Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#241

Post by sthnblllII » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #207

ajxs wrote: post #206

I always find it disheartening that people see the propagation of 'bad' information on social-media networks as a bigger risk to society than said networks becoming the gatekeepers of all propagated information. The term 'Orwellian' has become so overused that it seems to have lost all currency. When we're confronted with an actually Orwellian phenomena people seem to either not notice or not care. It's not as though…

My mom believes that Obama is a Muslim, and my sister believes Breonna Taylor was a criminal who got what she deserved. The disinformation in our social networks is beyond a breaking point. Its incredibly difficult to have a reasonable discussion when alternative facts exist... I dare say impossible. ----- What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here? While my mother is over the age of 60, I don't believe h…

Name the groups.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#242

Post by sthnblllII » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 4:48 AM UTC

ajxs wrote: post #220

dragontamer wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The notion that Obama is a Muslim strains credulity, and it's not a widely held belief. Its a held belief in my family. My very mother, my uncles, and more. Whether or not it is "widely held" has little-to-no bearing on the seriousness I take it. Since my mother believes in it, I will take the alternative fact seriously. > What disinformation? The information you don't like, or the information I don't like? Disinfo…

Did you read anything in my post? What about the widely held belief that Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 Presidential election? The Meueller report was unable to prove collusion. What if big-tech suddenly banned any claims to the contrary on the grounds that it constituted 'misinformation'? Would you call that censorship then?

"Anything I disagree with is an Orwellian lie and must be censored."

Orwellian lies are the ones told by the people with power. If you are deciding weather or not to censor it, its not Orwellian. Calling the truth Orwellian is what The Party would have done if 1984 existed in 1984.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#243

Post by ardy42 » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 4:57 AM UTC

ajxs wrote: post #225

dunnevens wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My teen years were the second half of the 80s. Like a lot of kids my age, I’d sometimes seek out weird stuff outside of the pre-internet mainstream. One of my favorite books from back then was “High Weirdness by Mail”. Which was a very funny tongue-in-cheek catalog of crackpots, conspiracy theorists, cults, etc. I won’t detail all the weird stuff I got in the mail, but it suffices to say that most of it was roughly o…

> The mainstream culture was often bland but it was successful at gate keeping this kind of stuff... This is a side-effect of the legacy media organisations no longer having a monopoly on the dissemination of information. Think for a moment on what kind of disinformation you may have unwittingly taken at face value for fact simply because every single news media outlet reported it. This is exactly the concern that my…

> It's not at all new. Ever heard the conspiracy theory that Menthol cigarettes cause infertility to target certain demographics? I remember this wild theory being widely propagated long before social media even existed, among other ridiculous conspiracy theories. The idea that the moon landing is false is as old as the moon landing itself. This is not a new phenomena.

Whether the phenomenon being new or not is beside the point. The concern is that conspiracy theories are spreading more than they were in the past, and that groups have learned to exploit the them to accomplish their goals.

This has a parallel to what happened with computer malware. It's existed for about as long as home computers have, but up until 2000 or so, the bulk of it was merely childish pranks and wasn't very concerning. Since then, it's exploded in volume and danger, as criminals realized it could be used to make money by sending spam, stealing passwords and payment info, or by holding data ransom. I remember getting a virus on a floppy disk when I was a kid, but that doesn't make me comfortable with getting contemporary malware on my computer.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#244

Post by sthnblllII » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:00 AM UTC

npunt wrote: post #238

Barrin92 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>actually Orwellian phenomena This isn't an Orwellian phenomenon. This is just the typical bad reading of Orwell that Americans have tried to squeeze out of the book because of their free speech fetish. The central key issue of the book isn't a big scary guy with a mustache stealing your newspaper, it's reality inversion, it's the inability of everyone in society to distinguish between what is real and what is fictio…

Yeah freedom in America tends to favor 'freedom to' rather than 'freedom from'. Cutting these disinformation sources off gives us freedom from some amount of manipulation. Meanwhile, if we're more concerned with the freedom to say anything anywhere, whatever limits imposed will be perceived by default in a negative light. There's merit in examining from both perspectives for any given issue. However, if our objective…

From your most recent blog:

> any individual's reputation, perspectives, and history are difficult to ascertain, and therefore their words must be taken at face value. Coupled with an almost complete lack of standards for participation in the community

Let me translate that out of new-speak: "On the internet no one cares about my credentials (or is afraid of my power) so I must defend my positions on their own merits which I can't do, so we should ban people from the internet who express opinions I don't like."

Would Hitler disagree?

