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It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. It's strange for Americans to be on the busi

It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. It's strange for Americans to be on the business side of a propaganda weapon, as we're more used to using against our enemies. Technology has finally made it feasible for malicious actors to cheaply and effectively manipulate people with lies, here in the US. If you don't believe it's a weapon, you're wrong. If you don't believe weaponized misinformation is dangerous, look at the regimes it's toppled. And if you think the "American spirit," or somesuch nonsense, makes us immune, I hope we won't have to find out.

leovingi 6y ago
"weaponized misinformation" scary buzzwords are scary
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  When you can’t call something a lie but you still want to invalidate its legitimacy, you say “misinformation”
ceilingcorner 6y ago
You are assuming that the regular media is the default, the truth, and that propaganda didn’t exist prior to 2016. Read Manufacturing Consent for a brief overview of this history of widespread weaponization of information by innumerable actors. Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility.
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  This is the kinds of "both-sides-ism" that gives centrists a bad reputation. You're basically saying: "everyone uses media to achieve their goals, therefore all sides are equally bad." No. Using misinformation to intentionally disrupt a democratic election is demonstrably dangerous to society. Say what you will about the "establishment," but traditional media still bear some semblance of the truth. Now we're seeing that anyone with enough money and Twitter followers and completely ignore the truth. We have to draw the line somewhere.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    I’m not a centrist and none of my points are making any centrist arguments. Using misinformation to intentionally disrupt a democratic election is demonstrably dangerous to society. And you think this is the first time in the history of American democracy that actors used misinformation to influence an election? Again, this is not a new phenomenon whatsoever. All that’s new is that more people have access to the technology, which makes the previous gatekeepers nervous.
    - andrei_says_ 6y ago
      I hope this is not an argument for giving powerful weaponized mass disinformation tools to more people, including foreign governments and other actors actively seeking to polarize society to the point of inciting conflict and dismantling democracy. Yes, removing this type of speech from YouTube may be an imperfect / stopgap solution. What are some better alternatives?
      - ceilingcorner 6y ago
        I’m not arguing for that, but it might actually be an indirect solution. By forcing everyone to deal with it, skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise. As an example, I think a similar situation will happen with deepfakes. Once it becomes widely known that it’s easy to fake video, people will become more skeptical of it.
        foepys 6y ago
        > skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise And you are willing to sacrifice democracy for just the chance of this happening?
        ceilingcorner 6y ago
        This rhetoric makes no sense to me. People are already subject to incomprehensible levels of propaganda from every angle and have been for over a century. When and where was there a perfect democracy?
- viraptor 6y ago
  Other kind of media having issues does not disprove the comment you're responding to. You're also assuming some opinions at the beginning which we haven't seen in the parent's comment. Things don't have to be black or white - it doesn't have to be democratisation vs establishment. There's way more nuance here. Including platform protecting its existence in case they fail so badly at filtering content that they get regulated by... establishment.
- cmdshiftf4 6y ago
  >Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility. Beautifully put. Better get ahead of it lest the proles gain class consciousness and use it against us.
  - hackyhacky 6y ago
    I'm sure you mean that sarcastically, but you shouldn't. It's fun to complain about "the establishment," until it isn't there anymore. In the current case, "the establishment" means American democracy, which is built on people's faith in the institution of elections. If you erode that faith, democracy no longer works. That may be fine with you, but it's not fine with me.
    - nomel 6y ago
      Then why base it on faith? Make it impossible to vote multiple times/places, or as someone else. Invalidate registration [6] for , and immediately flag when, a dead person tries to vote. Make it so you can instantaneously see that your vote was entered and confirm it to help with the anomaly detection. I think this is what everyone wants, and I think it would appease many worries. Unfortunately, this would almost certainly require voter ID, which has mixed popularity, and a reporting system, which requires tech, which the governments lowest bidder mentality appears to be wholly incapable of. Additionally, harden these electronic voting machines, which have had constant press about their vulnerable for the last two decades [1][2][3][4]. Open source the software stack. Even simple, human, steps like each person puts a provided penny into the machine, so counts can be correlated, would be an improvement and add a real world aspect that people could personally understand, over the counter in memory that has no traceability. The thing that I find most frustrating part about all of this is the perspective. Rather than silencing talk about fraud, hoping it will go away, we should tackle the reality of it and ask why people distrust the voting system, and find real world solutions, to increase that trust. The fact that every election