5 ms·

How Disinformation Hacks Your Brain

32 points by Elof 7y ago

cklaus 7y ago
How should social networks like Facebook and Twitter fight all the disinformation? Seems like it is pervasive.
commandlinefan 7y ago
> crowdsourced judgments That depends on who’s allowed into the crowd. One only needs to look to reddit to see what happens when you crowdsource “truth” but also allow the “unenlightened” to be kicked out arbitrarily with no transparency. This only works if _everybody_ gets a say, even if they don’t have fashionable viewpoints.
- bena 7y ago
  Self-selection bias also plays a part. There are some subreddits that pride themselves on not banning users, but their entire userbase is nothing more than users banned from more mainstream subreddits. So while they aren't kicking out anyone, they still aren't getting a say from "everyone".
  - jfengel 7y ago
    Unmoderated forums are sometimes the most biased, because they are dominated by the loudest voices: the ones with the strongest feelings, the ones with the most free time, the ones who repeat arguments that have been debunked, the ones who will deliberately cause offense. Once people realize that they will make no headway there, they leave.
    - bena 7y ago
      That is also a good point. It's why most "general discussion" forums become unusable. You mostly wind up people who only have expertise in "free time".
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Same thing applies to advertising, which for the most part (as practiced today, not in theoretically ideal, benign form) is also disinformation, albeit with less political undertones.
- dwnvoted2hell 7y ago
  Less political is still political. In fact, I'd say it's more political since it speaks volumes about how far the establishment will go to protect their positioning.
mrspeaker 7y ago
The most impressive application I've seen of this lately is the "all journalists are bad" idea. Having hidden under a rock for the last few years (deleted twitter, no social media except here), I was surprised when I started seeing that sentiment appear on HN: "Sure tabloid X is all lies, but NY Times/WaPo/etc don't check facts", "They only print what generates clicks - so they're all terrible". The third time I saw that sentiment repeated here I googled around a bit, and it seems like that originated a couple of years ago - and was repeated enough that it worked really really well. No one believes any journalism now and every publication is equally wrong! I'm jaded enough that I don't care about too much - but damn that has a scary "history repeating" feeling about it.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Why exactly is this sentiment wrong? I've been holding it for many years now - I consider every mainstream news article individually to be bullshit until proven otherwise. I base this on my personal experience. Gell-Mann amnesia is a thing. And deleting social feeds perhaps made this more difficult for you to notice - one nice feature of some social networks (like HN or niche subreddits) is that for almost any news story, either the subject of the article, someone with first-hand knowledge, or an expert on the topic will chime in to thoroughly debunk the article. It's hard to not draw conclusions from this pattern. EDIT: The conclusion also hold under reasoning from first principles. The basic idea behind critical reading is considering who's writing and why. The reason news media publishes anything is to make money, they don't really keep any pretense of a civil duty anymore. How do they make money? Predominantly by advertising. Which creates a strong selection pressure that favors outrage-inducing stories, and disincentivises truthful and accurate reporting. EDIT2: I just remembered I actually made a diagram of this before: BULLSHIT SCALE |[------]----------[---------------]--> | | | | | the range people think | fake news | news publications | | operate in the range | they actually | operate in as close to truth as one could get See [0] for more explanation. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627258
  - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zyxzevn 7y ago
Interesting is to understand how disinformation started the first world war. Something that is proven, but not publicly known. Here is some information about it: https://www.corbettreport.com/wwi/ https://www.corbettreport.com/wwi/ (check the historical records on it) "babies on barjonets" was a clear propaganda slogan. It was also used in the invasion of Iraq. Where we had WMD's, that did not exist. (except for some old US-produced ammunition) "babies being killed in incubators" And the Afghan war? While Bin Laden was in Pakistan, as everyone knew? Now we see something similar around Douma, where the mainstream publishers are trying to keep a narrative. https://www.corbettreport.com/the-douma-hoax-anatomy-of-a-false-flag/ https://www.corbettreport.com/the-douma-hoax-anatomy-of-a-fa... Later confirmed via whistleblowers and via wikileaks how the UN-watchdog was making up evidence. Probably because the Pentagon threatened their families just before? This all shows how disinformation is often used to push for war. So the "good guys" can bomb poor people that have almost nothing to live for. George Carlin: https://i.imgur.com/D621y7S.png https://i.imgur.com/D621y7S.png Solutions: 1: Get money out of politics, so that big military industry cant push decisions. (Also limit how much they can influence the media). 2: Get CIA out of the media and politics. Let them defend the country, instead of control its politicians and citizens. 3: Protect whistleblowers, also those who expose war-crimes. 4: Instead of bombing/destroying other countries, one can setup non-destructive infrastructures. A bit like the Romans did. 5: The US should stop blaming their internal political problems on the rest of the world. 6: The US should protest against befriended countries that are clearly abusing human rights.
mikedilger 7y ago
Disinformation is widespread. Even this article contains some. What the authors should have said about the "pedo ring" theory was not that it was "fake news" and "debunked" but that major portions of it were "fake news" and "debunked." Comet Pizza having a basement was clearly debunked. Bots being involved has shown much of it to be untrustworthy. Yet some of it has some support: Several claims about Jeffrey Epstein came back up and he was re-arrested and famously committed suicide; There actually was a child pedo ring, with at least Jeffrey Epstein involved; Bill Clinton flew in Epstein's plane and was reported to have been on Epstein's island by Virginia Roberts, a victim. I don't think it's smart to take an absolute one-sided approach to this story. The story is complex and you have to hold some of it as ambiguous and be comfortable with that.
- bena 7y ago
  While "pedophiles exists" is a fact common to both stories, there are no credible links between Comet Pizza and Epstein's sex trafficking. So, no support.
  - mikedilger 7y ago
    I didn't follow the story at the time but I was under the impression that the Comet Pizza theory and the Epstein theory were the same theory. If the Comet Pizza / Hillary Clinton / Satanic baby eating stories did not mention Jeffrey Epstein than I'm sorry that I got them confused. I'd have to research deeper to sort that out; memory works in weird ways as it's partially reconstructed from fragments.
    - chacha2 7y ago
      Epstein was an already known sex offender and had previously done time for it.

