5 ms·

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

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?
        foepys 6y ago
        For traditional publishing there is at least one person that is ultimately responsible for publishing it. The person is in the vast majority of cases subject to the same jurisdiction. On YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. I can push my agenda worldwide. Russia, China, Iran, and other non-democracies can make insane amounts of propaganda for very cheap to reach millions of people. The engagement algorithms even help the propagandists reach their target audience effectively. The algorithms help then widen the audience automatically through shares of their supporters and further engagement.
        samoa42 6y ago
        seems youtube is blocked in china and iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube
        foepys 6y ago
        I don't see how the Chinese and Iranian governments need to worry about YouTube being blocked when they want to spread propaganda in the US and Europe.
        DangitBobby 6y ago
        The goal is not perfect democracy, it's functional democracy.
  - Reelin 6y ago
    > foreign governments and other actors actively seeking to polarize society > What are some better alternatives? I have no idea if it's mathematically possible but I'd be optimistic about the potential of a (hypothetical) privacy preserving web of trust metric. It would be really nice to have at least some limited indication of how the person behind the account fits into the world at large. Right now you can't reliably determine (arbitrary examples) country or even continent of residence, paid posts by an organized campaign (PR, propaganda, etc) versus organic occurrences, etc. Of course, Facebook is the ever present counterexample where people proudly attach their full legal name to hate filled streams. But at least I personally know for certain that they're local people who actually exist and aren't being paid for their posts! Silver linings and all that.
    - xg15 6y ago
      But web of trust is still something you have to know and consciously decide to use. What if a majority of people would simply ignore it because it conflicts with the opinion formed in their own bubble - or if they simply don't know about it or don't know how to use it?
      - Reelin 6y ago
        Not if it's built into the communication platform you happen to be using. Just one or a few basic indicators to give you even the slightest bit of information about who wrote what you're reading. Just a simple "p = 0.03 US resident" or an aggregate trust score based on a combination of social graph connectivity and spam reports or something. Sure, people could intentionally ignore it, but right now there's no indicator to be had even if you want it! To be clear, I'm not talking about present day clunky GPG web of trust with key signing parties and all that. I'm talking about a hypothetical (ie as yet nonexistent) magical web of trust that somehow doesn't destroy your privacy in the process of being used. (It's not as crazy as it sounds - we already have zero knowledge proofs, blinded encryption, and various other privacy preserving cryptographic schemes.)
read_if_gay_ 6y ago
I don’t like the word bothsidesism because it implies that in reality only one side is the bad actor. That is a massive implication considering how casually it’s thrown around. Moreover, it’s used like an accusation. Accusing people of acknowledging that things probably aren’t black and white. Full on groupthink.
- pii 6y ago
  Black and white ;) It's more like 80% / 20%. The disparity is huge, documented, and factual.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    How are you objectively going to document misinformation? How are you even going to assign weights? Voter fraud is 100 points for Trump, the Hunter story is 50 points for the Dems, etc..? The thing is that if you ask side X they’ll say it’s 80/20 for side Y and vice versa. Neither should be so confident that they’re right. And pointing that out is now called bothsidesism. The lengths people go to to avoid cognitive dissonance is beyond ridiculous.
- hackyhacky 6y ago
  Not all bad actors are equally bad. Hillary wasn't perfect. People didn't like her, and we got Trump. The Weimar Republic was corrupt and ineffective. The Third Reich was corrupt and extremely effective. Democracy is the history of choosing the least bad. If you consider all bads to be the same, you are not a responsible voter.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    > Democracy is the history of choosing the least bad. Ok, so bothsidesism is justified since you acknowledge both sides are bad? > If you consider all bads to be the same, you are not a responsible voter. It’s a strawman to claim both sides are exactly the same level of bad. That’s not what GP was saying.
- MrMan 6y ago
samdlathsworth 6y ago
The Democrats ran maybe the biggest misinformation campaign in my lifetime following the 2016 election. Massive turmoil and investigations later, it was all found to be false. What is this about “sides” again?
- ModernMech 6y ago
  Mueller found Russia attacked the 2016 election and the Senate Intel Committee report found that Trump’s campaign manager was feeding internal campaign data to a Russian Intel Officer. Roger Stone was caught and convicted for lying to Congress about communications with Julian Assange, and the whole lot of them including Trump lied to the American people about hundreds of contacts with Russian nationals (some of whom turned out to be spies and Intel officers).
- Can_Not 6y ago
  The investigations that lead to convictions were entirely fabricated?
  - TMWNN 6y ago
    No American on the Trump side was indicted of anything actually related to "Russiagate", but for unrelated procedural crimes discovered during the investigation. (You know the saying that everyone wittingly or unwittingly commits three crimes a day?) Several Russian agents were indicted for Russiagate-related things; Putin will turn his goons over to US custody any day now! Then we have people like Carter Page, whose name was raked over the coals for years because a FBI lawyer intentionally altered evidence (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/fbi-ig-report-russia-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/fbi-ig-report...) showing that far from being a Russian asset, Page had for years briefed the CIA every time he met with suspicious Russians. (Got to love how the Times describes said altering evidence as a "serious error".) You want an actual Russiagate-related indictment and guilty plea? Kevin Clinesmith, said FBI lawyer, is your man.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections ICA 2017-01D 6 January 2017 Key Judgments Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations. We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments. ... https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
EricE 6y ago
"traditional media still bear some semblance of the truth." Seriously? Four years of "RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA" and it turns out that the same people knew before they started peddling that narrative that it was (and still is) at its core a smear campaign cooked up by the Clintons. Hunter Biden - completely buried before the election, now all of the sudden that the election is over the media is "breaking" this important story? I could go on but I'm sure if it didn't fit your preconceived notions of what the "truth" is you'd be too busy drawing your lines.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Hunter Biden - completely buried before the election, now all of the sudden that the election is over the media is "breaking" this important story? The allegations were well covered before the election. The new story that they are covering now is the announcement by DoJ of the ongoing investigation. The media didn't suppress that before the election, Bill Barr did, doing a surprising simulation (given his past conduct) of professionalism in observing historical Justice norms around elections on that point.