before this one ended with sensational headlines of examples of voter fraud, but this year it's journalistic silence and social taboo, probably doesn't help (as insignificant as those previous stories were). [1] 2018: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-vulnerabilities-of-our-voting-machines/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-vulnerabiliti... [2] 2015: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/meet-the-e-voting-machine-so-easy-to-hack-it-will-take-your-breath-away/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/meet-the-e-votin... [3] 2010: https://www.texastribune.org/2010/10/22/e-voting-suit-reveals-frailties-of-the-ballot-box/ https://www.texastribune.org/2010/10/22/e-voting-suit-reveal... [4] 2004: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/technology/security-poor-in-electronic-voting-machines-study-warns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/technology/security-poor-... [5] https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-steal-election-12824.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-steal-election-12824.h...
- aww_dang 6y ago
  >Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed Agreed. The poster above invokes the special pleading fallacy. >What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility. There's a historical precedent for this in creation of moveable type printing presses.
  - DangitBobby 6y ago
    You have invoked the fallacy fallacy. Unfortunately, special pleading is only a fallacy if something isn't actually different from the thing it's being compared to. So I disagree fundamentally that it's special pleading. The hostility is not just from establishment, it's from normal people like me, GP, and millions of other Americans that feel like we're taking crazy pills because of all the stupid shit people now inexplicably believe due to weaponized misinformation at a scale never before seen.
    - aww_dang 6y ago
      "Weaponized information" can mean everything from partisan hyperbole to observations that don't mesh with one's biases. Addicts everywhere repeat the phrase, "this time is different". What makes it special pleading is the lack of evidence or even a reasoned argument supporting this assertion.
      - DangitBobby 6y ago
        Kinda just seems like you haven't been listening.
        aww_dang 6y ago
        You are cordially invited to qualify why "this time is different" and how speech or as you put it "weaponized misinformation", is equivalent to violence. Defend the assertion with a reasoned argument. Otherwise, it is simply special pleading.
        6y ago
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Manufacturing an argument the other party didn't make, ("You are assuming that the regular media is the default, the truth"), and choosing to rebut that strawman then their actual key point ("It's about combating weaponized misinformation"), is disengenuous in the extreme. The weapons now are bigger, faster, have greater reach, higher fidelity, multimedia appeal, vastly more intelligence and data, can be tuned in realtime, and delivered with precisionnto higly selected audiences completely under the public radar. All of which "Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed" utterly ignores.
  - CuriouslyC 6y ago
    People have been killing each other and themselves for the supremacy of fairy tales since the beginning of time, but please tell me how getting someone to believe a conspiracy theory and vote "badly" is somehow a society-breaking new invention.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Scale. Anonymity. Impunity. Rate. Effectiveness.
- camillomiller 6y ago
  The problem is that now we have weapons of mass information distraction.
  - lenkite 6y ago
    I agree - you can't trust the main stream media anymore. Always verify their reports by yourself. They are careful about directly lying - but twisting and omitting information is something they are genius at.
andrei_says_ 6y ago
> And if you think the "American spirit," or somesuch nonsense, makes us immune, I hope we won't have to find out. If anything, it makes us so much more vulnerable.
tomcam 6y ago
Calling the opinion of someone you disagree with “weaponized disinformation” doesn’t mean it’s anything but someone else’s opinion. It is chilling that you don’t seem to know the difference between a free Press and an immediate threat to your life.
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  I think you don't know what the weapon is. The weapon is wielded by people who know better: by Trump, by Giuliani, by Hannity. They know the truth, but are cynically using their platform to manipulate the population. The consequences are destructive. The opinions are not the weapon. The opinions are the wound, caused by the weapon.
  - endominus 6y ago
    Your point raises a couple of questions. First, do you think it is only your outgroup (Fox News, Republican politicians, etc) that would use misinformation? Democrats and other media outlets don't stand to gain from its use, or are too moral to resort to it? Second, the precedent this sets is that the government can state one set of facts to be true, and force compliance to that truth from media. Do you not see this as a potential problem? Even if you believe that your group would never abuse that power, do you think that they will remain in power eternally? Is it not possible for this "defense" against "weaponized misinformation" to be used against you?
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      > First, do you think it is only your outgroup (Fox News, Republican politicians, etc) that would use misinformation? Can you point to any evidence anyone on the Democratic side of the fence has questioned the legitimacy of the last election even though control of the Senate may still easily fall into the hands of the group that prevented legal court nominations by an elected president while, under the very same conditions, rushed through the nomination to a SCOTUS seat of a judge that has barely three years of experience in that function?
