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Leaked documents outline DHS’s plans to police disinformation

• redbar0n 4y ago
  Highlights / TL;DR: «earlier this year when DHS announced a new “Disinformation Governance Board”: a panel designed to police misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) that allegedly threatens U.S. interests. While the board was widely ridiculed, immediately scaled back, and then shut down within a few months, other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media« «According to a draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS’s capstone report outlining the department’s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics, including “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”» «How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech.» «Prior to the 2020 election, tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met on a monthly basis with the FBI, CISA, and other government representatives. According to NBC News, the meetings were part of an initiative, still ongoing, between the private sector and government to discuss how firms would handle misinformation during the election.«
• LinuxBender 4y ago
  This has been attempted and "paused" after the backlash. [1] I should add, I don't know what paused means in this context. As a fun side note, DHS is short for the Department of Homeland Security. KGB is short for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti which translates to Committee for State Security. I do not understand why this organization exists when we already have the NSA, especially if they are attacking free speech. Would it be possible to move their budget to the NSA? False statements must not be censored, but rather countered by facts. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/18/disinformation-board-dhs-nina-jankowicz/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/18/disinfo...
  • jaywalk 4y ago
    The article is pretty clear that although the board was shut down due to backlash, DHS hasn't stopped this new "mission" to censor speech the government doesn't like.
    • YesThatTom2 4y ago
      The DHS has a mission to fight this. It’s in the law that created the DHS. If people don’t want an open project they’re gonna get a closed one.
      • smeej 4y ago
        Can't I just not want a DHS?
  • nosmokewhereiam 4y ago
    In/out CONUS/OCCONUS FBI/CIA DHS/NSA I'll post this as a guess, and hopefully someone will come along and correct.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • dontbenebby 4y ago
    I decided to give DHS less shit when they actually court marshaled a general. (I read about the case on NPR.)
    • boomboomsubban 4y ago
      Source? Trying to search brought up this but I'm not seeing the DHS connection. https://www.npr.org/2022/04/24/1094545002/air-force-general-sexual-assault-conviction-court-martial https://www.npr.org/2022/04/24/1094545002/air-force-general-...
      • morpheuskafka 4y ago
• cr4nberry 4y ago
  > Intelligence agencies backed new startups designed to monitor the vast flow of information across social networks to better understand emerging narratives and risks. The onus is on the people here, reading this, to actively fight to counter any attempts to create this form of infrastructure (and never participate in building it) > An FBI official interviewed by The Intercept described how, in the summer of 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, he was reassigned from his normal job of countering foreign intelligence services to monitoring American social media accounts This shows that the threat comes from the right just as much as the left. Once the infrastructure is in place, it doesn't matter who it was initially targeted against. This is why people need to seriously consider the impact of assenting to one political group using it to screw over the other. The extreme polarization of American society has allowed the intelligence community and executive branch to pit political groups against one another in order to increase the breadth and depth of centralized control of the internet. Take Palantir for example, it's a company that outwardly touts its own conservative values, yet participates in employer surveillance, union busting, and predictive policing. The intelligence community relies on them for building this infra[1]. > The strategy identified a “broader priority: enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart and lead some to violence.” The executive branch is essentially using divisions in American society as a justification to annex more control of social media platforms. It's hard to read the words "enhancing faith in government" and not think of Orwell There's a growing strain of authoritarianism in this country. Notice how the language has changed in the past couple years, and how we see more whining about "faith in government" or "trust in institutions". The internet has established itself as a revolutionizing force and the current establishment and moneyed class clearly feels threatened by it I'm surprised The Intercept has decided to report this and not sweep it under the rug. It's good to see more investigative journalism instead of the nauseating lockstep media outlets have put themselves in recently in the name of achieving their desired political change "at any cost" [1] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/in-undisclosed-cia-investments-social-media-mining-looms-large/ https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/in-undisclosed-cia-inves...
• remarkEon 4y ago
  >In June, the same DHS advisory committee of CISA — which includes Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde and University of Washington professor Kate Starbird — drafted a report[1] to the CISA director calling for an expansive role for the agency in shaping the “information ecosystem.” The report called on the agency to closely monitor “social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources.” They argued that the agency needed to take steps to halt the “spread of false and misleading information,” with a focus on information that undermines “key democratic institutions, such as the courts, or by other sectors such as the financial system, or public health measures.” Soviet-tier insanity. I wonder if the Intercept article itself would've been classified as "disinformation" by these people. [1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23131362-june-22-2022-draft-cisa-report https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23131362-june-22-202...
  • topspin 4y ago
    > which includes Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde Musk fired that one last Thursday.
    • zapdrive 4y ago
    • MacsHeadroom 4y ago
      Thank goodness.
    • systemvoltage 4y ago
      She was controversial and openly admitted to collusion. I think this was the right move by Musk. https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587114424925442049 https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587114424925442049
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• Der_Einzige 4y ago
  If you wanted to actually smash "disinformation", you'll need to go after 4chan. Except doing so signals that free-association, and freedom of speech are coming to an end. I know which side I'm rooting for.
  • AuthorizedCust 4y ago
    Going after one forum isn’t a fix. They’ll just go somewhere new. E.g., Twitter —> Parler.
    • bergenty 4y ago
      Scattering is proven to be better
  • flavius29663 4y ago
    I honestly find more useful information on 4chan. At least I'm not taking anything at face value, and if something piques my interest I will do my own research. Reddit on the other hand pretends to be the only truth in town, much more insidious in my opinion.