32 points by Elof 7y ago

How should social networks like Facebook and Twitter fight all the disinformation? Seems like it is pervasive.

> crowdsourced judgments That depends on who’s allowed into the crowd. One only needs to look to reddit to see what happens when you crowdsource “truth” but also allow the “unenlightened” to be kicked out arbitrarily with no transparency. This only works if _everybody_ gets a say, even if they don’t have fashionable viewpoints.

bena 7y ago
Self-selection bias also plays a part. There are some subreddits that pride themselves on not banning users, but their entire userbase is nothing more than users banned from more mainstream subreddits. So while they aren't kicking out anyone, they still aren't getting a say from "everyone".
- jfengel 7y ago
  Unmoderated forums are sometimes the most biased, because they are dominated by the loudest voices: the ones with the strongest feelings, the ones with the most free time, the ones who repeat arguments that have been debunked, the ones who will deliberately cause offense. Once people realize that they will make no headway there, they leave.
  - bena 7y ago
    That is also a good point. It's why most "general discussion" forums become unusable. You mostly wind up people who only have expertise in "free time".

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Same thing applies to advertising, which for the most part (as practiced today, not in theoretically ideal, benign form) is also disinformation, albeit with less political undertones.

dwnvoted2hell 7y ago
Less political is still political. In fact, I'd say it's more political since it speaks volumes about how far the establishment will go to protect their positioning.

