Understanding Foreign Interference [pdf](dhs.gov)
dhs.gov
Understanding Foreign Interference [pdf]
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/19_0717_cisa_the-war-on-pineapple-understanding-foreign-interference-in-5-steps.pdf
86 comments
Presumably Europe funds education better than we do, yet measles are as much a problem there as here.
It’s not education. Marin county, one of the best educated counties in the country with high tertiary education, have one of the highest proportions of anti-vaxxers.
Misinformation isn’t countered with education. It’s countered with counter propaganda -i.e. it’s not in a facts and figures type of way for you to make up your mind by attentively and discerningly studying data. No, it’s someone else offering ready to eat counter propaganda.
It’s not education. Marin county, one of the best educated counties in the country with high tertiary education, have one of the highest proportions of anti-vaxxers.
Misinformation isn’t countered with education. It’s countered with counter propaganda -i.e. it’s not in a facts and figures type of way for you to make up your mind by attentively and discerningly studying data. No, it’s someone else offering ready to eat counter propaganda.
Furthermore, one has to distinguish education vs schooling. The upper classes always have access to education, the rest might have access to schooling but not education. The reasons for this are old (19th century Prussia) and tied to the origins of public education systems and their ideologues. Just as an example of what is typically taught as schooling, deference to authority (media nowadays). Just consider doctors and vaccines, what makes you think that the doctor received any particularly deep understanding of this topic, it is not like they are any more critical of what they might have read in a textbook than you.
Btw, I would have you reconsider your careless use of the word antivaxxers, if anything ask yourself why is it so heavily promoted in media and what biases it carries? Again, I'm not against vaccination, but there is a lot to investigate about the context of how it is carried out. Kinds of conservation chemicals, optimum schedule, frequency and side effects of all this. You will find there is still quite some debate around this from more scientifically minded doctors.
Btw, I would have you reconsider your careless use of the word antivaxxers, if anything ask yourself why is it so heavily promoted in media and what biases it carries? Again, I'm not against vaccination, but there is a lot to investigate about the context of how it is carried out. Kinds of conservation chemicals, optimum schedule, frequency and side effects of all this. You will find there is still quite some debate around this from more scientifically minded doctors.
Respectfully, this is largely FUD bullshit.
Schooling is an avenue into education, and while 19th century prussia has been an influence, so has been montessori, humboldt and the 20st and 21st century reserach into pedagogy.
As for your comments on antivaxxer, they are called antivaxxers because they are anti-vaccination, don't care about the actual problems and and don't respond to the actual arguments. Doctors and researchers will always debate how to make vaccines better, because of course they will, we want better vaccines. There is also debate about when we can get away without vaccination, e.g. in the case of rabies where the vaccine is time sensitive, or malaria, where it doesn't make sense for norwegians to get them unless they visit the tropics and so they can spare themselves the side effects (which are acknowledged and worked on, see before) and society the cost. What you will not find, at all, is any honest scientific debate about whether the default should be to vaccinate or not. I don't know if you meant to imply this, but Poe's law acts here: even if you didn't you gave the antivaxxers a smidgen of credibility, by saying "you will find debate" in a way which could imply "and that means antivaxxers have some reasonable positions". They don't.
See also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy#Effectivenes...
and this table: https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2017106/tables/1
Schooling is an avenue into education, and while 19th century prussia has been an influence, so has been montessori, humboldt and the 20st and 21st century reserach into pedagogy.
As for your comments on antivaxxer, they are called antivaxxers because they are anti-vaccination, don't care about the actual problems and and don't respond to the actual arguments. Doctors and researchers will always debate how to make vaccines better, because of course they will, we want better vaccines. There is also debate about when we can get away without vaccination, e.g. in the case of rabies where the vaccine is time sensitive, or malaria, where it doesn't make sense for norwegians to get them unless they visit the tropics and so they can spare themselves the side effects (which are acknowledged and worked on, see before) and society the cost. What you will not find, at all, is any honest scientific debate about whether the default should be to vaccinate or not. I don't know if you meant to imply this, but Poe's law acts here: even if you didn't you gave the antivaxxers a smidgen of credibility, by saying "you will find debate" in a way which could imply "and that means antivaxxers have some reasonable positions". They don't.
See also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy#Effectivenes...
and this table: https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2017106/tables/1
> .... You cannot spend 40 years cutting public education to the bone
The US spends more on public education than any OECD country other than Norway.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp
Americans are kind of morons; pretty sure it has nothing to do with the amount of money we spend on education.
The US spends more on public education than any OECD country other than Norway.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp
Americans are kind of morons; pretty sure it has nothing to do with the amount of money we spend on education.