  • dontbenebby 4y ago
    Why do you say 4chan when it's other chans that tend to have CSAM? That's why the one had to move to a dot onion, plenty of places still serve up gore. I'm a sadist. I won't kill you, but I'm not going to hide I might smirk. For many years I warned that if you abuse your access, nothing is off the table and it has been that way for years now. I remember rumors about /b/ but I never saw abuse material, just gore and a bunch of racist bullshit circa 2009. On my end, I found it... weird... how people would pair "only" looking at cartoons with some really weird shit they're write, on the erotica side of things. (Weird as in power dynamics -- the idea you might just leak your preferences on a dating site is amusing to me, since... come on... you're both trying to meet people... the problem if it's paired with being more or less helpful depending on if people bang you. Keep in mind, I literally had a conversation with a published author about how so many fiction writers are basically doing a roman a clef I can't tell if it's rude to comment on it, but it's a lot easier to look things up nowadays...) Anyways MOVING ON! When I was considering grad schools I was told it was a known thing you can de-anonymize reviewers, but later on someone was dumb enough to self rate a five, state something factually incorrect about what would have become my PhD thesis, then rank it a 1. From there, based on "the metrics" I wasn't accepted to... a privacy thing. Now, to be fair, before we got to that moment, I could have... not done a full on PhD. But I was living in a shared house with some ex army libertarian who probably would have thrown a fit if I ran a packet capture, so I kind of assumed on day someone might knock on the door and tried to get a receipt when I went out for coffee -- I fully expected one day I'd have to sigh and go "listen, I just pay the internet bill, here's where I was then, that guy is a weirdo". The above is... creative nonfiction... but I hope people know that is the source of a HUGE chunk of meme culture. Imagine you're Catholic, sheltered, have only been to Niagara falls, and people keep very obviously asking you questions with the promisem of not repeating your answers because apparently they find your opinions both intriguing and hilarious? The classic example being that in the aftermath of the G20, people started testing the limits of free expression, and they had some kind of... nude art thing... down at CMU... and the bishop had been offended. And I was just tired and annoyed and snapped "Well, it's a private college right? If the cmu want to take their pants off tell them to put down a towel" and tried to ask about something actually work related... It was one of what became a series of very WTF moments. Like, ok we are "privacy researchers"... how am I supposed to ignore that I was born here, so if these rich weirdos want to wander around with thousands of dollars in electronics AND call the cops every time they get scared so someone can come shoot some poor bastard who wasn't lucky enough to be born in "Cali" or whatever... Especially since I'd been told they had to bring every cop and swat person in from all over the country for the 2009 G20 -- the implication being if you had that many pissed off in multiple cities at once, there is NO WAY they could do the things they did if there were multiple protests at once. So occasionally, from around Y2K until now, I'd meet these gun reform people who were just... rude. They were bullies who worried someone would literally kill them... like... with a gun. And they'd make a big scene about how someone they knew had been killed with a gun, then push... bad legislation... like the AWB. And I'd smirk and go "*oh sure, I'd be willing to vote for someone who supports the AWB -- my main concern is just that we maintain access to things like bolt action rifles and revolvers... quiet little things you can't hear from the next house. That's what they did in Prague. Keep shooting those local party officials until one gets shipped in who is less of an asshole... or so I heard." It's fun to watch their eyes bug out when you say that in your cheeriest "I'm a millenial and yes I vote" voice. (Literary or otherwise.) You can associate with whoever you want, I think the thing people are finding out is that no one wants to fuck Nazis, then having meltdowns they're gonna have to jerk off for the rest of their lives. (Personally I'm just hoping one day I can engineer it so it's a girl, but apparently the things I write are so incredibly offensive to women, I'm the poster child for planned parenthood.)
• YesThatTom2 4y ago
  Good. Disinformation is a threat to our infrastructure and the country. Not all weapons are physical. To be clear: disinformation is not a free speech issue. It is a weapon of war. Saying we shouldn’t fight it is as invalid as saying we shouldn’t repel an invading force because that enemy has a right to bear arms. (the 13 critical infrastructures that the DHS protects includes our voting system, our water system, roads and bridges, etc. look it up)
  • pc86 4y ago
    This is valid opinion but it really is a strong negative to just spout something like this as if it's self-evident, and that any disagreement is obviously just so stupid you don't even need to spend the extra 30 seconds or so to justify it. The biggest and most obvious question is who gets to decide what qualifies as "disinformation" - including what the difference is between disinformation and just being wrong, and how is that protected from changes in the political landscape?
    • unethical_ban 4y ago
      Unfiltered, anonymous speech on major social media platforms is the equivalent of a supervirus. Bad, poisonous ideas spread more quickly than truth and logic can catch up, and no one is silenced or held to account when these bad ideas keep spreading. I don't know what the solution to organized disinformation is. I don't know if the "cure" would be worse than the disease of disinformation. But it's naive to think nation-states are not using social media to leverage peoples' negative emotions and dividing society and making people disrespect really important things that should be held in really high regard in society, like truth and science.
      • fakethenews2022 4y ago
        Interestingly the biggest purveyors of organized disinformation are governments. Anyone else remember how the US government had a massive disinformation campaign that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and then orchestrated an invasion? Even more revealing is that the disinformation campaign was aided and abetted by US media including such supposed stalwarts as the New York Times.
• pneumic 4y ago
  > Jen Easterly, Biden’s appointed director of CISA, swiftly made it clear that she would continue to shift resources in the agency to combat the spread of dangerous forms of information on social media. “One could argue we’re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important,” said Easterly, speaking at a conference in November 2021. How can anyone who was rightly against the authoritarian insanity during the War On Terror justify this sort of thinking? "Trump is bad/election deniers are bad/anti-vaxxers are bad" is not enough. This can and will be spun right around and used against you.
  • anonAndOn 4y ago
    Because Moscow doesn't have to beat the US on the battlefield of Ukraine if they can ignite a US civil war and force a military withdrawal assymetrically.
    • colpabar 4y ago
      Yeah just like how the islamic terrorists were gonna do 9/11 again but worse unless we gave the feds more power, right?
      • anonAndOn 4y ago
        Was Tucker as pro Wahhabi as he is pro Putin?[0] [0]https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1585655927516139520 https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/158565592751613952...
        • Lammy 4y ago
          Fun fact: Tucker's dad was longest-serving director of the US Information Agency's official propaganda network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Carlson#Voice_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Carlson#Voice_of_America
• parsd 4y ago
  Defining disinformation exhaustively and concretely is an impossible task, it's almost like defining beauty. Moreover, disinformation is not even contradictory to "vetted, objective facts", because not all "information" (which is also hard to define) is necessarily intended to be viewed as factual, and not all information has any kind of deliberate intent associated with it (malicious or useful).
  • bluescrn 4y ago
    The modern definition of 'disinformation' seems to be something along the lines of 'your propaganda but not my propaganda'
    • contravariant 4y ago
      Which makes it a terrible choice of words as it somehow suggests something is not propaganda if it's true. It also turns discussions about propaganda into discussions about objective truth which is a lot harder. It's easier to show someone has a lot to gain by spreading a certain message, than to verify a bunch of unfounded statements, framing propaganda as 'disinformation' is a brilliant move that makes any subsequent discussion of who to trust about endless fact-checking. It might seem like facts don't matter any more, but focusing on the facts might be the wrong counter move, the facts may well be red herrings used to sneak in dangerous ideology unchallenged.
