[HN Gopher] Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya
___________________________________________________________________
Disinformation-for-hire in Kenya
Author : adz_6891
Score : 125 points
Date : 2021-09-08 10:07 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (foundation.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (foundation.mozilla.org)
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Sorry but unless you provide actual links to so-called
| misinformation, I'm going to assume that this is either
| overexaggerated or labeling anything against Western values as
| disinformation.
|
| Especially when it is described as _"This industry's main goal is
| to sway public opinion during elections and protests_ " which is
| different than every other media organization how, exactly?
| curryst wrote:
| Some media organizations focus on spreading information. I
| would say NPR focuses on that. They're not infallible,
| sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they miss an angle, but I
| get the sense that they're truly more interested in spreading
| information than spreading opinion.
|
| Wikipedia as well. Other people try to use Wikipedia to sway
| public opinion, but Wikipedia itself seems rather opposed to
| articles designed for that.
|
| Reuters seems to do some solid work as well. I don't usually
| get a heavy spin vibe from them, but maybe it's an
| international spin that I'm not in on.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| The whole disinformation question is very complicated, but this
| particular question is very easy.
|
| Media are legitimate influences on public opinion with
| accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices.
|
| Disinformation is illegitimate (i.e. illegal) influence on
| public opinion by hidden actors without accountability,
| transparency and formal ethics codices.
|
| [edit] Perhaps I should say what I mean by legitimate.
| Legitimate here means: Society agreed to allow media to exist
| in the form that they do, by creating laws in support and by
| refraining from creating laws that would prevent them. As long
| as there is no political consensus and/or riots which would
| fundamentally undermine the media's standing, they benefit from
| a special role (and are held to that standard).
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| _accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices_
|
| Are you seeing much of this lately? Lately as in the last 40
| years? I certainly am not.
| busterarm wrote:
| Aye. Journalism is activism now.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Disclaimer: I study this stuff as a scientist.
|
| Yes accountability especially in the US is lacking. But
| there is some, there are formal ethical codices (i.e. see
| NPR's https://www.npr.org/ethics), there is proper
| journalism training (see e.g. the Annenberg schools).
|
| If you compare the US media to other nations, and
| especially if you look at them historically, they have been
| pretty good at this.
|
| I'd argue that your standards are probably too high.
| Accountability is a shitshow and virtually nonexistent
| across the globe. It's a darn lucky situation if you even
| have some.
|
| [edit due to reply limit]: Of course NPR is biased, what do
| you expect? There is no neutrality in things that human
| believe. The difference is _having public guidelines_ ,
| committing to them and listening to criticism That's
| accountability.
| pueblito wrote:
| You found it ok to go around the sites rules (as enforced
| by the reply limit) by editing to reply. You're breaking
| the rules to influence others to your opinions, and you
| study people breaking the rules to influence others to
| their opinions.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Thanks for pointing out the irony!
|
| This is actually a great example:
|
| - I broke the rules (code as law), but was transparent
| about it
|
| - You held me accountable
|
| - Others can read our exchange and adjust their trust (in
| me in particular)
|
| That's a good outcome, I guess!
| jwond wrote:
| > But there is some, there are formal ethical codices
| (i.e. see NPR's https://www.npr.org/ethics), there is
| proper journalism training (see e.g. the Annenberg
| schools).
|
| Publishing a code of ethics means absolutely nothing if
| it is not followed.
|
| For example, NPR's code of ethics says "We know that
| truth is not possible without the active pursuit of a
| diversity of voices, especially those most at risk of
| being left out." and "In all our stories, especially
| matters of controversy, we strive to consider the
| strongest arguments we can find on all sides, seeking to
| deliver both nuance and clarity."
|
| but just recently they had a segment where they spent an
| hour trashing free speech without a single person to
| argue in favor of free speech. So much for "diversity of
| voices."
|
| https://taibbi.substack.com/p/npr-trashes-free-speech-a-
| brie...
|
| > I'd argue that your standards are probably too high.
| Accountability is a shitshow and virtually nonexistent
| across the globe. It's a darn lucky situation if you even
| have some.
|
| I'd argue your standards are too low. Just because things
| are worse elsewhere doesn't mean we should be content
| that things aren't quite as bad here.
