8 ms·

A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K

82 points by KasianFranks 9y ago

gaetanrickter 9y ago
"$50,000 - Discredit a journalist" wow.
- blfr 9y ago
  Pretty expensive when most journalists spend their days doing it themselves at no extra cost.
  - shuntress 9y ago
    Do you have non-anecdotal evidence to back up this claim?
    - pjc50 9y ago
      It's a joke. But if you want some examples, have a look round the UK political punditry scene for anti-Corbyn articles from before the election, many of which look much less credible now.
    - reitanqild 9y ago
      Yep: -a lot about what was written in the presidential election last year seems to have been wishful thinking or meant to influence not inform. And this is from somebody who doesn't like Trump. - Swedish police has no-go zones, firefighters gets attacked - journalists keeps telling everything is fine. - and bad reporting from the Middle east has plenty of crazy examples. (Journalist: "Israelis, the most advanced army in the area, actually tries to kill civilians". Fact is of course, for anyone who bothers to think for 15 seconds that if the Israelian army tried to kill civilians then I must say they have failed spectacularily.)
      - mikeyouse 9y ago
        > Swedish police has no-go zones, firefighters gets attacked - journalists keeps telling everything is fine. This still isn't true. There are many legitimate issues with integrating immigrant populations into fairly insular and homogeneous societies. People lying about the magnitude of those problems really, really discredit efforts to make them better though. Swedish police are incredibly well trained.. it's absurd to think they've just abandoned parts of major cities, especially when those cities are safer than most large cities in the US. Malmo, the 'center' of all of the alleged police no-go zones has a murder rate equal to that of San Diego.. It's 90% lower than the murder rate in Chicago. The overall murder rate is dramatically lower than the rate in the US: https://imgur.com/a/wKh0X https://imgur.com/a/wKh0X It's really bizarre how the right wing in the US has chosen Sweden as the symbol for their refugee distrust when there's very little evidence that their problems are anything more than those seen by every major city with large impoverished populations of any background.
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      32% of people trust the media at this point according to Gallup. And the downward trend may not be over. http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media... Later part of Iraq war trend really takes a dive. To be frank, it's surprising someone would ask for "non-anecdotal evidence" of journalists discrediting themselves. It manifestly happens fairly regularly. ("most of their day" is hyperbole obviously, but still).
    - qb45 9y ago
      Well, there is this extremely fishy article from Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/the-life-and-death-of-the-seth-rich-conspiracy-theory/2017/05/23/aba640c4-3ff3-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/the-life-and-death-... They make no mention that any malware was found in this email and I seriously doubt that anybody would be stupid enough to make a spear phishing attack so obvious and suspicious. Who in his right mind would click confirmation link on an invitation to a service he didn't request? As I see it, there is zero evidence that it wasn't just some random idiot typing this publicly known email address into the signup form but they don't even consider such a mundane possibility. James Andrew Lewis, the expert they quote, appears to be more of a politician than technologist. edit: And some verified fake news: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/ru... The new Russia doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies, leaks, and cyber-sabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action. Take Novorossiya, the name Vladimir Putin has given to the huge wedge of southeastern Ukraine he might, or might not, consider annexing. The term is plucked from tsarist history, when it represented a different geographical space. Nobody who lives in that part of the world today ever thought of themselves as living in Novorossiya and bearing allegiance to it—at least until several months ago. Now, Novorossiya is being imagined into being: Russian media are showing maps of its ‘geography,’ while Kremlin-backed politicians are writing its ‘history’ into school textbooks. Problem is, Novorossiya indeed existed on the territory of modern Ukraine. There is an English Wikipedia article on it dating back to 2005 and I've even confirmed it with a dead tree book from the '80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya edit: I guess the above doesn't really pass as evidence that "most journalists spend their days discrediting themselves", but it does show that at least sometimes they are pretty happy to skimp on fact checking and basic sanity if a story fits whatever narrative they personally believe.
- CM30 9y ago
  Looks like a lot of people on social networking sites are missing out on some easy cash here. Why pay $50,000 to discredit one when their opponents on Twitter/Reddit/wherever (or heck, even themselves through stupid comments) will do it for free?
failrate 9y ago
It should be far more expensive to lie to me, otherwise that will continue to be the logical choice.
- criddell 9y ago
  It's going to be interesting to see how this evolves. I would expect there to be much, much more of this in future elections.