• asperous 4y ago
  The issue here is that Russia and China have recognized that the internet is a powerful channel to introduce propaganda, sow distrust in democratic institutions, and so on [1]. I'm curious what commenters here think should be done about this, if anything? [1] https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE100/PE198/RAND_PE198.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE10...
  • Rahul_Ligma 4y ago
    • affinepplan 4y ago
      The facts are: 1. online propaganda and astroturfing are very effective 2. our foreign adversaries are very aware of point #1 and use it for political gain 3. hence, there is rampant misinformation online which fuels polarization and societal instability So I guess there are two questions here: 1. do you think the combination of factors above is problematic? 2. if so, what can or should be done about it, and by whom?
      • Rahul_Ligma 4y ago
        Your framing of all of this, including narrowing it down to just a few things and asking “do you think the combination of factors above is problematic?” is emblematic of the kind of subversive pidgeonholed discord that’s very useful for adversaries to control narratives (see f.e. “Nerd Sniping”). I’ll answer by saying this: HN, for example, is already taken over. There are nationalistic and politically-inclined shill groups (paid, and useful idiots) already in here and have been here for some time. The upvoting/flagging system is broken as a result since opposition can be easily quashed by downvoting/flagging without manual intervention. Daniel is one lad, he can’t keep up with all of this (but kudos for trying, really). The shit faucet diameter is just too large. My thinking? We’ll need to take a page out of 4chan’s book because placing speech silencing tools in front of users is a dead end. Whatever you do to try to control things, an adversary will gain control of and use it to control the narrative. It’s right there on Reddit. Don’t take my word on it. Foundations of Geopolitics spelled this out long before most of the internet as we know it today was a thing.
• wang_li 4y ago
  The first amendment has been around for more than 200 years and SCOTUS rulings for as long. At this point any government actor, or private sector entity working in conjunction with the government, should be facing years in prison and brutal fines for even suggesting Prior Restraint on speech. When these pieces of shit get together and make plans they are actively conspiring to violate civil rights.
  • warinukraine 4y ago
    Do you think that anything at all should be done to fight foreign actor disinformation?
    • jaywalk 4y ago
      This is a strawman argument. We are talking about the US Government censoring the speech of US citizens because they don't like it.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • lern_too_spel 4y ago
        Unlike DeSantis's Stop WOKE law, these documents do not give the government the power to compel social media companies or anybody else to remove posts. This seems like it will hold up against the legal challenges that Stop WOKE failed.
      • freejazz 4y ago
        Which article are you reading?
    • revnode 4y ago
      Yes. Focus on education and providing more information, not suppressing the information you don't like.
      • 4y ago
• adolph 4y ago
  I'd really really prefer an approach that built an improved information infrastructure rather than establishing yet another police force. I suspect that better information is antithetical to the current powers that be. That isn't to say that they aren't aligned with truth more often that not, but that they wish to keep the option for a false official truth open.
• Rahul_Ligma 4y ago
  • dang 4y ago
    We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Could you please stop creating accounts to do that with? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
• 3qz 4y ago
  This is fascism. Also, > malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) lol
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • intelVISA 4y ago
    I guess advertizing is malinformation, wonder how this'll affect big adtech giants. ~:)
  • unity1001 4y ago
    > malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) The summary of the entire business model of US media.
  • Fordec 4y ago
    Literal wrongthink. What is ideology but looking at the world or a problem through a certain personal experience context. If this is what flies, CNN are guilty of malinformation daily, through their use of editorialising, never mind more fringe stuff.
    • teolandon 4y ago
      First off, wrongthink is not a thing, you're thinking of crimethink. Second off, those are literally different things. Malinformation is defined in the article as information shared, out of context, with harmful intention. Crimethink is not about sharing or intentions, it's literally about having a thought that goes against The Party. No need to share.
  • topspin 4y ago
    > > malinformation Orwell was an amateur, apparently.
• WallyFunk 4y ago
  > misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context First I heard of 'malinformation'. I always thought it was the other two at play (misinformation & disinformation), especially disinformation used in propaganda and influence operations. I also thought disinformation doesn't have to be 'false information'. It can be information used to shape a narrative, factually correct or not. Anyway this new word 'malinformation' helps if it means we really need to distinguish between all three words. Also these China-style crackdowns on people shaping political narrative via social media is ridiculous. Nothing wrong with using the net for organized dissent & speaking truth to power.
  • CobrastanJorji 4y ago
    As I understand it, misinformation isn't necessarily unintentional. Disinformation is a type of misinformation. "Mis" is wrong. "Dis" is intentionally wrong. "Mal" is using real information for bad purpose (to lead you to a wrong conclusion by giving you out of context info, or to injure with information, like with doxxing).
  • Blahah 4y ago
    )
  • uni_rule 4y ago
    Considering everythat happened this past decade of mismanagement you'd think priority 1 would be limiting how tools can be used in bad faith rather than creating new ones of horrifying unchecked scope.
  • MacsHeadroom 4y ago
    See also cognitohazards (true information which is harmful just to know). Roko's Basilisk is the perfect toy example. But on a global level the possibility of nuclear arms is a more real world example. There are many kinds of dangerous true information. In liberal societies we accept these risks and counter them with harm reduction while relying on trust in individual autonomy, not on policing.
  • 4y ago
• forgotmypw17 4y ago
  https://archive.ph/ld6E4 https://archive.ph/ld6E4
• IanDrake 4y ago
• newaccount2021 4y ago
  [dead]
• AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  Many have an expectation that the media and formerly trustworthy institutions are at best "framing and positioning the truth" and at worst "always lying" to them. Frankly they believe this because it is, to an extent, true. Very few people believe The People can be trusted with the unvarnished truth without appropriate "context". I do not believe that trust in institutional communication can be restored unless it is re-earned. Perhaps by communicating only fair and factual information and leaving the positioning and framing for the pundits.
  • unknownaccount 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • MSFT_Edging 4y ago
      "mainstream media accurately reported the news ... multiple genocides already" Oh boy is this ironic
      • colordrops 4y ago
        yeah, I'm not sure if they are defending censorship to protect people, or claiming that we've been hoodwinked by censorship.
      • comte7092 4y ago
        Absurd? Yes. How exactly is it ironic?