Yeah, but the absolute numbers in that table are misleading. Any society whose budget for education is far outpaced by its budgets for mind-numbing entertainment and propaganda is sure to be full of morons. Rewrite those expenditures as a percentage of GDP and you'll paint a wildly different picture.
well there's always a way to flip numbers around to make your position stronger. PPP adjusted spending per student seems pretty reasonable to me.
is there a reason why education spending in particular should be reported as a fraction of GDP? if you look at US military spending as a fraction of GDP, it's pretty unremarkable.
to me the numbers paint a pretty clear picture. the US already spends more to educate each student than most OECD countries. whatever the solution is to the problem, it's probably not to just throw more money at it.
is there a reason why education spending in particular should be reported as a fraction of GDP? if you look at US military spending as a fraction of GDP, it's pretty unremarkable.
to me the numbers paint a pretty clear picture. the US already spends more to educate each student than most OECD countries. whatever the solution is to the problem, it's probably not to just throw more money at it.
I guess you didn't scroll down far enough to notice they did put those expenditures as a percentage of GDP and it doesn't paint a wildly different picture.
No, it lists them a percentage of GDP <i>per capita</i>. Education doesn't scale like infotainment and advertising.
You misread the chart: it plots GDP/capita vs $$ spent per student. You have to normalize it with your eyeball. And it doesn't matter; you can normalize it any way you want: the US spends more than almost any other industrialized country per student, whether raw or by % GDP.
If you think the US is a nation of dumbasses because of infotainment expenses and advertising, perhaps you have some evidence for this?
If you think the US is a nation of dumbasses because of infotainment expenses and advertising, perhaps you have some evidence for this?
Can you explain?
A little much to call a country of 330 million people "kind of morons" right?
And do with the money what exactly? Teach what, exactly?
Students are taught the usual math, english, science, and history. If you want to teach critical thinking and analysis, you're going to need to either displace one of the subject matter or retrain how and what teachers teach.
There isn't enough hours in the day to squeeze in another subject in between high stake exam training and overloading students with homework.
Money doesn't seem to be the constraining factor here. Political reform are needed, and so is the support framework for training teachers to teach in yet "unproven" methodology.
Students are taught the usual math, english, science, and history. If you want to teach critical thinking and analysis, you're going to need to either displace one of the subject matter or retrain how and what teachers teach.
There isn't enough hours in the day to squeeze in another subject in between high stake exam training and overloading students with homework.
Money doesn't seem to be the constraining factor here. Political reform are needed, and so is the support framework for training teachers to teach in yet "unproven" methodology.
Those areas where students are stressed out studying for their futures is probably not what this person is talking about. There are schools where scientific theories of biology and sexuality are discounted, as well as discussions on climate, and now those are voter issues of today.
I think that blaming Russians for everything is doing more harm than good. Sometimes it's not Russia, sometimes it's just ideological opponents, conspiracy theorists or 4channers who like to watch the world burn, sometimes all of them at the same time (think Pizzagate).
Pizzagate was so dumb. Just imagine, the possibility that lots of powerful elite dudes would be implicated in a carefully organized long-running practice of pedophilia. So conspiratorial! Definitely not realistic...
The Epstein story, and more specifically the official reaction to it, seems to me to have had quite a significant widespread impact on a lot of people's ability to fathom the possibility that organized crime actually is possible, despite widespread popularity of the obviously incorrect "it is literally impossible for that many people to keep quite, lol" meme.
I have a feeling though that to make any real difference, it would take several of these in fairly quick succession, but hopefully I'm wrong about that.
I have a feeling though that to make any real difference, it would take several of these in fairly quick succession, but hopefully I'm wrong about that.
the problem with conspiracy theories isn't that they never turn out to be true; it's that they are usually not the most plausible explanation of the available facts. "a broken clock is still right twice a day".
It's not productive to generalize about conspiracy theories. It has been 2.5 years, and RussiaRussiaRussia ain't been right yet. Meanwhile the Orange Menace's poll numbers are as high as they've been since this theory was popularized.
It is incredible that Alex Jones was correct in the end. It just refuses to go into my head. And it was also correct about connections to the highest echelons of political power and educational facilities.
We should start asking more suggestive questions about that.
"Hey Apple? How many children did you get for banning Jones?"
Not that I believe he is a particular sane or selfless individual or that anything else he espouses is in any way correct, far from it. But if deplatforming comes to bite them in the ass, I welcome the hit below the belt at this point. Because they deserve it for their own greed.
I think we just found the popular whore house for people in high positions who don't take laws too serious. There are a lot of questions unanswered.
We should start asking more suggestive questions about that.
"Hey Apple? How many children did you get for banning Jones?"
Not that I believe he is a particular sane or selfless individual or that anything else he espouses is in any way correct, far from it. But if deplatforming comes to bite them in the ass, I welcome the hit below the belt at this point. Because they deserve it for their own greed.
I think we just found the popular whore house for people in high positions who don't take laws too serious. There are a lot of questions unanswered.
> I think that blaming Russians for everything is doing more harm than good.
How is the pdf in any way blaming Russians for everything? The fact is that Russian intelligence services and affiliates are running disinformation operations against Americans and others.