CWuestefeld 9y ago
Link to the underlying report (PDF): https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/white_papers/wp-fake-news-machine-how-propagandists-abuse-the-internet.pdf https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/white_papers/wp-fake... I'm not clear on how effective such a campaign promises to be. But assuming that folks wouldn't pay if they couldn't get something out of it, what does this tell us about democracy? Do we need to throw out either democracy or freedom of speech?
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  You need a more engaged and educated electorate.
  - CWuestefeld 9y ago
    I think engagement is part of the problem - many people are very eager to spot "gotchas!" of their opponents, rather than taking a more broad and measured view. And educational achievement doesn't seem to be any barrier to the acceptance of bogus news - even being a leader in one field doesn't make you immune to disinformation from an unrelated quarter, and in fact we see this every day.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      I assume education would encompass critical thinking, allowing for the neutral evaluation of multiple sides of an issue, and a critical eye toward the veracity of facts and news consumed.
      - problems 9y ago
        Critical thinking is all well and good, but I'll hazard a guess that it won't help - many people know it but only apply it selectively. On the other hand, I can't help but think comment threads like this amount to nothing more than "voting for the other guy is so illogical, clearly my vote is the correct one". A slightly veiled way to call anyone who doesn't vote your way stupid.
SteveGerencser 9y ago
I have said for many years now that before anyone can vote they need to take a test. It's a dead simple 5 question T/F test. And you only have to get 3 right to vote.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  This has been done many times before, to allow only the 'right' people to vote. Its been made illegal for a reason.
  - js8 9y ago
    And to add: That reason is that democracy (voting) is not (primarily, although it often follows) about correctness of result, but about people's interests being represented.
- j_m_b 9y ago
  Something like a Louisiana literacy test!
- opportune 9y ago
  Far better to educate the general public so well that such a test becomes redundant, than to live in a society where such a test is necessary.
  - cabalamat 9y ago
    > Far better to educate the general public so well that such a test becomes redundant Easier said than done!
    - opportune 9y ago
      True, but morally it's much better to try to bring everyone up to an acceptable level of political understanding, than to exclude people for the lack of that understanding, especially since ignorance wouldn't really be their own fault.
j_m_b 9y ago
So this is the cost, what about the effectiveness? How does it stack up against the millions paid in traditional campaign outreach?
lr4444lr 9y ago
An examination of Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern, and English-based underground fake news marketplaces reveals a wide range of services available on these portals How laudable that the propaganda for hire industry is so multicultural.
xnandor 9y ago
This article was purchased through a fake news vendor.
ausjke 9y ago
unless you're going to do full censorship there is no cure, the MSM is clearly against trump in the election which could be decisive in the past, the social network dared to disagree this time and actually made a difference, but, what is wrong then, let them compete and people will know where to turn to, remember, majority of them have already made their mind no matter what, it's the middle ground that is affected.
- wnevets 9y ago
  >unless you're going to do full censorship there is no cure, the MSM is clearly against trump in the election by giving him billions in free air time?
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    Yep. As far as I can see he outsmarted American media. They really tried hard to help every other candidate but ended up playing right into his hands. Given what people think about the current president this says quite a lot about media.
aswanson 9y ago
I wonder if the Byzantine generals algorithm could be applied to fake news. A distributed truth block chain.
- Upvoter33 9y ago
  seems like you need people to agree on "what is truth" first?
rdudek 9y ago
Since this is HN, the bigger question is how much of this can be automated? For example, you go to one of those sites, fill out a form, pay in bitcoin, and let the system do the rest?
sgberlin 9y ago
Seems expensive for what mostly sounds like basic black hat marketing tricks
coldtea 9y ago
A 12-month campaign of fake promises, ruthless hypocrisy and BS interpretation of reality (which has been the standard for decades) has comparable costs...
throwaway-1209 9y ago
Correct The Record and Share Blue cost millions. Maybe the DNC should outsource.
jakeogh 9y ago
Not even remotely scratching the surface. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.2017.76.issue-2/issuetoc http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.2017.76.issu...
cmurf 9y ago
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case. - Thomas Paine I think voting rights and electoral integrity is more important than fake news (i.e. propaganda) which has been around forever and isn't going away.