| Applejinx wrote:
| There is also the societal expectation that, just because
| a mainstream media news source asserts something, it may
| possibly not be 100% authentic. Never mind the direction
| that doubt can lead you: there's a trace of skepticism.
|
| What's going on (by now, obviously) with Twitter and
| Facebook and all, is that they are a vector for bypassing
| skepticism, by delivering information purportedly from
| your personal friend who is personally trusted.
|
| Still no neutrality, but if you can make a web of
| propaganda through people who are believing things their
| apparent 'friends' (through various signifiers) are
| saying, and coordinate that, you can propagandize WAY
| more effectively than through mainstream media.
|
| And that's what's happening. Everywhere.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| NPR is just as biased and deliberately misleading as any
| other organization. The fact that they have a link on
| their website is not much proof of anything.
|
| Replying to your edit: well, that is my point. They are
| all biased. This idea that having a public code of
| conduct means anything is nonsense.
|
| When's the last time a mainstream media organization was
| held accountable for anything? Even the people that
| helped sell the WMD lie are still in positions of power.
|
| https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-
| features/iraq...
|
| The reality of the situation is that there are no
| meaningful standards of conduct and everyone is biased.
| Legacy brands with elite clout are no different.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| I'm sorry that you are downvoted, because your perception
| is pretty common and not completely wrong.
|
| There are many well-documented cases where accountability
| failed, and brilliant people have written about it
| (Chomsky, Lippmann etc.).
|
| But - and this is really important - it's not helpful to
| cynically assume that either everything is OK or that
| there is no accountability/meaning/use at all.
|
| All of the important things in society (discussions,
| getting along, identification of problems, negotiating
| solutions) are not a _state_ , but a _process_. There is
| accountability, but only as much as citizens and
| institutions manage to produce. Go ahead and help
| (constructively)!
|
| The alternative to politics is (civil) war, the
| alternative to free media is basically the middle ages.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| I wouldn't say I am cynical, merely realistic. In my
| opinion, it is a fool's errand to think that
| accountability or unbiased news is even a possibility. It
| goes against the nature of the thing. An unbiased media
| has never been the case and never will be. Full stop.
|
| Thus it is better to recognize that no single entity will
| ever be truly honest and to instead read a variety of
| sources and come to your own conclusions.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Media are legitimate influences
|
| > Disinformation is illegitimate (i.e. illegal) influence
|
| So hopefully there's a space in-between: is it still
| legitimate (or legal) for me as an individual to influence
| people, or does that count as disinformation? Is it because I
| don't possess a codex?
|
| > Society agreed to allow media to exist
|
| "Society" was actually never asked. In liberal democracies,
| you don't have to ask permission to publish something. Anyone
| is allowed to do it.
|
| > (and are held to that standard)
|
| Goodness, can you really be talking about "mainstream" media?
| I don't see anyone holding them to any standard.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| > So hopefully there's a space in-between: is it still
| legitimate (or legal) for me as an individual to influence
| people, or does that count as disinformation? Is it because
| I don't possess a codex?
|
| Of course, the laws and norms governing individuals are
| different from the laws and norms governing institutions,
| companies, parties etc.
|
| > "Society" was actually never asked. In liberal
| democracies, you don't have to ask permission to publish
| something. Anyone is allowed to do it.
|
| Right, let me be more precise: Society, through its
| existing mechanisms of decision-making, decided to draft
| and ratify laws that ...
|
| > Goodness, can you really be talking about "mainstream"
| media? I don't see anyone holding them to any standard.
|
| Well, the US model is that of the "marketplace of
| opinions", so the assumption is that there is mutual
| holding accountable. But you can also count the times that
| citizens and politicians critique "the media", and I'd say
| there is pretty much holding accountable going on! :)
| denton-scratch wrote:
| In the "marketplace of opinions", everyone is
| automatically accountable. So accountability should be
| deleted from your list of features that distinguish
| disinformation.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Only if they are communicating with some identifier!
|
| If someone poses as other people (which these campaigns
| do), accountability becomes impossible because normal
| users cannot tell who said what.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Fascinating to see this framed as "legitimate" and
| "illegitimate" vs true and false. I wonder how much
| disagreement on the topic comes from the distinctions in
| these meanings.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Well, true and false are practically unusable concepts
| outside of (and sometimes even in) courts.
|
| My use of (il-)legitimate ties to the legal framework,
| which means I don't need to take a normative (=subjective)
| position - I'm only describing the state of the rules and
| the mechanisms at play.
|
| You can also use economic terms if you want: Illegitimate
| manipulation of public opinion doesn't pay (the platforms),
| advertisements as legitimate manipulation of public opinion
| pays (the platforms).