Disinformation and propaganda efforts are part of Russia's Gerasimov Doctrine, which seeks to make use of a spectrum of unconventional methods to achieve geopolitical aims without necessarily using direct military action. It's fake news, it's amplification, it's human intelligence, it's online trolling, it's hacking, it's covert action.
Obviously trolling, hacking, and what not happen naturally on their own. But Russian intelligence services seek to amplify extremism and discord whenever possible. And they've been exploiting political and social strike for many, many decades.
How is the pdf in any way blaming Russians for everything? The fact is that Russian intelligence services and affiliates are running disinformation operations against Americans and others.
Disinformation and propaganda efforts are part of Russia's Gerasimov Doctrine, which seeks to make use of a spectrum of unconventional methods to achieve geopolitical aims without necessarily using direct military action. It's fake news, it's amplification, it's human intelligence, it's online trolling, it's hacking, it's covert action.
Obviously trolling, hacking, and what not happen naturally on their own. But Russian intelligence services seek to amplify extremism and discord whenever possible. And they've been exploiting political and social strike for many, many decades.
The thing that bothers me the most about framing this as "foreign influence" is that there's nothing stopping people from coming to the US (or paying someone already in the US) and writing whatever they want on the internet using their first amendment rights as a US person.
The problem is bigger than that.
The problem is bigger than that.
The thing that bothers me the most about framing this as "foreign influence" is that precisely no one knows even remotely accurately how much foreign influence is taking place in Western countries, but this meme has been repeated 24 x 7 for years now, typically with hat tips to "evidence" (which is usually just a narrative based theory based on some inconclusive circumstantial evidence, if you follow the thread of evidence through the articles), that the majority of the population seems not just completely convinced that it is an epidemic, but they will passionately argue against anyone who asks where's the beef.
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. Perception is reality.
"Foreign influencers are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to inflame hot button issues in the United States. They don’t do this to win arguments; they want to see us divided."
I can think of a few domestic groups who seem to have been engaged in this very behavior, to great success, for many decades now.
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. Perception is reality.
"Foreign influencers are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to inflame hot button issues in the United States. They don’t do this to win arguments; they want to see us divided."
I can think of a few domestic groups who seem to have been engaged in this very behavior, to great success, for many decades now.
> The thing that bothers me the most about framing this as "foreign influence" is that precisely no one knows even remotely accurately how much foreign influence is taking place in Western countries, but this meme has been repeated 24 x 7 for years now, typically with hat tips to "evidence" (which is usually just a narrative based theory based on some inconclusive circumstantial evidence, if you follow the thread of evidence through the articles), that the majority of the population seems not just completely convinced that it is an epidemic, but they will passionately argue against anyone who asks where's the beef.
But that's the thing, if people don't really know how much trolling, extremism, and disinformation is real vs. manufactured, Russian intelligence services have achieved their goal. People will argue over nothing, accuse others of being bots, and imagine new conspiracy theories based on the idea that foreign hands are meddling in things.
The goal is to sow chaos, so if people respond with hysteria, that still achieves the goal. Understanding and not reflexively reacting to trolling, regardless of the source, is what can blunt the influence of the behavior. If people are not even aware of the deliberate trolling attempts, it's less likely they'll be able to counter it, or at least ignore it.
But that's the thing, if people don't really know how much trolling, extremism, and disinformation is real vs. manufactured, Russian intelligence services have achieved their goal. People will argue over nothing, accuse others of being bots, and imagine new conspiracy theories based on the idea that foreign hands are meddling in things.
The goal is to sow chaos, so if people respond with hysteria, that still achieves the goal. Understanding and not reflexively reacting to trolling, regardless of the source, is what can blunt the influence of the behavior. If people are not even aware of the deliberate trolling attempts, it's less likely they'll be able to counter it, or at least ignore it.
> But that's the thing, if people don't really know how much trolling, extremism, and disinformation is real vs. manufactured, Russian intelligence services _have_ achieved their goal
This is speculation about a plausible narrative.
You do not know what the Russian intelligence services are doing. You have been _told_, repeatedly, across all forms of media, by state sponsored entities, corporate entities, and individuals affiliated with no one, that Russia _is_ doing a variety of things. This may be true, this may be not. You and I do not know, and I have yet to encounter a single organization that actually knows and can provide actual evidence, rather than plausible narratives.
> People will argue over nothing, accuse others of being bots, and imagine new conspiracy theories based on the idea that foreign hands are meddling in things.
You are absolutely correct.
> The goal is to sow chaos, so if people respond with hysteria, that still achieves the goal. Understanding and not reflexively reacting to trolling, regardless of the source, is what can blunt the influence of the behavior. If people are not even aware of the deliberate trolling attempts, it's less likely they'll be able to counter it, or at least ignore it.
This is a narrative, based on an advertised version of reality combined with the powerful ability of the human mind to imagine things so vividly, they are effectively indistinguishable from experienced reality. Think about it for a minute: how did you come to know what is _really_ going on? Trace back through your memory and make note of the evidence that is unequivocally factual, writing it down on a piece of paper as you go. You might be surprised what you come up with.
