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Information overload helps fake news spread

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Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#141

Post by chordalkeyboard »

newacct583 wrote: post #129
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An exploit demo? Been done, pentesters have been crying about this for years. > An incriminating email? After the compromise of the Clinton email server I think they learned their lesson there. > Hell, I'd take a suspicious correlation between firmware version and vote count, even. I'm not picky. Theres been some technical arguments but they require some expertise to evaluate and probably aren't suited for a presse…

Link to a verified pentest report on the Dominion machines they're talking about that shows this kind of thing is possible? Genuinely curious. I promise I'm not ignoring evidence, I literally haven't seen it. Edit: and in the other direction, any input on why the non-machine hand count which just completed in Georgia affirmed the results from the original count? Doesn't that pretty much eliminate the whole conspiracy…

> Link to a verified pentest report on the Dominion machines they're talking about that shows this kind of thing is possible? Genuinely curious. I promise I'm not ignoring evidence, I literally haven't seen it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/opinion/election-voting-m...

> Edit: and in the other direction, any input on why the non-machine hand count which just completed in Georgia affirmed the results from the original count? Doesn't that pretty much eliminate the whole conspiracy theory?

There are documents on the web, which appear to be sworn affidavits from people who claim to have been election observers that contain allegations that there were many improprieties including boxes of ballots with no chain of custody. To me if you can affect the initial count then I don't see why its hard to believe that you can affect the recount, especially if it was affected by adding ballots.

To me the real issue is that there's no real way to verify the outcome of an election because the process is so big. I'm not convinced it was "stolen" because I don't know who "really" won and its just odd that the burden of proof for establishing that interference is possible is so high when you can just examine the process and tell that if someone adds a bunch of ballots to the room where the ballots are kept, there's not a way to undo that or determine what was done. How can people be so credulous in such an opaque process?

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#142

Post by chordalkeyboard »

Jtsummers wrote: post #127
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its a government official speaking about the dangers of unfettered free speech. I'm genuinely at a loss as to what you want me to offer. perhaps if you explained it to me as though I was a small child.

> perhaps if you explained it to me as though I was a small child. Unless you are a small child or truly have the mentality of what, I will not speak down to you like that. I will repeat your quote though: > "But as a government official traveling around the world championing the virtues of free speech, I came to see how our First Amendment standard is an outlier. Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dea…

thanks for the reply. I now see where the inferential gap is.

> You're claiming that it's some kind of call to action against "unfettered free speech" (which we already don't have in the US anyways). Present an actual argument instead of taking a quote (properly attributed but sans context) and jump to conclusions that aren't in it.

I was attributing the context to the quote. I hadn't really considered that people were unaware of the context, because I had read the quote in context. Context being an editorial titled "Why America needs a hate speech law"

> TL;DR: You are terrible at argumentation.

Thanks for the reply.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#143

Post by chordalkeyboard »

theplague42 wrote: post #128
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its a government official speaking about the dangers of unfettered free speech. I'm genuinely at a loss as to what you want me to offer. perhaps if you explained it to me as though I was a small child.

Your quote literally says "as a government official traveling around the world championing the virtues of free speech " emphasis mine

Yes I did not share the context. He's relaying how he came to question those values he was advocating.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#144

Post by friendlybus »

KittenInABox wrote: post #133
Nacdor wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that before or after this: > My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly “inclusive” one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter

I have no idea and the only proof is her claim there; we have proof she was publicly shittalking her co workers on her twitter, which she doesn't own up to in her resignation letter.

I don't think we can reasonably expect company people to out their own misbehaviour and resolve this conflict. We are never going to know what happened.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#145

Post by spacemanmatt »

brohoolio wrote: post #76
thehappypm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russiagate is basically the idea that the Trump campaign was working closely with Russia to "cheat" the 2016 election. The Mueller report showed.. Russia was messing around for sure, but the Trump campaign wasn't really involved in any meaningful way.

How many people from that campaign are felons now?

To be sure, they were felons before the campaign, but now they're convicted felons.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#146

Post by chordalkeyboard »

klyrs wrote: post #131
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

again, "what evidence would you expect to see?" Also, I hardly think that the notion that people conspired to cheat an election is extraordinary. Rather it would be extraordinary if they did not. Also as regards the suspension of belief necessary to consider elections overseas to be corrupt but not in this bastion of freedom and democracy, the good ol' U.S.A.

There have been quite a few lawsuits about the alleged conspiracies to cheat the election. Most of them have been thrown out for lack of evidence. But yeah, conspiracy to cheat the election has occurred in the last few days. Thankfully, those efforts have failed spectacularly. https://abcnews.go.com/US/wayne-county-republican-canvassers...