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| As a corollary, I wonder just how much disagreement is
| actually "objective truth exists" vs "objective truth
| does not exist", repackaged.
| didibus wrote:
| I think you're missing the point, as a Twitter user, do you
| expect other users to be paid money to post and retweet things
| that they were told to post and retweet by some patron? Do you
| expect to be baited by some fake account that is sold to the
| best bidder for amplification? And do you expect the
| recommendations and trending to be full of manipulated content
| that actually all come from a single source of coordinated
| promotion?
|
| It doesn't really matter what the messages in those are, it
| could be wishing everyone a good day, it is still
| disinformation, because it is trying to masquerade itself as a
| popular opinion on Twitter, and as being a real representation
| of real people's personal opinion that they hold so strongly
| they are willing to be actively expressing it publicly on
| Twitter.
|
| To me, this amounts to fraud, and Twitter has a huge problem
| with this stuff. It's similar in nature to fraud on Amazon with
| fake reviews, and with selling aftermarket goods and fake
| brands.
| Applejinx wrote:
| 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 apparently the personal
| friend of your personal friend, 'privately'. And you believe
| them because it is real. Your friend said so. Sort of.
|
| It's an advance in propaganda technology for SURE. I don't
| know where it goes, but it's not like humanity hasn't had to
| weather this sort of thing before. The parallels are
| completely obvious, historically. It is nothing more than
| recontextualizing how to get information past critical
| questioning, and it's just as effective as the first radio
| was in its day.
| didibus wrote:
| 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 ?
| Applejinx wrote:
| 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.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| _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?
| didibus wrote:
| 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?
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| 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.
| bob229 wrote:
| Twitter is a cancer. Only a fool uses it
| merricksb wrote:
| Smallish discussion about the same topic yesterday:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28444490
| koreanguy wrote:
| mozilla.org is for a profit organisation, do not listen to
| anybody else. they have huge profits from their Firefox browser.
| dexen wrote:
| 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 government-aligned
| sources. The end result is Mozilla making arbitrary choice
| between two opposing camps of political activists - and reports
| on Twitter users along those lines with clear hopes of getting
| them banned.
|
| I'd understand the point if the activism was directly related to
| open internet, to freedom of expression, interoperability of
| services, ease of access and so forth - if there were concerns
| closely related to Mozilla's core mission. However nothing in the
| article nor in the linked PDF seem to allude to any of such
| concerns. It feels like a small group of Mozilla employees[1] ran
| this research and reported on users for their own private
| reasons.
|
| [1] "in-house activists" might be a more charitable
| characterization
| harikb wrote:
| The article is blaming Twitter for being callous with its
| trending algorithms being abused with some coordination between
| larger number of folks. I think this is very much Mozilla's
| business, just as much as any campaign in the West.
|
| The researchers are based in Kenya, writing about Kenyans. They
| just happen to be employed by Mozilla. Sorry I don't get why
| that is a problem?
| dexen wrote:
| _> callous with trending algorithms_ _> abuse with some
| coordination_
|
| I take umbrage with those characterizations.
|
| The practices described (pre-arranged release of information,
| voicing mutual support in coordinated manner, agreed-upon
| language and form) have for decades been the hallmark of
| professional marketing and journalism. Back when print and
| broadcast media were the top game, those methods were used by
| the small groups of _legitimate_ journalists and marketers.
|
| Twitter correctly recognizes coordinated release of
| information as signal of particularly important and valuable
| content. People organically coordinate release of information
| for it to get its full due impact and attention. People also
| organically ask their friends and business contacts to chip
| in with an upvote or reblog (or whatever is the equivalent on
| Twitter). Calling Twitter's or users' behaviors "callous" or
| "inauthentic" when it's the _regular people_ - that is way
| off the mark.
