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Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

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Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#11

Post by uniqueuid »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #8
uniqueuid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole disinformation question is very complicated, but this particular question is very easy. Media are legitimate influences on public opinion with accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices. Disinformation is illegitimate (i.e. illegal) influence on public opinion by hidden actors without accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices. [edit] Perhaps I should say what I mean by legitimate. L…

accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices Are you seeing much of this lately? Lately as in the last 40 years? I certainly am not.

Disclaimer: I study this stuff as a scientist.

Yes accountability especially in the US is lacking. But there is some, there are formal ethical codices (i.e. see NPR's https://www.npr.org/ethics), there is proper journalism training (see e.g. the Annenberg schools).

If you compare the US media to other nations, and especially if you look at them historically, they have been pretty good at this.

I'd argue that your standards are probably too high. Accountability is a shitshow and virtually nonexistent across the globe. It's a darn lucky situation if you even have some.

[edit due to reply limit]: Of course NPR is biased, what do you expect? There is no neutrality in things that human believe. The difference is having public guidelines, committing to them and listening to criticism That's accountability.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#12

Post by ceilingcorner »

uniqueuid wrote: post #11
ceilingcorner wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices Are you seeing much of this lately? Lately as in the last 40 years? I certainly am not.

Disclaimer: I study this stuff as a scientist. Yes accountability especially in the US is lacking. But there is some, there are formal ethical codices (i.e. see NPR's https://www.npr.org/ethics ), there is proper journalism training (see e.g. the Annenberg schools). If you compare the US media to other nations, and especially if you look at them historically, they have been pretty good at this. I'd argue that your st…

NPR is just as biased and deliberately misleading as any other organization. The fact that they have a link on their website is not much proof of anything.

Replying to your edit: well, that is my point. They are all biased. This idea that having a public code of conduct means anything is nonsense.

When’s the last time a mainstream media organization was held accountable for anything? Even the people that helped sell the WMD lie are still in positions of power.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iraq...

The reality of the situation is that there are no meaningful standards of conduct and everyone is biased. Legacy brands with elite clout are no different.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#13

Post by FeepingCreature »

ziml77 wrote: post #2

So are platforms supposed to regulate speech or not? People complain if they stay neutral and don't remove false information and people complain if they moderate and do remove false information.

Those are different people though? I don't think you can make everyone happy.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#14

Post by uniqueuid »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #13
ziml77 wrote: post #2

So are platforms supposed to regulate speech or not? People complain if they stay neutral and don't remove false information and people complain if they moderate and do remove false information.

Those are different people though? I don't think you can make everyone happy.

Oh, sometimes those are the same people. Offense giving and offense taking can both be used strategically by the same group.

See e.g. the book "Hate Spin" on religious hate speech which explicitly deals with this two-sided phenomenon.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#15

Post by uniqueuid »

Having read the report, I think this is an interesting but rather weak analysis.

Detection of inauthentic behavior is very hard and fraught with false positives, so it's really important to be very transparent in the methods.

That said, the numbers are not too small, they do have some interviews with participants and Twitter seems to have removed some accounts - all these lend the report some credibility.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#16

Post by busterarm »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #8
uniqueuid wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole disinformation question is very complicated, but this particular question is very easy. Media are legitimate influences on public opinion with accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices. Disinformation is illegitimate (i.e. illegal) influence on public opinion by hidden actors without accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices. [edit] Perhaps I should say what I mean by legitimate. L…

accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices Are you seeing much of this lately? Lately as in the last 40 years? I certainly am not.

Aye. Journalism is activism now.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#17

Post by recursivedoubts »

> "New research by two Mozilla Fellows reveals how malicious, coordinated, and inauthentic attacks on Twitter are undermining Kenyan civil society"

i am glad that we here in the west are not subject to this sort of social media engineering and can participate in open and thoughtful debate on topics no matter how our elites feel about them

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#18

Post by bo1024 »

ziml77 wrote: post #2

So are platforms supposed to regulate speech or not? People complain if they stay neutral and don't remove false information and people complain if they moderate and do remove false information.

If your algorithm is deciding what to promote or display to people, then you’re already not staying neutral.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#19

Post by uniqueuid »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #12
uniqueuid wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I study this stuff as a scientist. Yes accountability especially in the US is lacking. But there is some, there are formal ethical codices (i.e. see NPR's https://www.npr.org/ethics ), there is proper journalism training (see e.g. the Annenberg schools). If you compare the US media to other nations, and especially if you look at them historically, they have been pretty good at this. I'd argue that your st…

NPR is just as biased and deliberately misleading as any other organization. The fact that they have a link on their website is not much proof of anything. Replying to your edit: well, that is my point. They are all biased. This idea that having a public code of conduct means anything is nonsense. When’s the last time a mainstream media organization was held accountable for anything? Even the people that helped sell…

I'm sorry that you are downvoted, because your perception is pretty common and not completely wrong.

There are many well-documented cases where accountability failed, and brilliant people have written about it (Chomsky, Lippmann etc.).

But - and this is really important - it's not helpful to cynically assume that either everything is OK or that there is no accountability/meaning/use at all.

All of the important things in society (discussions, getting along, identification of problems, negotiating solutions) are not a state, but a process. There is accountability, but only as much as citizens and institutions manage to produce. Go ahead and help (constructively)!

The alternative to politics is (civil) war, the alternative to free media is basically the middle ages.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#20

Post by nateabele »

uniqueuid wrote: post #10
ceilingcorner wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla has transformed into an activist organization over the last ~decade, with predictable consequences for their actual products and engineering.

Tongue in cheek but: I really like their activist products such as container tabs, privacy enhancing technologies and reduced tracking (compared to Chrome, Safari etc).

Fair, but there's a difference between creating tools that one may choose to opt into on an individual basis, and attempting to arbitrate truth on a societal level.
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