This is speculation about a plausible narrative.
You do not know what the Russian intelligence services are doing. You have been _told_, repeatedly, across all forms of media, by state sponsored entities, corporate entities, and individuals affiliated with no one, that Russia _is_ doing a variety of things. This may be true, this may be not. You and I do not know, and I have yet to encounter a single organization that actually knows and can provide actual evidence, rather than plausible narratives.
> People will argue over nothing, accuse others of being bots, and imagine new conspiracy theories based on the idea that foreign hands are meddling in things.
You are absolutely correct.
> The goal is to sow chaos, so if people respond with hysteria, that still achieves the goal. Understanding and not reflexively reacting to trolling, regardless of the source, is what can blunt the influence of the behavior. If people are not even aware of the deliberate trolling attempts, it's less likely they'll be able to counter it, or at least ignore it.
This is a narrative, based on an advertised version of reality combined with the powerful ability of the human mind to imagine things so vividly, they are effectively indistinguishable from experienced reality. Think about it for a minute: how did you come to know what is _really_ going on? Trace back through your memory and make note of the evidence that is unequivocally factual, writing it down on a piece of paper as you go. You might be surprised what you come up with.
Thermodynamics tells us that order will always tend to chaos, and why not so for social cohesion? Unless you have some uniting force, the conversations will devolve into finger-pointing like it so often does.
In conversations like these, I find it helpful to remember that the world is actually becoming a better place to live on, day by day, in spite of our best efforts to stifle that advance.
In conversations like these, I find it helpful to remember that the world is actually becoming a better place to live on, day by day, in spite of our best efforts to stifle that advance.
True, and sometimes people would just prefer a random person from these groups, that are fashionable targets to blame to evils of the world on, to Hillary Clinton.
The Russian story was probably just a story induced by the intelligence community to discredit a presidential candidate. Here we seem to have even less evidence compared to WMD in Iraq
The Russian story was probably just a story induced by the intelligence community to discredit a presidential candidate. Here we seem to have even less evidence compared to WMD in Iraq
When he's actually faced with the evidence even Trump has accepted that there clearly was direct Russian interference in the last election. Even the social media platforms it happened on have confirmed it and provided evidence. The problem is as soon as the evidence is out of view, or he just starts to forget about it, or it becomes expedient he's back to calling it fake news again.
Ok, I will bite. I just doubt the relevancy of the Russian propaganda story. If propaganda has been induced in social networks, there should be evidence about that. Also estimates about the reach of these measures. Again, I would be surprised if there hadn't been such efforts at all, but to counter them, it should be imperative to identify and reveal the messages in question. Since that hasn't happened at all, I just think people voted differently for their own reasons. The media had ample criticism of Trump for months on end. All that should have been outplayed by a secret Russian media campaign, for which there still isn't evidence besides of statements of intelligence agencies? Very doubtful in my opinion, especially since effords to create this narrative have been revealed.
On the other hand it would be quite understandable that people might get a little angry if they are told they just hold opinions because of Russia while subjected to all those nagging categorical imperatives that were common in the race before the election. The Russian story just doesn't make sense in the end, not because they wouldn't want to have that level of influence or from a lack of trying. But you could also have the view that executive organs have misbehaved in front of their own constitution. That is far more probable in my opinion.
On the other hand it would be quite understandable that people might get a little angry if they are told they just hold opinions because of Russia while subjected to all those nagging categorical imperatives that were common in the race before the election. The Russian story just doesn't make sense in the end, not because they wouldn't want to have that level of influence or from a lack of trying. But you could also have the view that executive organs have misbehaved in front of their own constitution. That is far more probable in my opinion.
>If propaganda has been induced in social networks, there should be evidence about that.
There's tons of evidence of that, provided by both Facebook and Twitter. They did the same here in the UK.
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trol...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46590890
However I do not believe the Russian propaganda was decisive in the election. Like most such propaganda it just went into the wash, but it did happen and did have an effect, not so much swaying the vote one way or the other but in terms of polarising opinion and poisoning the debate.
An attempt to sway opinion would be aimed at the centre, where the swing voters are. Russian propaganda is aimed squarely at the left and right wings trying to push them further apart.
There's tons of evidence of that, provided by both Facebook and Twitter. They did the same here in the UK.
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17990946/twitter-russian-trol...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-46590890
However I do not believe the Russian propaganda was decisive in the election. Like most such propaganda it just went into the wash, but it did happen and did have an effect, not so much swaying the vote one way or the other but in terms of polarising opinion and poisoning the debate.
An attempt to sway opinion would be aimed at the centre, where the swing voters are. Russian propaganda is aimed squarely at the left and right wings trying to push them further apart.
From your first link: "Twitter announced that all the tweets it was releasing had come from “3,841 accounts affiliated with the IRA [Internet Research Agency], originating in Russia..."