|
| My uncharitable read of it is - this whole venture reeks of
| gatekeeping for the old-guard _legitimate_ journalism.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Mozilla has transformed into an activist organization over the
| last ~decade, with predictable consequences for their actual
| products and engineering.
| the_why_of_y wrote:
| 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/
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Tongue in cheek but:
|
| I really like their activist products such as container tabs,
| privacy enhancing technologies and reduced tracking (compared
| to Chrome, Safari etc).
| modo_mario wrote:
| I think he might be talking about other kinds of activism
|
| They also do things like give a quarter million to black
| artists to make art about the effects of AI on systems of
| oppression. Half a million to broadband towers in the
| american south. Money for wetland restoration.
|
| This may all seem neat and fine to do if they have that
| kind of money to hand out but these things come around the
| same time of having had a large swat of firings of people
| working on their projects like the Servo team, people
| working on firefox, etc. (The board also expanded and
| mitchell baker notably had her compensation increased by
| quite a lot)
| volta83 wrote:
| Right.
|
| I sponsor Rust through patreon.
|
| I asked many times how can I donate money to mozilla with
| the guarantee that the money is used for Rust / servo ?
|
| The answer was that this was not possible, so I never
| could donate through any official channel.
|
| TBH, mozilla does too much random stuff for it to be
| attractive as a donor.
| the_why_of_y wrote:
| These 2 points are quite unrelated. The developers were
| laid off by Mozilla Corporation, while the projects you
| find questionable were funded by Mozilla Foundation, and
| for tax reasons it's very difficult for Mozilla
| Foundation to give money to Mozilla Corporation.
| [deleted]
| nateabele wrote:
| Fair, but there's a difference between creating tools that
| one may choose to opt into on an individual basis, and
| attempting to arbitrate truth on a societal level.
| justaman wrote:
| Without this activism, they could not compete with the
| big players in tech. At its essence, this activism is
| advocating for an alternative to the privacy unfriendly
| or in this case disinformation that is largely driven by
| "rage-clicks". It creates a conversation about the future
| of the information age outside of the business centric
| motive actions shown by say google.
| [deleted]
| didibus wrote:
| > Nothing in the article as posted indicates that the
| "disinformation influencers" were nefarious actors
|
| People getting paid money to perform coordinated repost of
| content sent to them by anonymous sources?
|
| Fake accounts used to amplify and retweet the messages?
|
| What else are you looking for? It's like they told you someone
| stole money at gunpoint and you said you don't see anything
| indicative of theft.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| thunkshift1 wrote:
| I think mozilla is trying to draw a line that separates it from
| privacy invading tech giants.. while still taking billions to
| host their tech in its browsers
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Mozilla making arbitrary choice between two opposing camps of
| political activists
|
| And Mozilla itself has hardly been politically neutral in the
| past few years - if anything, I'm more immediately skeptical of
| anything that Mozilla asserts as true than anything a blue-
| check twitter account owner in Kenya does.
| deft wrote:
| Mozilla is wasting its limited funding fighting random
| individual boogeyman rather than develop software that helps
| protect our freedoms. It's really sad.
| tclancy wrote:
| What software would that be? There are not technological
| solutions to social problems.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Decentralized platforms. Firefox OS. A phone app store.
| There are many technology inequalities caused by major
| platforms controlling content. A youtube replacement, a
| private facebook,open source AI. Create a different type of
| search engine...
|
| Plenty to solve.
| aj3 wrote:
| Education is societal problem and can be solved by
| technological means. Developing free, lightweight and
| portable browser is one of the solutions necessary to make
| knowledge more available, therefore this tech addresses
| social problem.
| gorwell wrote:
| "It feels like a small group"
|
| You're right, it's only about 5% of the population, but they
| occupy administrative roles inside organizations and reshape
| them according to their fundamentalist beliefs. They are
| convinced they are doing good and have moral authority. As
| such, they have no qualms about ostracizing or firing
| dissenters. People are terrified of that and go along with it
| for fear of retaliation, so it seems larger than it is.
|
| Taking administrative roles with an intolerant belief structure
| and chilling effect on speech is how the Successor Ideology is
| so effective despite being small in number.
