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Did you read the article? It's political. "n October, Twitter’s general counsel told a Senate committee investigating disinformation that Russian bots tweeted

Did you read the article? It's political. "n October, Twitter’s general counsel told a Senate committee investigating disinformation that Russian bots tweeted 1.4 million times during the run-up to the last presidential election, and such bots would later be implicated in hundreds of tweets that followed a school shooting in Florida." some of these bots, were not bots btw

sandov 9y ago
"Our citizens are too stupid to have a personal opinion and distinguish between a bot and a real person"
- twblalock 9y ago
  Sadly that's true, on Twitter as well as on Facebook, and it's pretty well documented at this point.
  - sandov 9y ago
    Then why not tackle the root problem?: Lack of critical thinking skills. I'm not from the US, so I don't know how extensive their philosophy courses are in school, but judging by these repetitive "Russians/bots are manipulating our people" headlines, it's probably lacking.
    - beedogs 9y ago
      Yes: let's just go back and re-teach everyone. That is surely an easier solution to implement than banning Twitter bots.
      - LoSboccacc 9y ago
        Of course not but there’s not effort either being made to improve the current status for the future generations - quite the opposite actually. States need to play the long game after all.
    - subsection1h 9y ago
      It's an understatement say that the development of critical thinking skills in US schools is lacking. For example, it's estimated that 1 out of 3 Americans believe that all life has existed in it's present form since the beginning of time.[1] Educating these people is difficult because they are trained by their parents and religious leaders to mistrust professors[2] and other experts from an early age. It's much easier to ban bots. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/10/darwin-day/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/10/darwin-day/ [2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/13/republicans-much-colder-than-democrats-in-views-of-professors/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/13/republicans-...
    - unclebucknasty 9y ago
      That'd be great but you can't teach everyone to be awesome critical thinkers. There is a question of aptitude. That focus also overlooks the fact that much of the propaganda is emotionally-driven and appeals to certain instincts. For even the most rational of human beings, emotion can overwhelm critical thinking. So, while we can definitely do better in teaching critical thinking skills, we're just going to have a percentage of the population that is susceptible. And, given the fact that we're split almost down the middle politically (the election came down to 85,000 votes across three states), the ability to affect even a small percentage of the population can have a huge impact on the direction of the country. A more effective root cause mitigation might be to break the two-party monopoly so that a broader set of ideas can flourish. This binary for-or-against system is also unhelpful to say the least.
      - Bartweiss 9y ago
        > There is a question of aptitude... the ability to affect even a small percentage of the population can have a huge impact on the direction of the country. At risk of poking a hornet's nest, isn't this basically just an argument against democracy itself? Sure, you can go around shutting down Twitter bots, but if the fundamental problem is "elections are swung by people who believe literally anything they read, and we can't change that" then we've basically lost already. First, because it'll move to a new source, and playing media whack-a-mole to maintain a functioning government doesn't seem reliable. Second, because deciding what's a valid source suddenly becomes the defining feature of elections. Deciding which voices to promote and which to undermine obvious matters, but if Twitter bots are a vital issue in a national election then one starts to wonder if anything else matters. And I mean, I know one argument is that this has always been the case, that the only new thing is the ability for unfiltered manipulation to come straight into people's homes. I suppose it's true that in ~1800 most people couldn't possibly get enough information to make informed voting decisions, so we were largely getting our decisions made by political officials and party machines. But it's a bit scarier to think that the problem is people, not access - if that's true then expanding information access is actually harmful to democracy.
        Erlangolem 9y ago
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      It's hard to learn critical thinking skills when an angry mob riled up with the support of bots to take america back from ___ defunds school.
    - cookiecaper 9y ago
      > Then why not tackle the root problem?: Lack of critical thinking skills. I'm not from the US, so I don't know how extensive their philosophy courses are in school, but judging by these repetitive "Russians/bots are manipulating our people" headlines, it's probably lacking. Because that's not the root problem. This is all a dog and pony show. There is no transparent mechanism of control for internet publishing like there is for e.g. broadcast media via FCC licensure. The government very much wants to rein in this "Wild West" age of the internet and assert some control over the messaging. Conditions are very favorable for such a project right now: a) Centralization on walled gardens like Facebook, Google, et al provides a plausible choke point. [Right now they're making everything else online "dirty", "bad", and/or "Russian", but don't be surprised when they ban it all together and anything non-Google-or-Facebook-approved becomes part of the "dark web", meaning the place that only dirty, bad Russians go, and which will effectively require special communication equipment to access. Wikileaks is a great case study in this.] b) There's sufficient angst