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"The democratic voting of two countries was manipulated using social media" This seems like a very weird thing to say to me. Democratic voting is always manipu

by dilap 9y ago

"The democratic voting of two countries was manipulated using social media" This seems like a very weird thing to say to me. Democratic voting is always manipulated, every media source and conversation and political speech you see is "manipulation". Why is social media any different? Cynically, or conspiratorially, I think everyone is making a huge deal about this because it's manipulation that's not happening through the officially-controlled and sanctioned channels.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Domestic manipulation is fine; that’s discussion. Foreign subterfuge is not. That’s what Cambridge Analytica did [1]. [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/nationworld/ct-cambridge-analytica-foreign-campaign-advisers-20180325-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/nationworld/ct-cambri...
- dilap 9y ago
  Still doesn't make sense to me. Why is foreign influence bad but domestic influence OK? American foreign policy has huge effects on the rest of the world. Shouldn't they have a say? How about undocumented immigrants living in the country?
  - vorpalhex 9y ago
    So is it OK for Russia to push Brexit? What about pushing for Ukraine to give up land to Russia? Obviously not. Foreign countries are always going to act in their own interest. They are not interested in the stability or longterm prosperity of other nations, usually quite the opposite. Those affected by foreign policy have other ways of exerting influence (tariffs, their own policies, immigration policies, etc) they don't get to alter my day to day life. Freedom of the press and Freedom of speech in the US is a critical and fundamental right - China doesn't get to throw money at shutting those down because they're inconvenient to Chinese policy.
    - marcosdumay 9y ago
      Is it ok to me (a non Britain) to discuss the Brexit with a Britain?
      - learc83 9y ago
        Sure. It's probably not OK for you to pretend to be British while doing so.
    - harshreality 9y ago
      So if Russian propaganda is "not okay", what does that make the United States's long history of intervention in other country's politics and elections? We haven't stopped at propaganda, though we certainly do plenty of that. We also have a history of military action, both covert and overt, against other countries whose elections and policies we don't like. Complaining primarily about Russia's interference in our 2016 election is willful blindness. Every country tries to influence every other country's elections. Russia (if the allegations are true) may have done it better this time, or used methods that were more detectable, and got more attention because of how shocking the election turned out. At least some of what Russia (allegedly, I'm unconvinced whether it was Russia or Seth Rich like Assange implied) leaked (the hacked DNC emails) was really important political information that the people had a right to know. Do you think the DNC had a right to keep private their Hillary favoritism and primary rigging? I don't care if Russia leaked it, Seth Rich leaked it, or some Tuvalu aborigines leaked it. Russian and other countries' intelligence agencies hack everything they can; that doesn't mean they're the source of a particular leak.
      - ceejayoz 9y ago
        > Do you think the DNC had a right to keep private their Hillary favoritism and primary rigging? Yes? As a general rule, private organizations should generally be free to keep their private emails sent about privately held preferences and gatherings in private hands. The DNC is not a government agency or body. They're not subject to FOIL. They didn't "rig" the primaries unless you enormously stretch the definition of "rigging". If we have a right to see the DNC's emails, we have a similar right to see the RNC's. Doesn't take much wondering to tell if they expressed private feelings about Trump there - they were publicly telling Trump to drop out.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > Why is foreign influence bad but domestic influence OK? ...How about undocumented immigrants living in the country? The nice thing about a concrete example is it collapses hypotheticals. Cambridge Analytica illegally deployed foreign workers to American campaigns [1], used improperly—perhaps illegally [2]—obtained data to target voters with messages that were at times conflicting and generally designed to inflame disagreement. CA took active measures to conceal they were behind these messages and takes active measures to conceal its own backers. Its (now former) CEO is on tape [3] attempting to sell services which violate the FCPA [4]. We need a solution that preserves Internet freedoms while protecting against this. [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-cambridge-analytica-foreign-campaign-advisers-20180325-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-cambridge-... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act [3] https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/alexander-nix-cambridge-analytica/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/alexander-nix-cambri... [4] https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-practices-act https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-pract...
    - dilap 9y ago
      This isn't really a response though; you're just being more specific about what you think is wrong, but not why it should be wrong. "Cambridge Analytica illegally deployed foreign workers to American campaigns" Why is it (or should it be) wrong for a non-US-citizen to advise members of a US campaign?
      - strathmeyer 9y ago
        Because it's illegal. What fight are you having?
      - RyanCavanaugh 9y ago
        Sometimes the law prohibits things that aren't morally wrong. For example, it's illegal to structure bank transfers to avoid reporting thresholds, even if there is no underlying crime. This is a reality. You're highlighting the not-wrong parts of the illegal stuff and will next highlight the not-illegal parts of the wrong stuff. CA did things that were wrong and illegal, but not everything they did was both.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    Foreign entities should be able to say their piece, but doing so in a way that hides the source crosses a line, as they are likely to be acting in their own interests and not the interests of the country in question. FWIW, I'd say the same about domestic campaigning - you should be able to track it back to its source.
- m00g00 9y ago
  What if what the foreign actors are saying is the same as domestic? What if someone from the UK or France or wherever has a good strategic idea, are you not allowed to use it? Pretty sure everyone in the entire world with internet access chimed in at some point on the US's last election. I doubt many people looked into the country of origin of a tweet before deciding on whether or not to be influenced by it.
  - goalieca 9y ago
    There’s a distinction between voter persuasion and voter manipulation. Much of spycraft is about manipulation.
    - m00g00 9y ago
      A lot of people would see it as persuasion by their side, and manipulation by the other. Same with "information" and "propaganda". As an aside, I kind of appreciate how in the past, mostly before WW2, governments would have agencies such as "Ministry of Propaganda", or "Department of War". Now we use doublespeak terms ("Public Affairs", "Defense") to calm the masses, even though they mean the same thing.
      - goalieca 9y ago
        > Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through abusive, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.[1] By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at another's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative, abusive, devious, and deceptive. > Social influence is not necessarily negative. For example, doctors can try to persuade patients to change unhealthy habits. Social influence is generally perceived to be harmless when it respects the right of the influenced to accept or reject it, and is not unduly coercive. Depending on the context and motivations, social influence may constitute underhanded manipulation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation I would say that persuasion based on facts is perfectly fine. It’s the deceit that was particularly troublesome last election. And by using targeted social media campaigns derived/aided by private data and possibly behavioural and psychological profiles, people were easily manipulated for the purpose of another nation state. The foreign influence aspect is a real challenge for democracy and sovereignty
- daxorid 9y ago
  [edit] Forget it. Uncritically swallow whatever propaganda FVEY feeds you. I have deleted my violation of groupthink and its associated factual sources. Carry on.
munificent 9y ago