This phrase "affiliated with" is interesting. I happen to have spent many hours following the string of unequivocally stated facts behind this story, particularly the Twitter based one. I have yet to find any claim on behalf of Twitter that these accounts _were_ Russian, as is reported in the media. The original and only unequivocal statement I have found from Twitter is that the accounts are _suspected to be_ Russian (based on I believe 3 attributes, each of which is spoofable).
Have you read anything more specific than I have, that you could provide a link to?
This phrase "affiliated with" is interesting. I happen to have spent many hours following the string of unequivocally stated facts behind this story, particularly the Twitter based one. I have yet to find any claim on behalf of Twitter that these accounts _were_ Russian, as is reported in the media. The original and only unequivocal statement I have found from Twitter is that the accounts are _suspected to be_ Russian (based on I believe 3 attributes, each of which is spoofable).
Have you read anything more specific than I have, that you could provide a link to?
A lot of people forget how valuable free time can actually be. There are some huge personal projects I did during my time in college when I had tons of free time, and this between playing video games, hanging with friends, travelling. You have so much freedom to explore and learn new things, read books, learn a language or two, explore the world. 4chan, while now it is mainly composed of lurkers or people browsing intermittently throughout the day, is still like a hub for people like this, who have a lot of free time on their hands.
There are also a ton of variants of 4chan, namely in Europe and Russia. With this outlook, I am not at all surprised of a small group of Russians pooling their efforts into meddling with a US election, their actions catching the eye of a trigger-happy Russian official and receiving funding or support from said official.
There are also a ton of variants of 4chan, namely in Europe and Russia. With this outlook, I am not at all surprised of a small group of Russians pooling their efforts into meddling with a US election, their actions catching the eye of a trigger-happy Russian official and receiving funding or support from said official.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CIA_activities_in_the...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CIA_activities_in_Afr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CIA_activities_in_Asi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CIA_activities_in_Rus...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CIA_activities_in_the...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CIA_activities_in_Afr...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CIA_activities_in_Asi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CIA_activities_in_Rus...
An interesting thought experiment is to look at all the "for-fun" online communities that you've been a part of. For instance, game forums, enthusiast subreddits, etc., and see how the discussion there varies from discussion on political things. Of course it will be different, but I think I have started to see factionization in the larger online communities that I am a part of. However, it's hard to know whether this is human nature, or something learned from other sources. (For example, a user who visits political subreddits and then takes that attitude to the Hearthstone subreddit.)
I'm not convinced that "the GRU has access to Facebook!" is a larger internal security concern to the US than the fact that more than a third of the residents of the most populous state could legally be considered citizens of a separate country....
Social media bots are child's play. Here's how foreign interference really works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lSjXhMUVKE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lSjXhMUVKE
I've tried watching the video, but this video in itself is so biased. In reality, it attempts to do the same, what Israel is doing in that very video.
calling everything you dont like biased without addressing the arguments isnt in the spirit of hacker news
This kind of bad-faith civil engagement that poses as grass roots is a bigger threat to progress than misguided opposition. At least you have a hope to convince or guide honest opposition. Groups like AIPAC are unswayable. They exist solely to enable and advance Israeli agenda w.r.t Palestine. The morality or validity of the agenda just doesn't matter. The IDF could commit its biggest crimes yet and the AIPAC lobby is unlikely to lose funding or human resources. Compare that to other groups, like the NRA for instance. The NRA is cracking at its foundation. Who wants to work for them in this climate? Who wants to take their money?
And they are succeeding and can't be stopped because American Jews are a strong part of the political establishment and have strong family and business ties with many other non-Jewish American elites. They whether whole heartedly or due to tribalism support AIPAC unconditionally and it's not going anywhere. And also you are not allowed to point out this fact for being labelled anti-Semitic but as far as I can tell it's more or less true.
Can't social media enforce a harder stance to eliminate fake accounts? Forcing real info & phone number usage, constant re-validation on suspected accounts, asking real photos, with real IDs, confirmation by others etc.. I think many trolls would simply disappear if their identities are public. Maybe anonymity shouldn't be a thing in social media?
Though such enforcements are also not the best, then the tech companies are given too much power. Hard topic, but just asking people to be careful is never going to be enough, so much passion out there, people will reply. Or real discussion will be watered down when real people are called bots.
Though such enforcements are also not the best, then the tech companies are given too much power. Hard topic, but just asking people to be careful is never going to be enough, so much passion out there, people will reply. Or real discussion will be watered down when real people are called bots.
> Maybe anonymity shouldn't be a thing […]?
I see that it’s time to link to this again:
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Re...
In short: requiring “Real Names” is a really terrible idea.
I see that it’s time to link to this again:
https://geekfeminism.wikia.org/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Re...
In short: requiring “Real Names” is a really terrible idea.
I think social media companies can do more to eliminate fake accounts, but I would stop at the point of being too draconian about using real names.
What is going to keep coming up as an issue, is how actively social media companies want to police users and content. If you take a hands off approach, trolls and government influence ops will run rampant. But moderating is tricky business and you don't want to become a sort of digital police state.