jb775 6y ago
What happens when the "weaponized misinformation" ends up being true? From the article: Hunter Biden was announcing that his “tax affairs” were under investigation....That news was denounced as Russian disinformation by virtually everyone in “reputable” media, who often dismissed the story with an aristocratic snort....That tale was not Russian disinformation, however, and Biden’s announcement this week strongly suggests Twitter and Facebook suppressed a real story of legitimate public interest just before a presidential election.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  Contrast this to the accusations of election meddling in the previous election. At this point the farce has exceeded its self. Yet raging partisans still manage to suspend their disbelief where it suits their biases.
rayiner 6y ago
What is the harm model here? After the 2016 election, more than half of Democrats disagreed that the elections “were free and fair.” https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article247121139.html https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/e... > Of registered voters surveyed, 53% said the 2016 election between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton was free and fair and 33% said it was not.... 39% of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters said it was. Half of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters said it wasn’t free and fair. I’m not trying to create an equivalence between what Clinton said and what Trump is saying. I’m talking about the beliefs of the voting public, which are clear in the polls. Half of the people who lost in 2016 thought the election wasn’t fair, but democracy didn’t end. What’s the danger here that justifies censorship?
- kenjackson 6y ago
  Very different situations though. Hillary conceded. And no one I personally knew really thought that Trump would not become president. Most people believed there was Russian interference, but most didn’t believe they were literally changing votes. The Senate agreed with that assessment. While I’m no fan of Trump and vote mostly Democratic I do think Trump won in 2016 and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. I have a much smaller social circle of Republicans and they ALL believe Trump won this year.
  - forgingahead 6y ago
    So why not then support the process of: 1. Signature matching on mailed ballots 2. Broadcasting the hearings in the accused states (MI, PA, GA, WI, AZ, etc) 3. Actually hearing the cases at both the state and federal level, and then throwing them out on the facts presented, instead of refusing to hear them on "lack of standing" to begin with? Win in the court of transparency. Make the crackpots look like crackpots, loudly and publicly, through a process of transparency that then becomes impossible to challenge or cast doubt upon, except for the most hardened of partisans. Why is there such a refusal for this to happen?
    - XorNot 6y ago
remarkEon 6y ago
>It's about combating weaponized misinformation. Nah. It's about whether or not we are okay with giant corporate tech companies deciding what is and what isn't "weaponized misinformation". I'm fully up to speed on the history of the United States using information as a weapon abroad, but what makes me uncomfortable about this situation is that tech folks seem to have dropped our usual skepticism about that strategy, and are somehow now okay with this happening domestically. Maybe I'm being naive, and this skepticism was never really justified, or is easily overrided by feelings about "making the world a better place". Whatever. It's still going to be weird to me to watch my friends who work in tech, who in literally any other circumstance would be freaking out at the prospect of tech companies deciding what you get to see on these gigaplatforms, jettison their skepticism in order to "protect democracy". >And if you think the "American spirit," or somesuch nonsense, makes us immune, I hope we won't have to find out. Not sure this invocation makes the point you think it does. Seems to me the "American spirit" you're invoking in the negative is one built on a mythos of telling totalitarians, be they government or corporate, to go fuck themselves. Recent history gives one good reason to be skeptical, give the corporatism and financialism rampant in the US economy. But that's still the mythos. I've still got a little Faith left.
CyberRabbi 6y ago
I think your information is weaponized misinformation, so now it’s just a game of “who has more power?” Live by the sword...
beaner 6y ago
"Weaponized mininformation." The same people claiming this now are the same ones who promoted Russigate for 2+ years. It had absolutely no basis in reality and resulted in no evidence of collusion - at all. But the whole time we were bombarded with claims of it by the media. It wasn't just fringe youtubers or twitter commenters, it was the actual mainstream media. Where was this attitude of yours when that was going on? I'm sorry but you're just fucking full of shit. You don't even realize how compromised and implicitly biased your thinking is. You are not being honest, not being fair.
- ModernMech 6y ago