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?
      - foepys 6y ago
        For traditional publishing there is at least one person that is ultimately responsible for publishing it. The person is in the vast majority of cases subject to the same jurisdiction. On YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. I can push my agenda worldwide. Russia, China, Iran, and other non-democracies can make insane amounts of propaganda for very cheap to reach millions of people. The engagement algorithms even help the propagandists reach their target audience effectively. The algorithms help then widen the audience automatically through shares of their supporters and further engagement.
        samoa42 6y ago
        seems youtube is blocked in china and iran https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_YouTube
        foepys 6y ago
        I don't see how the Chinese and Iranian governments need to worry about YouTube being blocked when they want to spread propaganda in the US and Europe.
      - DangitBobby 6y ago
        The goal is not perfect democracy, it's functional democracy.
- Reelin 6y ago
  > foreign governments and other actors actively seeking to polarize society > What are some better alternatives? I have no idea if it's mathematically possible but I'd be optimistic about the potential of a (hypothetical) privacy preserving web of trust metric. It would be really nice to have at least some limited indication of how the person behind the account fits into the world at large. Right now you can't reliably determine (arbitrary examples) country or even continent of residence, paid posts by an organized campaign (PR, propaganda, etc) versus organic occurrences, etc. Of course, Facebook is the ever present counterexample where people proudly attach their full legal name to hate filled streams. But at least I personally know for certain that they're local people who actually exist and aren't being paid for their posts! Silver linings and all that.
  - xg15 6y ago
    But web of trust is still something you have to know and consciously decide to use. What if a majority of people would simply ignore it because it conflicts with the opinion formed in their own bubble - or if they simply don't know about it or don't know how to use it?
    - Reelin 6y ago
      Not if it's built into the communication platform you happen to be using. Just one or a few basic indicators to give you even the slightest bit of information about who wrote what you're reading. Just a simple "p = 0.03 US resident" or an aggregate trust score based on a combination of social graph connectivity and spam reports or something. Sure, people could intentionally ignore it, but right now there's no indicator to be had even if you want it! To be clear, I'm not talking about present day clunky GPG web of trust with key signing parties and all that. I'm talking about a hypothetical (ie as yet nonexistent) magical web of trust that somehow doesn't destroy your privacy in the process of being used. (It's not as crazy as it sounds - we already have zero knowledge proofs, blinded encryption, and various other privacy preserving cryptographic schemes.)

