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Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

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Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#91

Post by Applejinx »

didibus wrote: post #80
Applejinx wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a twitter user, you'd damn well better expect all this. The difference between this revolution in social media influencing, and previous revolutions in social media influencing seized and used for fascism such as the use of new radio preceding WWII, is this: With radio, you were told things by a trusted stranger and believed them because it was on the radio and, thus, news. Now, you are told things by what is appa…

So Twitter should do nothing about it and even make it easier for people to sign up to be for-hire parrots ? And we just all stop complaining about it ?

Twitter doing nothing about it and making it easy for people to sign up to be sockpuppets is part of what defines what it is to be Twitter. It's maximizing for a certain kind of thing.

Facebook has strongly different intentions: it is aggressive about wanting to tie single identifiable accounts to single identifiable real people, and wouldn't like the Twitter-nature one bit. Facebook's purpose is to do that, and then make it easier for people to pay money to propagandize exactly whatever people you can define as most vulnerable, for any reason you like, no questions asked. That's Facebook-nature. You can be pretty sure an individual person there is a single, real actual human, and also that you can sell preselected groups of them on anything you want them to believe.

I like that people are complaining about it, don't get me wrong. I think it's pretty clear at what point all this becomes a problem: if it isn't clear already, it will become clearer within ten years, guaranteed, and humanity may or may not survive the result. Complaining is GOOD.

I'm just saying, the reason these social media giants are as huge as they are IS because of their natures. Twitter will not go against Twitter-nature. Facebook will not go against Facebook-nature.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#92

Post by 908B64B197 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #72
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For news, is global population the best metric to use? Wouldn’t you want maybe the “origin of things that will effect everyone”? What percent of the global economy? What percent of industry/invention? What percent of entertainment? What percent of military? Edit: No one wants to address military

"Wouldn’t you want maybe the “origin of things that will effect everyone" No, our media is fucked. UK media is obsessed with random news from USA, if Sarah Palin says something dumb it will be all over the papers, but if poland gets a new president it might not even be mentioned. In the past year my local news has never printed the name of my local MP but has printed maybe 100 of donald trump's tweets.

It's really interesting to look at, from the US perspective.

The UK and Canadian media seems to be obsessed with US politics, yet here we barely talk about either countries. Why is that so?

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#93

Post by ipaddr »

lostgame wrote: post #79
uniqueuid wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can't tell if you are cynical. Because this is exactly what is the case! We are here and can participate in these discussions, more than ever before in history. There are limits to free discussions (i.e. if you threaten or plot to kill somebody), but these limits have never been less in any country in any time. So - let's not be overly pessimistic?

When these free discussions turn into anti-vax bullshit which has literally made people willing to have people die than listen to reason, it’s caused me to wonder when free speech goes too far.

Free discussion can happen until it goes into a subject you have made up your mind on?

Whether you are on your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th vax shot what fully vaxed means is different around the globe. The poorest coutries haven't receive many/enough. Strange health issues are coming up as side effects. The first long term trial ends in 2024. I don't think shutting down discussion on such an important issue makes sense. The science isn't in... maybe something will emerge that will even change your mind.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#94

Post by sudosysgen »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #66
ascar wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the feeling your response just highlights the misconceptions from another angle. From my personal experience living abroad, we westerners highly overestimate the consumption of our entertainment (movies/shows/music/games) in the non-western world. E.g. log into your favorite western online game in Japan and see what players you end up playing with. Hint: It's basically noone Japanese. Regarding economy: based…

Not a good example. Japan is famously insular and large enough to support a domestic audience. Virtually every smaller country in Europe and Latin America consume American media voraciously.

You just cited Western countries. I think you may have missed the point of the GP

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#95

Post by gorwell »

fnimick wrote: post #86
gorwell wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same in the US, pushing false narratives and misinformation constantly. Horse dewormer ivermectin is a major example from just a few days ago. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1434539307415519238

Are you highlighting Glenn Greenwald as an example of someone pushing false information, or do you seriously think he is a reliable source and the "dem main stream media" is the problem?

I'm referring to the content of that specific tweet which collates the most recent example on twitter.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#96

Post by user764743 »

bunnernana wrote: post #50

Am reading through the comments and I have to say westerners really think all news is about them. People who don't understand the context of a story arguing out the ethics of a story they have no idea about. PS: I am a Kenyan. That being said, any Kenyan here who uses Twitter regularly will agree with the article. Go to Twitter right now and you will see the disinformation in action. Trend number 1 (Nyonga) Trend num…

This site has been the target of disinformation campaigns by far right groups for a while now. Don't give too much credence in what you read in the comments.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#98

Post by jimkleiber »

acdha wrote: post #87
jacquesm wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that this is happening on any divisive subject, no matter what. Abortion, LGBTI rights, politics, sports, it doesn't matter there is always a bunch real people involved backed by an army of bots. There are some people mapping this out manually, I'm surprised that the likes of Twitter don't take a harder stand against this because it likely is going to ruin the platform long term (if that hasn't already h…

My assumption is that Twitter is in a situation similar to Facebook's fraudulent pivot-to-video: they know there's a big problem but as soon as they do anything about it they're going to have to explain why the numbers they reported to investors, advertisers, etc. dropped noticeably. Unless there's imminent legal action or people stop using the service, it's easier just to delay and hope that the horse learns how to…

I have been thinking similar things since 2016. Apparently, Twitter created the verified profiles as a response to Tony La Russa suing them over impersonation accounts [0].

Oh, and I like the opening summary of the 2009 article:

> On the company blog, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says Tony La Russa lawsuit over fake tweets borders on "frivolous," but details plans to prevent such abuse of the service in the future.

[0]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/twitter-to-r...

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#99

Post by ceilingcorner »

didibus wrote: post #81
ceilingcorner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to be paid money to post and retweet things that they were told to post and retweet by some patron? What do you think the network of “real media” is?

Two wrongs don't make a right. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply, what is happening on Twitter is fraud and disinformation for-hire. That seems factually true. We can talk about traditional media on an article that discuss traditional media maybe?

The entire premise of “misinformation” is that a true media exists which gives accurate information, as opposed to the army of people out to nefariously influence the public. I’m simply suggesting that there is fundamentally no difference.

Re: Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya

#100

Post by the_why_of_y »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #6
dexen wrote: post #5

Why is Mozilla, of all orgs, performing foreign activism and reporting on Twitter users in hopes of getting them banned? "We want to do good", sure, but that's two bits of a stretch here. Nothing in the article as posted indicates that the "disinformation influencers" were nefarious actors. For all the description given, it might have been grassroots citizens action, only labeled "disinformation" by officials or gove…

Mozilla has transformed into an activist organization over the last ~decade, with predictable consequences for their actual products and engineering.

Mozilla Foundation has always been an activist organization. They started by writing an entire manifesto about it, and it's by no means limited to developing a web browser product.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/

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