among the tech-savvy public to fly such controls in under the ironic pretext of "preserving the integrity of our democracy" without stirring up too much of a ruckus. and c) The mainstream media is looking for any plausible cover story they can find after their disastrous and embarrassing coverage of the 2016 election and will go along with anything that will allow them to save a shred of face. That it paints their main competition (hyper-specialized online media) as dirty and unreliable is a bonus. This is all very bad stuff, and that people are so easily tricked into following along because they're bitter about a political loss is as deeply disappointing as it is predictable. I expect that the government will eventually move to establish a set of "identity verification standards" that have to be met or the site will be taken offline by court order. This will essentially end free speech on the web and allow the government to assert its control over what normal people are allowed to access, read, and/or share online. Bottom line is that you don't have to be a Russian double-agent to be a Republican, and you don't have to be the victim of a pernicious foreign plot to lose an election against the other national political party. If you live in the Silicon Valley bubble, don't let your frustration delude you into believing otherwise.
    - jonny_eh 9y ago
      Yes, let's teach critical thinking while we also reduce disinformation in the culture. This article is about twitter bots though. Any critical thinking textbook should teach about false dichotomies, let's not fall into that fallacy here!
    - rahoulb 9y ago
      The root problem is that people use these tools as a brief diversion, not something to engage their critical faculties. If there was a "long-read social media" platform, it would be ignored, because you wouldn't check it in the bus queue or on the toilet.
- IIAOPSW 9y ago
  The alternative solution (don't let people that stupid vote) is too impalpable for society right now. Even if just 10% of people are that dumb, 10% is more than enough to swing an election.
  - tedeh 9y ago
    I have a pretty good idea on who is going to decide which person is too stupid to vote in such a society — I mean, you must be pretty stupid in the first place to even consider voting for anyone else than the most powerful party/government, right?
    - nasredin 9y ago
      The people in that one party who have been found by courts to repeatadly disenfranchise certain groups?
  - krylon 9y ago
    The basic idea underlying democracy is not that people are intelligent enough to make the right choices, but that they have the right to choose their government regardless of their intelligence. Even if that means you end up with people like George W. Bush junior or Donald Trump in the White House. I am still somewhat shocked that Donald Trump is really President of the USA[1], but I am deeply convinced that denying arbitrary people their right to vote is an acceptable "solution". [1] Really, it sounds like satire, doesn't it?
    - a_tractor 9y ago
      Actually, the basic idea underlying democracy is that people are not only intelligent enough to make the right choices in the benefit of their own interests and the interest of their nation, but that the people are also moral and virtuous enough to guide themselves without the need for outside intervention. That has all been corrupted. Democracy without intelligence, morality, and virtue is not desirable by anyone, that is chaos and will only result in tyranny. Today we do everything in our power to be free of that responsibility. We shun traditional morals and think fraudulent virtue signalling is a replacement for honest hard-earned virtue. People now see government as a provider for freedom, not from outside meddling and tyranny, but from the negative consequences of their failures and poor decisions, and will vote for anybody that offers them the most shit out of their neighbor's pockets, and will gladly accept whatever tyrannical means needed to accomplish that. Democracy was created for an intelligent, moral, and virtuous society seeking national independence, but which now considers those same qualities to be able-ist, oppressive, dangerous, and xenophobic. American nationalism has been subverted by marxism. McCarthy was right. It is impossible to deny without remaining willfully ignorant. The corrupt and foolish idea that the right to choose your government comes without any cost or responsibility is one of the ways we got here. As soon as people were given the ability to vote for handouts, the morality required to keep democracy a just political system was corrupted. There should be no pretense to what it is today. And really, if you still really think Trump is satire, or that the election of Trump is some kind of eye-opening unfathomable result to you, it is my opinion that you have no idea what you are talking about.
douglaswlance 9y ago
>"...hundreds of tweets..." You realize how few that is right? Do you have proof that Twitter bots influence opinion? If Russian bots influenced elections, what about the millions of real live humans from countries around the world who comment on USA politics?
- unclebucknasty 9y ago
  >Do you have proof that Twitter bots influence opinion? Demanding proof of effect is an oddly defensive response that seems aimed at exonerating bad behavior. The GP didn't even assert anything about influence; just stated a fact. But what difference does it make? Are you saying we should just accept it if we can't definitively prove it had a certain influence? Sounds an awful lot like a certain U.S. president. >If Russian bots influenced elections, what about the millions of real live humans False equivalence. A concerted effort by one person to use technology in amplifying a specific narrative against an adversary is not the same as actual human beings rendering their frequently diverse opinions. Surely you see the difference.
- nasredin 9y ago
  Millions of real live non-Americans who comment on US politics are not doing it on behalf of a hostile government.