82 points by KasianFranks 9y ago

gaetanrickter 9y ago

"$50,000 - Discredit a journalist" wow.

blfr 9y ago
Pretty expensive when most journalists spend their days doing it themselves at no extra cost.
- shuntress 9y ago
  Do you have non-anecdotal evidence to back up this claim?
  - pjc50 9y ago
    It's a joke. But if you want some examples, have a look round the UK political punditry scene for anti-Corbyn articles from before the election, many of which look much less credible now.
  - reitanqild 9y ago
    Yep: -a lot about what was written in the presidential election last year seems to have been wishful thinking or meant to influence not inform. And this is from somebody who doesn't like Trump. - Swedish police has no-go zones, firefighters gets attacked - journalists keeps telling everything is fine. - and bad reporting from the Middle east has plenty of crazy examples. (Journalist: "Israelis, the most advanced army in the area, actually tries to kill civilians". Fact is of course, for anyone who bothers to think for 15 seconds that if the Israelian army tried to kill civilians then I must say they have failed spectacularily.)
    - mikeyouse 9y ago
      > Swedish police has no-go zones, firefighters gets attacked - journalists keeps telling everything is fine. This still isn't true. There are many legitimate issues with integrating immigrant populations into fairly insular and homogeneous societies. People lying about the magnitude of those problems really, really discredit efforts to make them better though. Swedish police are incredibly well trained.. it's absurd to think they've just abandoned parts of major cities, especially when those cities are safer than most large cities in the US. Malmo, the 'center' of all of the alleged police no-go zones has a murder rate equal to that of San Diego.. It's 90% lower than the murder rate in Chicago. The overall murder rate is dramatically lower than the rate in the US: https://imgur.com/a/wKh0X https://imgur.com/a/wKh0X It's really bizarre how the right wing in the US has chosen Sweden as the symbol for their refugee distrust when there's very little evidence that their problems are anything more than those seen by every major city with large impoverished populations of any background.
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    32% of people trust the media at this point according to Gallup. And the downward trend may not be over. http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media... Later part of Iraq war trend really takes a dive. To be frank, it's surprising someone would ask for "non-anecdotal evidence" of journalists discrediting themselves. It manifestly happens fairly regularly. ("most of their day" is hyperbole obviously, but still).
  - qb45 9y ago
    Well, there is this extremely fishy article from Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/the-life-and-death-of-the-seth-rich-conspiracy-theory/2017/05/23/aba640c4-3ff3-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/the-life-and-death-... They make no mention that any malware was found in this email and I seriously doubt that anybody would be stupid enough to make a spear phishing attack so obvious and suspicious. Who in his right mind would click confirmation link on an invitation to a service he didn't request? As I see it, there is zero evidence that it wasn't just some random idiot typing this publicly known email address into the signup form but they don't even consider such a mundane possibility. James Andrew Lewis, the expert they quote, appears to be more of a politician than technologist. edit: And some verified fake news: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/ru... The new Russia doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies, leaks, and cyber-sabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action. Take Novorossiya, the name Vladimir Putin has given to the huge wedge of southeastern Ukraine he might, or might not, consider annexing. The term is plucked from tsarist history, when it represented a different geographical space. Nobody who lives in that part of the world today ever thought of themselves as living in Novorossiya and bearing allegiance to it—at least until several months ago. Now, Novorossiya is being imagined into being: Russian media are showing maps of its ‘geography,’ while Kremlin-backed politicians are writing its ‘history’ into school textbooks. Problem is, Novorossiya indeed existed on the territory of modern Ukraine. There is an English Wikipedia article on it dating back to 2005 and I've even confirmed it with a dead tree book from the '80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya edit: I guess the above doesn't really pass as evidence that "most journalists spend their days discrediting themselves", but it does show that at least sometimes they are pretty happy to skimp on fact checking and basic sanity if a story fits whatever narrative they personally believe.
CM30 9y ago
Looks like a lot of people on social networking sites are missing out on some easy cash here. Why pay $50,000 to discredit one when their opponents on Twitter/Reddit/wherever (or heck, even themselves through stupid comments) will do it for free?

failrate 9y ago

It should be far more expensive to lie to me, otherwise that will continue to be the logical choice.

criddell 9y ago
It's going to be interesting to see how this evolves. I would expect there to be much, much more of this in future elections.