> Democratic voting is always manipulated, every media source and conversation and political speech you see is "manipulation". I don't like this kind of slippery slope whataboutism because shades of difference do matter, often profoundly. If I pat you on the back, slap you in the face, or kick you in the genitals, they're all "hitting you", so what's the difference, right? But those are different things, and discarding information by tossing them all in the same bucket makes for a less sophisticated analysis. There are real differences between: * A trusted friend telling you they like candidate X because Y. * A reputable news organization writing a factual article about something candidate X did. * A biased media source writing a clickbait opinion piece that presents itself as "news" when it's really pushing an agenda funded by its backers. * A political advertisement paid for and from a candidate. * A political advertisement paid for and acknowledging itself to be from some corporate super PAC. * A political advertisement that is paid for by a corporate interest but deliberately obscures that fact. * A political advertisement stating things that are factually untrue. * A political advertisement that claims to be from group A but is actually from group B. Etc. In order to correctly process the information we're receiving, we need to know the context around it. The way that context is presented or obscured, relative to our own expectations for that context, matters hugely. > Why is social media any different? Because it was hyper-targeted to individuals based on psychological profiles of what those people are predisposed to believe and accept. The manipulation was expressly designed to undermine our ability to reason critically and correctly understand the intent and accuracy of the presented information.
- dilap 9y ago
  The whole idea that underlies the premise of your comment is that people cannot be trusted to make up their own minds about the arguments they are exposed to, and must be protected from bad information. I think that idea is contrary to the ideal of a free society.
kartan 9y ago
> Cynically, or conspiratorially, I think everyone is making a huge deal about this because it's manipulation that's not happening through the officially-controlled and sanctioned channels. Cynically, it is cynism to devaluate all democratic values because democracies are not perfect. You say, and I agree, that democracies are not perfect because there are groups of interest that manipulate the results. Your conclusion is that we should stop caring and we should accept any level of manipulation, as it is impossible to reach zero manipulation. With that same logic, we should allow any crime as it is proven that we cannot stop all of them. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/134/Nirvana-Fallacy https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...
- dilap 9y ago
  No, I just don't think this manipulation is materially different than other forms, so I don't see it as particularly troubling. (Actually, I find it less troubling.) I am somewhat skeptical of democracy, though.
  - grzm 9y ago
    > "I am somewhat skeptical of democracy, though." Would you elaborate on this? Alternatives you'd prefer?
    - dilap 9y ago
      I have some ideas for alternatives or tweaks, but nothing I am particularly sure about. My general sense of skepticism comes from a few things: - The sense that America as a whole is somewhat shoddily run - The sense that San Francisco specifically is very shoddily run. - The (very elitist, I'll admit) feeling that I don't think the average person is competent to understand or decide most issues. To be sure, context matters: "who is your population", "what is your political culture" (tradition of bribery? of honesty?) &c are important; some very nice places seem to be working well as democracies. But I would not classify the city or the country I live in among them. Still unsure of & mulling over exactly what I'd do to fix things. (SF in particular is pretty bad: - Extremely rich - But staffed with a working-class that lives in poor conditions & is super overworked; basically, exploited - Filled with people living on the streets in conditions ranging from extremely bad to some of the extreme human misery I've ever witnessed - Decaying infrastructure - Constant low-level crime - Very (very!) dirty.)
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Cynically, or conspiratorially, I think everyone is making a huge deal about this because it's manipulation that's not happening through the officially-controlled and sanctioned channels. The fact that it was false-flag manipulation by illegal means and in part by actors prohibited from lawful participation because they are foreign to the jurisdiction is the overt reason people are upset about these manipulations. Other than the emotional charge of the word choice, your “cynical" description of why people are secretly making a big deal is simply the exact open reason people are upset.