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#245

Post by olivermarks » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:12 AM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #200

olivermarks wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@ardy42 I think you just proved my point. To presume to know anything about what goes on in the rarified power struggles at an intercontinental/global levels requires free speech and giving serious researchers/writers a viewable voice. There are plenty of wonderful investigative reporters (Whitney Webb is a stellar example right now for example) but the editorial employees of oligarch owned media have marching orders…

> There are plenty of wonderful investigative reporters (Whitney Webb is a stellar example right now for example) but the editorial employees of oligarch owned media have marching orders and objectives to meet, so voices like Whitney's are invisible in the 'mainstream media', except to be undermined if their work gets through to an audience. I spent about a half hour scanning some of her stuff, and I'm getting a stro…

@ardy42 voices like Whitney need to be heard whether you agree or not, there are vast swathes of 'unreported' things going on right now, my original point. The mainstream media is anodyne in comparison... Separately the term 'conspiracy theorist' is both anti free speech and extremely unhealthy in a democracy. One person's investigative reporter is another persons 'conspiracy theorist'...

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#246

Post by dragontamer » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:15 AM UTC

sthnblllII wrote: post #241

dragontamer wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom believes that Obama is a Muslim, and my sister believes Breonna Taylor was a criminal who got what she deserved. The disinformation in our social networks is beyond a breaking point. Its incredibly difficult to have a reasonable discussion when alternative facts exist... I dare say impossible. ----- What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here? While my mother is over the age of 60, I don't believe h…

Name the groups.

Social network marketing groups, very clearly. In particular, stock pumpers and/or short sellers.

Surely you've seen the multitude of stock posts in both directions, of any stock that you're interested in? And they're quite correlated to stock prices these days. Its not just political topics, I'm including everything here. Disinformation is the cornerstone of social media strategies and marketing.

The current focus is on the election, because that's in less than a month. But Facebook / Twitter are still at the center of plenty of other issues relating to this propagation of alternative facts.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#247

Post by webmaven » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #224

ajxs wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two beliefs are mutually exclusive. If you support social-networks removing what they decide is 'disinformation' by implication you think this is the bigger risk. This is the mechanism by which they become the gatekeepers of information.

Not at all mutually exclusive. Whether Facebook removes disinformation does not affect how much power Facebook has to distribute information.

> Not at all mutually exclusive. Whether Facebook removes disinformation does not affect how much power Facebook has to distribute information.

While not mutually exclusive, it is clear that the importance of Facebook removing disinformation is linked proportionally to the power Facebook has to distribute information.

The less power Facebook has, the less important it becomes that they, in particular, remove disinformation.

The more power Facebook has, the more they become a disinformation SPOF.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#248

Post by webmaven » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:33 AM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #185

twitter_anon wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you believe the same to be true for Facebook as well? I have no idea about Facebook. I barely even use it so all my information is second-hand. > Why is Twitter encouraging outrage-engagement via the (somewhat filtered) Trending section? We're not, at least not intentionally. Do you think we are? If so, why? The Trending section is still biased towards things that are being talked about frequently. Unfortunately…

> We're not, at least not intentionally. Do you think we are? If so, why? I haven't been an active Twitter user for years, but whenever I visit it these days, Trending looks like it's at least partially optimized for outrage. I understand it's not actually "what's popular" (because otherwise it would constantly be about Justin Bieber & co), it's curated, or at least topics need to be approved in some form to be allow…

> I'm not sure there is a baby in that bathwater. I'm not even sure it's bathwater.

Brilliant. I'm swiping it.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#249

Post by sthnblllII » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:44 AM UTC

mberning wrote: post #194

sthnblllII wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like how every 'reputable' news outlet uncritically repeated the US's Iraq war propaganda for months and fired journalists who criticized it? Or do you mean people you don't like saying things on social media?

Legacy media is in the same boat, and has been for a long time, as you pointed out. When it comes to social media I think it is sprawling. Even a topic as pedestrian as lawn care is completely overrun by inorganic material.

>Legacy media is in the same boat

And yet only independent journalists on social media are being silenced. Funny how that works out no?

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#250

Post by darthrupert » Sat, Oct 10, 2020, 5:47 AM UTC

ajxs wrote: post #214

dragontamer wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom believes that Obama is a Muslim, and my sister believes Breonna Taylor was a criminal who got what she deserved. The disinformation in our social networks is beyond a breaking point. Its incredibly difficult to have a reasonable discussion when alternative facts exist... I dare say impossible. ----- What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here? While my mother is over the age of 60, I don't believe h…

> Its an issue of disinformation, not stupidity, that's leading people down the wrong path... You're wrong. The difficulty has always been that the most pervasive so-called 'misinformation' is usually fairly plausible, difficult to validate, or simply matters of opinion or interpretation. The notion that Obama is a Muslim strains credulity, and it's not a widely held belief. What about more complex information, such…

Disinformation most empathically is not information that you or I dislike. You’re muddying the waters by claiming such absurdities. Claims like that have become commonplace, but so much more they need to be fought.