| gootler wrote:
| Sounds like the CNN bot army
| bunnernana wrote:
| 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 number 3
| (Kenya under Raila) are all political trends that are being
| promoted by "fake accounts" pushing the hashtags. Everyday new
| hashtags come up peddling the same misinformation against
| political rivals. This has been happening almost EVERYDAY for the
| last several months and it will only get worse as we near
| elections which is exactly one year away.
| gorwell wrote:
| 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
| fnimick wrote:
| 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?
| gorwell wrote:
| I'm referring to the content of that specific tweet which
| collates the most recent example on twitter.
| mfer wrote:
| > Am reading through the comments and I have to say westerners
| really think all news is about them.
|
| As a westerner, I've discovered that we forget that we are less
| than 20% of the global population. Bringing that up in
| conversation can surprise people.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| 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
| ascar wrote:
| 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 on the wikipedia data available
| here [1] USA+EU+Australia (with GB i think still included
| in EU there) makes up less than 50% of the global economy,
| tendency downwards.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| 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.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You just cited Western countries. I think you may have
| missed the point of the GP
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "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.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| 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?
| lostgame wrote:
| Definitely kinda proving the above commenter's point; here,
| rather than dissuading it...
| jacquesm wrote:
| 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 happened).
|
| One example:
|
| https://twitter.com/galactic_potato/status/14352650994770002...
| Applejinx wrote:
| It's already happened.
|
| Hard to say how many people recognize that, but it's long
| since happened.
| acdha wrote:
| 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 sing...
| jimkleiber wrote:
| 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...
| user764743 wrote:
| 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.
| parabyl wrote:
| This is a huge issue in South Africa too. It's become blatant
| to the point you can often immediately tell if a trending
| hashtag is being pushed by bot efforts just by looking at the
| way it's phrased + a few of the top tweets circulating it.
|
| > Everyday new hashtags come up peddling the same
| misinformation against political rivals.
|
| Is how I've been feeling for the past couple of years at least.
| Applejinx wrote:
| I'm in the United States.
|
| It's really not any different here. For good or ill, this is
| the Twitter-nature.
|
| I deleted my account and made a 'connection-less' one so when I
| follow links and see tweets directly on Twitter, there's no
| further engagement to be had, beyond looking at whatever is
| 'trending'... which is literally, what you describe, localized.
| I am looking at whatever third parties are trying to promote as
| the 'vox populi', with a certain amount of organic
| interaction/reaction with it.
|
| It's the twitter-nature. I know you're not wrong here.
| Zababa wrote:
| As a westerner, I feel that way too since everything is USA-
| centric.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| _> "New research by two Mozilla Fellows reveals how malicious,
| coordinated, and inauthentic attacks on Twitter are undermining
| Kenyan civil society"_
|
| i am glad that we here in the west are not subject to this sort
| of social media engineering and can participate in open and
| thoughtful debate on topics no matter how our elites feel about
| them
| uniqueuid wrote:
| 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?
| mc32 wrote:
| Deplatforming unpopular voices. And there is corruption
| everywhere as exemplified by the Cuomo shenanigans and now
| sime activists are quitting because their superiors were
| using them as puppets to enhance their agendas.
| lostgame wrote:
| 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.
| ipaddr wrote:
| 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.
| Applejinx wrote:
| LOL, perfect right down to the lowercase i and lack of
| concluding period :)
|
| That said, I don't know from what angle you're deadpanning, or
| which elites from where you mean, but... heh. noted. how nice
| for us
| h2odragon wrote:
| Should we be looking forward to a "Mozilla Misinformation
| Registry" and a web browser that will only show us _clean_ sites?
| orangepurple wrote:
| It will be a whitelist solely containing www.disney.com
| ziml77 wrote:
| So are platforms supposed to regulate speech or not? People
| complain if they stay neutral and don't remove false information
| and people complain if they moderate and do remove false
| information.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I'm confused as well. When it benefits these platforms to be
| private orgs they claim to be within their rights as a private
| org. When it's beneficial to claim they're a town square of
| sorts then suddenly they're a town square. If you think that
| moderating posts infringes on free speech then perhaps they
| should be regulated as a utility?