  So Trump’s campaign manager shuffling internal campaign polling data to a Russian Intel Officer (the Senate Intel Committee’s characterization, not mine), while Russian Intelligence is busy waging a directed psyops campaign against the American public, and then lying about it to the FBI is not evidence of collusion? Trump’s close associate Roger Stone had advanced knowledge of hacked DNC materials from Wikileaks and told Trump, but not the FBI, then lied about it to Congress. Not evidence of collusion? Trump’s son, son in law, and campaign manager met with a now convicted Russian spy in Trump’s house, who laid out terms for delivering materials damaging to Clinton - relaxed sanctions. Trump lied about this meeting’s existence to the American public. Not evidence of collusion? To summarize: Trump knew Russia was trying to help him. He knew they wanted to offer dirt on Clinton in exchange for better relations. The hacked information was indeed delivered, meanwhile Trump’s campaign was funneling internal data to Russian Intel, which was attacking The election. And surprise surprise, the Republican platform that year was softer on Russia than it ever had been in the last 40 years. Suddenly Republicans don’t care about Russian annexation of Crimea? For no reason at all? No evidence? Really? Let me guess, you only read the Bill Barr memo, which a Federal Judge has noted seemed to be intentionally misleading of the Mueller Report. I guess you also haven’t read the Senate Intel report, which lays out 900 pages of evidence related to Russian interference of the 2016 election, and the Trump campaign’s entangled involvement with it. Maybe you don’t believe they colluded, but let’s remember that the original, official Trump campaign line was that they had zero contacts and zero deals with Russia. This turned out to be a complete lie.
  - 6y ago
greenflame7 6y ago
What if you did all that and you were wrong? What if you accidentally censor something that was true cough Hunter Biden's Laptop cough
ldng 6y ago
It always existed and education is a great way to treat it. Banning certainly is easier.
lliamander 6y ago
> If you don't believe it's a weapon, you're wrong. If you don't believe weaponized misinformation is dangerous, look at the regimes it's toppled. And if you think the "American spirit," or somesuch nonsense, makes us immune, I hope we won't have to find out. I don't see anyone here arguing those points, so I think this is a bit of a strawman. > It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. The argument, as I see it, is that "weaponized misinformation" and "disagreement" are not cleanly separable categories, and than anyone with the power to ban the former will almost certainly use it to ban the latter.
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  They are definitely separable, based on intent. The marketplace of ideas works only insofar as everyone involved operates with good faith. Weaponized misinformation is the opposite of that: expressing what appears to be an opinion, but is actually a manipulation tactic. Look in particular for arguments that appeal to emotion (especially anger), nationalism, and in-group/out-group. The fascists understood, and still understand, these strategies. If you can't tell the difference between a genuine opinion and a misinformation tactic, you are ill prepared to participate in today's media environment.
  - lliamander 6y ago
    > They are definitely separable, based on intent. That is frankly naive. Many earnest people repeat dangerous lies, and wicked people are more that willing to use the truth, especially if it is an uncomfortable truth that is important but overlooked by polite society. > If you can't tell the difference between a genuine opinion and a misinformation tactic, you are ill prepared to participate in today's media environment. On the contrary, I can do a much better job at the scale I operate at than YouTube can do at the scale it operates at. Furthermore, I take the very liberal view that I have both the right and the responsibility to make up my own mind about others' speech. I hold in low regard those who try to take that from me.
    - hackyhacky 6y ago
poutrathor 6y ago
> It's strange for Americans to be on the business side of a propaganda weapon, as we're more used to using against our enemies. Funny that no top replies pounced on that starting axiom. USA have been widely known as a propaganda massive producer firstly toward its own citizens, even today. From military cult, pledge at schools, commies witch hunting and globalisation hammering, and of course, all your religions and sub-religions, you all have been living and keep living inside daily propaganda.
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  Yes. The difference was, back then, the US government had a monopoly on propaganda in the US. I'm not saying that's great, but at least it's stable. Now we're in an age where propaganda literally goes to the highest bidder. Propaganda is a weapon, and I'd rather my own government hold it, than unknown entities.
complexmango 6y ago
I’m probably older than you and heard this exact same argument used by the Indian government to censor television (we had exactly 1 channel of government run TV growing up). Are you listening to yourself? You sound like a religious zealot hundreds of years ago arguing to ban the technology of books because they might say things you disagree with. ‘Ban Martin Luther, he is trying to destroy the Catholic Church’. It remains a mystery why so many Americans are so incredibly ignorant of history. Is it because school systems became overrun by propaganda because of teachers unions?
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  1. There is a quantifiable difference between banning dissenting opinions and banning intentional weaponized misinformation. No ban will be perfect, but a failure to fight back against misinformation is the same as giving power to anyone with enough money and enough Twitter followers. The loudest voice controls the most minds. 2. We're not in the middle ages anymore. Back then, a malicious individual seeking to spread misinformation was limited in their options. The target audience wasn't literate, so the best you could do was stand shouting on the street corner. These days, unlike any previous time in history, we have fast, effective, cheap methods, that adapt to the user's preferences, to tell them exactly what they want to hear. We know from plenty of historical examples of both wartime and peace-time propaganda, that lies are effective. How can you be so ignorant of history? In short, it's not Martin Luther I'm fighting against, but rather the Catholic Church.