Not to mention that it can be very difficult to combat fake news. Should Twitter and Facebook have fact-checking operations to prevent pernicious fake news from spreading? Consider that in Myanmar, propaganda spread on Facebook contributed to mass killings of Rohingya.
Lots of tough problems to tackle.
What is going to keep coming up as an issue, is how actively social media companies want to police users and content. If you take a hands off approach, trolls and government influence ops will run rampant. But moderating is tricky business and you don't want to become a sort of digital police state.
Not to mention that it can be very difficult to combat fake news. Should Twitter and Facebook have fact-checking operations to prevent pernicious fake news from spreading? Consider that in Myanmar, propaganda spread on Facebook contributed to mass killings of Rohingya.
Lots of tough problems to tackle.
I agree, social media should require validation that you are a real person.
Most social media platforms I use already do, but maybe not enough, or maybe most can be tricked easily. Another problem is that those platforms do not care at all since they value the # of users, regardless of them being fake or not.
Time to time they do these "clean-ups", just to save face it feels like.
Time to time they do these "clean-ups", just to save face it feels like.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymwars
There are arguably legitimate reasons not to use your real name online, including "I don't wanna."
There are arguably legitimate reasons not to use your real name online, including "I don't wanna."
I agree, anonymity is really important online, but for social media, maybe it should not be the case? One can go and be anonymous in different platforms already, and if it is a really big concern, they can just evade social media altogether.
Why allow fake account pollution in bigger networks, that are affecting so much of our real life politics today? So much trolling and social engineering are being done through fake accounts, the best solution is a very harsh validation.
Why allow fake account pollution in bigger networks, that are affecting so much of our real life politics today? So much trolling and social engineering are being done through fake accounts, the best solution is a very harsh validation.
Leaving aside the reasons mentioned above about why being anonymous is really important, there's another reason: money.
I think it is wildly accepted that major social networks are full of ghost and/or inactive accounts. If companies cracked down on those, everyone would see that their numbers are not accurate and their valuation would take a big hit. Some CEOs would lose their jobs for sure. So it is not in the big networks' self-interest to change that.
You could make a network from scratch, were identity is baked in from the start. But who would sign up? If Google+ thought us anything it's that people really hate giving their real names (and rightfully so, IMHO). Sure, some services managed it, but they are not as influential as the big ones.
So no new service has the network effects to pull it off, no big network wants to lose money on doing it, and users don't want it.
I think it is wildly accepted that major social networks are full of ghost and/or inactive accounts. If companies cracked down on those, everyone would see that their numbers are not accurate and their valuation would take a big hit. Some CEOs would lose their jobs for sure. So it is not in the big networks' self-interest to change that.
You could make a network from scratch, were identity is baked in from the start. But who would sign up? If Google+ thought us anything it's that people really hate giving their real names (and rightfully so, IMHO). Sure, some services managed it, but they are not as influential as the big ones.
So no new service has the network effects to pull it off, no big network wants to lose money on doing it, and users don't want it.
There needs to be anonymous accounts on the internet because of safety. However someone you need to be able to derive a system that permits you to validate you are an individual internally to the system, but also allow for anonymity externally. This way the anonymous speaker is protected, but you still know that it is a real person, just not for you to know who. Of course the anonymous person could be a bad actor (whatever you define that to be) but at least its not a bot.
> One can go and be anonymous in different platforms already, and if it is a really big concern, they can just evade social media altogether.
Anonymity is a hard requirement of free speech. Free speech is a hard requirement of democracy. Some topics can only be safely discussed under anonymity. Some opinions can only be expressed anonymously, especially today in the age of outrage cancel culture where angry mobs seek to shut down and de-platform any views they are opposed to.
Ultimately, de-platforming anonymous speech is a pretty heavy-handed form of censorship.
The tool to combat social media manipulation is education and promotion of critical thinking. Not censorship.
Anonymity is a hard requirement of free speech. Free speech is a hard requirement of democracy. Some topics can only be safely discussed under anonymity. Some opinions can only be expressed anonymously, especially today in the age of outrage cancel culture where angry mobs seek to shut down and de-platform any views they are opposed to.
Ultimately, de-platforming anonymous speech is a pretty heavy-handed form of censorship.
The tool to combat social media manipulation is education and promotion of critical thinking. Not censorship.
Perhaps more that the apparent “reality” of an online identity could be correlate-able with opinions expressed by the
identity. I would be more interested in posts by a verified
identity in a forum on political topics than in those from
an unverified identity. On the other hand, in a forum about
some fictional work, quality of content would be of more interest.
Problems arise when supposedly “real” identities misrepresent their actual identity, location, allegiance, etc. in a context where those things are expected to be trusted, and then abuse that trust.
Problems arise when supposedly “real” identities misrepresent their actual identity, location, allegiance, etc. in a context where those things are expected to be trusted, and then abuse that trust.
