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US Teens Are Being Paid to Spread Disinformation on Social Media
- kencausey 6y agoI too was once an avid Slashdot reader but linking to a Slashdot post makes even less sense to me than linking to an HN post. Actual reference: https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/09/15/pro-trump-youth-group-enlists-teens-in-secretive-campaign-likened-to-a-troll-farm-prompting-rebuke-by-facebook-and-twitter/ https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/09/15/pro-trump-youth-...
- fred_is_fred 6y agoIf only I had a Beowulf cluster of upvotes to give you. Thanks for the direct link.
- jonahhorowitz 6y agoI think since ADN syndicated it off of the Washington Post, this is the better link? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/turning-point-teens-disinformation-trump/2020/09/15/c84091ae-f20a-11ea-b796-2dd09962649c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/turning-point-teens-...
- kencausey 6y agoThanks, I didn't take the step of actually reading the ADN article since the site didn't like private mode and either the text content didn't load or was removed by javascript before I was able to get rid of it.
- Animats 6y agoOne more link down, the actual story from The Washington Post: "Pro-Trump youth group enlists teens in secretive campaign likened to a ‘troll farm,’ prompting rebuke by Facebook and Twitter" [1] "Teenagers, some of them minors, are being paid to pump out the messages at the direction of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the prominent conservative youth organization based in Phoenix, according to four people with independent knowledge of the effort. Their descriptions were confirmed by detailed notes from relatives of one of the teenagers who recorded conversations with him about the efforts." Turning Point Action site:[1] (Not to be confused with several evangelical organizations called Turning Point or some variation thereof, or TurningPoint Inc. (polling software)). [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/turning-point-teens-disinformation-trump/2020/09/15/c84091ae-f20a-11ea-b796-2dd09962649c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/turning-point-teens-... [2] https://www.tpusa.com/ https://www.tpusa.com/
- chris5745 6y agoHoly can of worms. Queue someone training an AI to categorize social media comments as partisan, neutral, factual, or not factual. Probably the next step but what will this accomplish? By putting a label on a comment are you defining the comment, or the label?
- keville 6y agoThe Slashdot article title depoliticizes this, but TFA is emphatic about this being staged by pro-Trump supporters. I think the original article's title is valuable.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoProfessional marketers are being paid to spread disinformation.
- dragontamer 6y agoWell, since these marketers are teenagers, it also feels like indoctrination to me.
- epsteindidntk 6y agothis is standard advertising/social PR practice. The outrage is because it's fringe/trumpian.
- just-juan-post 6y agoQuite an editorialized title. > experts say evades the guardrails put in place by social media companies to limit online disinformation In none of the articles does it say that the information they are posting is disinformation.
- dragontamer 6y agoThe articles are absolutely saying they are spreading disinformation. > The messages — some of them false and some simply partisan — were parceled out in precise increments as directed by the effort’s leaders, according to the people with knowledge of the highly coordinated activity, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the privacy of minors carrying out the work.
- millzlane 6y agoIn the WP article the first line states "One tweet claimed coronavirus numbers were intentionally inflated, adding, “It’s hard to know what to believe.” Another warned, “Don’t trust Dr. Fauci.”" I'd say with strong confidence that this would classify as disinformation. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/turning-point-teens-disinformation-trump/2020/09/15/c84091ae-f20a-11ea-b796-2dd09962649c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/turning-point-teens-...
- sokoloff 6y agoI do find some of the methods to categorize COVID deaths and some of the early fear-mongering quite hard to believe. This could easily fall into the "it's hard to know what to believe" summarization. Side note: I'm not being paid to spread misinformation and I probably didn't create a news.yc account 12 years ago and post fairly consistently while patiently lying in wait to sprinkle a little bit of COVID misinformation in this thread.
- tmaly 6y agoWhat ever they are doing, it is definitely working: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/health/cdc-reverts-airborne-transmission-guidance/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/health/cdc-reverts-airborne-t...