CWuestefeld 9y ago

Link to the underlying report (PDF): https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/white_papers/wp-fake-news-machine-how-propagandists-abuse-the-internet.pdf https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/white_papers/wp-fake... I'm not clear on how effective such a campaign promises to be. But assuming that folks wouldn't pay if they couldn't get something out of it, what does this tell us about democracy? Do we need to throw out either democracy or freedom of speech?

toomuchtodo 9y ago
You need a more engaged and educated electorate.
- CWuestefeld 9y ago
  I think engagement is part of the problem - many people are very eager to spot "gotchas!" of their opponents, rather than taking a more broad and measured view. And educational achievement doesn't seem to be any barrier to the acceptance of bogus news - even being a leader in one field doesn't make you immune to disinformation from an unrelated quarter, and in fact we see this every day.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    I assume education would encompass critical thinking, allowing for the neutral evaluation of multiple sides of an issue, and a critical eye toward the veracity of facts and news consumed.
    - problems 9y ago
      Critical thinking is all well and good, but I'll hazard a guess that it won't help - many people know it but only apply it selectively. On the other hand, I can't help but think comment threads like this amount to nothing more than "voting for the other guy is so illogical, clearly my vote is the correct one". A slightly veiled way to call anyone who doesn't vote your way stupid.

SteveGerencser 9y ago

I have said for many years now that before anyone can vote they need to take a test. It's a dead simple 5 question T/F test. And you only have to get 3 right to vote.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
This has been done many times before, to allow only the 'right' people to vote. Its been made illegal for a reason.
- js8 9y ago
  And to add: That reason is that democracy (voting) is not (primarily, although it often follows) about correctness of result, but about people's interests being represented.
j_m_b 9y ago
Something like a Louisiana literacy test!
opportune 9y ago
Far better to educate the general public so well that such a test becomes redundant, than to live in a society where such a test is necessary.
- cabalamat 9y ago
  > Far better to educate the general public so well that such a test becomes redundant Easier said than done!
  - opportune 9y ago
    True, but morally it's much better to try to bring everyone up to an acceptable level of political understanding, than to exclude people for the lack of that understanding, especially since ignorance wouldn't really be their own fault.

j_m_b 9y ago

So this is the cost, what about the effectiveness? How does it stack up against the millions paid in traditional campaign outreach?

lr4444lr 9y ago

An examination of Chinese, Russian, Middle Eastern, and English-based underground fake news marketplaces reveals a wide range of services available on these portals How laudable that the propaganda for hire industry is so multicultural.

xnandor 9y ago

This article was purchased through a fake news vendor.

ausjke 9y ago

unless you're going to do full censorship there is no cure, the MSM is clearly against trump in the election which could be decisive in the past, the social network dared to disagree this time and actually made a difference, but, what is wrong then, let them compete and people will know where to turn to, remember, majority of them have already made their mind no matter what, it's the middle ground that is affected.

wnevets 9y ago
>unless you're going to do full censorship there is no cure, the MSM is clearly against trump in the election by giving him billions in free air time?
- reitanqild 9y ago
  Yep. As far as I can see he outsmarted American media. They really tried hard to help every other candidate but ended up playing right into his hands. Given what people think about the current president this says quite a lot about media.

aswanson 9y ago

I wonder if the Byzantine generals algorithm could be applied to fake news. A distributed truth block chain.

Upvoter33 9y ago
seems like you need people to agree on "what is truth" first?

rdudek 9y ago

Since this is HN, the bigger question is how much of this can be automated? For example, you go to one of those sites, fill out a form, pay in bitcoin, and let the system do the rest?

sgberlin 9y ago

Seems expensive for what mostly sounds like basic black hat marketing tricks

coldtea 9y ago

A 12-month campaign of fake promises, ruthless hypocrisy and BS interpretation of reality (which has been the standard for decades) has comparable costs...

throwaway-1209 9y ago

Correct The Record and Share Blue cost millions. Maybe the DNC should outsource.

jakeogh 9y ago

Not even remotely scratching the surface. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.2017.76.issue-2/issuetoc http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajes.2017.76.issu...

cmurf 9y ago

The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case. - Thomas Paine I think voting rights and electoral integrity is more important than fake news (i.e. propaganda) which has been around forever and isn't going away.