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Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#31

Post by hshs8sis9 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #11
hirundo wrote: post #9

I don't trust Facebook or Twitter to distinguish disinformation from information. Why would anyone?

They can’t and they shouldn’t. The potential good that could come from this does not outweigh the catastrophic failure modes of this approach. Some enlightened people understood this, hundreds of years ago. Its time for another amendment. EDIT since this is related, another horrendous idea that recently disgraced my timeline https://twitter.com/yelp/status/1314197509623947265?s=21

The same enlightened people that had negro sex slaves?

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#32

Post by ForHackernews »

scoot_718 wrote: post #30
maharashtra wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's start with domestic journalists who abuse their vastly disproportionate power.

So you're part of the "tear down journalism" crowd that are a part of the problem?

The far right have been attacking journalists as "enemies of the people" for a while now. Extreme leftists tend to hate mainstream journalism, too.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#33

Post by drawkbox »

Repeat after me, social media is not reality.

Social media is the new tabloid salacious media.

Yes it can be fun, entertaining, informative and educational, it can also be propaganda, misinformation, astroturfing, and a big high school like popularity contest where people are fake and narcissistic but probably insecure.

The truth is the internet is teaching the biggest lesson ever in critical thinking and getting your information from many sources across spectrums, countries, divides and more.

Let's hope that people see it as a lesson and not somewhere they can bask in their confirmation bias all day, or make decisions based on fear, in those cases the populace is easy to manipulate.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#34

Post by _jal »

maharashtra wrote: post #26
enumjorge wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understandable. How do you propose we deal with the current wave of propaganda and misinformation that these platforms enable, especially since they’re already having a very real effect on politics all over the world?

Let's start with domestic journalists who abuse their vastly disproportionate power.

This is an assertion, not a plan.

Your statement could just as easily apply to publicizing a whistleblower exposing massive corruption as it could to active collaboration with a foreign power to subvert an election.

But beyond that, what are you actually proposing to "start"?

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#35

Post by gralx »

aresant wrote: post #21

Disinformation content works because it drives huge engagement. Huge engagement pays the bills for FB and twitter. If we expect change we need an analog to a carbon or pollution tax for social. “Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome.”- Charlie Munger

That it drives huge engagement is an indictment of public education.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#36

Post by sovietmudkipz »

tyre wrote: post #20
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can’t and they shouldn’t. The potential good that could come from this does not outweigh the catastrophic failure modes of this approach. Some enlightened people understood this, hundreds of years ago. Its time for another amendment. EDIT since this is related, another horrendous idea that recently disgraced my timeline https://twitter.com/yelp/status/1314197509623947265?s=21

What do you propose to combat disinformation campaigns? Look at what’s happening. The end results of allowing anything to happen on social media are not good. We’re not in a good place. So we can ignore that for rigid principles, or admit that those principles don’t stand up to the real world. No, no one hundreds of years ago had any idea about the scale or effect of social networks. Yes there was propaganda and brai…

Keep the marketplace of information free and let people adapt. In the short term, will people be manipulated? Sure. Is that desirable? No.

In the long term, as has happened before, people adapt to the new reality. Marketing has to change all the time because people wise up to manipulative strategies.

The long term solution is a more intelligent public, not censorship.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#38

Post by unethical_ban »

hirundo wrote: post #9

I don't trust Facebook or Twitter to distinguish disinformation from information. Why would anyone?

What is the alternative? Think you're the smartest person on the planet, unaffected by misinformation? "Feed me the libraries worth of bullshit from the Internet, and I will sort through this free market firehose to come to a logical, evidence based conclusion", hm?

Have you ever read spam ads on Craigslist, fake comments on news sites, bots on Tinder, etc? There are patterns, there are foul motives, and with their internal data, there is certainly technical stats to identify related accounts participating in bad faith campaigns.

I understand the gut feeling to be suspicious of any large org to filter information. People on this very thread are screaming "censorship!" as if they were Orwell in the streets warning us the end is nigh.

However, if you look at Twitter or Facebook on any given day, you can see that a lot of bullshit, emanating from every possible angle of the political spectrum, still exists. Much of it organic, much of it bots, I'm sure. Let's stop hitting the panic button every time they remove Iranian bot networks.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#39

Post by seneca »

kache_ wrote: post #19

My dream is to work for the engineering divisions for these companies regarding automation around controlling the flow of information. It seems like such a fascinating problem

They're building a propaganda machine the likes of which Joseph Goebbels couldn't even have dreamed. It will certainly be fascinating, so long as you can ignore the unprecedented levels of damage it does.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#40

Post by realHistory00 »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #11
hirundo wrote: post #9

I don't trust Facebook or Twitter to distinguish disinformation from information. Why would anyone?

They can’t and they shouldn’t. The potential good that could come from this does not outweigh the catastrophic failure modes of this approach. Some enlightened people understood this, hundreds of years ago. Its time for another amendment. EDIT since this is related, another horrendous idea that recently disgraced my timeline https://twitter.com/yelp/status/1314197509623947265?s=21

Thomas Jefferson wrote the living should not be ruled by the dead, and that the Constitution should expire after 19 years.

James Madison wrote the Senate should protect the moneyed from democracy, and the Constitution was forever.

If you’re going to point at their ideas, don’t cherry pick nebulous middle ground cartoon versions of their actual positions, and lump them together as on the same page.

Some enlightened people that knew much less about reality than we do and have been dead for 200 years.

Old ideas of American civic life have become a religion unto themselves. Jefferson wrote of that too: laws must change as human awareness grows.

It’s time to change things, I would agree. I’d start by burying old idols. Little left to be gleaned from men who died without knowing of Einstein, Godel, and the rest of modern invention.

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