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

Anatomy of an online misinformation network

journals.plos.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 111 posts

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#81

Post by pjc50 »

tptacek wrote: post #56
makomk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem with making misinformation a bannable offense on Twitter is that they'd have to ban so many mainstream journalists. (Seriously, it's obnoxious how many totally bogus viral claims they start and spread on Twitter; some combination of wide reach, trust, and never bothering to verify anything they post on social media.)

Cite an example of a mainstream journalist propagating a viral claim that any reasonable person should have known was false? That's what misinformation networks do.

There's a lot of what we might call "uncritical claim reporting" going on, where a journalist accurately reports that someone said something without any kind of regard for how implausible that is. Lot of this going on in Brexit, for example. The "£350m for the NHS bus" which rested on at least three ludicrous assumptions.

Edit: let's have a look at https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1001158920663109632 - Andrew Neil is Chairman of the Spectator (important "serious" rightwing politics magazine) and a BBC presenter. He's accusing the NYT of "Stalinism". One of these has to be wrong.

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#82

Post by pjc50 »

jakeogh wrote: post #46
orf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See above. Also that statement applies to you as much as it does anyone else.

What's so hard about checking out Skippie's bro's art collection? It's a highly specific, easy to check thing. It's so common to try and distract specific stuff with something else; I strongly suspect you wouldn't be commenting about this if you had.

What's so hard about linking to someone reliable on the subject? Like, not infowars, wikileaks, or youtube?

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#83

Post by TeMPOraL »

masswerk wrote: post #73
stordoff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the question of what is misinformation? You have a continuum from differences of opinion, to people being mistaken, to deliberate misinformation. Where do you (reliably) draw the line? I can see why they wouldn't want them to be "arbiters of truth" -- I'm not sure I would want them to be either.

The problem is that there's no such thing as a positive truth. Truth always refers to a certain framework which is shared and acknowledged by a given group, which also distinguishes groups one from another. (So we may say, truth is necessarily a question of ideology.) The interesting part is the mutual reinforcement of targeted content and what we may call "idiosyncratic truth," since both refer to distinctive group…

Much longer explanation that there is, in fact, truth: http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth/. And it's exactly that naive, obvious, intuitive thing you think of before trying to sophisticate or politicize the concept.

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#84

Post by gadders »

I've had a look through their list of "low credibility websites" and they seem to be either humour sites (like the The Onion and ClickHole) or right wing sites (I admit there may be some left-wing ones on there that I'm not familiar with).

Is the claim that there are only the right-wing sources for these misinformation networks, or is this just one network they examined?

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#85

Post by gadders »

masswerk wrote: post #73
stordoff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the question of what is misinformation? You have a continuum from differences of opinion, to people being mistaken, to deliberate misinformation. Where do you (reliably) draw the line? I can see why they wouldn't want them to be "arbiters of truth" -- I'm not sure I would want them to be either.

The problem is that there's no such thing as a positive truth. Truth always refers to a certain framework which is shared and acknowledged by a given group, which also distinguishes groups one from another. (So we may say, truth is necessarily a question of ideology.) The interesting part is the mutual reinforcement of targeted content and what we may call "idiosyncratic truth," since both refer to distinctive group…

>> The problem is that there's no such thing as a positive truth. Truth always refers to a certain framework which is shared and acknowledged by a given group, which also distinguishes groups one from another. (So we may say, truth is necessarily a question of ideology.)

I think that is a great example of something which is obviously untrue.

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#86

Post by croon »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #80
catawbasam wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2+2=4 regardless of ideology.

Other counterpoint: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/technically-beautiful

That's not a counterpoint. That strip is countering a statement based on the flawed assumption that aliens would count using the same base-10 system most of us here use.

Which really is the argument that falsehoods are [some portion of the time] rooted in wrong assumptions and premises.

I would argue that this only strengthens the statement that facts exist.

That some people (here on Earth) want to claim that 2+2=5 because they have invented their own number 2 (which they conveniently withhold), is precisely the kind of misinformation being discussed in the thread.

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#87

Post by Gatellicited »

tptacek wrote: post #56
makomk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem with making misinformation a bannable offense on Twitter is that they'd have to ban so many mainstream journalists. (Seriously, it's obnoxious how many totally bogus viral claims they start and spread on Twitter; some combination of wide reach, trust, and never bothering to verify anything they post on social media.)

Cite an example of a mainstream journalist propagating a viral claim that any reasonable person should have known was false? That's what misinformation networks do.

[dead]

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#88

Post by jrs95 »

stordoff wrote: post #24
allenz wrote: post #7

In addition to identifying the network, the authors also calculate that taking down as few as ten influential accounts can halve the retweets of misinformation. I'm not convinced that it's quite that easy, because the network would respond and adapt, but it's still an eye-opening demonstration of the power of social media companies. The paper also finds that many misinformation accounts are not bots. Currently, misin…

There's also the question of what is misinformation? You have a continuum from differences of opinion, to people being mistaken, to deliberate misinformation. Where do you (reliably) draw the line? I can see why they wouldn't want them to be "arbiters of truth" -- I'm not sure I would want them to be either.

And if what’s generally taken to be true actually fits the definition of misinformation, and other misinformation networks are created with the intent to combat that, is this really any different from how politics has always been? It seems we are exchanging a lot more bullshit now, but at least it can be more easily observed when it’s on the internet vs a physical medium. Right now I think the internet has generally made things worse, but it seems possible that we can raise the standard as time goes on. At least now I think a subset of highly interested people are able to more accurately determine what’s factual than anyone would have been able to just a couple decades ago.

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#89

Post by toxic_ »

tptacek wrote: post #56
makomk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem with making misinformation a bannable offense on Twitter is that they'd have to ban so many mainstream journalists. (Seriously, it's obnoxious how many totally bogus viral claims they start and spread on Twitter; some combination of wide reach, trust, and never bothering to verify anything they post on social media.)

Cite an example of a mainstream journalist propagating a viral claim that any reasonable person should have known was false? That's what misinformation networks do.

[flagged]

Re: Anatomy of an online misinformation network

#90

Post by panarky »

JadeNB wrote: post #15
panarky wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have also been shown to be less than perfect Perfection shouldn't be the objective. If it's better than what we have then it's worthwhile. > do tend to lean left Citation needed. And if you know of a fact-checking resource that has less bias, please share.

> > do tend to lean left > Citation needed. I think that this is probably a dangerous game to get into; calling for citations is, I think, only likely to be helpful when there is a mutually recognised authority to cite (and, besides, when the claim to be resolved is a factual one—'biased' is not a characterisation that can be proven or disproven without some really careful definitions, on which two disputing parties…

> there it is, a citation to back up the claim that Snopes is biased

Disinformation is built on shared assumptions with weak evidence.

When "everybody knows" the media is biased, all the effort by reporters, fact checkers and editors is instantly discredited and disinformation gets equal standing.

"Citation needed" is a challenge to examine the evidence. Sure, you can find citations to disinformation that "substantiates" disinformation.

It's not about the citation, it's about examining the credibility of the evidence.

No, it's not perfect and it never will be. But letting "everybody knows" statements go unchallenged is how we get to a world where "nobody knows" and evidence doesn't matter.

Post reply on HN