        • MSFT_Edging 4y ago
          Ironic because an accurate portrayal of the news would illuminate actual atrocities/genocides that American news sources generally don't cover. Had they, from the OP's perspective, the genocides that might have happened, have happened. We just don't cover these things. Examples being considering the Korean war a genocide due to the mass assault on civilians, The right wing coup in Indonesia that led to a million members of the Communist party to be murdered, the current blockade of Yemen that has contributed to the deaths of 85,000 children. Because of how Media in the US already serves a national security interest, these things are either not spoken about, or twisted to make the US be the good guys. So to say that mainstream media accurately reporting the news would lead to genocides is silly, because the inaccurate news through the filter of natsec, helped these atrocious acts by leaving them in the dark.
• PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  I am of two minds of this and would invite people to give me some opinions on this thing. On one hand, I love free speech and think it is good. The innovation capable from people being ably to publish their views, congregate freely, etc. is a foundational good I believe in. On the other hand, I'm aware that certain influential figures explicitly manipulate their speech in order to primarily amass personal power regardless of any second-order effects. E.g. cults are horrible, even though people are freely congregating, they just feel like they can't leave because of the emotional abuse these influential figures are heaping via their speech. On a third hand, the loved one of a politician was severely injured because of someone who believes the incorrect speech of influential figures and I desperately do not want further injury or violence to occur spurned by incorrect speech on the facts of reality. So what's to be done about the actual, real harm being done, while also protecting free speech? I don't want to assume that assaulting people is just the cost of free speech. That just seems so wrong to me.
  • daveevad 4y ago
    > the loved one of a politician was severely injured because of someone who believes the incorrect speech of influential figures Would you be so kind as to elaborate which speech and which figures you believe are at fault?
  • redbar0n 4y ago
    People need to be held ultimately accountable for their own actions, without recourse to «they told me to». If you cultivate a strong culture of ultimate responsibility, people will learn to think twice. If everyone took ultimate responsibility for their own actions, then the cult leader / dictator / influencer would just be a person shouting in a room.
  • zmgsabst 4y ago
    How does censorship help any of those problems? I can think of two recent examples where it failed, bitterly dividing the country: 1. in the case of the Hunter Biden laptop, a media organization was censored based on false allegations of “misinformation”; and, 2. during COVID, people who said authoritarian policies were a bad idea were censored — including medical professionals; resulting in devastating but only marginally effective authoritarian policies. How, specifically, do you only censor “wrong” speech — without in practice just giving special government powers to the people who manipulate speech in the pursuit of personal power, eg Fauci?
• president 4y ago
  Finally, this answers some questions about the madness of the last 5 or so years. Everyone knew this was happening to some degree but the abhorrent part is how politically biased the execution was.
  • cr4nberry 4y ago
    > about the madness of the last 5 or so years. I felt this too: it didn't just start with covid. There was a characteristic shift in around 2017-2018
    • jimmyjazz14 4y ago
      I feel it was more around 2015 or earlier Jonathan Haidt took a stab at explaining what he thought has been going on here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-...
  • themitigating 4y ago
    How do you know the execution was politically biased?
• newsclues 4y ago
  Most people who accuse others of spreading misinformation are really concerned about controlling narratives and spreading their own misinformation than they are about truth.
• canadiantim 4y ago
  So the DHS is wrapping up its war on terror and is now focusing on domestic information sharers for their new war. Jeez, hard to see how this ends well. The motivations of these people can only be nefarious.
  • freejazz 4y ago
    This post is so hyperbolic, it could have been written by the mainstream media.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • kelseyfrog 4y ago
    Of course it is. Anyone with non-orthodox viewpoints should be familiar with the groups who will be targeted because it's not always who you think it is. > [Those] who violently oppose all forms of capitalism, corporate globalization, and governing institutions, which they perceive as harmful to society[1] > [Any] ideology that considers capitalism and centralized government to be unnecessary and oppressive[2] We'll see what this means for the free speech everyone says we have or the extend that "wrongthink" will be punished. 1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/National-Strategy-for-Countering-Domestic-Terrorism.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Nation... 2. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/fbi-dhs-domestic-terrorism-strategic-report.pdf https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/fbi-dhs-domestic-terrori...
• deleted 4y ago
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• paganel 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • dang 4y ago
    Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. We've asked you multiple times already, and we ban accounts that keep doing it. Using HN primarily for ideological battle will also get you banned here—regardless of which flavor you favor. So please don't do that either. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • paganel 4y ago
      > Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? Just tell me what ideology to cheer for and I'll do it. You've last asked me about some 4 or 5 years ago not to write about history stuff, I didn't since then, maybe you're confusing me with someone else. Later edit: > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle Didn't see that put into effect on this website after February 24th.
      • dang 4y ago
        Did you miss the word "regardless"? Re multiple times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30008480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30008480 (Jan 2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27261872 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27261872 (May 2021) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653956 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653956 (Nov 2019)
• bedhead 4y ago
  In any other decade this would be by far the largest political scandal in US history, with non-stop mass media coverage, endless investigative journalism, universal public outrage, pop culture shaming, politicians resigning en masse, and criminal prosecutions. Today? A collective shrug from everyone like-minded, or who got caught on that particular side of the story. All the safeties have been removed these days, the ends always justify the means, and near total control of this country's most important institutions by the left (everything but SCOTUS, as far as I can tell) is the ultimate enabler of this tacit collusion.
  • deleted 4y ago
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• yrgulation 4y ago
  I am not sure why this is called disinformation, and why folks think this is a new concept. It's called propaganda, and it's been a tool of war since ever. We do need to defend against propaganda, free europe and US. There are actors out there leveraging the reach of the internet to spread propaganda in their favor, much as the SU did and any actor before or during it.
  • hajile 4y ago
    Positive and Negative rights matter here. The right to use your own megaphone is different from banning my right to also have a megaphone.
  • 3np 4y ago
    Definitions in TFA: > misinformation (false information spread unintentionally), disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) Disinformation can, as the others, be used as propaganda.
  • rr808 4y ago
    I think there is a big difference with electronic media in that you can get propaganda from the other side. Eg in WW2 in Western Europe you wouldn't even hear Nazi propaganda except perhaps the occasional leaflet or maybe some radio if you searched for it - in America there would be nothing. Now you get messages on Facebook mixed in with your cousin's wedding pics.