A major problem with this is, that our politicians also use the same inflammatory tatics to gain power. cyber publicists also understand that being inflammatory means more clicks and interactions. So you don't need an actual "enemy" with fake accounts to inflame and degrade the conversation. The current attention economy provides perfect incentives for inflaming the conversation. I think getting rid of fake identities wouldn't matter much.
Foreign manipulation only provides more fuel and maybe direct the flames where it's more suitable for the attacker.
Anyway, the medium is the message. Social media is just bad for mass communication. Attention economy is bad for meaningful discourse and thus bad for democracy.
Foreign manipulation only provides more fuel and maybe direct the flames where it's more suitable for the attacker.
Anyway, the medium is the message. Social media is just bad for mass communication. Attention economy is bad for meaningful discourse and thus bad for democracy.
All that does is allow these groups to draw up enemies lists, and then go after the family, livelihood, and reputations of people who support views they disagree with.
davedx(1)
What is surprising to me is how poorly prepared western society has been to deal with this, considering we’ve been doing it ourselves for so many years through various NGOs.
The EU funds so many pro-democratic programs around the world, many have been especially focused in the Russian influence sphere. How have we been caught so completely off guard when our non-democratic adversaries started doing it to us?
/edit I didn't mean to put NGOs trying to spread democracy on par with staterun propaganda, I'm just wondering why noone saw it coming in time for our systems to prepare.
The EU funds so many pro-democratic programs around the world, many have been especially focused in the Russian influence sphere. How have we been caught so completely off guard when our non-democratic adversaries started doing it to us?
/edit I didn't mean to put NGOs trying to spread democracy on par with staterun propaganda, I'm just wondering why noone saw it coming in time for our systems to prepare.
NGOs are nothing compared to American interference in the 1996 presidential elections in Russia.
Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win.
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html
Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win.
http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html
https://www.heritage.org/europe/report/russias-meltdown-anat...
A 1998 report from the Heritage Foundation about how the IMF was giving billions of dollars to Russia for free.
>There are anecdotal reports of judges being on retainer to law offices; of judges setting their bribe amount as a percentage of the claim; of lawyers paying for judges' office supplies because the government would not do so.
>The courts, moreover, lack the support structures to enforce their decisions and collect fines. Filling the vacuum left by the state, organized crime has come to play a major role in commercial dispute resolution and the enforcement of court rulings. Again, this was an important cause for the low level of foreign and domestic investment, as well as being a contributing factor in capital flight.
https://www.economist.com/special/1999/08/26/crime-without-p...
>The latest money-laundering scandal in New York confirms that the evil of organised crime is woven into Russian life—and that it is starting to infect the rest of the world
A 1998 report from the Heritage Foundation about how the IMF was giving billions of dollars to Russia for free.
>There are anecdotal reports of judges being on retainer to law offices; of judges setting their bribe amount as a percentage of the claim; of lawyers paying for judges' office supplies because the government would not do so.
>The courts, moreover, lack the support structures to enforce their decisions and collect fines. Filling the vacuum left by the state, organized crime has come to play a major role in commercial dispute resolution and the enforcement of court rulings. Again, this was an important cause for the low level of foreign and domestic investment, as well as being a contributing factor in capital flight.
https://www.economist.com/special/1999/08/26/crime-without-p...
>The latest money-laundering scandal in New York confirms that the evil of organised crime is woven into Russian life—and that it is starting to infect the rest of the world
Western NGOs are not even remotely comparable to the propaganda operations the US and Europe are dealing with at the moment. This faulty comparison is itself a common talking point of Russian and Chinese propaganda.
A better comparison would be US operations against the communist bloc during the Cold War. However... The US intelligence community has spent the last 25 years focusing on the Middle East. The previous generation of spies and counter-spies have mostly retired, and those who are still active haven't worried about the KGB in a long time. Meanwhile, the KGB has never gone away, and has been obsessed with the US the whole time. And now the former head of the KGB/FSB runs Russia... What we are dealing with is the same KGB playbook, with some 21st century upgrade. Russia knows US citizens better than they know themselves, which is how they managed to brainwash 1/3d of our population through domestic assets like Manafort, Barr, Mcconnell and of course the Trumps. It's no surprise that the are running circles around us at the moment. Hopefully our institutional immune system will kick in and we will adapt before the rot sets in too deep.
A better comparison would be US operations against the communist bloc during the Cold War. However... The US intelligence community has spent the last 25 years focusing on the Middle East. The previous generation of spies and counter-spies have mostly retired, and those who are still active haven't worried about the KGB in a long time. Meanwhile, the KGB has never gone away, and has been obsessed with the US the whole time. And now the former head of the KGB/FSB runs Russia... What we are dealing with is the same KGB playbook, with some 21st century upgrade. Russia knows US citizens better than they know themselves, which is how they managed to brainwash 1/3d of our population through domestic assets like Manafort, Barr, Mcconnell and of course the Trumps. It's no surprise that the are running circles around us at the moment. Hopefully our institutional immune system will kick in and we will adapt before the rot sets in too deep.
Immune system like Joseph McCarthy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
Sort of. But because he didn't care about false positives he was the autoimmune disease of America.
