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I've been thinking about this a lot as news articles like this one[1] come up in my feed. This whole anti-tech Russian backlash has me so down trodden. Like wh

I've been thinking about this a lot as news articles like this one[1] come up in my feed. This whole anti-tech Russian backlash has me so down trodden. Like who cares if Russia bought ads? Who cares if Russia uses those sites and tweets or shares a photo or whatever. I learned long ago to tune out ads and not trust anything I read on the internet, or at least read with a hefty helping of salt. I wish the outcome of all these revelations about how Russia (and I'm sure other countries or random people or corporations with various interests) was using facebook, twitter, instagram, etc, was for people to go, "oh, that's good to know. I guess I should believe whatever random posts I come across less." Not, "Uh oh! These services and ads are only for our certain, pre-approved uses, and we need to make laws enforcing that." We could have used these as a nice ol' inoculation in the meme war and improved ordinary people's understanding of just how the internet works (and doesn't work). [1] https://twitter.com/raju/status/965023245459214336?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=&stream=top-stories https://twitter.com/raju/status/965023245459214336?utm_sourc...

aaron-lebo 9y ago
I'm doing a dissertation on Russian propaganda, among other propagandas, so disclaimer for bias. I don't understand not caring about it, even were I not working on it. I was having discussions with friends in 2015/early 2016 where we were looking at stuff and it was obvious what was going on. The day after the election, Zuckerberg was saying it is "crazy" that Russians could have been involved. We've got something systematically wrong if the biggest tech companies in the world with all the data and resources either were oblivious to it (seems likely based on their reactions) or were aware of it but kept doing it because it made them money. By all accounts their ad tools actually made this especially easy. No country, much less one that considers itself a superpower should be willingly letting a foreign nation spread propaganda. That big moat called the Atlantic and all those resources don't matter if you you're gonna let them in the back door. This kind of naivety/ignorance is too common in the power centers of the US. Consider Obama getting outwitted by Putin and Clinton getting beat by an idiot like Trump. Maybe they aren't so clever after all. That Russia is doing that is annoying, what's offensive is that our leaders allowed it to happen, and what's disturbing is people either acting like it hasn't happened (evidence says otherwise) or just want to shrug it off. It's hard to say how much of the recent domestic unrest is being fueled by it.
- mark_edward 9y ago
  >No country, much less one that considers itself a superpower should be willingly letting a foreign nation spread propaganda. Is this a rule you apply equally or is it OK when we do it, like the ex-CIA director says [0]? Should the NED, VoA, Radio Free Asia, etc. all be shut down then? [0] http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-cia-director-us-meddles-in-foreign-elections-for-a-good http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-c...
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    I've got a general rule of not supporting propaganda. If I lived somewhere else I wouldn't want propaganda there either, but I don't, so... I'd rather it not be in my own country, especially because we've built the tools that have allowed it and have the power to stop it.
    - mark_edward 9y ago
      Fair enough. I see a lot of two-facedness on this.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  The problem is, who says what is real news and what is fake news? Do you really want a Ministry of Truth? The history of such things is pretty bad. I'll take foreign propaganda over losing free speech rights.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    Who is calling for restricting free speech? I'd be happy with people acknowledging it is happening instead of saying it's "nothing" or "McCarthyism" (see this thread). It does no good to lie to yourself. Some acknowledgement instead of denial is the first step towards...something.
- scottlocklin 9y ago
