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Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

nytimes.com

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Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#81

Post by refurb »

Lendal wrote: post #64
ameminator wrote: post #2

Ironic that this is from the New York Times, which has (in)famously had several years of poor or biased reporting.

This story is about shady companies funded by government propaganda agencies around the world, and which cease operating as soon as you start investigating them. The New York Times has been doing business continuously since 1851, is one of the cornerstones of democracy, a recognized leader in journalism schools across the globe, and to this day regularly fires journalists who are caught lying in a story. Anyone is fr…

No. The story is about disinformation. Whether someone does it for money or ideology doesn’t matter, lies are lies and the NYTimes is not an innocent party here.

They were a major driver of the Iraq WMD theory and thus the Iraq War if you want one solid example.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#82

Post by [deleted] »

elliekelly wrote: post #27
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, Are there earlier examples of negligence, prior to the episode of "weapons of mass destruction"? When did the decline really start?

I recently watched “How to Become a Tyrant” and they mentioned a NYT reporter in the 30s, the Moscow bureau chief IIRC, who was more or less bribed by Stalin* to write articles denying people were starving in Ukraine. He even won a pulitzer for the “reporting”. I don’t know that it was the start of “the decline” of the New York Times (and full disclosure: I subscribe) but the WMDs weren’t the first egregiously wrong…

[deleted]

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#83

Post by zepto »

Lendal wrote: post #64
ameminator wrote: post #2

Ironic that this is from the New York Times, which has (in)famously had several years of poor or biased reporting.

This story is about shady companies funded by government propaganda agencies around the world, and which cease operating as soon as you start investigating them. The New York Times has been doing business continuously since 1851, is one of the cornerstones of democracy, a recognized leader in journalism schools across the globe, and to this day regularly fires journalists who are caught lying in a story. Anyone is fr…

> fires journalists who are caught lying in a story

No good misinformation or politically biased piece includes lies.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#84

Post by bad_username »

Cybotron5000 wrote: post #38
bad_username wrote: post #24

I have a hard time to take seriously any disinformation talk from the political and media establishment after the lab leak theory twist, where it had been shameful disinformation, until it suddenly wasn't. I have to be doubting publications even from reputable sources, after "The Lancet" fiasco, where the organizer of the open letter that condemned the lab leak theory was discovered to have ties with the lab in quest…

"When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?" ― John Maynard Keynes

Changing minds is ok. Shaming and suppressing discussions outside the consensus is not ok.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#85

Post by iamadog1029 »

dd36 wrote: post #60
iamadog1029 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was discussed years ago, but it's been a reality for a long while. There are articles dating back to 2007 kind of dabbling into this, and I remember years ago a whistleblower, I think she was a journalist employed by one of these companies, and if I recall did a TED talk exposing a commercial enterprise built to both whitewash and smear people, and probably companies alongside it. One of their mediums was Wikipe…

What is history’s solution?

Not history's, but the present's solution to history is the Lindy effect. I don't think it can be dealt with in the present, truth must necessarily be sieved out and separated from the limitless chaff.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#86

Post by refurb »

Cybotron5000 wrote: post #38
bad_username wrote: post #24

I have a hard time to take seriously any disinformation talk from the political and media establishment after the lab leak theory twist, where it had been shameful disinformation, until it suddenly wasn't. I have to be doubting publications even from reputable sources, after "The Lancet" fiasco, where the organizer of the open letter that condemned the lab leak theory was discovered to have ties with the lab in quest…

"When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?" ― John Maynard Keynes

The facts didn’t change, only who was stating them.

If the story was “Trump points to Covid leaking from lab in China, evidence is a sparse” then ok cool.

But the story was “Lab leak conspiracy theory has been proven false but Trump continues to claim it’s true increasing Anti-Asian hate crimes”

Then Biden starts to comment on it and like a light switch the theory becomes credible, even “likely”. And all the newspapers act like they had been saying that all along.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#87

Post by padastra »

jkereako wrote: post #15
tester34 wrote: post #4

Ehh, I don't like current state of the Internet In last months I've started wondering why do I even pay my internet bills 60% of the reason I still do it is that I need internet for my job the rest is HN, two or three subreddits, music and some video games, wiki/google/maps and the fact that I still need to learn a lot in order to advance in career. It's insanely hard to avoid that main stream media content (celebrit…

Agreed. It is difficult to wade through the advertisements, biased news, vanity and negativity. It’s just not worth the effort and time. HN is the only bright corner of the internet that hasn’t changed.

I don’t know, maybe this is just nostalgia, but HN used to be a “oh cool, you managed to do this / build this / achieve this” and “look at what they’re doing that’s interesting” — and now it’s become much much more like reddit where it’s “you / they were only able to do this because of X, and my life is miserable because of A, B, and C factors outside of my control, society sucks, I’m sure I would have had a better life as a hunter-gatherer[1].”

[1] Not even joking, this is an actual reply.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#88

Post by me_me_me »

soco wrote: post #75
me_me_me wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to learn about news about your country read papers of other countries about you. Though you still need some critical thinking to filter out BS. For example Russian Today is often a great source for all non-russian news. But its a propaganda tube for russian news.

Without actually reading it, I somehow think RT will select convenient non-russian news as well. Like, underlining Le Pen or AfD declarations or the post-Brexit downsides... there's room for disinformation also when doing a simple selection.

Of course they would. But thats not my point.

My point is if you want to hear about BS happening in your own country you'd probably read about it from foreign papers/sources first.

Those have no incentives not to bash your homeland, as oppose to local sources that have to balance not pissing off government (for access to interviews, news, sources) and ad revenue by reporting on the sensitive topics.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#89

Post by shadowgovt »

ameminator wrote: post #58
rschoultz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even credible news sources are bound to have an implicit bias, to a certain degree. There is, however, quite a few other types of media sources ranging from media bias, to fake news, misinformation, disinformation etc. I recommend reading the Cornell university library guides to learn about how to distinguish one from the other.

Generally, I wouldn't rely on any one method - critical thinking and critical reading are skills that each person must develop. It seems a little trite to just recommend the one Cornell guide, even if it is of high quality...

Can you recommend any methods to improve critical thinking and critical reading skills? This seems an era where they are more important than ever.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#90

Post by radmuzom »

GranularRecipe wrote: post #9
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, Are there earlier examples of negligence, prior to the episode of "weapons of mass destruction"? When did the decline really start?

cf Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent_(film) )

This book was life changing for me. I also watched '12 Angry Men' around the same time as I read the book. I sometimes joke that these should be required reading or watching before someone is allowed to post an internet comment.
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