leovingi 6y ago

"weaponized misinformation" scary buzzwords are scary

CyberRabbi 6y ago
When you can’t call something a lie but you still want to invalidate its legitimacy, you say “misinformation”

ceilingcorner 6y ago

You are assuming that the regular media is the default, the truth, and that propaganda didn’t exist prior to 2016. Read Manufacturing Consent for a brief overview of this history of widespread weaponization of information by innumerable actors. Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility.

hackyhacky 6y ago
This is the kinds of "both-sides-ism" that gives centrists a bad reputation. You're basically saying: "everyone uses media to achieve their goals, therefore all sides are equally bad." No. Using misinformation to intentionally disrupt a democratic election is demonstrably dangerous to society. Say what you will about the "establishment," but traditional media still bear some semblance of the truth. Now we're seeing that anyone with enough money and Twitter followers and completely ignore the truth. We have to draw the line somewhere.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  I’m not a centrist and none of my points are making any centrist arguments. Using misinformation to intentionally disrupt a democratic election is demonstrably dangerous to society. And you think this is the first time in the history of American democracy that actors used misinformation to influence an election? Again, this is not a new phenomenon whatsoever. All that’s new is that more people have access to the technology, which makes the previous gatekeepers nervous.
  - andrei_says_ 6y ago
    I hope this is not an argument for giving powerful weaponized mass disinformation tools to more people, including foreign governments and other actors actively seeking to polarize society to the point of inciting conflict and dismantling democracy. Yes, removing this type of speech from YouTube may be an imperfect / stopgap solution. What are some better alternatives?
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      I’m not arguing for that, but it might actually be an indirect solution. By forcing everyone to deal with it, skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise. As an example, I think a similar situation will happen with deepfakes. Once it becomes widely known that it’s easy to fake video, people will become more skeptical of it.
      - foepys 6y ago
        > skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise And you are willing to sacrifice democracy for just the chance of this happening?
        ceilingcorner 6y ago
        This rhetoric makes no sense to me. People are already subject to incomprehensible levels of propaganda from every angle and have been for over a century. When and where was there a perfect democracy?
viraptor 6y ago
Other kind of media having issues does not disprove the comment you're responding to. You're also assuming some opinions at the beginning which we haven't seen in the parent's comment. Things don't have to be black or white - it doesn't have to be democratisation vs establishment. There's way more nuance here. Including platform protecting its existence in case they fail so badly at filtering content that they get regulated by... establishment.
cmdshiftf4 6y ago
>Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility. Beautifully put. Better get ahead of it lest the proles gain class consciousness and use it against us.
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  I'm sure you mean that sarcastically, but you shouldn't. It's fun to complain about "the establishment," until it isn't there anymore. In the current case, "the establishment" means American democracy, which is built on people's faith in the institution of elections. If you erode that faith, democracy no longer works. That may be fine with you, but it's not fine with me.
  - nomel 6y ago
    Then why base it on faith? Make it impossible to vote multiple times/places, or as someone else. Invalidate registration [6] for , and immediately flag when, a dead person tries to vote. Make it so you can instantaneously see that your vote was entered and confirm it to help with the anomaly detection. I think this is what everyone wants, and I think it would appease many worries. Unfortunately, this would almost certainly require voter ID, which has mixed popularity, and a reporting system, which requires tech, which the governments lowest bidder mentality appears to be wholly incapable of. Additionally, harden these electronic voting machines, which have had constant press about their vulnerable for the last two decades [1][2][3][4]. Open source the software stack. Even simple, human, steps like each person puts a provided penny into the machine, so counts can be correlated, would be an improvement and add a real world aspect that people could personally understand, over the counter in memory that has no traceability. The thing that I find most frustrating part about all of this is the perspective. Rather than silencing talk about fraud, hoping it will go away, we should tackle the reality of it and ask why people distrust the voting system, and find real world solutions, to increase that trust. The fact that every election before this one ended with sensational headlines of examples of voter fraud, but this year it's journalistic silence and social taboo, probably doesn't help (as insignificant as those previous stories were). [1] 2018: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-vulnerabilities-of-our-voting-machines/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-vulnerabiliti... [2] 2015: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/meet-the-e-voting-machine-so-easy-to-hack-it-will-take-your-breath-away/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/meet-the-e-votin... [3] 2010: https://www.texastribune.org/2010/10/22/e-voting-suit-reveals-frailties-of-the-ballot-box/ https://www.texastribune.org/2010/10/22/e-voting-suit-reveal... [4] 2004: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/technology/security-poor-in-electronic-voting-machines-study-warns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/technology/security-poor-... [5] https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-steal-election-12824.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-steal-election-12824.h...
aww_dang 6y ago
>Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed Agreed. The poster above invokes the special pleading fallacy. >What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility. There's a historical precedent for this in creation of moveable type printing presses.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  You have invoked the fallacy fallacy. Unfortunately, special pleading is only a fallacy if something isn't actually different from the thing it's being compared to. So I disagree fundamentally that it's special pleading. The hostility is not just from establishment, it's from normal people like me, GP, and millions of other Americans that feel like we're taking crazy pills because of all the stupid shit people now inexplicably believe due to weaponized misinformation at a scale never before seen.
  - aww_dang 6y ago
    "Weaponized information" can mean everything from partisan hyperbole to observations that don't mesh with one's biases. Addicts everywhere repeat the phrase, "this time is different". What makes it special pleading is the lack of evidence or even a reasoned argument supporting this assertion.
    - DangitBobby 6y ago
      Kinda just seems like you haven't been listening.
      - aww_dang 6y ago
        You are cordially invited to qualify why "this time is different" and how speech or as you put it "weaponized misinformation", is equivalent to violence. Defend the assertion with a reasoned argument. Otherwise, it is simply special pleading.
        6y ago
dredmorbius 6y ago
Manufacturing an argument the other party didn't make, ("You are assuming that the regular media is the default, the truth"), and choosing to rebut that strawman then their actual key point ("It's about combating weaponized misinformation"), is disengenuous in the extreme. The weapons now are bigger, faster, have greater reach, higher fidelity, multimedia appeal, vastly more intelligence and data, can be tuned in realtime, and delivered with precisionnto higly selected audiences completely under the public radar. All of which "Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed" utterly ignores.
- CuriouslyC 6y ago
  People have been killing each other and themselves for the supremacy of fairy tales since the beginning of time, but please tell me how getting someone to believe a conspiracy theory and vote "badly" is somehow a society-breaking new invention.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Scale. Anonymity. Impunity. Rate. Effectiveness.
camillomiller 6y ago
The problem is that now we have weapons of mass information distraction.
- lenkite 6y ago
  I agree - you can't trust the main stream media anymore. Always verify their reports by yourself. They are careful about directly lying - but twisting and omitting information is something they are genius at.

