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I keep seeing this prediction, but have yet to see a convincing argument as to how this content is supposed to circumvent existing trust networks. News outlets

I keep seeing this prediction, but have yet to see a convincing argument as to how this content is supposed to circumvent existing trust networks. News outlets are nothing without a track record. People trust names they recognize. You can spin up as many CMS instances, domains, and social media profiles for fake news as you want, but without a history shared with its core audience, all the language models in the world aren't going to convince anyone but the most credulous when the content is coming from unfamiliar sources.

ramblenode 4y ago
Most people now get their news from downstream social media, not from the newsroom. You don't have to sway opinion with fake articles, just a sea of astroturf that supports some opinion and creates the illusion of a crowd, which has traditionally been the main signal for credibility of an idea.
NoMAD76 4y ago
Our grand-grand-granfathers generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I heard it in the church". Our grand-grandfathers generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I read it on the newspaper". Our grandfathers generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I've heard it on the radio". Our parents generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I've seen it on TV". Our generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I've read/seen/watch it on social media". I don't know about the next generations(s), the only thing in common for the above mentions was that they were made by a real-human.
vintermann 4y ago
Well, how is it done today? Twitter is instructive. You have mostly-automated accounts that like, retweet and reply to content from a specific perspective. Often it is an incendiary perspective, and usually it's a perspective underrepresented in regular news, because that's more useful for getting people to hit like and follow on the account's post. Once the account has gained enough real followers, they can carefully start to push payload content, the content the operator really cares about. This drives polarisation. There's this idea that sinister foreign adversaries are trying to "spread chaos", but I don't buy it. I think it's merely a by-product of building an audience. Russia (to pick an example) doesn't care about BLM, anti-BLM, US culture wars or the Assange case. Rather, it cares about exactly the things you'd expect it to care about: sanctions, conflicts it is involved in, allies etc. (For that matter, ad-driven media does much the same. Gawker before its demise had really gone all-in on "outrage bait" stories.) They're going to start with the most credulous, maybe, but they'll build confidence in the same way as everyone else who's an unknown at start.

ramblenode 4y ago

Most people now get their news from downstream social media, not from the newsroom. You don't have to sway opinion with fake articles, just a sea of astroturf that supports some opinion and creates the illusion of a crowd, which has traditionally been the main signal for credibility of an idea.

NoMAD76 4y ago

Our grand-grand-granfathers generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I heard it in the church". Our grand-grandfathers generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I read it on the newspaper". Our grandfathers generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I've heard it on the radio". Our parents generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I've seen it on TV". Our generation believed in most of the things because, you know "I've read/seen/watch it on social media". I don't know about the next generations(s), the only thing in common for the above mentions was that they were made by a real-human.

vintermann 4y ago

Well, how is it done today? Twitter is instructive. You have mostly-automated accounts that like, retweet and reply to content from a specific perspective. Often it is an incendiary perspective, and usually it's a perspective underrepresented in regular news, because that's more useful for getting people to hit like and follow on the account's post. Once the account has gained enough real followers, they can carefully start to push payload content, the content the operator really cares about. This drives polarisation. There's this idea that sinister foreign adversaries are trying to "spread chaos", but I don't buy it. I think it's merely a by-product of building an audience. Russia (to pick an example) doesn't care about BLM, anti-BLM, US culture wars or the Assange case. Rather, it cares about exactly the things you'd expect it to care about: sanctions, conflicts it is involved in, allies etc. (For that matter, ad-driven media does much the same. Gawker before its demise had really gone all-in on "outrage bait" stories.) They're going to start with the most credulous, maybe, but they'll build confidence in the same way as everyone else who's an unknown at start.