    • yrgulation 4y ago
      There were definitely attempts at promoting nazi ideas in the west, both in the us and western europe. But unlike modern day it was quickly counteracted. Today you dont need a specific political ideology to sow discontent and damage free societies. All you need is to indoctrinate naive cousins in any toxic topic they may be ready to believe. At scale that causes polarisation, mistrust, conflict and eventually political change. A bit like poisoning the body just enough so it doesnt function properly. The question is how do you police content in such way that it doesnt block legitimate opposing ideas.
• deanCommie 4y ago
  Interesting that this makes top of HN now that a democratic president is in charge. When just 4 days ago, we learned that >Department of Homeland Securitagents "scrambled" to Best Buy in 2020 to get laptops for new recruits with "barely any form of training," meeting up in a "parking lot" to begin work creating spy files on Americans protesting George Floyd's murder. [0] https://twitter.com/dellcam/status/1585676535889104897 https://twitter.com/dellcam/status/1585676535889104897 [1] https://www.opb.org/article/2022/10/27/newly-un-redacted-report-shows-how-feds-politicized-response-to-2020-portland-protests/ https://www.opb.org/article/2022/10/27/newly-un-redacted-rep... [2] https://apnews.com/article/oregon-arrests-donald-trump-race-and-ethnicity-portland-95743ad77f7fd228515bf6139c45b0b1 https://apnews.com/article/oregon-arrests-donald-trump-race-...
  • colpabar 4y ago
    Why didn't you post it here?
• Karunamon 4y ago
  Never minding the sketchiness of "working with" government on "misinformation", how is: >There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. … not a direct First Amendment concern?
• narrator 4y ago
  Secrecy, censorship and propaganda are a great combo if you want to produce awful political outcomes. If you forbid freedom of speech, that's basically the same as saying people are too stupid to make their own decisions. This leads to a China or Soviet style dictatorship to protect the people. That was always the contention of Bolshevism. The people are too dumb to protect their own interests. The party must be the vanguard of the proletariat to protect their interests. Democracy will be replaced by internal party democracy where only party members will vote. The party will only make decisions in the people's best interest. Few people study history though so they're unaware that all of this has been tried before with disastrous results. Might as well move to China if you enjoy all your information being tightly curated by the authorities.
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  • pessimizer 4y ago
    > This leads to a China or Soviet style dictatorship to protect the people. Why when the US does something evil is it always China or Russia's fault?
    • narrator 4y ago
      It's not China or Russia's fault. It's the consequence of the ideology that says common people are too stupid to make the right choices in their own best interests and there must be an inner group of enlightened know-it-alls that make all their decisions for them that leads to these kinds of totalitarian outcomes.
• bumblebritches5 4y ago
• mise_en_place 4y ago
  Balaji Srinivasan posted a prescient Tweet a long while back. I'm paraphrasing but the general gist was that the US intelligence apparatus would be turned on American citizens, as the US started to retreat from foreign entanglements. We are dangerously close to setting a precedent where intelligence agencies effectively choose our elected leadership. This unelected shadow government within the United States must be rooted out at all costs, lest we really lose our democracy.
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• sys32768 4y ago
  I do think news outlets should be held accountable for blatant disinformation. Then they can be fined via a "lie tax" with a required rating on their front pages just like restaurants have a health rating. That tax then goes to fund critical thinking programs in our schools.
  • Georgelemental 4y ago
    How about you don't try to take away my inalienable, God-given right to read whatever I desire. I don't need some nanny-state commissar telling me to pay up extra taxes for daring to view unapproved opinions
  • andirk 4y ago
    Interesting idea, but how about don't let news outlets be owned by the fat cats they're supposed to be critical of? The Telecommunications Act of 1996's supposed purpose was "to promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services"[0]. Now there's far less competition since media conglomerates have greatly consolidated, and deregulation has allowed mainstream media to regulate the viewpoints of popular conversation. [0] https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ104/PLAW-104publ104.pdf https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ104/PLAW-104publ104.p...
  • _-david-_ 4y ago
    And what happens when the government fines the media company and then it comes out that the lie was actually a truth? Will the government refund the media organization and make a public apology? Will the person who wrongfully fined the media company go to jail for violating the first amendment?
• anotherrandom 4y ago
  If you require censorship to show the correctness of your position, you are automatically wrong
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• IncRnd 4y ago
  The Department of Homeland Security should not be allowed to be involved with any sort of fact monitoring or information shaping in the US. I'd think this would be obvious.
  • nonethewiser 4y ago
    All this does is more thoroughly pollute the well. People should ditch trust in information online and concern themselves more with their primary observations. Obviously that doesn't tell me what's happening in Ukraine, for example. But the mistake is to assume that you could reliably have a good idea of what's happening without primary observation. Same goes for print media, it just has a much lower throughput. This is the side effect of a lot of trends (internet, globalization, urbanization) that has destroyed local communities. It wasn't that long ago that events on the other side of the world truly had 0 impact on your life.
    • serial_dev 4y ago
      I'd go one step further and say that even primary observation doesn't guarantee you'll have a good idea of what's happening. Just ask a group of your friends from Ukraine/Iran/Pakistan/Haiti (or any other country that's in the news). It's unlikely they'll have the same position on the issues that they all have first hand information about. The issues that are portrayed as black and white in our media, where the good and bad side is "so obvious", are suddenly not that obvious if you ask someone who actually knows more. I know it's not a popular approach, but I just accept that everything I know could be wrong, and I don't know who the bad and good guys are (tbh, most often it's just various groups of bad guys the more research you do).
      • nonethewiser 4y ago
        True, I just mean there are less people that could be actively deceiving you. Point taken that what you're witnessing could still be staged though.
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• albeebe1 4y ago
  Whenever I see a headline with the word "misinformation" or in this case "disinformation", i replace those words with "free speech" and it really worries me about the future of this country. Putting the power to decide what information is right and wrong into the hands of a few is extremely dangerous.
  • systemvoltage 4y ago
    What's more eggregious is that if this news story were to come out during Trump presidency, everyone would be losing their shit here on HN. It would be so insane, try to imagine us ramping up the Fascism toeing line on all conservatives who have nothing to do with this. There is no moral compass left in people I feel. We haven't got a north star that we used to. Subjectivism has occupied us all. The only way to move forward is to anchor your beliefs with sound fundamentals, no matter what others are doing around you. I still remember vividly when the left used to believe in net-neutrality or in free-speech. Edit: Those downvoting this, can you explain why this wouldn't be true? Can you try to imagine what would have heppened to this story in 2019? I understand you might not agree with my take, then please respond below.