mrspeaker 7y ago

The most impressive application I've seen of this lately is the "all journalists are bad" idea. Having hidden under a rock for the last few years (deleted twitter, no social media except here), I was surprised when I started seeing that sentiment appear on HN: "Sure tabloid X is all lies, but NY Times/WaPo/etc don't check facts", "They only print what generates clicks - so they're all terrible". The third time I saw that sentiment repeated here I googled around a bit, and it seems like that originated a couple of years ago - and was repeated enough that it worked really really well. No one believes any journalism now and every publication is equally wrong! I'm jaded enough that I don't care about too much - but damn that has a scary "history repeating" feeling about it.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Why exactly is this sentiment wrong? I've been holding it for many years now - I consider every mainstream news article individually to be bullshit until proven otherwise. I base this on my personal experience. Gell-Mann amnesia is a thing. And deleting social feeds perhaps made this more difficult for you to notice - one nice feature of some social networks (like HN or niche subreddits) is that for almost any news story, either the subject of the article, someone with first-hand knowledge, or an expert on the topic will chime in to thoroughly debunk the article. It's hard to not draw conclusions from this pattern. EDIT: The conclusion also hold under reasoning from first principles. The basic idea behind critical reading is considering who's writing and why. The reason news media publishes anything is to make money, they don't really keep any pretense of a civil duty anymore. How do they make money? Predominantly by advertising. Which creates a strong selection pressure that favors outrage-inducing stories, and disincentivises truthful and accurate reporting. EDIT2: I just remembered I actually made a diagram of this before: BULLSHIT SCALE |[------]----------[---------------]--> | | | | | the range people think | fake news | news publications | | operate in the range | they actually | operate in as close to truth as one could get See [0] for more explanation. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627258
- 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

zyxzevn 7y ago

Interesting is to understand how disinformation started the first world war. Something that is proven, but not publicly known. Here is some information about it: https://www.corbettreport.com/wwi/ https://www.corbettreport.com/wwi/ (check the historical records on it) "babies on barjonets" was a clear propaganda slogan. It was also used in the invasion of Iraq. Where we had WMD's, that did not exist. (except for some old US-produced ammunition) "babies being killed in incubators" And the Afghan war? While Bin Laden was in Pakistan, as everyone knew? Now we see something similar around Douma, where the mainstream publishers are trying to keep a narrative. https://www.corbettreport.com/the-douma-hoax-anatomy-of-a-false-flag/ https://www.corbettreport.com/the-douma-hoax-anatomy-of-a-fa... Later confirmed via whistleblowers and via wikileaks how the UN-watchdog was making up evidence. Probably because the Pentagon threatened their families just before? This all shows how disinformation is often used to push for war. So the "good guys" can bomb poor people that have almost nothing to live for. George Carlin: https://i.imgur.com/D621y7S.png https://i.imgur.com/D621y7S.png Solutions: 1: Get money out of politics, so that big military industry cant push decisions. (Also limit how much they can influence the media). 2: Get CIA out of the media and politics. Let them defend the country, instead of control its politicians and citizens. 3: Protect whistleblowers, also those who expose war-crimes. 4: Instead of bombing/destroying other countries, one can setup non-destructive infrastructures. A bit like the Romans did. 5: The US should stop blaming their internal political problems on the rest of the world. 6: The US should protest against befriended countries that are clearly abusing human rights.

mikedilger 7y ago

Disinformation is widespread. Even this article contains some. What the authors should have said about the "pedo ring" theory was not that it was "fake news" and "debunked" but that major portions of it were "fake news" and "debunked." Comet Pizza having a basement was clearly debunked. Bots being involved has shown much of it to be untrustworthy. Yet some of it has some support: Several claims about Jeffrey Epstein came back up and he was re-arrested and famously committed suicide; There actually was a child pedo ring, with at least Jeffrey Epstein involved; Bill Clinton flew in Epstein's plane and was reported to have been on Epstein's island by Virginia Roberts, a victim. I don't think it's smart to take an absolute one-sided approach to this story. The story is complex and you have to hold some of it as ambiguous and be comfortable with that.

bena 7y ago
While "pedophiles exists" is a fact common to both stories, there are no credible links between Comet Pizza and Epstein's sex trafficking. So, no support.
- mikedilger 7y ago
  I didn't follow the story at the time but I was under the impression that the Comet Pizza theory and the Epstein theory were the same theory. If the Comet Pizza / Hillary Clinton / Satanic baby eating stories did not mention Jeffrey Epstein than I'm sorry that I got them confused. I'd have to research deeper to sort that out; memory works in weird ways as it's partially reconstructed from fragments.
  - chacha2 7y ago
    Epstein was an already known sex offender and had previously done time for it.