Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#201

Post by bsenftner » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

shirakawasuna wrote: post #180

One should be wary of promoting the idea that these companies will create a valid and trustworthy tiered system of validity in news media. News media already has serious problems that are generally ignored, go unrecognized, or become part of false partisan narratives. Indicating that they are to be trusted and this other class shouldn't be might sound fine at first, but the fight will be at the line drawn between the…

It is ludicrous to place any trust in any validity vetting these corporations will enact. That's placing the foxes in charge of the hen house. We need independent bodies, with regulatory power, and anything less is simply enabling the oppressors and their democratic destruction.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#202

Post by bjelkeman-again » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

filoleg wrote: post #171

JakeTheAndroid wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Competence is demonstrated over time, not in a vacuum of individual decisions. Someone that is competent at Chess proves it over an entire game. A novice can still make a few good moves over the course of that same match. Pretty much any competency can be demonstrated that way.

No need to move the goalposts. The original comment wasn't arguing whether POTUS was competent or not, which is what you are trying to argue. The original comment was arguing whether any of the POTUS work was competent. And that H1B change seems to have been competent, according to the general consensus on HN. Is the entirety of the rest of POTUS' work incompetent? Maybe. That wasn't the original claim though.

But did POTUS do any of that? Part of his administration may have some competence, but the wast majority don’t seem to have the greater good in mind nor interested in respecting democracy. To me that is part of competence in government.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#203

Post by IncRnd » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

A 2016 study by Dov H. Levin found that, among 938 global elections examined, the United States and Russia (including its predecessor, the Soviet Union) combined had involved themselves in about one out of nine (117), with the majority of those (68%) being through covert, rather than overt, actions. ... According to the study, the U.S. intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000, while the Soviet Union or Russia intervened in 36.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#204

Post by root_axis » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

hnracer wrote: post #190

root_axis wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think my main concern is the potential for politically biased vetting, which could lead to an election being swayed. That ship has already sailed. The problem of politically biased vetting is a universal fact of life on literally every media platform in existence; people just need to be judicial in their consumption of media. > It's possible that the fact-checking orgs that have been chosen really are neutral but…

Being merely flawed is not the concern. If mistakes were made with roughly equal frequency in both directions on the political axis, that is an example of being flawed but is not a serious concern. It's potential political bias that favours a specific party or election outcome which is the concern. The power to swing elections being bestowed on a small group of unelected, unaccountable people is the concern. It's not…

> The power to swing elections being bestowed on a small group of unelected, unaccountable people is the concern.

Any power they have is given freely of their own volition, nobody is compelled to use Facebook. People who rely on Facebook to stay informed about the world are responsible for their own choices, the same way someone who chooses to rely on Fox News or MSNBC is freely making their own choices.

> It's not valid to compare vetting by the social media oligopoly with legacy media curation

Yes it is. The issue in question is an organization's power to influence elections by controlling information that consumer's receive, in this respect, legacy media curation is identical to social media curation.

> Social media companies are like the new public commons through which the plurality of conversation and debate flows through nowadays

Privately owned websites aren't a public commons, the internet is a public commons and citizens have total freedom to come and go as they please or even carve out their own slice of the commons for whatever purpose they desire. There is no reason to wrest control of business prerogatives from private website owners just because lots of people share political memes on a website. If this issue is a real concern then the government should provide a 1st amendment protected platform for citizens not arbitrarily violate the free-speech rights of private companies.

> It's not practically possible to opt-out unless you want to exclude yourself from public discourse

Totally false. There are hundreds of different platforms to choose from to participate in public discourse online and its very cheap and quite common to self-host one's own blog or platform to that end.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#205

Post by hnracer » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #197

hnracer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they did conceive of it and they don't care. This type of action satisfies the objective of enforcing the orthodoxy by chilling any speech or action that could be remotely construed as being antagonistic, which is perhaps the true goal.

You seriously think the authors of the constitution anticipated Twitter and Facebook?

Wait... I replied to the wrong comment by accident and can't delete now. Ignore please.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#206

Post by ajxs » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:41 PM UTC

I always find it disheartening that people see the propagation of 'bad' information on social-media networks as a bigger risk to society than said networks becoming the gatekeepers of all propagated information. The term 'Orwellian' has become so overused that it seems to have lost all currency. When we're confronted with an actually Orwellian phenomena people seem to either not notice or not care. It's not as though the viral propagation of false, misleading and harmful information began with social media, or even with the internet. This phenomena was alive and well long before modern technology, which has surprisingly done very little to change it.

I'm genuinely shocked how little backlash there's been against big-tech censorship. I grew up as a liberal in the 90s and early 00s. Freedom of speech and fostering an environment for information to propagate freely were ideals held sacred. It's been sincerely disappointing to see how many of my fellow so-called-liberals are willing to accept huge multinational corporations (of all things) censoring information "For their own good".

