4 ms·

Not everything is a technical problem to solve and acting like it is is a dangerous path. This will never work in practice, truth is not a popularity contest.

by razius 8y ago

aaron-lebo 8y ago
What aspect of the study makes you believe they are relying on popularity? They are mostly relying on a very limited set of approved sources (which could be criticized), but their approach seems pretty straightforward. You've gotta have some baseline to compare to. I'm glad someone is making a public/academic attempt to measure this, because it's hard to imagine just how easy it is to spread disinformation. What would you have done differently?
- cloggifier 8y ago
  So, they're talking about how to disrupt the propagation of information deemed deleterious, given that actors are operating networks of amplifiers. They target the network to disrupt, and then strategize methods of dismantling the network. But the qualifier "bad" is ensconced in lofty vocabulary. The reality is this is likely a generalizable analysis of how to attack information networks regardless of alignment. All of the high-level adjectives ascribed to these networks are window dressing, related to a separate discrete task: target selection. After that, it's just take down operations. The inverse activity is conceptualizing "take-down resistant" information networks, at which point, it becomes evident on closer inspection that all of this is just the throes of an arms race. So let's just cut to the chase, and stop thinking in terms of cat and mouse games. This is all simply reduced to harasser/harassed relationships. Calculate motives, look at what the objectives of the belligerents are, and instead of feeding into the meat grinder, aim for greener pastures. Go where everyone else isn't.
  - twentyOne 8y ago
    Once a take-down resistant network is assembled, it can be filled with any sort of content. Given that the content may be arbitrary, looking at the content alone is not enough. Analysis of at-risk "swing voting" audiences would be the qualifier for an offending orchestrated botnet. The intent of these botnets for the past victory was to "milgram" people into voting Trump (influence opinion, by surrounding and immersing of easily swindled individuals in currated content, many sources creating a magnitude perception for illusory peer pressure) [0] so, the content is nothing if it isn't seen. Whatever the case, this is last year's tactic. It's possible that it may never be used again, in anticipation of adaptaion to defend against it. That's if you buy into the hypothesis that this is why people voted the way they did in the 2016 election, and that external technical influence was truly responsible, and even capable of such a manner of attack. To be honest, it also sounds like a kissing cousing to the hand-wavey premise of flashing inserts of suggestive hypnotic single-frame advertisments (BUY MORE POPCORN fnord) in movie theaters to provoke subliminal brainwashing so that people buy more popcorn at movie theaters. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
CM30 8y ago
The problem with a lot of large companies (especially social media ones) is that they're stuck trying to solve non technical problems with tech because actually solving them any other way isn't scalable. The solution to misinformation in a community would likely be community management/moderation, but that can't scale to the size of something like Facebook or Twitter. Hence the awkard tech 'solutions' that don't work.

Not everything is a technical problem to solve and acting like it is is a dangerous path. This will never work in practice, truth is not a popularity contest.

by razius 8y ago

Not everything is a technical problem to solve and acting like it is is a dangerous path. This will never work in practice, truth is not a popularity contest.

aaron-lebo 8y ago

What aspect of the study makes you believe they are relying on popularity? They are mostly relying on a very limited set of approved sources (which could be criticized), but their approach seems pretty straightforward. You've gotta have some baseline to compare to. I'm glad someone is making a public/academic attempt to measure this, because it's hard to imagine just how easy it is to spread disinformation. What would you have done differently?

cloggifier 8y ago
So, they're talking about how to disrupt the propagation of information deemed deleterious, given that actors are operating networks of amplifiers. They target the network to disrupt, and then strategize methods of dismantling the network. But the qualifier "bad" is ensconced in lofty vocabulary. The reality is this is likely a generalizable analysis of how to attack information networks regardless of alignment. All of the high-level adjectives ascribed to these networks are window dressing, related to a separate discrete task: target selection. After that, it's just take down operations. The inverse activity is conceptualizing "take-down resistant" information networks, at which point, it becomes evident on closer inspection that all of this is just the throes of an arms race. So let's just cut to the chase, and stop thinking in terms of cat and mouse games. This is all simply reduced to harasser/harassed relationships. Calculate motives, look at what the objectives of the belligerents are, and instead of feeding into the meat grinder, aim for greener pastures. Go where everyone else isn't.
- twentyOne 8y ago
  Once a take-down resistant network is assembled, it can be filled with any sort of content. Given that the content may be arbitrary, looking at the content alone is not enough. Analysis of at-risk "swing voting" audiences would be the qualifier for an offending orchestrated botnet. The intent of these botnets for the past victory was to "milgram" people into voting Trump (influence opinion, by surrounding and immersing of easily swindled individuals in currated content, many sources creating a magnitude perception for illusory peer pressure) [0] so, the content is nothing if it isn't seen. Whatever the case, this is last year's tactic. It's possible that it may never be used again, in anticipation of adaptaion to defend against it. That's if you buy into the hypothesis that this is why people voted the way they did in the 2016 election, and that external technical influence was truly responsible, and even capable of such a manner of attack. To be honest, it also sounds like a kissing cousing to the hand-wavey premise of flashing inserts of suggestive hypnotic single-frame advertisments (BUY MORE POPCORN fnord) in movie theaters to provoke subliminal brainwashing so that people buy more popcorn at movie theaters. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

CM30 8y ago

The problem with a lot of large companies (especially social media ones) is that they're stuck trying to solve non technical problems with tech because actually solving them any other way isn't scalable. The solution to misinformation in a community would likely be community management/moderation, but that can't scale to the size of something like Facebook or Twitter. Hence the awkard tech 'solutions' that don't work.