by dilap 9y ago

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

Domestic manipulation is fine; that’s discussion. Foreign subterfuge is not. That’s what Cambridge Analytica did [1]. [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/nationworld/ct-cambridge-analytica-foreign-campaign-advisers-20180325-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/g00/news/nationworld/ct-cambri...

dilap 9y ago
Still doesn't make sense to me. Why is foreign influence bad but domestic influence OK? American foreign policy has huge effects on the rest of the world. Shouldn't they have a say? How about undocumented immigrants living in the country?
- vorpalhex 9y ago
  So is it OK for Russia to push Brexit? What about pushing for Ukraine to give up land to Russia? Obviously not. Foreign countries are always going to act in their own interest. They are not interested in the stability or longterm prosperity of other nations, usually quite the opposite. Those affected by foreign policy have other ways of exerting influence (tariffs, their own policies, immigration policies, etc) they don't get to alter my day to day life. Freedom of the press and Freedom of speech in the US is a critical and fundamental right - China doesn't get to throw money at shutting those down because they're inconvenient to Chinese policy.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    Is it ok to me (a non Britain) to discuss the Brexit with a Britain?
    - learc83 9y ago
      Sure. It's probably not OK for you to pretend to be British while doing so.
  - harshreality 9y ago
    So if Russian propaganda is "not okay", what does that make the United States's long history of intervention in other country's politics and elections? We haven't stopped at propaganda, though we certainly do plenty of that. We also have a history of military action, both covert and overt, against other countries whose elections and policies we don't like. Complaining primarily about Russia's interference in our 2016 election is willful blindness. Every country tries to influence every other country's elections. Russia (if the allegations are true) may have done it better this time, or used methods that were more detectable, and got more attention because of how shocking the election turned out. At least some of what Russia (allegedly, I'm unconvinced whether it was Russia or Seth Rich like Assange implied) leaked (the hacked DNC emails) was really important political information that the people had a right to know. Do you think the DNC had a right to keep private their Hillary favoritism and primary rigging? I don't care if Russia leaked it, Seth Rich leaked it, or some Tuvalu aborigines leaked it. Russian and other countries' intelligence agencies hack everything they can; that doesn't mean they're the source of a particular leak.
    - ceejayoz 9y ago
      > Do you think the DNC had a right to keep private their Hillary favoritism and primary rigging? Yes? As a general rule, private organizations should generally be free to keep their private emails sent about privately held preferences and gatherings in private hands. The DNC is not a government agency or body. They're not subject to FOIL. They didn't "rig" the primaries unless you enormously stretch the definition of "rigging". If we have a right to see the DNC's emails, we have a similar right to see the RNC's. Doesn't take much wondering to tell if they expressed private feelings about Trump there - they were publicly telling Trump to drop out.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Why is foreign influence bad but domestic influence OK? ...How about undocumented immigrants living in the country? The nice thing about a concrete example is it collapses hypotheticals. Cambridge Analytica illegally deployed foreign workers to American campaigns [1], used improperly—perhaps illegally [2]—obtained data to target voters with messages that were at times conflicting and generally designed to inflame disagreement. CA took active measures to conceal they were behind these messages and takes active measures to conceal its own backers. Its (now former) CEO is on tape [3] attempting to sell services which violate the FCPA [4]. We need a solution that preserves Internet freedoms while protecting against this. [1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-cambridge-analytica-foreign-campaign-advisers-20180325-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-cambridge-... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act [3] https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/alexander-nix-cambridge-analytica/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/alexander-nix-cambri... [4] https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-practices-act https://www.justice.gov/criminal-fraud/foreign-corrupt-pract...
  - dilap 9y ago
    This isn't really a response though; you're just being more specific about what you think is wrong, but not why it should be wrong. "Cambridge Analytica illegally deployed foreign workers to American campaigns" Why is it (or should it be) wrong for a non-US-citizen to advise members of a US campaign?
    - strathmeyer 9y ago
      Because it's illegal. What fight are you having?
    - RyanCavanaugh 9y ago
      Sometimes the law prohibits things that aren't morally wrong. For example, it's illegal to structure bank transfers to avoid reporting thresholds, even if there is no underlying crime. This is a reality. You're highlighting the not-wrong parts of the illegal stuff and will next highlight the not-illegal parts of the wrong stuff. CA did things that were wrong and illegal, but not everything they did was both.
- stordoff 9y ago
  Foreign entities should be able to say their piece, but doing so in a way that hides the source crosses a line, as they are likely to be acting in their own interests and not the interests of the country in question. FWIW, I'd say the same about domestic campaigning - you should be able to track it back to its source.
m00g00 9y ago
What if what the foreign actors are saying is the same as domestic? What if someone from the UK or France or wherever has a good strategic idea, are you not allowed to use it? Pretty sure everyone in the entire world with internet access chimed in at some point on the US's last election. I doubt many people looked into the country of origin of a tweet before deciding on whether or not to be influenced by it.
- goalieca 9y ago
  There’s a distinction between voter persuasion and voter manipulation. Much of spycraft is about manipulation.
  - m00g00 9y ago
    A lot of people would see it as persuasion by their side, and manipulation by the other. Same with "information" and "propaganda". As an aside, I kind of appreciate how in the past, mostly before WW2, governments would have agencies such as "Ministry of Propaganda", or "Department of War". Now we use doublespeak terms ("Public Affairs", "Defense") to calm the masses, even though they mean the same thing.
    - goalieca 9y ago
      > Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behavior or perception of others through abusive, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.[1] By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at another's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative, abusive, devious, and deceptive. > Social influence is not necessarily negative. For example, doctors can try to persuade patients to change unhealthy habits. Social influence is generally perceived to be harmless when it respects the right of the influenced to accept or reject it, and is not unduly coercive. Depending on the context and motivations, social influence may constitute underhanded manipulation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_manipulation I would say that persuasion based on facts is perfectly fine. It’s the deceit that was particularly troublesome last election. And by using targeted social media campaigns derived/aided by private data and possibly behavioural and psychological profiles, people were easily manipulated for the purpose of another nation state. The foreign influence aspect is a real challenge for democracy and sovereignty
daxorid 9y ago
[edit] Forget it. Uncritically swallow whatever propaganda FVEY feeds you. I have deleted my violation of groupthink and its associated factual sources. Carry on.