    • goatcode 4y ago
      Uri Bezmenov was telling the truth.
    • somehnacct3757 4y ago
      The cognitive distortion 'catastrophizing' comes to mind. For example you just imagined a made up scenario (this and that would have happened if X variable was different) and then accepted it as fact to justify a litany of observations about entire populations and subgroups. This daydreaming is somehow 'more eggregious' than the contents of the article.
      • systemvoltage 4y ago
        So testing a hypothetical scenario to show hypocrisy is somehow "daydreaming"? What you call cognitive distortion is cognitive clarity to me. What litmus test would like to to see to show the disparity?
• ViceCitySage 4y ago
  This is honestly dystopian and I can't believe that I am reading this. It's as Orwellian as it gets. Generally speaking, avoid implementing government policies and powers that you wouldn't let the worst of your enemies use, even if its with "good" intentions. The federal government stepping forward to fight disinformation might seem benevolent to some at the surface but it is a terrible idea in practice. History has shown that the state isn't always trustworthy and we should be more cynical and cautious when evaluating them. A war on disinformation will turn into a war on information in general.
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• busymom0 4y ago
  Apparently criticizing the debacle on how incompetently they withdrew from Afghanistan or where Covid originated from are all considered disinfo and misinfo? It seems more like political narrative shaping. > Plans to expand censorship on topics like withdrawal from Afghanistan, origins of COVID, info that undermines trust in financial institutions. > FBI agent Laura Dehmlow was in communications w Facebook that led to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 over the false allegation that it was “disinfo.” This year, she met w/ Twitter/DHS to stress “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” > Facebook and Twitter created special portals for the government to rapidly request takedowns of content. The portals, along with NGO partners used to censor a wide range of content, including obvious parody accounts and content disagreeing w gov pandemic policy. > The emails and documents show close collaboration b/w DHS & private sector. Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (fired by @elonmusk last week) met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship plans. Microsoft exec texted DHS: "Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov't" > How does DHS justify its evolving mission from countering foreign terror groups to policing domestic "disinfo" on social media? Leaked planning docs show the agency argues false information is a source of radicalization & violence. > Earlier this year, DHS launched a widely panned "Disinfo Governance Board" which it later shuttered following criticism. But the same agenda lives on w/ DHS sub-agency "CISA" which argues disinfo is a threat to American "critical infrastructure" #dhsleaks https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587095890983936000 https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587095890983936000
• yalogin 4y ago
  The GOP will spin this as a direct assault on right wing speech and shut it down the moment they can. In the mean time they will weaponize it and use it to win elections. This is not not new, every effort to bring sanity is hindered and used the same way.
  • cr4nberry 4y ago
    The cynical partisanship of the past couple years has been used by the intelligence community to justify increasing its scope. This isn't a matter of D vs R but of the state vs its own citizens
• egberts1 4y ago
  I wonder which one that the DHS CISA are pursuing: truth or fact? If you think that the two are one and the same, you might be part of the problem.
• snowwrestler 4y ago
  I would encourage folks to carefully read the article and give a mind toward the word “police” in the headline. It can have a variety of meanings, some of which include powers like arrest and imprisonment… but some of which don’t. The U.S. government has long served as a clearinghouse for information, for example by funding the CVE list of vulnerabilities. There is a difference between flagging likely disinformation to publishers for their private option to act, vs sending federal agents to arrest private citizens for the content of their speech. A program to do the former is not necessarily a slippery slope to the latter; the First Amendment still exists. Put another way, there is a difference between the government acting as a participant in the conversation about disinformation, vs the government as the violent sole arbiter of what constitutes disinformation.
  • Georgelemental 4y ago
    When the "participant" in the conversation happens to have the monopoly on legitimate violence and the power to break up (or not) any big company it doesn't like via antitrust law, then it's impossible to trust that there is no coercive pressure being applied.
• germandiago 4y ago
  Censorship. At the end this ends up in censorship. Instead of this terrible fights for having the official truth, why not educate people to not believe absolutely anything that has no shown proof? Why so much secret and "it is for your security"? When I go to sign a contract I want to know everything upfront and later choose. All in all, it does not convince me at all the increasing efforts to be able to spy absolutely everyone, control all the information flow... For example now in Europe they censored RT and Sputnik bc they are "russian propaganda". I do not say it is or not. I just say that if we are democracies we should not be censoring, but warning people. If we do not do that, then we are the same thing as the people we point fingers at.
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• linuxhansl 4y ago
  I think we live in a dangerous time. We have always disagreed on things and discussed and occasionally fought over them. This is healthy and needed (except any violence). It is important to realize that even as we disagreed, we still used to agree on basic facts and then fought over what best to do next. That is what is different now! We now live in a culture where any discussion can simply be ended with "Your facts are wrong", or "I have alternative facts". A reasonable discourse is not possible this way. It takes just one "side" to take such a stance for society to fall into camps. I think that is what we see happening.
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  • jpadkins 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • QuietWatchtower 4y ago
      bruh what? why did you bring the democratic party and obama into this?
      • jpadkins 4y ago
        I didn't bring democratic party into this. The GP was clearly talking about the left wing in the US.
    • AlexandrB 4y ago
      Funny stuff. You have a significant portion of Republicans believing in an anonymous Q-clearance government official who's fighting the "deep state" by posting on 8chan but it turns out it's the Democrats who have lost touch with reality.
  • amadeuspagel 4y ago
    > It is important to realize that even as we disagreed, we still used to agree on basic facts and then fought over what best to do next. What are these basic facts that people used to agree on, but now don't agree on anymore?
• voldacar 4y ago
  > malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of context, with harmful intent) It's interesting seeing these concepts being created in real time. This seems like the sort of thing that will become popular in new york times articles in the near future.
• louloulou 4y ago
  And the consequences for the government spreading "disinformation": 0
• ls15 4y ago
  "Our truth is truthier than your truth. Therefore we need an API to override your truth."
• swayvil 4y ago
  Let's be clear. There is no "policing disinformation". There is only "information control". And that control will be used for the same purpose that control is always used : to maintain and increase their control. That means a guy listening to everything you say. Sometimes reporting you. Sometimes censoring you. Sometimes altering what you said. We don't want that.