> But yeah, conspiracy to cheat the election has occurred in the last few days. Thankfully, those efforts have failed spectacularly.

uncharitably, this would be an extraordinary claim. Fortunately I'm not under the impression that election fraud never happens, so I can use normal standards of evidence for this. And it does appear that some chicanery is afoot, considering those members changed their vote after being pressured and possibly having their families threatened:

https://twitter.com/kylenabecker/status/1329090338984583168

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#147

Post by newacct583 »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #141
newacct583 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Link to a verified pentest report on the Dominion machines they're talking about that shows this kind of thing is possible? Genuinely curious. I promise I'm not ignoring evidence, I literally haven't seen it. Edit: and in the other direction, any input on why the non-machine hand count which just completed in Georgia affirmed the results from the original count? Doesn't that pretty much eliminate the whole conspiracy…

> Link to a verified pentest report on the Dominion machines they're talking about that shows this kind of thing is possible? Genuinely curious. I promise I'm not ignoring evidence, I literally haven't seen it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/opinion/election-voting-m... > Edit: and in the other direction, any input on why the non-machine hand count which just completed in Georgia affirmed the results from the ori…

Come on, that's two years old and those vulnerabilities (which involved having an insider load custom software on the devices) have long since been patched. Halderman himself confirmed it. You're not arguing in good faith. Where's the evidence that the machines used in, wherever is en vogue -- MI/WI/GA/PA are actually vulnerable. That's what you need if you want to justifiably run a headline that the election was stolen.

> To me if you can affect the initial count then I don't see why its hard to believe that you can affect the recount, especially if it was affected by adding ballots.

You think a software vulnerability can conjure pieces of paper out of thin air? Now you've lost me entirely.

Seems like Occam is rolling in his grave here. Isn't the more obvious interpretation just that your candidate... lost the election?

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#148

Post by travisporter »

vrperson wrote: post #137

The article seems to be all over the place and mixes interesting phenomena like human biases and fallacies with pure speculation, like claiming "bots can easily ruin social networks" which they infer from merely running simulations. Obviously their simulation doesn't prove anything about the nature of networks of real humans (as one example). Afaik their Botometer tool is also highly disputed, supposedly having way t…

I found the article pretty straightforward. Biases are amplified by social networks. The article attempts to simulate some aspects of social networks and explain some biases.

I'm not sure how you mean fact checkers are leaning one way or another. Sure, there are different ways to interpret things, but I don't believe it's enough to bias towards either end of the spectrum.

To your last point, you are already looking critically at the studies they mention, so why wouldn't everyone?

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#149

Post by chordalkeyboard »

newacct583 wrote: post #147
chordalkeyboard wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Link to a verified pentest report on the Dominion machines they're talking about that shows this kind of thing is possible? Genuinely curious. I promise I'm not ignoring evidence, I literally haven't seen it. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/opinion/election-voting-m... > Edit: and in the other direction, any input on why the non-machine hand count which just completed in Georgia affirmed the results from the ori…

Come on, that's two years old and those vulnerabilities (which involved having an insider load custom software on the devices) have long since been patched. Halderman himself confirmed it. You're not arguing in good faith. Where's the evidence that the machines used in, wherever is en vogue -- MI/WI/GA/PA are actually vulnerable. That's what you need if you want to justifiably run a headline that the election was sto…

> those vulnerabilities (which involved having an insider load custom software on the devices) have long since been patched. Halderman himself confirmed it.

do you have a link for this?

> You're not arguing in good faith.

And then you say this:

> You think a software vulnerability can conjure pieces of paper out of thin air? Now you've lost me entirely.

After I said this:

> There are documents on the web, which appear to be sworn affidavits from people who claim to have been election observers that contain allegations that there were many improprieties including boxes of ballots with no chain of custody.

Perhaps I was unclear. People who observed the election claim that boxes of ballots were added. Perhaps you disbelieve them. Thats fine, but it strains credulity that you can't imagine how someone would subvert a ballot-counting process by adding massive amounts of illegal ballots to the count.

> Seems like Occam is rolling in his grave here. Isn't the more obvious interpretation just that your candidate... lost the election?

he's not my candidate, thank you. Ask Occam how likely it is that people might attempt to cheat in an adversarial process with high stakes outcomes and poor process controls.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#150

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

beefield wrote: post #38
goalieca wrote: post #3

I’ve always found the news from my trusted sources to be reasonable and accurate until it covers something I know about. Then it seems like a complete mess. Humans tend to trust the first thing they hear and we tend to be less skeptical about news media especially if they seem very confident or persuasive.

Generally, I have tip my hat to The Economist Here. Even on the things I think I know something about, they seem to get their facts straight.

Likewise for Ars Technica. They're a specialized source covering technical topics, and they're almost always quite good at it.
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