  Well, let me explain to you not caring about it: Israel and Saudi Arabia regularly run information warfare campaigns in the US, and actually influence election outcomes in obvious ways. For that matter the US has boasted of fixing the Russian elections in 1996, overtly committed a coup in Ukraine in 2014, and has attempted to do similar things since the fall of the soviet union for example by supporting evil murderous clowns like Khodorkovsky. So, if Russia took out a few ads or posted from twitter accounts; big deal. And that's assuming Russia (rather than Russian people acting on their own) did something -thus far 100% of the "evidence" for this sort of thing has turned out to be a big nothing burger. The media obsession with finding a Russian under every bed is absolute insanity; McCarthyism pales in comparison to this hysterical nonsense -communism was a real threat back then. It's also obviously organized: basically the same idiots telling us Putin is behind everything they don't like are the same idiots who sold us on the Syrian war, Iraq and so on. I mean, we have Rob Reiner, aka meathead telling us anyone who doubts the former heads of the CIA is a traitor. This is NUTS.
cbron 9y ago
That would be great, but you’re basically wishing for smarter people. The urge for tribalism will always be greater than the the urge for reasoning, and since that’s the case we have to do what we can to stop tribalism from being inflamed by propaganda.
- skrebbel 9y ago
  But in the end it boils down to "wishing for smarter people" or "wishing for more censorship", right? I know which wish I'd be wishing.
  - rootlocus 9y ago
    And I know which you'll be getting...
  - cbron 9y ago
    Comparing the removal of obviously fake news to censorship is a false equivalence. One does not lead to the other.
  - amazingman 9y ago
    This isn’t all that hard, at least conceptually. Clear, conspicuous presentation of the provenance of ad spend is what we need. Political ad spend should additionally be tied to positively identified individuals or to organizations with clear, conspicuous ties to positively identified individuals. And we need this in legislative form. No letting the Facebooks of the world do it on their own out of some PR-spun notion of corporate responsibility.
darkerside 9y ago
Is nobody responsible for the content of ads? If nytimes.com started displaying NSFW ads for porn sites, or (hypothetically) grisly death videos chosen by a high bidder that just wants to watch the world burn, they would likely be penalized for running afoul of FCC regulations. Or, let's say a domestic buyer purchases ads that engage in libelous allegations. There are legal channels with which to pursue retractions and damages from the buyer. The difference now is that a foreign party is the party that would otherwise be held responsible. Not very effective to sue the ad buyer in this case. So shouldn't the media platform be responsible for either the content, or at least for knowing their customer?
brerlapn 9y ago
Russia has been doing information warfare very effectively since the Czars, and this seems like one more place where they've outmaneuvered us. I've found it frustrating how little discussion and coverage of Russian activity addresses that they weren't just pushing Trump as a candidate or pro-Trump agenda issues, they were pushing issues that they knew were polarizing Americans, simultaneously "Clinton is Satan's Candidate" and "Black Lives Matter" (setting aside the difference in the stridency between simply organizing a fake Black Lives Matter protest vs. the more paranoid baiting of right-wingers, which in itself would be an interesting conversation). The narrative continues to be "Putin tried to help Trump get elected" (which isn't completely false) rather than "Putin shrewdly exploited America's polarized political atmosphere of closed identity affiliations to weaken our core institutions".
- dgudkov 9y ago
  >one more place where they've outmaneuvered us. Not implying that the West can't successfully withstand Russia's disinformation efforts, but it's worth saying that when you have fewer moral restrictions it becomes significantly easier to "outmaneuver" your high-ethics peers.
  - nradov 9y ago
    Is it a difference in ethics or a difference in competence?
    - dgudkov 9y ago
      Not in competence, but in political systems. Western countries have more societal control over government which leaves less room for low-ethics decisions.

