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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

#111

Post by im3w1l »

jancsika wrote: post #52
khawkins wrote: post #26

Instead of constantly hand-wringing about "disinformation" from the shadows, they should be desperately addressing their own plummeting credibility: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gallup-american-trus... People would be less susceptible to disinformation if they could actually trust mainstream sources like the NYT.

> People would be less susceptible to disinformation if they could actually trust mainstream sources like the NYT. What is the relationship between more trust in a mainstream source and susceptibility to disinformation you are implying here? For example, IIRC Rush Limbaugh's audience gave him a lot of credibility and was less informed because of that.

If you happy and content with the mainstream sources you wont feel the need to look for other perspectives from fringe sources.

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

#112

Post by cableshaft »

sandworm101 wrote: post #79
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…

>> It's insanely hard to avoid that main stream media content Really? I spend a not-small amount of time online. I'm typing this at work right now. But I don't feel any pull to celeb culture whatsoever. Then again, I do not use facebook/twitter/Instagram. I watch YouTube but haven't ever commented or liked a video. The only real internet "drama" I am following currently is the Blizzard-Activision thing, and then only…

Subnautica is amazing. The natural unease in exploring the depths of an ocean is something I didn't realize I would love until I finally got that game a few months ago. Also constructing your base in a modular way is good fun as well.

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

#113

Post by brigandish »

jancsika wrote: post #52
khawkins wrote: post #26

Instead of constantly hand-wringing about "disinformation" from the shadows, they should be desperately addressing their own plummeting credibility: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gallup-american-trus... People would be less susceptible to disinformation if they could actually trust mainstream sources like the NYT.

> People would be less susceptible to disinformation if they could actually trust mainstream sources like the NYT. What is the relationship between more trust in a mainstream source and susceptibility to disinformation you are implying here? For example, IIRC Rush Limbaugh's audience gave him a lot of credibility and was less informed because of that.

Because a media outlet that is trusted and good and has a significant following would keep people away from disinformers.

Unfortunately, we appear to have something towards the opposite - large media outlets that aren't good, aren't trusted, and are trying to manipulate the market (à la Youtube with it's now completely useless search and its nefarious recommendation algorithms) to stop people going to competitors who might actually be doing a better job.

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

#114

Post by dharmaturtle »

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…

They still employ Cade Metz, who doxxed Scott Alexander.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/statement-on-new-york-...

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

#116

Post by dahart »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #5
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.

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

A personal favorite example of mine was the article “Recycling is Garbage” from 1996 that is chock full of misinformation and continues to do damage today. I wouldn’t be surprised if the article was sponsored by the plastics industry. (I’m speculating with zero proof, it just feels and smells like paid propaganda and corporate interests.) The online version has had orders of magnitude more readers than the excellent rebuttal at the time by the Environmental Defense Fund, but the NYT gave the author another platform to reprise his anti-environmental rants again six years ago, where he repeated the untrue talking points. There are a lot of real problems with recycling, some of them stemming from lack of buy-in and participation, and these NYT articles are fueling the anti-recycling sentiment with myths, undermining the will to improve the situation. The article’s pushing and glorifying of throwing things away is even doing damage to the idea that we should reduce consumption of single use plastic packaging, which is far more important than trying to recycle plastic.

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

#117

Post by flavius29663 »

Aperocky wrote: post #104
shrubble wrote: post #73

Pot, kettle, etc. 'The new disclosure revealed that the Post and the Journal each received more than $100,000 per month to run print versions of Chinese propaganda articles. The Times received $50,000 in 2018 to place the propaganda on its website, presumably a small fraction of the revenue it made selling print space to China Daily. The new disclosures also showed that China Daily paid hundreds of thousands of dolla…

What is the said propaganda? The article does not articulate but I do remember one of which came up in an earlier discussion being a tourist promotion.

A tactic used in some almost autocratic countries is to pay for lots of ads in the press, ensuring that the press stays friendly to the payer. It's legal, it passes first scrutiny, and it's effective. NYT wouldn't want to lose a big client, so they will be thinking twice before publishing a damaging article.

I don't think 100k a month can break NYT journalism integrity (their revenue is 1.7 billions), but not because it's too cheap, they became a propaganda mouthpiece anyway. A high quality one, that makes you believe they're not actually propaganda, which makes it so much more effective. It's easy to see Fox as propaganda, so much harder to see NYT; and they are at roughly the same levels.

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

#118

Post by giantg2 »

rbanffy wrote: post #98
giantg2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do other tv/cable news networks print retractions? I can't remember any, but maybe they have a specific webpage you have to go to in order to see it? I doubt any of the non-news programs on those networks do, and those comprise the majority of the programming. So maybe it's just hard to find for the little bit of actual news.

> I doubt any of the non-news programs on those networks do My impression is they only have opinion programs and no news reporting whatsoever.

I'm not sure since I get most of my news online. I thought they had like 2 hours per day that were non-opinion news.

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

#119

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

shrubble wrote: post #73

Pot, kettle, etc. 'The new disclosure revealed that the Post and the Journal each received more than $100,000 per month to run print versions of Chinese propaganda articles. The Times received $50,000 in 2018 to place the propaganda on its website, presumably a small fraction of the revenue it made selling print space to China Daily. The new disclosures also showed that China Daily paid hundreds of thousands of dolla…

Traditional print is over, jobs are disapppearing faster than coal miners. It is not by chance that media is getting more partisan - it is a way to boost subscription numbers, but I don't think it is sustainable. What we are witnessing are the convulsions of their slow-motion suicide.

I really hope substack will get bigger, there are incredible authors with a quality of writing that I have never witnessed even in the heyday of traditional print media.

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

#120

Post by LocalChapter »

jancsika wrote: post #52
khawkins wrote: post #26

Instead of constantly hand-wringing about "disinformation" from the shadows, they should be desperately addressing their own plummeting credibility: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gallup-american-trus... People would be less susceptible to disinformation if they could actually trust mainstream sources like the NYT.

> People would be less susceptible to disinformation if they could actually trust mainstream sources like the NYT. What is the relationship between more trust in a mainstream source and susceptibility to disinformation you are implying here? For example, IIRC Rush Limbaugh's audience gave him a lot of credibility and was less informed because of that.

If "mainstream" news organisation cannot be trusted. People will go elsewhere in search of the "truth".

I am in the UK and I cannot trust any of the outlets at all. They lie by omission in many cases or simply do not cover it.

e.g. We've had massive anti-lockdown / vaccine passport protests in most of the cities in the UK this weekend. There are protests in France from what I understand around vaccine passports / health pass as well.

Not a mention of it at all on the BBC. Instead I find out about it via "Right Said Fred"'s twitter account. Who are "Right Said Fred"? A 90s one hit wonder band.

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