A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K • Hacker News Board

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#41

Post by sqeaky » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:11 PM UTC

vanattab wrote: post #11

CWuestefeld wrote: post #4

Link to the underlying report (PDF): https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/white_papers/wp-fake... I'm not clear on how effective such a campaign promises to be. But assuming that folks wouldn't pay if they couldn't get something out of it, what does this tell us about democracy? Do we need to throw out either democracy or freedom of speech?

Is it possible to throw out one without the other?

In practice many places have outlawed various forms of lying effectively. Look at Canada and their false advertising laws or UK's defamation laws. Neither are perfect, both have some unintended side-effects but neither elected trump.

I think the more practical issue is how to get laws to keep the people who make laws from lying. I don't how to get there from here. I think we might be in a position where we either get a market solution or bust.

EDIT - Of course I totally discounted any problems with censorship and these are real issues that I just presumed there will be some way to deal with.

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#42

Post by wnevets » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:13 PM UTC

ausjke wrote: post #35

unless you're going to do full censorship there is no cure, the MSM is clearly against trump in the election which could be decisive in the past, the social network dared to disagree this time and actually made a difference, but, what is wrong then, let them compete and people will know where to turn to, remember, majority of them have already made their mind no matter what, it's the middle ground that is affected.

>unless you're going to do full censorship there is no cure, the MSM is clearly against trump in the election

by giving him billions in free air time?

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#43

Post by CM30 » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:18 PM UTC

gaetanrickter wrote: post #2

"$50,000 - Discredit a journalist" wow.

Looks like a lot of people on social networking sites are missing out on some easy cash here. Why pay $50,000 to discredit one when their opponents on Twitter/Reddit/wherever (or heck, even themselves through stupid comments) will do it for free?

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#44

Post by DanBC » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:20 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #39

DanBC wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would happen to people with a learning disability? Would you protect their vote? Or are they subhuman and not allowed to take part in democracy?

>Or are they subhuman and not allowed to take part in democracy? To be fair, the point was never that they were subhuman. Yours is a loaded question.

Not as loaded as excluding people from democratic processes.

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#45

Post by CWuestefeld » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:22 PM UTC

sqeaky wrote: post #41

vanattab wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible to throw out one without the other?

In practice many places have outlawed various forms of lying effectively. Look at Canada and their false advertising laws or UK's defamation laws. Neither are perfect, both have some unintended side-effects but neither elected trump. I think the more practical issue is how to get laws to keep the people who make laws from lying. I don't how to get there from here. I think we might be in a position where we either get…

I'm fairly certain that it's impossible to effectively ban lies in the general case. There are way too many things that are subject to some sort of interpretation - there are always fuzzy edges.

There's a meme on facebook that's been huge for awhile, about how people need to start listening to science. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding about how science operates in the real world. There will always be judgment calls about what constitutes a valid experiment, what results to discard because they're obvious tainted, etc., right down to the arbitrary choice of a threshold "pIn philosophy we might try to paint things as black and white, but in the real world it almost never turns out to be so clear.

EDIT: there's another flaw that I think may itself be fatal. That is, the ability to use this as a SLAP tool. Even if your opponent isn't lying, you can tie them up in the courts long enough to keep them out of the running. Thus, the folks with deep pockets and can afford lawyers will cement their control.

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#46

Post by problems » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:23 PM UTC

candu wrote: post #40

toomuchtodo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. I don't blame a single person who voted for Donald Trump (disclaimer: Bernie Sanders was "my" candidate); Trump made promises, and people voted for those promises. The fault lies with his failing his base, not the base itself. Now, if he runs again and people still vote for him after he's lied and broken most of his campaign process, that can't be fixed, in which case maybe democracy is broken.

One counterargument to this reasoning is that many of his promises are for policies that, according to the best available evidence, are counterproductive. If the base consistently votes for things like “get tough on crime!” or “keep drugs illegal!” or “spend a lot of money building a giant wall!” or “institute a travel ban on questionable legal and national security grounds!”, I think there’s a strong case to be made…

The problem I see here is that your definition of counterproductive might not match mine.

Maybe I think punishment is important for moral reasons so longer prison sentences are something I favor. That's not exactly a logic level issue, that's not a media issue, that's a moral decision I've made. Just because my view of the world differs from yours doesn't make it less valid, maybe I made a decision based on my conscience or upbringing instead of on pure economic or improving lives grounds. I don't think that makes the decision less valid. Many such policies can be viewed in this light.

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#47

Post by DanBC » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

DanBC wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would happen to people with a learning disability? Would you protect their vote? Or are they subhuman and not allowed to take part in democracy?

That's a reasonable question, and reasonable people come down on different sides.

No, reasonable people recognise CRPD.

Particularly article 29: https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-...

> States Parties shall guarantee to persons with disabilities political rights and the opportunity to enjoy them on an equal basis with others, and shall undertake:

> a) To ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others, directly or through freely chosen representatives, including the right and opportunity for persons with disabilities to vote and be elected, inter alia, by:

> i. Ensuring that voting procedures, facilities and materials are appropriate, accessible and easy to understand and use;

> ii. Protecting the right of persons with disabilities to vote by secret ballot in elections and public referendums without intimidation, and to stand for elections, to effectively hold office and perform all public functions at all levels of government, facilitating the use of assistive and new technologies where appropriate;

> iii. Guaranteeing the free expression of the will of persons with disabilities as electors and to this end, where necessary, at their request, allowing assistance in voting by a person of their own choice;

But also:

https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-...

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#48

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:36 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #47

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a reasonable question, and reasonable people come down on different sides.

No, reasonable people recognise CRPD. Particularly article 29: https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-... > States Parties shall guarantee to persons with disabilities political rights and the opportunity to enjoy them on an equal basis with others, and shall undertake: > a) To ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal bas…

Sure, that's the law. But we were talking philosophy. Should a comatose person vote? How about someone who hasn't the wits to draw the 'x' on the ballot? There's a whole spectrum. At some point, the potential for abuse of such people is as large as the harm in preventing them from voting.

See how complicated it is? A bunch of legal citations doesn't come near the issue.

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#49

Post by criddell » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:41 PM UTC

failrate wrote: post #3

It should be far more expensive to lie to me, otherwise that will continue to be the logical choice.

It's going to be interesting to see how this evolves. I would expect there to be much, much more of this in future elections.

Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

#50

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Jun 14, 2017, 3:45 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #48

DanBC wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, reasonable people recognise CRPD. Particularly article 29: https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-... > States Parties shall guarantee to persons with disabilities political rights and the opportunity to enjoy them on an equal basis with others, and shall undertake: > a) To ensure that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal bas…

Sure, that's the law. But we were talking philosophy. Should a comatose person vote? How about someone who hasn't the wits to draw the 'x' on the ballot? There's a whole spectrum. At some point, the potential for abuse of such people is as large as the harm in preventing them from voting. See how complicated it is? A bunch of legal citations doesn't come near the issue.

The UN isn't law, that stuff is all philosophy (expressions of ideals and so on).

It isn't an obvious thing though, determining intent when it isn't clearly and plainly expressed.