sandov 9y ago

"Our citizens are too stupid to have a personal opinion and distinguish between a bot and a real person"

twblalock 9y ago
Sadly that's true, on Twitter as well as on Facebook, and it's pretty well documented at this point.
- sandov 9y ago
  Then why not tackle the root problem?: Lack of critical thinking skills. I'm not from the US, so I don't know how extensive their philosophy courses are in school, but judging by these repetitive "Russians/bots are manipulating our people" headlines, it's probably lacking.
  - beedogs 9y ago
    Yes: let's just go back and re-teach everyone. That is surely an easier solution to implement than banning Twitter bots.
    - LoSboccacc 9y ago
      Of course not but there’s not effort either being made to improve the current status for the future generations - quite the opposite actually. States need to play the long game after all.
  - subsection1h 9y ago
    It's an understatement say that the development of critical thinking skills in US schools is lacking. For example, it's estimated that 1 out of 3 Americans believe that all life has existed in it's present form since the beginning of time.[1] Educating these people is difficult because they are trained by their parents and religious leaders to mistrust professors[2] and other experts from an early age. It's much easier to ban bots. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/10/darwin-day/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/10/darwin-day/ [2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/13/republicans-much-colder-than-democrats-in-views-of-professors/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/13/republicans-...
  - unclebucknasty 9y ago
    That'd be great but you can't teach everyone to be awesome critical thinkers. There is a question of aptitude. That focus also overlooks the fact that much of the propaganda is emotionally-driven and appeals to certain instincts. For even the most rational of human beings, emotion can overwhelm critical thinking. So, while we can definitely do better in teaching critical thinking skills, we're just going to have a percentage of the population that is susceptible. And, given the fact that we're split almost down the middle politically (the election came down to 85,000 votes across three states), the ability to affect even a small percentage of the population can have a huge impact on the direction of the country. A more effective root cause mitigation might be to break the two-party monopoly so that a broader set of ideas can flourish. This binary for-or-against system is also unhelpful to say the least.
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      > There is a question of aptitude... the ability to affect even a small percentage of the population can have a huge impact on the direction of the country. At risk of poking a hornet's nest, isn't this basically just an argument against democracy itself? Sure, you can go around shutting down Twitter bots, but if the fundamental problem is "elections are swung by people who believe literally anything they read, and we can't change that" then we've basically lost already. First, because it'll move to a new source, and playing media whack-a-mole to maintain a functioning government doesn't seem reliable. Second, because deciding what's a valid source suddenly becomes the defining feature of elections. Deciding which voices to promote and which to undermine obvious matters, but if Twitter bots are a vital issue in a national election then one starts to wonder if anything else matters. And I mean, I know one argument is that this has always been the case, that the only new thing is the ability for unfiltered manipulation to come straight into people's homes. I suppose it's true that in ~1800 most people couldn't possibly get enough information to make informed voting decisions, so we were largely getting our decisions made by political officials and party machines. But it's a bit scarier to think that the problem is people, not access - if that's true then expanding information access is actually harmful to democracy.
      - Erlangolem 9y ago
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    It's hard to learn critical thinking skills when an angry mob riled up with the support of bots to take america back from ___ defunds school.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    > Then why not tackle the root problem?: Lack of critical thinking skills. I'm not from the US, so I don't know how extensive their philosophy courses are in school, but judging by these repetitive "Russians/bots are manipulating our people" headlines, it's probably lacking. Because that's not the root problem. This is all a dog and pony show. There is no transparent mechanism of control for internet publishing like there is for e.g. broadcast media via FCC licensure. The government very much wants to rein in this "Wild West" age of the internet and assert some control over the messaging. Conditions are very favorable for such a project right now: a) Centralization on walled gardens like Facebook, Google, et al provides a plausible choke point. [Right now they're making everything else online "dirty", "bad", and/or "Russian", but don't be surprised when they ban it all together and anything non-Google-or-Facebook-approved becomes part of the "dark web", meaning the place that only dirty, bad Russians go, and which will effectively require special communication equipment to access. Wikileaks is a great case study in this.] b) There's sufficient angst among the tech-savvy public to fly such controls in under the ironic pretext of "preserving the integrity of our democracy" without stirring up too much of a ruckus. and c) The mainstream media is looking for any plausible cover story they can find after their