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#207

Post by dragontamer » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

ajxs wrote: post #206

I always find it disheartening that people see the propagation of 'bad' information on social-media networks as a bigger risk to society than said networks becoming the gatekeepers of all propagated information. The term 'Orwellian' has become so overused that it seems to have lost all currency. When we're confronted with an actually Orwellian phenomena people seem to either not notice or not care. It's not as though…

My mom believes that Obama is a Muslim, and my sister believes Breonna Taylor was a criminal who got what she deserved.

The disinformation in our social networks is beyond a breaking point. Its incredibly difficult to have a reasonable discussion when alternative facts exist... I dare say impossible.

-----

What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here? While my mother is over the age of 60, I don't believe her to be stupid. My sister is literally going for her PH.D (and is an accomplished Masters with multiple years of experience in the CDC tracking stuff down), she's certainly not stupid.

Its an issue of disinformation, not stupidity, that's leading people down the wrong path. There's an entire network of corrupted information that's building up alternative facts.

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> The term 'Orwellian' has become so overused that it seems to have lost all currency.

We're not in an Orwellian fantasy, we're in an all-out information-war akin to "Ender's Game". Peter vs Valentine Wiggin (or better known by their online personas: Locke and Demosthenes).

Several groups have learned how to weaponize information for their own gain. At first it was just ads, but now it includes a suite of alternative facts for political purposes.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#208

Post by FriendlyNormie » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #207

ajxs wrote: post #206

I always find it disheartening that people see the propagation of 'bad' information on social-media networks as a bigger risk to society than said networks becoming the gatekeepers of all propagated information. The term 'Orwellian' has become so overused that it seems to have lost all currency. When we're confronted with an actually Orwellian phenomena people seem to either not notice or not care. It's not as though…

My mom believes that Obama is a Muslim, and my sister believes Breonna Taylor was a criminal who got what she deserved. The disinformation in our social networks is beyond a breaking point. Its incredibly difficult to have a reasonable discussion when alternative facts exist... I dare say impossible. ----- What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here? While my mother is over the age of 60, I don't believe h…

No post body was provided.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#209

Post by throwawayay02 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #207

ajxs wrote: post #206

I always find it disheartening that people see the propagation of 'bad' information on social-media networks as a bigger risk to society than said networks becoming the gatekeepers of all propagated information. The term 'Orwellian' has become so overused that it seems to have lost all currency. When we're confronted with an actually Orwellian phenomena people seem to either not notice or not care. It's not as though…

My mom believes that Obama is a Muslim, and my sister believes Breonna Taylor was a criminal who got what she deserved. The disinformation in our social networks is beyond a breaking point. Its incredibly difficult to have a reasonable discussion when alternative facts exist... I dare say impossible. ----- What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here? While my mother is over the age of 60, I don't believe h…

> What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here?

It is disinformation how much disinformation there is. You'd like to believe that people believe everything they read on Facebook, while the truth is people don't care. People don't care about a lot of things and will repeat memes and jokes. We all "believe" things that are more or less false just because we don't care about them. Your relatives believe in things you may think are false but to them is just rubbish tidbits of information that do not affect them. Obama being Muslim or not has no effect on her life, why must we enforce that people now must be informed of the "right beliefs to have"? Who picks what things are important as well?

Just stop. The sad thing is you as a human will not recognize in yourself how much your "knowledge" is faulty as well.

Re: Facebook, Twitter dismantle global array of disinformation networks

#210

Post by dragontamer » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

throwawayay02 wrote: post #209

dragontamer wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom believes that Obama is a Muslim, and my sister believes Breonna Taylor was a criminal who got what she deserved. The disinformation in our social networks is beyond a breaking point. Its incredibly difficult to have a reasonable discussion when alternative facts exist... I dare say impossible. ----- What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here? While my mother is over the age of 60, I don't believe h…

> What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here? It is disinformation how much disinformation there is. You'd like to believe that people believe everything they read on Facebook, while the truth is people don't care. People don't care about a lot of things and will repeat memes and jokes. We all "believe" things that are more or less false just because we don't care about them. Your relatives believe in thi…

> It is disinformation how much disinformation there is. You'd like to believe that people believe everything they read on Facebook, while the truth is people don't care.

I don't have Facebook. I discussed things with my mother and sister personally. Our relationship is closer than just online crap. We actually talk together on a regular basis.

> Obama being Muslim or not has no effect on her life

This belief of my mother has an effect on our political discussion. In particular, she doesn't want to vote for a Muslim. It sets the stage for the rest of the discussion to come.

Where do I start? Do I start with Muslims aren't bad people? Do I attempt to prove Obama is a Christian? Etc. etc. These facts and beliefs lay the groundwork to the very discussion. And I have to take it seriously if I so wish to have an intelligent discussion with my family.

> Just stop. The sad thing is you as a human will not recognize in yourself how much your "knowledge" is faulty as well.

I know that Obama is a Christian, and that Breonna Taylor was innocent. I don't expect to know the truth to everything, but I'll start with the facts I know about and work my way up.

-----------

I don't believe myself to be the "defender of truth" or whatever. I can point out to my mom and my sister that I disagree with their "alternative facts", but I'm not so arrogant to believe that I can change their opinion on just discussion alone.

But when I see such obvious untruths seep into their talking points, it does make me weep inside on behalf of the truth.