andrei_says_ 6y ago

> And if you think the "American spirit," or somesuch nonsense, makes us immune, I hope we won't have to find out. If anything, it makes us so much more vulnerable.

tomcam 6y ago

Calling the opinion of someone you disagree with “weaponized disinformation” doesn’t mean it’s anything but someone else’s opinion. It is chilling that you don’t seem to know the difference between a free Press and an immediate threat to your life.

hackyhacky 6y ago
I think you don't know what the weapon is. The weapon is wielded by people who know better: by Trump, by Giuliani, by Hannity. They know the truth, but are cynically using their platform to manipulate the population. The consequences are destructive. The opinions are not the weapon. The opinions are the wound, caused by the weapon.
- endominus 6y ago
  Your point raises a couple of questions. First, do you think it is only your outgroup (Fox News, Republican politicians, etc) that would use misinformation? Democrats and other media outlets don't stand to gain from its use, or are too moral to resort to it? Second, the precedent this sets is that the government can state one set of facts to be true, and force compliance to that truth from media. Do you not see this as a potential problem? Even if you believe that your group would never abuse that power, do you think that they will remain in power eternally? Is it not possible for this "defense" against "weaponized misinformation" to be used against you?
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    > First, do you think it is only your outgroup (Fox News, Republican politicians, etc) that would use misinformation? Can you point to any evidence anyone on the Democratic side of the fence has questioned the legitimacy of the last election even though control of the Senate may still easily fall into the hands of the group that prevented legal court nominations by an elected president while, under the very same conditions, rushed through the nomination to a SCOTUS seat of a judge that has barely three years of experience in that function?

jb775 6y ago

What happens when the "weaponized misinformation" ends up being true? From the article: Hunter Biden was announcing that his “tax affairs” were under investigation....That news was denounced as Russian disinformation by virtually everyone in “reputable” media, who often dismissed the story with an aristocratic snort....That tale was not Russian disinformation, however, and Biden’s announcement this week strongly suggests Twitter and Facebook suppressed a real story of legitimate public interest just before a presidential election.

