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I never understood that foreign influence complaint. The whole world is sharing opinions and misinformation about the EU elections, just as the whole world was

I never understood that foreign influence complaint. The whole world is sharing opinions and misinformation about the EU elections, just as the whole world was sharing opinions and misinformation about the US elections. How is it worse if it comes from someone in another country and is a bot compared to a real person in another country or a bot in the local country? Do you really think that these political bots are there to create chaos rather than either to generate ad revenue or get their preferred candidate elected? No purely. But people certainly attribute it to bots or they wouldn't be concerned about bots if they believed they had no effect.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Yes, some of the fake accounts - not necessarily bots - are there to create chaos. Russian political influencers have publicly boasted about this. Of course this is no different to the US and the rest of the West using the media and social networks in other countries to promote their own agenda. The difference is we're supposed to be immune from having it done to us - and of course we aren't. Because it's no different in principle from a fake advertising and promo campaign, or a fake pro-corporate stage-managed PR campaign - just larger in scope, and weaponised as opposed to financialised. In reality troll and Tweet farms are incredibly cheap compared to other propaganda vectors, and incredibly cost effective. At some point knowingly misleading the public for political or financial gain is going to have to become a criminal offence. Currently consumers/voters have more protection from fake claims about a toaster than they do from fake claims made by a president or a hostile foreign power. If you're trying to be a genuine democracy, that's a bad place to be.
- lopmotr 7y ago
  When you say weaponized, do you mean done for a foreign government's interests rather than a person's financial gain? You seem to believe that people can't be trusted to think for themselves and must be shielded from lies to protect them from their own stupidity. I agree on the first part, but not the second which is arrogant authoritarianism. In democracy, the voters are also the ones who experience the consequences of their decisions and them having the ultimate power over themselves is what protects them from extremes. They might hurt themselves a little bit but it's still themselves doing it, so they won't go too far and can change their mind next election if they made a mistake. If there's something new and unique about social media that actually breaks democracy worse than anything since the ancients Greeks, then perhaps you'd have a point, but I don't see any evidence of that. I think people will adapt to false information and learn to decide what to believe, just like they currently make decisions about how much to trust any stories they hear. There's nothing wrong with having a few conspiracy theorists or people who believe a wrong version of history. They keep everyone else on their toes and we can't really be sure that it's not us who's wrong. Remember when God obviously created the world and anyone who disagreed was punished for spreading dangerous fake knowledge?

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago

Yes, some of the fake accounts - not necessarily bots - are there to create chaos. Russian political influencers have publicly boasted about this. Of course this is no different to the US and the rest of the West using the media and social networks in other countries to promote their own agenda. The difference is we're supposed to be immune from having it done to us - and of course we aren't. Because it's no different in principle from a fake advertising and promo campaign, or a fake pro-corporate stage-managed PR campaign - just larger in scope, and weaponised as opposed to financialised. In reality troll and Tweet farms are incredibly cheap compared to other propaganda vectors, and incredibly cost effective. At some point knowingly misleading the public for political or financial gain is going to have to become a criminal offence. Currently consumers/voters have more protection from fake claims about a toaster than they do from fake claims made by a president or a hostile foreign power. If you're trying to be a genuine democracy, that's a bad place to be.

lopmotr 7y ago
When you say weaponized, do you mean done for a foreign government's interests rather than a person's financial gain? You seem to believe that people can't be trusted to think for themselves and must be shielded from lies to protect them from their own stupidity. I agree on the first part, but not the second which is arrogant authoritarianism. In democracy, the voters are also the ones who experience the consequences of their decisions and them having the ultimate power over themselves is what protects them from extremes. They might hurt themselves a little bit but it's still themselves doing it, so they won't go too far and can change their mind next election if they made a mistake. If there's something new and unique about social media that actually breaks democracy worse than anything since the ancients Greeks, then perhaps you'd have a point, but I don't see any evidence of that. I think people will adapt to false information and learn to decide what to believe, just like they currently make decisions about how much to trust any stories they hear. There's nothing wrong with having a few conspiracy theorists or people who believe a wrong version of history. They keep everyone else on their toes and we can't really be sure that it's not us who's wrong. Remember when God obviously created the world and anyone who disagreed was punished for spreading dangerous fake knowledge?