• js4ever 4y ago
  https://archive.is/YXBR6 https://archive.is/YXBR6
• didibus 4y ago
  I can see the issue with this, but we also can't simply ignore the information warfare happening in the modern world. It's one thing for them to control US citizens rethoric, but there's very much state-warfare going on and the US is a big target. Is that an elephant in the room we don't want to talk about? I feel we're coupling two problems, one of free speech for citizens in their democratic process, and another of information warfare from enemy of the US against it. Everytime you've got a non US citizen or resident tweeting, retweeting, and other such about US political topics, that's state warfare. Sure sometimes it's just somebody else that cares, but let's not pretend it isn't often time part of state warfare. Being able to influence the votes for candidates that other states feel will be more supportive of them or would destabilize the US in ways they benefit, that's definitely happening. Now I don't know if what the DHS is doing is overreach and also affects the internal democratic process, but I really think we should all think a little about how vulnerable we've made ourselves to outside actors.
  • marktangotango 4y ago
    Agreed, used to be outlandish and questionable content was relegated to known publications such as the National Inquirer (a weekly purveyor of alien, crop circle and 90 year old grand mothers giving birth) in the US. Nowadays with the decline of journalism, and decrease in editorial objectivism, it's almost impossible to know what information can be trusted. It's a sad state of affairs.
  • nonrandomstring 4y ago
    There is one answer and only one answer to this problem. Intellectual self defence. Problem is, it's the worst possible answer for those in power. Because if we the people can defend ourselves against foreign state actors trying to rip up our democracy, we might conceivably start defending against threats closer to home.
    • eftychis 4y ago
      Agreed 100%. And the fact that in a democracy we are ok to becoming an idiocracy for our temporary comfort indicates we are already an idiocracy perhaps -- hopefully untrue and just a joking statement.
• caseysoftware 4y ago
  Truth vs disinformation vs whatever is the sideshow. Fundamentally, what we have is the US Federal government is not allowed to take certain activities so they outsourced it to third parties.. all the while people claim these are private companies doing what they want. I propose a new rule: If it's illegal for a government to do, it must also be illegal for them to request, pay, demand, threaten, require, or imply that another should do it.
• throwaway1851 4y ago
  From the article: > other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring social media now that its original mandate — the war on terror — has been wound down. This is a chilling line, and yet so predictable. If DHS’s original mandate has wound down, I consider that an occasion to scale back DHS. But no, government bureaucracies (especially ones with immense, unchecked power) don’t just shrink away when they are no longer needed. They keep growing.
• qbasic_forever 4y ago
  Shutdown DHS for good. It is a redundant and useless government agency created in the wake of 9/11. We already have the FBI, secret service, ICE, US marshalls, and from time to time the CIA operating in country. The DHS has no purpose and has accomplished nothing in its history.
  • systemvoltage 4y ago
    The elephant in the room is the Patriot Act that needs to be re-evaluated or abolished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act
• none_to_remain 4y ago
  Now that we've got "malinformation" for "true information your rulers want you ignorant or disbelieving of" we should introduce a phrase for "information your rulers demand you believe" and true/false subsets of that
  • adrianb 4y ago
    Seems to cover more than that, things we should be ignorant of could simply be labeled as False. Malinformation seems to be about how facts should only be interpreted in a certain way. So for example a factual statistic but it can only mean what the government decided it means (i.e. supports the government's policy).
• patientplatypus 4y ago
• GaylordTuring 4y ago
  Random thoughts that I might not fully agree with myself but that I think it’s interesting to think about: What if the solution to misinformation is _more_ information? If 99 % of all information that you come across is wrong (and you know it), you’re forced to start thinking critically or just believe in random things. That is, if someone believes that we’ve never been to the Moon, feed them with information of the same logical structure that we’ve never been to the North pole. If someone believe that a politician is guilty of something just because he’s been accused of it, make the same accusations towards one hundered other random politicians. If someone is seeing ghosts, tell them that you’ve been seeing dinosaur ghosts in ballerina costumes. In order to not die in such an environment because you haphazardly eat led for breakfast, you’re forced to develop critical thinking skills.
  • themitigating 4y ago
    Do people have the time to process all the information on a subject? Will they understand it all? It's much more complex to explain how we landed on the moon then to say we didn't. Will people let a bias affect them when processing information?
  • base698 4y ago
    > Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group. This practice of creating circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common. Virtually no important undertaking is now carried on without it, whether the enterprise be building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing a moving picture, floating a large bond issue, or electing a president. Bernays almost 100 years ago. The solution is more propaganda.
• eftychis 4y ago
  So the state wants to decide what is truth and what is not... What should be shared and what should not? I wonder how that can go badly? Maybe this one time in history we will make that notion work... I would say the above statement is sarcastic, but if at this point people actually believe this is a good idea I would either question the history or civics education quality or the hypocrisy tolerance perception. I claim this is a surefire way to create more instability, undermine democracy and straight out attack the most fundamental right in a democratic setting: free speech. (Also, personally, extremely insulting to any scientist to have truth dictated.) So what: some people/bots act maliciously and spread disinformation. Put a disclaimer. Teach your people to be critical and better. Recall how the state screwed up in the past. There were states that in law stated if you orgasm it couldn't have been a rape. There are states that mishandled the pandemic, and botched the messaging. Perception of speech is extremely subjective and cultural. You only create extreme views by censoring -- you are banning collaboration. The U.S. has an extreme Political correctness approach, that has only harmed democracy in my book in the end. Communication is for reaching consensus. You can't be "diversity is great" and "if you say X that is disagreeable to me you are terrible." Pick one. If someone, including state actors, screws up and causes damage with their speech, get them charged for the appropriate crime -- and even then I would say "maybe." That is what should be in question and up for discussion and debate. That some people in DHS even considered this should get them fired (at least); how is this not a crime subverting the U.S. constitution? (my) Theorem: Sure words can hurt temporarily. Lack of works is fatal.
  • themitigating 4y ago
    What crime are you asking about? Conspiracy to subvert the constitution?
  • AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    > You can't be "diversity is great" and "if you say X that is disagreeable to me you are terrible." Pick one. By "diversity", they mean every characteristic except independent thought. Be of a different race, religion, gender? Sure, that's great. Think different? You're terrible/evil/anathema.
• PBnFlash 4y ago
  Internet communication is a gain medium. Like a pumped ruby ready to lase at the first random fluctuation. A tasteless joke getting dogpiled by tens of thousands of people. Or some speculation turning to fact in minutes. The gain medium is in a high energy state and will emit on anything that triggers it. Simply removing the triggers will just let the gain go higher before something let's loose. I propose doping Twitter with tungsten to poison the cascade.