aww_dang 6y ago
Contrast this to the accusations of election meddling in the previous election. At this point the farce has exceeded its self. Yet raging partisans still manage to suspend their disbelief where it suits their biases.

rayiner 6y ago

What is the harm model here? After the 2016 election, more than half of Democrats disagreed that the elections “were free and fair.” https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article247121139.html https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/e... > Of registered voters surveyed, 53% said the 2016 election between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton was free and fair and 33% said it was not.... 39% of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters said it was. Half of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters said it wasn’t free and fair. I’m not trying to create an equivalence between what Clinton said and what Trump is saying. I’m talking about the beliefs of the voting public, which are clear in the polls. Half of the people who lost in 2016 thought the election wasn’t fair, but democracy didn’t end. What’s the danger here that justifies censorship?

kenjackson 6y ago
Very different situations though. Hillary conceded. And no one I personally knew really thought that Trump would not become president. Most people believed there was Russian interference, but most didn’t believe they were literally changing votes. The Senate agreed with that assessment. While I’m no fan of Trump and vote mostly Democratic I do think Trump won in 2016 and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. I have a much smaller social circle of Republicans and they ALL believe Trump won this year.
- forgingahead 6y ago
  So why not then support the process of: 1. Signature matching on mailed ballots 2. Broadcasting the hearings in the accused states (MI, PA, GA, WI, AZ, etc) 3. Actually hearing the cases at both the state and federal level, and then throwing them out on the facts presented, instead of refusing to hear them on "lack of standing" to begin with? Win in the court of transparency. Make the crackpots look like crackpots, loudly and publicly, through a process of transparency that then becomes impossible to challenge or cast doubt upon, except for the most hardened of partisans. Why is there such a refusal for this to happen?
  - XorNot 6y ago

remarkEon 6y ago

>It's about combating weaponized misinformation. Nah. It's about whether or not we are okay with giant corporate tech companies deciding what is and what isn't "weaponized misinformation". I'm fully up to speed on the history of the United States using information as a weapon abroad, but what makes me uncomfortable about this situation is that tech folks seem to have dropped our usual skepticism about that strategy, and are somehow now okay with this happening domestically. Maybe I'm being naive, and this skepticism was never really justified, or is easily overrided by feelings about "making the world a better place". Whatever. It's still going to be weird to me to watch my friends who work in tech, who in literally any other circumstance would be freaking out at the prospect of tech companies deciding what you get to see on these gigaplatforms, jettison their skepticism in order to "protect democracy". >And if you think the "American spirit," or somesuch nonsense, makes us immune, I hope we won't have to find out. Not sure this invocation makes the point you think it does. Seems to me the "American spirit" you're invoking in the negative is one built on a mythos of telling totalitarians, be they government or corporate, to go fuck themselves. Recent history gives one good reason to be skeptical, give the corporatism and financialism rampant in the US economy. But that's still the mythos. I've still got a little Faith left.

CyberRabbi 6y ago

I think your information is weaponized misinformation, so now it’s just a game of “who has more power?” Live by the sword...

beaner 6y ago

"Weaponized mininformation." The same people claiming this now are the same ones who promoted Russigate for 2+ years. It had absolutely no basis in reality and resulted in no evidence of collusion - at all. But the whole time we were bombarded with claims of it by the media. It wasn't just fringe youtubers or twitter commenters, it was the actual mainstream media. Where was this attitude of yours when that was going on? I'm sorry but you're just fucking full of shit. You don't even realize how compromised and implicitly biased your thinking is. You are not being honest, not being fair.

ModernMech 6y ago
So Trump’s campaign manager shuffling internal campaign polling data to a Russian Intel Officer (the Senate Intel Committee’s characterization, not mine), while Russian Intelligence is busy waging a directed psyops campaign against the American public, and then lying about it to the FBI is not evidence of collusion? Trump’s close associate Roger Stone had advanced knowledge of hacked DNC materials from Wikileaks and told Trump, but not the FBI, then lied about it to Congress. Not evidence of collusion? Trump’s son, son in law, and campaign manager met with a now convicted Russian spy in Trump’s house, who laid out terms for delivering materials damaging to Clinton - relaxed sanctions. Trump lied about this meeting’s existence to the American public. Not evidence of collusion? To summarize: Trump knew Russia was trying to help him. He knew they wanted to offer dirt on Clinton in exchange for better relations. The hacked information was indeed delivered, meanwhile Trump’s campaign was funneling internal data to Russian Intel, which was attacking The election. And surprise surprise, the Republican platform that year was softer on Russia than it ever had been in the last 40 years. Suddenly Republicans don’t care about Russian annexation of Crimea? For no reason at all? No evidence? Really? Let me guess, you only read the Bill Barr memo, which a Federal Judge has noted seemed to be intentionally misleading of the Mueller Report. I guess you also haven’t read the Senate Intel report, which lays out 900 pages of evidence related to Russian interference of the 2016 election, and the Trump campaign’s entangled involvement with it. Maybe you don’t believe they colluded, but let’s remember that the original, official Trump campaign line was that they had zero contacts and zero deals with Russia. This turned out to be a complete lie.
- 6y ago