|
| I personally have no issue with any of these platforms
| moderating to their heart's content for the following reasons:
|
| We are entitled to free speech but we are not entitled to use
| Twitter's megaphone.
|
| I am against megaphones. I don't like companies like Twitter.
| With any hope, the more they moderate the more people will move
| away from centralized platforms. Don't regulate them and they
| will moderate themselves out of existence (I wish).
| astura wrote:
| >When it's beneficial to claim they're a town square of sorts
| then suddenly they're a town square.
|
| When did Twitter ever claim to be a "Town Square?"
| Furthermore, when would it benefit them to claim that?
| nradov wrote:
| "A lot of people come to Twitter and they don't actually
| see an app or a service, they see what kind of looks like a
| public square. And they have the same sort of expectations
| of a public square. And that is what we have to make sure
| that we get right. And also, make sure that everyone feels
| safe to participate in that public square."
|
| -Jack Dorsey
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/jack-dorsey-twitters-role-
| free-s...
|
| I am not endorsing his statement but Twitter's CEO
| apparently considers it as a town square.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| It's a normative continuum between full state regulation (i.e.
| totalitarian but defensive) and no state regulation (i.e.
| completely free speech but vulnerable).
|
| The US is very liberal. Most European countries are leaning
| towards regulation.
|
| See the book "How Democracies Die" for a summary of the three
| most prominent legal approaches.
| bo1024 wrote:
| If your algorithm is deciding what to promote or display to
| people, then you're already not staying neutral.
| DFHippie wrote:
| One should hope that one can distinguish between lies and
| nonsense on the one hand and fact and honest debate on the
| other, good faith and bad faith engagement, without
| discriminating between ideological positions. If you find
| your ideological position is indistinguishable from lies and
| nonsense ... well ... that could happen. But the idea non-
| partisan platforms that censor content are working from is
| that nonsense is apart from partisanship.
| bo1024 wrote:
| I'm happy to recognize the distinction between fact-
| checking and partisanship. But if you're running an
| algorithm that decides who sees what content, you're
| responsible for the choices that algorithm makes. I think
| platforms try to disclaim responsibility by claiming to be
| "neutral" in the sense that they don't actively censor
| based on partisan preferences, and this is disingenuous.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| Those are different people though? I don't think you can make
| everyone happy.
| astura wrote:
| They are more often than not the same people. An example off
| the top of my head:
|
| Florida governor signs bill barring social media companies
| from blocking political candidates - May 24, 2021
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/24/florida.
| ..
|
| [Florida governor] applauds fired whistleblower's Twitter
| suspension, the latest in an ongoing feud - June 7, 2021
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/07/rebekah-j.
| ..
| ziml77 wrote:
| They can be the same people. A mentality of "delete the
| things I don't like, but you better not touch the things I do
| like"
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Oh, sometimes those are the same people. Offense giving and
| offense taking can both be used strategically by the same
| group.
|
| See e.g. the book "Hate Spin" on religious hate speech which
| explicitly deals with this two-sided phenomenon.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Having read the report, I think this is an interesting but rather
| weak analysis.
|
| Detection of inauthentic behavior is very hard and fraught with
| false positives, so it's really important to be very transparent
| in the methods.
|
| That said, the numbers are not too small, they do have some
| interviews with participants and Twitter seems to have removed
| some accounts - all these lend the report some credibility.
| mc32 wrote:
| Mozilla and Twitter are US concerns. What is it their business
| how politics are conducted in other countries?
|
| What's the difference between Mozilla and United Fruit when it
| comes to political interference? They both were are agitating
| for their PoV and not concerned with local mores. They both
| have foreign agendas.
|
| One could argue United fruit advanced agriculture and provided
| jobs whereas Mozilla gets involved but provides no jobs to
| locals. Yes United fruit engaged in bad behavior but Mozilla
| should not get a pass either for interfering in foreign
| affairs.
| [deleted]
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Absolutely no difference. Just imperialism recontextualized
| for a new century with new profits to be made.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Twitter removes accounts at the whim of specious evidence. The
| removal does not make the evidence more credible.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Agreed. But if they (at some point) include it in an official
| report on inauthentic behavior, then that's added
| credibility.
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