• mrguyorama 4y ago
  DHS should be abolished. It was a transparent attempt to create an unaccountable organization after 9/11 that had a vague mission statement and would not have stopped the terrorist attacks, nor could they do anything about terrorism in the middle east, being a completely domestic organization. They provide no value, do nothing, and have immense power. That is why they would search for a new, broad mission statement. They are just like the Patriot act and the TSA. All stupid mistakes allowed by a pathetically emotional and stupid public to let a horrific regime fuck around in the desert and bomb sand for decades, murdering innocent civilians. I am all for groups like the FBI watching actual domestic terror cells as hate groups spend their time "infiltrating" (literally just a person with extreme opinions and thoughts becoming a police officer) law enforcement. But the DHS has no defensible mission. It was made without a real reason for the people. How do we get it shut down?
  • chasd00 4y ago
    if i ever got on the bandwagon for "defunding" something it would be DHS.
• jabthedang 4y ago
• kludgemaker 4y ago
  I don't think the DHS has ever really defended the homeland - unless it's Washington DC and the tyrants who make it their home.
• jacooper 4y ago
  If the US goverment truly has plans to censor/control American social media at will, Then all of their arguments against Tiktok lose meaning. The whole argument is that China can influence TikTok to change content to hide truths and harm other nations, which is soon going to apply to the US too, if not already. imagine if the US removed anything against the Apartheid state(Facebook already does this, any news showing what's actually happening in occupied Palestine is removed), or if it does another invasion and it removes any reports going against the Governments story? The difference is the U.S. has never been challenged in tech and influence, and now they have and they don't like it, they don't like to live under the mercy of another country with its own interest that doesn't match with the US. Truly, the US is finally getting a taste of its own medicine. With all of that said, I can't deny that the US would still be probably better than China in freedom of speech.
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  • tshaddox 4y ago
    > The whole argument is that China can influence TikTok to change content to hide truths and harm other nations, which is soon going to apply to the US too, if not already. Well, presumably the US government's argument would be that China can influence content to harm the United States, whereas the US government would only influence content to help the United States (pinky swear!). I do agree with you that the ability of a government to censor at a large scale is likely to be bad for the people under that government's jurisdiction and the people of the world, even if that government is acting competently in its own self-interest. However, it's not that odd for a government to be concerned about a foreign government exerting an influence on its citizens that it also wants to exert on its own citizens. As a crude example, it wouldn't be that odd for the US government to be very concerned if China started conscripting US citizens into military service, even though the US government has the ability to do that. Even if you believe that all military conscription is bad, it's hardly a notable "double standard."
    • jacooper 4y ago
      > Well, presumably the US government's argument would be that China can influence content to harm the United States, whereas the US government would only influence content to help the United States (pinky swear!). Correct. But that's from the view point of the US only. The US isn't going against Tiktok only locally, it wants to remove it world wide because of Chinese influence. The US can influence local content how it likes, they have their own rules and its totally fine IMO. The issue is controlling global content, which is what they are accusing China of, and what they really want to do if not already have been doing. > I do agree with you that the ability of a government to censor at a large scale is likely to be bad for the people under that government's jurisdiction and the people of the world, even if that government is acting competently in its own self-interest. I think this is obvious. My point is that the US is mad at Tiktok because the CCP can do it, yet now the US wants to also control all content on its platforms and wants the world to see it as something totally different to what China can do. Its basically, "it's OK for us, we are good, but not for them, they are the Baddies!!!"
• etchalon 4y ago
  On the one hand, I believe organizations dedicated to fighting misinformation are essential. But I am also incredibly nervous about those organizations being backed by the power of the state. But I'm also not sure organizations without state power would be effective. But it's the potential effectiveness of state-backed misinformation organizations that makes me nervous.
• tinus_hn 4y ago
  If there is anything that the COVID pandemic should have made abundantly clear, it is that it should not be left to politicians to decide what’s true and what’s false.
• ranger207 4y ago
  Contrast this to the very successful information operations by the US and other western nations prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and continuing through the present. Basically every false Russian claim has been countered with nothing more than truth, all the way back to countering Russia's claim that they weren't preparing for an invasion with information showing they were preparing for an invasion. I wonder if there's any reason in particular that this was more successful other than it wasn't particularly controversial in the west and that it hit the cultural zeitgeist
• Kukumber 4y ago
  I applaud the whistleblowers, keep fighting, you are not alone
• _9hey 4y ago
  Everyone should agree that the executive branch should not be pushing the envelope in regards to constitutional rights. This treasonous behavior demands accountability.
• sirsinsalot 4y ago
  If another country did this to its population we (the west) would call it censorship and oppression.
• jacooper 4y ago
  CISA member reaction to this https://twitter.com/katestarbird/status/1587215930366500864 https://twitter.com/katestarbird/status/1587215930366500864
• rkagerer 4y ago
  Misleading information (I don't want to use the article's silly buzzwords) is a genuine problem, and a security branch of the government is the last party I would want "policing" it. In democracies we have other institutions more appropriate to counter this, eg. educational institutions, journalists, non-profits like EFF, experts in the relevant field, etc.
• mzs 4y ago
  Kate Starbird's response: https://twitter.com/katestarbird/status/1587223100860547074 https://twitter.com/katestarbird/status/1587223100860547074
  • remarkEon 4y ago
    I had never heard of this person before this Intercept article, and after scrolling her feed for a bit, she's the exact type of person who should never be anywhere near a "committee" that decides what is and isn't "disinformation" (or "misinformation" or "malinformation" or whatever Orwellian term they come up with next). Incidentally, this is a great example of why Twitter is so useful. This person definitely qualifies as "elite", if she gets to sit on this committee, and Twitter is giving me an insider's view into how she sees the world, and it's a very specific, curated narrative that is basically the consensus opinion from The Economist, plus unquestioning repetition of whatever the Intelligence Community says. Absolutely bananas that people don't have a problem with this.
• valeg 4y ago
  There is no free speech, really. It is just various forms of preferred speech. This moniker has been hijacked by right-wingers recently. What really scarce is a reliable speech. Noise to signal ratio is really bad in social media. Especially due to state actors with their amplification of disinfo.
• gilded-lilly 4y ago
  Ministry of Truth. Orwell foresaw it.