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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

#101

Post by [deleted] »

me_me_me wrote: post #88
soco wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#102

Post by hobs »

leereeves wrote: post #66
tclancy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh for the love of Buttigeig, if the Democratic Party had an organ, I would hope it would do a better job of stating policy and sticking to it. If The Times is your idea of a lefty boogie man, life must be pretty easy.

You should read more. Everything fallingknife said is backed up by statements from insiders. As one wrote: > Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions. ... > But the truth is that intellectual curiosity—let alone risk-taking—is now a liability at The Times. Why edit something challenging…

Famously biased person claims bias of other people, yawn.

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

#103

Post by raphlinus »

shadowgovt wrote: post #89
ameminator wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is an excellent question, and one I hope others answer. Here's my personal take.

First, prune out really low quality sources of information, as they perpetuate uncritical thinking. The worst in my life are the Twitter trending tab (I did the "Indian Ocean" hack) and cable "news," especially the opinion section (and there's a lot more opinion stuff on even the "straight" news these days).

Second, spend some time editing Wikipedia articles, and become familiar with their guidelines. They are a digital community that has managed not to become a trash fire. My take is that being a decent WP editor requires a fairly low level of critical thinking - it can be defined as making good tertiary content (encyclopedia articles) from secondary sources, where the goal is simply verifiability rather than of truth. "Real" critical thinking might be defined as making good secondary content from primary sources. But I think the former is an important foundation. Did person X really say Y? If you get this wrong (which is super-common), there's no hope to answer deeper questions.

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

#104

Post by Aperocky »

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.

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

#105

Post by specialist »

shadowgovt wrote: post #16
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.

As a useful rule of thumb, the New York Times prints retractions. If your news source never prints retractions, it's not to be trusted.

Yes and:

Sign your name, cite your sources, share your data. aka authenticity.

Extra credit for verification, fact checking, vetting sources. aka journalism.

And as you say, earn merit badge for intellectual honesty. Including retractions, updates, followups, listing assumptions, etc.

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

#106

Post by _jal »

helen___keller wrote: post #35
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 (celebrities, dramas, dramas, dramas and $bad_stuff/propaganda) that affects the mood, even when I don't use "normal" social medias. an annoying trend is that, over time, almost every webpage or program controlled by corporate interests will come to include a "feed" that tries to lure you back into the modern news/outrage cycle e.g. opening a tab in microso…

For a long time it was, "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.”[1]

Now it is, "Every program attempts to expand until it can read Twitter. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.”

There is a world of difference between those.

[1] http://catb.org/jargon/html/Z/Zawinskis-Law.html

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

#107

Post by ramoz »

Cybotron5000 wrote: post #7

This is so messed up. If you’re reading this and are in this ‘business’, or associated with it/supporting it, please, for the sake of yourself, your families, humanity and the planet we live on, get out if you have any choice! It’s been bad enough with state actors, lobbyists etc etc. for years anyhow - don’t make it worse for the sake of a quick buck!

its not that simple. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27700339#:~:text=24%20d...

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

#109

Post by dharmaturtle »

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?

My opinion of the NYT plummeted when they doxxed Scott Alexander

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

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

#110

Post by Clubber »

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…

They recently did a movie on this: Mr. Jones. It was really good. You can probably catch it on Netflix or something similar.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6828390/

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