7 ms·
Enabling further research of information operations on Twitter
- WAthrowaway 8y agoPerfect training data for my own botnet for the 2020 election
- 21 8y agoIt will be interesting to see the left-wing/right-wing proportion. Ie: do they shill and troll both sides to increase division and reciprocal hate.
- dx87 8y agoIf it's anything like the info released by reddit, most of their posts were anti-Trump in left-wing subs in order to try and create animosity between pro and anti Trump users.
- jdoliner 8y agoI'm pretty confident you'll find plenty of both and lots of stuff that's ambiguously in between. I'm sure you'll also get different answers about which stuff is "left" and which stuff is "right" based on who you're talking to. Groups and people who are really good at propaganda understand that it's really not about left vs. right propaganda, it's about controlling the narrative. I think the best example you can find of this is Andrew Breitbart, everyone knows about the "news" outlet he founded which bears his name, Breitbart News. Most don't know about the other news outlet he founded (or rather that he founded it): The Huffington Post. Andrew understood better than anyone at the time how to control the narrative by being on both sides of it.
- baybal2 8y ago>better than anyone at the time Really? The trick is... no less than 2k years old, no Dzerzhinski was around king Herod's time
- rc_kas 8y agoAre there "likes" in the dataset? Sometimes I think the likes and their effect on trending tweets is way more damaging than tweets themselves.
- minimaxir 8y agoYes, the dataset has quotes/reply/likes/retweet counts.
- minimaxir 8y agoHere's a good Twitter thread on preliminary findings from the dataset: https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/1052545119826706433 https://twitter.com/benimmo/status/1052545119826706433
- ProAm 8y agoI dont understand why any social media company is beholden to the American political system?
- thsowers 8y agoOne could argue that social media companies are attempting to appear responsible for fear that if they don't then govt might regulate them more
- ProAm 8y agoI just don't understand what they would regulate. Would they ban other countries from using Twitter? Would they censor foreign tweets within the US border? What is wrong or illegal with allowing foreigners to comment about our election system?
- ptaipale 8y agoOne thing that is wrong or even illegal is that the "foreigners" are not actual Twitter users that they purport to be; instead, they are fake accounts forming part of a coordinated effort to influence opinions. This is not limited to U.S. politics, of course; similar attempts can be seen in many countries. They may be organised by foreign powers (Russia is often named, but there are others too) or domestic organisations (who sometimes create very formidable follower bases in smaller countries; one such example was just discovered in Sweden.)
- moorhosj 8y ago==I just don't understand what they would regulate.== The first step to answering this question lies in understanding the data.
- ProAm 8y agoI just dont think it matters if a foreign person (or bot farm) tries to sway an election? They aren't telling any more lies than the politicians, their PACs and/or supporters are already spreading. They just don't happen to be in the US, but we live in a global economy, with treaties, arms deals, pacts, etc.... If someone is dumb enough to be swayed by what they read on Twitter it doesn't matter who is sending the message. No one said the internet is a source of truth or honesty, and in reality there isn't much of that in US politics anyways, especially during an election campaign. This seems like political fodder and grandstanding by all parties.
- PowerfulWizard 8y agoI wonder how long until we see 2nd gen propaganda twitter trolling. If aggressive twitter propaganda that is in favor of candidate X has the effect of make candidate X look bad, and anyone can do it since they're all fake anyway, I don't think it will take long to be used in a false flag sense. Edit: even in situation where the person(s) responsible might not be in favor of either side, for example if someone were doing it in both direction i.e. in Clinton vs. Bernie primary just to corrode the relationship and weaken the winner.
- olefoo 8y agoThis has already been done. cf. The "Bernie Bros" accounts that were harassing democrat women.
- yasp 8y agoHow do they know which accounts were in fact created by the IRA / Iran?
- malvosenior 8y agoAlso, why don't they include other propaganda bad actors like Correct The Record? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record
- yasp 8y agoAlso what about propaganda created by the US under the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2013#Smith-Mundt_Modernization_Act_of_2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization...
- tootahe45 8y agoI have a feeling paid-for domestic influence campaigns are a lot more important at this point. What about CTR accounts and the bots they used to mass-upvote their opinions? Reddit is what I really want to see some transparency from.