munificent 9y ago

> Democratic voting is always manipulated, every media source and conversation and political speech you see is "manipulation". I don't like this kind of slippery slope whataboutism because shades of difference do matter, often profoundly. If I pat you on the back, slap you in the face, or kick you in the genitals, they're all "hitting you", so what's the difference, right? But those are different things, and discarding information by tossing them all in the same bucket makes for a less sophisticated analysis. There are real differences between: * A trusted friend telling you they like candidate X because Y. * A reputable news organization writing a factual article about something candidate X did. * A biased media source writing a clickbait opinion piece that presents itself as "news" when it's really pushing an agenda funded by its backers. * A political advertisement paid for and from a candidate. * A political advertisement paid for and acknowledging itself to be from some corporate super PAC. * A political advertisement that is paid for by a corporate interest but deliberately obscures that fact. * A political advertisement stating things that are factually untrue. * A political advertisement that claims to be from group A but is actually from group B. Etc. In order to correctly process the information we're receiving, we need to know the context around it. The way that context is presented or obscured, relative to our own expectations for that context, matters hugely. > Why is social media any different? Because it was hyper-targeted to individuals based on psychological profiles of what those people are predisposed to believe and accept. The manipulation was expressly designed to undermine our ability to reason critically and correctly understand the intent and accuracy of the presented information.

dilap 9y ago
The whole idea that underlies the premise of your comment is that people cannot be trusted to make up their own minds about the arguments they are exposed to, and must be protected from bad information. I think that idea is contrary to the ideal of a free society.

kartan 9y ago

> Cynically, or conspiratorially, I think everyone is making a huge deal about this because it's manipulation that's not happening through the officially-controlled and sanctioned channels. Cynically, it is cynism to devaluate all democratic values because democracies are not perfect. You say, and I agree, that democracies are not perfect because there are groups of interest that manipulate the results. Your conclusion is that we should stop caring and we should accept any level of manipulation, as it is impossible to reach zero manipulation. With that same logic, we should allow any crime as it is proven that we cannot stop all of them. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/134/Nirvana-Fallacy https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...

dilap 9y ago
No, I just don't think this manipulation is materially different than other forms, so I don't see it as particularly troubling. (Actually, I find it less troubling.) I am somewhat skeptical of democracy, though.
- grzm 9y ago
  > "I am somewhat skeptical of democracy, though." Would you elaborate on this? Alternatives you'd prefer?
  - dilap 9y ago
    I have some ideas for alternatives or tweaks, but nothing I am particularly sure about. My general sense of skepticism comes from a few things: - The sense that America as a whole is somewhat shoddily run - The sense that San Francisco specifically is very shoddily run. - The (very elitist, I'll admit) feeling that I don't think the average person is competent to understand or decide most issues. To be sure, context matters: "who is your population", "what is your political culture" (tradition of bribery? of honesty?) &c are important; some very nice places seem to be working well as democracies. But I would not classify the city or the country I live in among them. Still unsure of & mulling over exactly what I'd do to fix things. (SF in particular is pretty bad: - Extremely rich - But staffed with a working-class that lives in poor conditions & is super overworked; basically, exploited - Filled with people living on the streets in conditions ranging from extremely bad to some of the extreme human misery I've ever witnessed - Decaying infrastructure - Constant low-level crime - Very (very!) dirty.)

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Cynically, or conspiratorially, I think everyone is making a huge deal about this because it's manipulation that's not happening through the officially-controlled and sanctioned channels. The fact that it was false-flag manipulation by illegal means and in part by actors prohibited from lawful participation because they are foreign to the jurisdiction is the overt reason people are upset about these manipulations. Other than the emotional charge of the word choice, your “cynical" description of why people are secretly making a big deal is simply the exact open reason people are upset.