greenflame7 6y ago

What if you did all that and you were wrong? What if you accidentally censor something that was true cough Hunter Biden's Laptop cough

ldng 6y ago

It always existed and education is a great way to treat it. Banning certainly is easier.

lliamander 6y ago

> If you don't believe it's a weapon, you're wrong. If you don't believe weaponized misinformation is dangerous, look at the regimes it's toppled. And if you think the "American spirit," or somesuch nonsense, makes us immune, I hope we won't have to find out. I don't see anyone here arguing those points, so I think this is a bit of a strawman. > It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. The argument, as I see it, is that "weaponized misinformation" and "disagreement" are not cleanly separable categories, and than anyone with the power to ban the former will almost certainly use it to ban the latter.

hackyhacky 6y ago
They are definitely separable, based on intent. The marketplace of ideas works only insofar as everyone involved operates with good faith. Weaponized misinformation is the opposite of that: expressing what appears to be an opinion, but is actually a manipulation tactic. Look in particular for arguments that appeal to emotion (especially anger), nationalism, and in-group/out-group. The fascists understood, and still understand, these strategies. If you can't tell the difference between a genuine opinion and a misinformation tactic, you are ill prepared to participate in today's media environment.
- lliamander 6y ago
  > They are definitely separable, based on intent. That is frankly naive. Many earnest people repeat dangerous lies, and wicked people are more that willing to use the truth, especially if it is an uncomfortable truth that is important but overlooked by polite society. > If you can't tell the difference between a genuine opinion and a misinformation tactic, you are ill prepared to participate in today's media environment. On the contrary, I can do a much better job at the scale I operate at than YouTube can do at the scale it operates at. Furthermore, I take the very liberal view that I have both the right and the responsibility to make up my own mind about others' speech. I hold in low regard those who try to take that from me.
  - hackyhacky 6y ago

poutrathor 6y ago

> It's strange for Americans to be on the business side of a propaganda weapon, as we're more used to using against our enemies. Funny that no top replies pounced on that starting axiom. USA have been widely known as a propaganda massive producer firstly toward its own citizens, even today. From military cult, pledge at schools, commies witch hunting and globalisation hammering, and of course, all your religions and sub-religions, you all have been living and keep living inside daily propaganda.

hackyhacky 6y ago
Yes. The difference was, back then, the US government had a monopoly on propaganda in the US. I'm not saying that's great, but at least it's stable. Now we're in an age where propaganda literally goes to the highest bidder. Propaganda is a weapon, and I'd rather my own government hold it, than unknown entities.

complexmango 6y ago

I’m probably older than you and heard this exact same argument used by the Indian government to censor television (we had exactly 1 channel of government run TV growing up). Are you listening to yourself? You sound like a religious zealot hundreds of years ago arguing to ban the technology of books because they might say things you disagree with. ‘Ban Martin Luther, he is trying to destroy the Catholic Church’. It remains a mystery why so many Americans are so incredibly ignorant of history. Is it because school systems became overrun by propaganda because of teachers unions?

hackyhacky 6y ago
1. There is a quantifiable difference between banning dissenting opinions and banning intentional weaponized misinformation. No ban will be perfect, but a failure to fight back against misinformation is the same as giving power to anyone with enough money and enough Twitter followers. The loudest voice controls the most minds. 2. We're not in the middle ages anymore. Back then, a malicious individual seeking to spread misinformation was limited in their options. The target audience wasn't literate, so the best you could do was stand shouting on the street corner. These days, unlike any previous time in history, we have fast, effective, cheap methods, that adapt to the user's preferences, to tell them exactly what they want to hear. We know from plenty of historical examples of both wartime and peace-time propaganda, that lies are effective. How can you be so ignorant of history? In short, it's not Martin Luther I'm fighting against, but rather the Catholic Church.