heard it.

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#99

Post by user982 »

downerending wrote: post #69
triceratops wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> defacing war memorials. What an odd thing to do. Which memorials?

Just in the last day or two: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/world-war-ii-memorial-vandal... https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/05/25/veterans-ange... https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2020/05/25/Wa... https://www.stripes.com/news/veterans/va-headquarters-vandal... https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Veterans-memorial-monument... A bit older: https://www.kptv.com/news/3-arrested-vandalism-suspect-wan…

1) Despite your preamble, this is the only linked instance actually from the last day: Unknown persons tagged DC structures during the protest, with the same single person spraying messages on the WWII and Lincoln memorials.

2) Memorial Day: Unknown persons damaged two stones on a monument to Puerto Rican veterans for an unknown reason.

3) Memorial Day: Unknown persons painted an obscure reference to Peruvian communists on an unrelated WWI memorial.

4) This is the same news as (1).

5) May 4: Unknown persons tagged the wrong monument for not counting soldiers of color.

6) February 8: A counterdemonstration against a KKK rally (not mentioned as such in this Fox News article) found itself aimless when the Klan was intimidated by them into late-canceling, with some becoming restless and opportunistically tagging.

This is clearly a desperate search through Google News looking for any vandalism of war memorials other than the high profile reported ones you obviously had to make an effort to exclude (because you definitely didn't want to mention them now), blaming them all on "antifa" even where literally nothing is known about the vandals or their motives and concluding with "this is all you need to know."

Re: Protests become fertile ground for online disinformation

#100

Post by blhack »

oars wrote: post #98
blhack wrote: post #40

The level of disinformation I'm seeing around this is like nothing I've ever seen before. The thing is: many of these protests have dozens of people livestreaming the entire thing. You can see what is happening in real time, and it makes a lot of the disinformation extremely obvious. I think a lot of the disinformation is just a function of how twitter (and to a lesser extent facebook) encourage misunderstanding/rage…

Didn't Donald Trump retweet this fact as well? That's where I first heard it.

What point are you trying to make with this question?
Post reply on HN