disastrous and embarrassing coverage of the 2016 election and will go along with anything that will allow them to save a shred of face. That it paints their main competition (hyper-specialized online media) as dirty and unreliable is a bonus. This is all very bad stuff, and that people are so easily tricked into following along because they're bitter about a political loss is as deeply disappointing as it is predictable. I expect that the government will eventually move to establish a set of "identity verification standards" that have to be met or the site will be taken offline by court order. This will essentially end free speech on the web and allow the government to assert its control over what normal people are allowed to access, read, and/or share online. Bottom line is that you don't have to be a Russian double-agent to be a Republican, and you don't have to be the victim of a pernicious foreign plot to lose an election against the other national political party. If you live in the Silicon Valley bubble, don't let your frustration delude you into believing otherwise.
  - jonny_eh 9y ago
    Yes, let's teach critical thinking while we also reduce disinformation in the culture. This article is about twitter bots though. Any critical thinking textbook should teach about false dichotomies, let's not fall into that fallacy here!
  - rahoulb 9y ago
    The root problem is that people use these tools as a brief diversion, not something to engage their critical faculties. If there was a "long-read social media" platform, it would be ignored, because you wouldn't check it in the bus queue or on the toilet.
IIAOPSW 9y ago
The alternative solution (don't let people that stupid vote) is too impalpable for society right now. Even if just 10% of people are that dumb, 10% is more than enough to swing an election.
- tedeh 9y ago
  I have a pretty good idea on who is going to decide which person is too stupid to vote in such a society — I mean, you must be pretty stupid in the first place to even consider voting for anyone else than the most powerful party/government, right?
  - nasredin 9y ago
    The people in that one party who have been found by courts to repeatadly disenfranchise certain groups?
- krylon 9y ago
  The basic idea underlying democracy is not that people are intelligent enough to make the right choices, but that they have the right to choose their government regardless of their intelligence. Even if that means you end up with people like George W. Bush junior or Donald Trump in the White House. I am still somewhat shocked that Donald Trump is really President of the USA[1], but I am deeply convinced that denying arbitrary people their right to vote is an acceptable "solution". [1] Really, it sounds like satire, doesn't it?
  - a_tractor 9y ago
    Actually, the basic idea underlying democracy is that people are not only intelligent enough to make the right choices in the benefit of their own interests and the interest of their nation, but that the people are also moral and virtuous enough to guide themselves without the need for outside intervention. That has all been corrupted. Democracy without intelligence, morality, and virtue is not desirable by anyone, that is chaos and will only result in tyranny. Today we do everything in our power to be free of that responsibility. We shun traditional morals and think fraudulent virtue signalling is a replacement for honest hard-earned virtue. People now see government as a provider for freedom, not from outside meddling and tyranny, but from the negative consequences of their failures and poor decisions, and will vote for anybody that offers them the most shit out of their neighbor's pockets, and will gladly accept whatever tyrannical means needed to accomplish that. Democracy was created for an intelligent, moral, and virtuous society seeking national independence, but which now considers those same qualities to be able-ist, oppressive, dangerous, and xenophobic. American nationalism has been subverted by marxism. McCarthy was right. It is impossible to deny without remaining willfully ignorant. The corrupt and foolish idea that the right to choose your government comes without any cost or responsibility is one of the ways we got here. As soon as people were given the ability to vote for handouts, the morality required to keep democracy a just political system was corrupted. There should be no pretense to what it is today. And really, if you still really think Trump is satire, or that the election of Trump is some kind of eye-opening unfathomable result to you, it is my opinion that you have no idea what you are talking about.

douglaswlance 9y ago

>"...hundreds of tweets..." You realize how few that is right? Do you have proof that Twitter bots influence opinion? If Russian bots influenced elections, what about the millions of real live humans from countries around the world who comment on USA politics?

unclebucknasty 9y ago
>Do you have proof that Twitter bots influence opinion? Demanding proof of effect is an oddly defensive response that seems aimed at exonerating bad behavior. The GP didn't even assert anything about influence; just stated a fact. But what difference does it make? Are you saying we should just accept it if we can't definitively prove it had a certain influence? Sounds an awful lot like a certain U.S. president. >If Russian bots influenced elections, what about the millions of real live humans False equivalence. A concerted effort by one person to use technology in amplifying a specific narrative against an adversary is not the same as actual human beings rendering their frequently diverse opinions. Surely you see the difference.
nasredin 9y ago
Millions of real live non-Americans who comment on US politics are not doing it on behalf of a hostile government.