Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

tech.newstatesman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 35 posts

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#21

Post by mhh__ »

Tycho wrote: post #18

Let’s be frank about what’s really happening. The ruling progressive dogmas of the day are incredibly fragile to the spread of inconvenient facts. They require full spectrum domination of information channels in order to maintain their pre-eminence. Yahoo! for instance used to present neutral, matter-of-fact reporting that users could freely comment on. Then they removed the ability of users to control which news org…

The ruling progressive dogma behind MI5?

Also the guardian is not an outrage rag, Get real.

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#22

Post by harry8 »

tolien wrote: post #12

Regardless of the pros and cons of letting the intelligence agencies have some kind of moderating role on social media, they take a lot of pretty weird positions (not helped that they were previously accused of distributing disinformation for the KGB [1]). Their thesis seems to be: * the report doesn't provide enough evidence that there are any bots (despite both Twitter and Facebook claiming to have removed thousand…

>We do know that in, for example, the US elections, some counties/states swung for Trump in 2016 by pretty narrow margins. Were those affected more by "but her emails", some sort of disinformation campaign, or the general unpopularity of Clinton? Maybe all of the above but it's a stretch to dismiss it all

That which is asserted without evidence can and must be dismissed without evidence.

"Drain the swamp" was the most effective political slogan for many decades. It's a real shame Trump was not better than Clinton's corruption and neither will Joe be. The corruption is the biggest threat to the USA for so many reasons.

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#23

Post by [deleted] »

mhh__ wrote: post #21
Tycho wrote: post #18

Let’s be frank about what’s really happening. The ruling progressive dogmas of the day are incredibly fragile to the spread of inconvenient facts. They require full spectrum domination of information channels in order to maintain their pre-eminence. Yahoo! for instance used to present neutral, matter-of-fact reporting that users could freely comment on. Then they removed the ability of users to control which news org…

The ruling progressive dogma behind MI5? Also the guardian is not an outrage rag, Get real.

[deleted]

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#24

Post by smileypete »

Reminds me of:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/19/russia-fake-ne...

>But civil servants identified a sharp increase in the flow of fake news after the Salisbury poisoning, which continued in the runup to the airstrikes on Syria.

One account, @Ian56789, was sending 100 posts a day during a 12-day period from 7 April, and reached 23 million users, before the account was suspended. It focused on claims that the chemical weapons attack on Douma had been falsified, using the hashtag #falseflag. Another account, @Partisangirl, reached 61 million users with 2,300 posts over the same 12-day period.

Here's the Ian56789 bot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5NRD1OiZuU

And here's the PartisanGirl bot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDsDTk9LCgs

I just wonder WTF the government is on, and why the media don't apply the even most cursory checks to what they're claiming.

Also note the following correction:

>This article was amended on 27 April 2018 to replace the word “bot” with “account” in relation to @Ian56789 and @Partisangirl.

:-)

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#25

Post by hnuser123456 »

mhh__ wrote: post #21
Tycho wrote: post #18

Let’s be frank about what’s really happening. The ruling progressive dogmas of the day are incredibly fragile to the spread of inconvenient facts. They require full spectrum domination of information channels in order to maintain their pre-eminence. Yahoo! for instance used to present neutral, matter-of-fact reporting that users could freely comment on. Then they removed the ability of users to control which news org…

The ruling progressive dogma behind MI5? Also the guardian is not an outrage rag, Get real.

The guardian is an outrage rag now. They used to have some decent reporting.

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#26

Post by tolien »

harry8 wrote: post #22
tolien wrote: post #12

Regardless of the pros and cons of letting the intelligence agencies have some kind of moderating role on social media, they take a lot of pretty weird positions (not helped that they were previously accused of distributing disinformation for the KGB [1]). Their thesis seems to be: * the report doesn't provide enough evidence that there are any bots (despite both Twitter and Facebook claiming to have removed thousand…

>We do know that in, for example, the US elections, some counties/states swung for Trump in 2016 by pretty narrow margins. Were those affected more by "but her emails", some sort of disinformation campaign, or the general unpopularity of Clinton? Maybe all of the above but it's a stretch to dismiss it all That which is asserted without evidence can and must be dismissed without evidence. "Drain the swamp" was the mos…

> That which is asserted without evidence can and must be dismissed without evidence.