No. Not at all like Joseph McCarthy.
Is it?
You wrote: "which is how they managed to brainwash 1/3d of our population", do you really think that over 100 million people you disagree with are brainwashed by a foreign power?
In Russian political discourse nowadays liberals are all too often accused of being on American embassy's payroll. You want this kind of talk in the US when opponents are labeled as foreign government shills?
In Russian political discourse nowadays liberals are all too often accused of being on American embassy's payroll. You want this kind of talk in the US when opponents are labeled as foreign government shills?
That’s not the same at all.
Promoting democracy is taking a single issue and clearly sating “this is a good thing for everyone and here’s why”.
That is not what Russian “influencers” are doing. They by contrast can be seen arguing fervently on both sides of an argument.
Their goal is not to promote any particular idea but to destabilise both sides by encouraging extreme views in both and driving the factions to be more partisan.
Promoting democracy is taking a single issue and clearly sating “this is a good thing for everyone and here’s why”.
That is not what Russian “influencers” are doing. They by contrast can be seen arguing fervently on both sides of an argument.
Their goal is not to promote any particular idea but to destabilise both sides by encouraging extreme views in both and driving the factions to be more partisan.
Good faith is important - but how about the communist agents from the past? They did believe in their cause after all. And I think the Chinese also believe that their system is better than the western democracy.
That's a false analogy and doesn't fit here.
Leaving aside how naive a statement like "the Chinese believe" is (you're talking about an ethnicity which clearly has multiple opinions on everything, just like any other group of people).
In democracies communists are free to say how great it is not having a choice of government and others are free to disagree.
The issue is not with the expression of opinion but with the expression of extremist falsehoods delivered on both sides of an argument with the only goal of causing instability.
Just like in a sales tabloid newspapers, truth is not important only the reaction. Ever notice how the retraction notices are so much less prominent than the original articles were?
Leaving aside how naive a statement like "the Chinese believe" is (you're talking about an ethnicity which clearly has multiple opinions on everything, just like any other group of people).
In democracies communists are free to say how great it is not having a choice of government and others are free to disagree.
The issue is not with the expression of opinion but with the expression of extremist falsehoods delivered on both sides of an argument with the only goal of causing instability.
Just like in a sales tabloid newspapers, truth is not important only the reaction. Ever notice how the retraction notices are so much less prominent than the original articles were?
It's the usual problem of fighting the last war. America spent the 20th century thinking that foreign influence would be Communist propaganda, and built up ideological defenses against that to such an extraordinary degree that all sorts of normal community politics are still denounced as "communist" today. But today's foreign influence isn't ideologically different from America at all. It's largely being done on behalf of a small group of fossil fuel billionaires - Russian oligarchs, the Saudi royal family, etc. And what could be more American than that? It's like being invaded by Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
Because it's non-ideological it doesn't even have to be consistent propaganda. It's pure wrecking. Sowing conflicting ideas works extremely well for that. And again it's taken advantage of pre-existing faultlines. There's no evidence that Alex Jones was a foreign provocateur - but if he was, would he have done anything differently?
Then there's the problem that our own "pro-democratic" propaganda always had a massive flaw in it. Democracy has lots of inter-related elements in it, but we pushed the "free market" ones far before the "rule of law" ones, and the "human rights" ones extremely weakly because human rights ideology hasn't actually been properly established in America either.
We pushed democracy into Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, ended up with gangster capitalism there, and deemed it a success. Now they're re-exporting it.
Because it's non-ideological it doesn't even have to be consistent propaganda. It's pure wrecking. Sowing conflicting ideas works extremely well for that. And again it's taken advantage of pre-existing faultlines. There's no evidence that Alex Jones was a foreign provocateur - but if he was, would he have done anything differently?
Then there's the problem that our own "pro-democratic" propaganda always had a massive flaw in it. Democracy has lots of inter-related elements in it, but we pushed the "free market" ones far before the "rule of law" ones, and the "human rights" ones extremely weakly because human rights ideology hasn't actually been properly established in America either.
We pushed democracy into Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, ended up with gangster capitalism there, and deemed it a success. Now they're re-exporting it.
One word - "Arrogance". When you do something well, and have been doing it for a long time, you believe you are the best and no one else can do it better than you.
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It wont. This tactic worked for the Tobacco industry in the seventies, it worked for the cola industry in 2006, and it continues to serve diligently for oil and energy companies during climate change. This model of disinformation has also helped spread measles throughout the developed world through the anti-vax movement.
The problem is American education. You cannot spend 40 years cutting public education to the bone and turning colleges into profit mills without some sort of brain-drain. We've arrived in 2020 with a nation of citizens that lack the capacity for intelligent argument and critical analysis of ideas. This is also in large part due to the nature of how we get our information, namely as a "bleeds and leads" info-tainment format where our opinions are cultivated as a product of either 0 or 1, red or blue, liberal or conservative. The american opinion is largely an accessory of corporate advertisement in 2019.