8 ms·

Scrutiny of 'Truthy', a university project that studies trends on Twitter (2014)

41 points by diyorgasms 11y ago

mtgx 11y ago
And it's called Truthy, too? What - "Ministry of Truth" was trademarked?
psykpsyk 11y ago
subversive, 'cause FBI propaganda can't ever be subversive...
- psykpsyk 11y ago
  fascist pigs...
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I expect a strong correlation with authoritative overreach :-) But more seriously, the study of information flows to uncover information sharing networks is not new, that the networks want to protect themselves from being exposed is also not new. I don't agree with a lot of what Assange says but I do agree with him that conspiracies hate light, and what is more making it harder for them to communicate makes it harder for them to be effective.
Dowwie 11y ago
They need to turn their sensors towards their own political parties and campaign advertising
diyorgasms 11y ago
I apologize, I read the FBI part in another article and I can't seem to corroborate the claim that the FBI is involved. As such I am editing the title. Apologies for the sensationalism. Edit: it would seem I can no longer edit the title.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
__david__ 11y ago
Similarly to the irony mentioned in the article, many of the other comments here clearly commented without reading the actual article, which has caused misinformation to spread due to the misleading title.
golergka 11y ago
Good. I don't know how effective it'll be, but after witnessing first-hand how successful government-sponsored social media manipulation have been in the last decade, I'm really glad that western world finally reacts to it and at least tries to do something about it.
elevenfist 11y ago
This article talks about a research project studying the virality of propaganda in social media. The article paints a political picture, the only paper cited by the article (one of at least 30 published by the project) discovered that a viral social media attack/campaign against a democratic senator was the result of about 10 twitter bots. The article then cites the republican congressman who launched the investigation into this study. No mention of the FBI, and the NSF provided funding but the project has made statements to the effect that the NSF is not involved, as listed in the article. This title is very misleading... from the article: ' “Truth about Truthy.” In a series of bullet points, the department said the project is not a "political watchdog, a government probe of social media, an attempt to suppress free speech, a way to define 'misinformation,' a partisan political effort, [or] a database tracking hate speech." "There is a good dose of irony in a research project that studies the diffusion of misinformation becoming the target of such a powerful disinformation machine," the research department wrote. '
- diyorgasms 11y ago
  Yeah I was reading a few articles about this and one mentioned that the FBI was involved. Turns out it rant this article, and turns out not to have been a reputable source. However it's too late for me to edit the title, and I can't find a way to delete the post. Please feel free to flag our downvote.
pnathan 11y ago
> One study highlighted an attack on Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) when he was first running for his seat in 2010. It found that one social media campaign criticizing him for spending taxpayer money on dinners and fashion shows was largely the result of 10 Twitter bots. This is an interesting finding. I think part of the broader question at hand in our society is that the relationships and communications are becoming world-readable, with significant consequences for shifting the flow of discourse.
hackuser 11y ago
That's not the article's title and the article says nothing about the FBI. The title should be changed. "NSF funds Indiana University study of social media misinformation" would be good. The actual title, "Five things to know about 'Truthy'", isn't helpful.
bobwaycott 11y ago
This could use a (2014) in the title.
- dang 11y ago
  So it could. We also changed the title to a representative phrase from the first sentence.

41 points by diyorgasms 11y ago

mtgx 11y ago

And it's called Truthy, too? What - "Ministry of Truth" was trademarked?

psykpsyk 11y ago

subversive, 'cause FBI propaganda can't ever be subversive...

psykpsyk 11y ago
fascist pigs...

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I expect a strong correlation with authoritative overreach :-) But more seriously, the study of information flows to uncover information sharing networks is not new, that the networks want to protect themselves from being exposed is also not new. I don't agree with a lot of what Assange says but I do agree with him that conspiracies hate light, and what is more making it harder for them to communicate makes it harder for them to be effective.

Dowwie 11y ago

They need to turn their sensors towards their own political parties and campaign advertising

diyorgasms 11y ago

I apologize, I read the FBI part in another article and I can't seem to corroborate the claim that the FBI is involved. As such I am editing the title. Apologies for the sensationalism. Edit: it would seem I can no longer edit the title.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

__david__ 11y ago

Similarly to the irony mentioned in the article, many of the other comments here clearly commented without reading the actual article, which has caused misinformation to spread due to the misleading title.

golergka 11y ago

Good. I don't know how effective it'll be, but after witnessing first-hand how successful government-sponsored social media manipulation have been in the last decade, I'm really glad that western world finally reacts to it and at least tries to do something about it.

elevenfist 11y ago

This article talks about a research project studying the virality of propaganda in social media. The article paints a political picture, the only paper cited by the article (one of at least 30 published by the project) discovered that a viral social media attack/campaign against a democratic senator was the result of about 10 twitter bots. The article then cites the republican congressman who launched the investigation into this study. No mention of the FBI, and the NSF provided funding but the project has made statements to the effect that the NSF is not involved, as listed in the article. This title is very misleading... from the article: ' “Truth about Truthy.” In a series of bullet points, the department said the project is not a "political watchdog, a government probe of social media, an attempt to suppress free speech, a way to define 'misinformation,' a partisan political effort, [or] a database tracking hate speech." "There is a good dose of irony in a research project that studies the diffusion of misinformation becoming the target of such a powerful disinformation machine," the research department wrote. '

diyorgasms 11y ago
Yeah I was reading a few articles about this and one mentioned that the FBI was involved. Turns out it rant this article, and turns out not to have been a reputable source. However it's too late for me to edit the title, and I can't find a way to delete the post. Please feel free to flag our downvote.

pnathan 11y ago

> One study highlighted an attack on Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) when he was first running for his seat in 2010. It found that one social media campaign criticizing him for spending taxpayer money on dinners and fashion shows was largely the result of 10 Twitter bots. This is an interesting finding. I think part of the broader question at hand in our society is that the relationships and communications are becoming world-readable, with significant consequences for shifting the flow of discourse.

hackuser 11y ago

That's not the article's title and the article says nothing about the FBI. The title should be changed. "NSF funds Indiana University study of social media misinformation" would be good. The actual title, "Five things to know about 'Truthy'", isn't helpful.

bobwaycott 11y ago

This could use a (2014) in the title.

dang 11y ago
So it could. We also changed the title to a representative phrase from the first sentence.