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

I don’t like the word bothsidesism because it implies that in reality only one side is the bad actor. That is a massive implication considering how casually it’s thrown around. Moreover, it’s used like an accusation. Accusing people of acknowledging that things probably aren’t black and white. Full on groupthink.

pii 6y ago
Black and white ;) It's more like 80% / 20%. The disparity is huge, documented, and factual.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  How are you objectively going to document misinformation? How are you even going to assign weights? Voter fraud is 100 points for Trump, the Hunter story is 50 points for the Dems, etc..? The thing is that if you ask side X they’ll say it’s 80/20 for side Y and vice versa. Neither should be so confident that they’re right. And pointing that out is now called bothsidesism. The lengths people go to to avoid cognitive dissonance is beyond ridiculous.
hackyhacky 6y ago
Not all bad actors are equally bad. Hillary wasn't perfect. People didn't like her, and we got Trump. The Weimar Republic was corrupt and ineffective. The Third Reich was corrupt and extremely effective. Democracy is the history of choosing the least bad. If you consider all bads to be the same, you are not a responsible voter.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  > Democracy is the history of choosing the least bad. Ok, so bothsidesism is justified since you acknowledge both sides are bad? > If you consider all bads to be the same, you are not a responsible voter. It’s a strawman to claim both sides are exactly the same level of bad. That’s not what GP was saying.
MrMan 6y ago

samdlathsworth 6y ago

The Democrats ran maybe the biggest misinformation campaign in my lifetime following the 2016 election. Massive turmoil and investigations later, it was all found to be false. What is this about “sides” again?

ModernMech 6y ago
Mueller found Russia attacked the 2016 election and the Senate Intel Committee report found that Trump’s campaign manager was feeding internal campaign data to a Russian Intel Officer. Roger Stone was caught and convicted for lying to Congress about communications with Julian Assange, and the whole lot of them including Trump lied to the American people about hundreds of contacts with Russian nationals (some of whom turned out to be spies and Intel officers).
Can_Not 6y ago
The investigations that lead to convictions were entirely fabricated?
- TMWNN 6y ago
  No American on the Trump side was indicted of anything actually related to "Russiagate", but for unrelated procedural crimes discovered during the investigation. (You know the saying that everyone wittingly or unwittingly commits three crimes a day?) Several Russian agents were indicted for Russiagate-related things; Putin will turn his goons over to US custody any day now! Then we have people like Carter Page, whose name was raked over the coals for years because a FBI lawyer intentionally altered evidence (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/fbi-ig-report-russia-investigation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/09/us/politics/fbi-ig-report...) showing that far from being a Russian asset, Page had for years briefed the CIA every time he met with suspicious Russians. (Got to love how the Times describes said altering evidence as a "serious error".) You want an actual Russiagate-related indictment and guilty plea? Kevin Clinesmith, said FBI lawyer, is your man.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections ICA 2017-01D 6 January 2017 Key Judgments Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations. We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments. ... https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

EricE 6y ago

"traditional media still bear some semblance of the truth." Seriously? Four years of "RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA" and it turns out that the same people knew before they started peddling that narrative that it was (and still is) at its core a smear campaign cooked up by the Clintons. Hunter Biden - completely buried before the election, now all of the sudden that the election is over the media is "breaking" this important story? I could go on but I'm sure if it didn't fit your preconceived notions of what the "truth" is you'd be too busy drawing your lines.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Hunter Biden - completely buried before the election, now all of the sudden that the election is over the media is "breaking" this important story? The allegations were well covered before the election. The new story that they are covering now is the announcement by DoJ of the ongoing investigation. The media didn't suppress that before the election, Bill Barr did, doing a surprising simulation (given his past conduct) of professionalism in observing historical Justice norms around elections on that point.