TFA provides evidence for nothing, so I guess we just dismiss it all then?

My point was how do you even begin to assess to what extent slogans, disinformation campaigns, apathy towards either candidate or some other factor was effective in swinging the result? Demanding proof that disinformation moved the result even a little verges on ludicrous.

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#27

Post by Proziam »

machello13 wrote: post #17
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #2

I'm not sure what the issue is here - they wouldn't be deciding whether every post gets posted or not. Presumably they would be using their 'intelligence gathering facilities' to identify users that are likely Russian funded or controlled which would get marked or taken down. In the same way that law enforcement agencies might search for accounts undertaking criminal activities. If they start to get 'innocent' accoun…

I've seen plenty of actual people get called "russian bots" on social media for no reason other than people disagreed with their politics. This sounds like a terrible idea.

I experience this fairly regularly. My views tick a few of the boxes that result in me being called a Nazi among other things. Truly radical ideas like 'I believe every single American, including people of color and transfolk, should be armed to the teeth to prevent against evil government' will put me in that category for some people.

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#28

Post by harry8 »

tolien wrote: post #26
harry8 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We do know that in, for example, the US elections, some counties/states swung for Trump in 2016 by pretty narrow margins. Were those affected more by "but her emails", some sort of disinformation campaign, or the general unpopularity of Clinton? Maybe all of the above but it's a stretch to dismiss it all That which is asserted without evidence can and must be dismissed without evidence. "Drain the swamp" was the mos…

> That which is asserted without evidence can and must be dismissed without evidence. TFA provides evidence for nothing, so I guess we just dismiss it all then? My point was how do you even begin to assess to what extent slogans, disinformation campaigns, apathy towards either candidate or some other factor was effective in swinging the result? Demanding proof that disinformation moved the result even a little verges…

>Demanding proof that disinformation moved the result even a little verges on ludicrous.

Got some weapons of mass destruction over there. Just keep up the "evidence is ludicrous" We'll need that to get the power to do more of what's right and get it past the population, like the unqualified success invading Iraq has unquestionably been. Or should we not take WMD on trust forever?

If you're not asking for evidence when people are justifying power grabs with bogeyman stories, then when exactly should we?

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#29

Post by machello13 »

Proziam wrote: post #27
machello13 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen plenty of actual people get called "russian bots" on social media for no reason other than people disagreed with their politics. This sounds like a terrible idea.

I experience this fairly regularly. My views tick a few of the boxes that result in me being called a Nazi among other things. Truly radical ideas like 'I believe every single American, including people of color and transfolk, should be armed to the teeth to prevent against evil government' will put me in that category for some people.

Your politics are definitely out of the liberal mainstream, but they don't have to be to get labeled a bot. Just criticizing the current democratic nominee will do it.

Re: No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

#30

Post by coolgeek »

machello13 wrote: post #17
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #2

I'm not sure what the issue is here - they wouldn't be deciding whether every post gets posted or not. Presumably they would be using their 'intelligence gathering facilities' to identify users that are likely Russian funded or controlled which would get marked or taken down. In the same way that law enforcement agencies might search for accounts undertaking criminal activities. If they start to get 'innocent' accoun…

I've seen plenty of actual people get called "russian bots" on social media for no reason other than people disagreed with their politics. This sounds like a terrible idea.

Do you not understand the difference between a rando making such an accusation and a law enforcement or intelligence agency making a documented case?

This does, indeed, have the potential to be abused at some point in the future. But at present there is a real, documented, problem that needs to be solved. Let's solve the existing problem, and deal with the potential one if and when it occurs.

Post reply on HN