aaron-lebo 9y ago

I'm doing a dissertation on Russian propaganda, among other propagandas, so disclaimer for bias. I don't understand not caring about it, even were I not working on it. I was having discussions with friends in 2015/early 2016 where we were looking at stuff and it was obvious what was going on. The day after the election, Zuckerberg was saying it is "crazy" that Russians could have been involved. We've got something systematically wrong if the biggest tech companies in the world with all the data and resources either were oblivious to it (seems likely based on their reactions) or were aware of it but kept doing it because it made them money. By all accounts their ad tools actually made this especially easy. No country, much less one that considers itself a superpower should be willingly letting a foreign nation spread propaganda. That big moat called the Atlantic and all those resources don't matter if you you're gonna let them in the back door. This kind of naivety/ignorance is too common in the power centers of the US. Consider Obama getting outwitted by Putin and Clinton getting beat by an idiot like Trump. Maybe they aren't so clever after all. That Russia is doing that is annoying, what's offensive is that our leaders allowed it to happen, and what's disturbing is people either acting like it hasn't happened (evidence says otherwise) or just want to shrug it off. It's hard to say how much of the recent domestic unrest is being fueled by it.

mark_edward 9y ago
>No country, much less one that considers itself a superpower should be willingly letting a foreign nation spread propaganda. Is this a rule you apply equally or is it OK when we do it, like the ex-CIA director says [0]? Should the NED, VoA, Radio Free Asia, etc. all be shut down then? [0] http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-cia-director-us-meddles-in-foreign-elections-for-a-good http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-c...
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  I've got a general rule of not supporting propaganda. If I lived somewhere else I wouldn't want propaganda there either, but I don't, so... I'd rather it not be in my own country, especially because we've built the tools that have allowed it and have the power to stop it.
  - mark_edward 9y ago
    Fair enough. I see a lot of two-facedness on this.
skookumchuck 9y ago
The problem is, who says what is real news and what is fake news? Do you really want a Ministry of Truth? The history of such things is pretty bad. I'll take foreign propaganda over losing free speech rights.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Who is calling for restricting free speech? I'd be happy with people acknowledging it is happening instead of saying it's "nothing" or "McCarthyism" (see this thread). It does no good to lie to yourself. Some acknowledgement instead of denial is the first step towards...something.
scottlocklin 9y ago
Well, let me explain to you not caring about it: Israel and Saudi Arabia regularly run information warfare campaigns in the US, and actually influence election outcomes in obvious ways. For that matter the US has boasted of fixing the Russian elections in 1996, overtly committed a coup in Ukraine in 2014, and has attempted to do similar things since the fall of the soviet union for example by supporting evil murderous clowns like Khodorkovsky. So, if Russia took out a few ads or posted from twitter accounts; big deal. And that's assuming Russia (rather than Russian people acting on their own) did something -thus far 100% of the "evidence" for this sort of thing has turned out to be a big nothing burger. The media obsession with finding a Russian under every bed is absolute insanity; McCarthyism pales in comparison to this hysterical nonsense -communism was a real threat back then. It's also obviously organized: basically the same idiots telling us Putin is behind everything they don't like are the same idiots who sold us on the Syrian war, Iraq and so on. I mean, we have Rob Reiner, aka meathead telling us anyone who doubts the former heads of the CIA is a traitor. This is NUTS.

cbron 9y ago

That would be great, but you’re basically wishing for smarter people. The urge for tribalism will always be greater than the the urge for reasoning, and since that’s the case we have to do what we can to stop tribalism from being inflamed by propaganda.

skrebbel 9y ago
But in the end it boils down to "wishing for smarter people" or "wishing for more censorship", right? I know which wish I'd be wishing.
- rootlocus 9y ago
  And I know which you'll be getting...
- cbron 9y ago
  Comparing the removal of obviously fake news to censorship is a false equivalence. One does not lead to the other.
- amazingman 9y ago
  This isn’t all that hard, at least conceptually. Clear, conspicuous presentation of the provenance of ad spend is what we need. Political ad spend should additionally be tied to positively identified individuals or to organizations with clear, conspicuous ties to positively identified individuals. And we need this in legislative form. No letting the Facebooks of the world do it on their own out of some PR-spun notion of corporate responsibility.

darkerside 9y ago

Is nobody responsible for the content of ads? If nytimes.com started displaying NSFW ads for porn sites, or (hypothetically) grisly death videos chosen by a high bidder that just wants to watch the world burn, they would likely be penalized for running afoul of FCC regulations. Or, let's say a domestic buyer purchases ads that engage in libelous allegations. There are legal channels with which to pursue retractions and damages from the buyer. The difference now is that a foreign party is the party that would otherwise be held responsible. Not very effective to sue the ad buyer in this case. So shouldn't the media platform be responsible for either the content, or at least for knowing their customer?

brerlapn 9y ago

Russia has been doing information warfare very effectively since the Czars, and this seems like one more place where they've outmaneuvered us. I've found it frustrating how little discussion and coverage of Russian activity addresses that they weren't just pushing Trump as a candidate or pro-Trump agenda issues, they were pushing issues that they knew were polarizing Americans, simultaneously "Clinton is Satan's Candidate" and "Black Lives Matter" (setting aside the difference in the stridency between simply organizing a fake Black Lives Matter protest vs. the more paranoid baiting of right-wingers, which in itself would be an interesting conversation). The narrative continues to be "Putin tried to help Trump get elected" (which isn't completely false) rather than "Putin shrewdly exploited America's polarized political atmosphere of closed identity affiliations to weaken our core institutions".

dgudkov 9y ago
>one more place where they've outmaneuvered us. Not implying that the West can't successfully withstand Russia's disinformation efforts, but it's worth saying that when you have fewer moral restrictions it becomes significantly easier to "outmaneuver" your high-ethics peers.
- nradov 9y ago
  Is it a difference in ethics or a difference in competence?
  - dgudkov 9y ago
    Not in competence, but in political systems. Western countries have more societal control over government which leaves less room for low-ethics decisions.