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The actual national security concern is probably for state-sponsored psyops. We know Russia was able to pump a bunch of psyops campaigns into Western social me

The actual national security concern is probably for state-sponsored psyops. We know Russia was able to pump a bunch of psyops campaigns into Western social media, most NATO governments now have dedicated branches that root out this kind of information. But Russia's programs were really obtuse and relatively easy to trace. On the other hand, TikTok is all about flooding people with niche content areas. And content is consumed so much faster that it propagates quicker. And keep in mind TikTok is still state-sponsored by China despite the algorithm being so addictive that it is banned domestically. My tinfoil hat is that US officials have reports that the Chinese state is having influence on the American news cycles, but doesn't want to admit that it's made its way already into news media and politics issues.

somenameforme 4y ago
Your post can also be used as an argument for how disinformation claims are being weaponized. Hamilton 68 was a key figure in the Russian disinformation stuff. They claimed to have pinpointed hundreds of Russian bots and used this to create an interactive dashboard, headed by a former FBI counterintelligence official, enabling real time tracking of the latest "Russian disinformation." It was repeatedly referenced by both the media and high level politicians alike. This included Adam Schiff, The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, PBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and many more. Mother Jones ran at least 14 articles on their "research" alone. The problem is that this was, itself, all complete disinformation. Their "Russian bots" were largely made of normal, and very real, conservative Americans. [1] Many were of substantial note, including authors, lawyers (one had published a book on the constitution), news editors/hosts, and more. So you ended up in this zone where anything conservative individuals were talking about was immediately claimed to be Russian disinformation, which was equated with fake news. But you'll never see anything about this in those same news sites that ran stories based on the disinformation. Nor is their any grand demand that we shut down Hamilton 68. In fact you can still find their dashboard on the "Securing Democracy" page. [2] So normal genuine conversation was being censored under the guise of 'securing democracy against state sponsored disinformation' while major examples of genuine disinformation, which did (and continue) completely distort democracy, remain completely ignored. Very little of it has anything to do with integrity, security, or safety. It's all petty politics. And supporting the government banning apps, with no proven misdeeds, is one heck of a nasty precedent. [1] - https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1619029772977455105 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1619029772977455105 [2] - https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/ https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/
- legitster 4y ago
  I feel like this is missing the forest for the trees. The whole point of misinformation campaigns is to draw in real people. You wouldn't engage in astroturfing if you didn't think actual humans would show up. I haven't heard about Hamilton 68 but I can't seem to find any verification about it. It also seems narrowly focused on bots and not the hundreds of professional (human!) trolls and hackers that countries like Russia (and others) employ. I will grant you that the "fake news" problem was a completely separate issue and largely domestic: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50... We should be clear when we talk about "misinformation" we are talking about things that are materially true! Just weaponized. Russia hacked both the DNC and the GOP, but only leaked the DNC emails. Nothing was made up! We were just given a selective and unfair version of the truth. Honestly, I consider myself a somewhat conservative leaning myself. But foreign countries are engaging in these psyops programs believing them to be effective (as is our own government)! So I think it would be incredibly naive to let foreign agents with ulterior motives run free through our systems under the guise of political speech. I want my political trolling to be domestically produced!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    I'm not really following your logic there. The endgame of domestic produced disinformation is where we're, more or less, already at. In the best case scenario people believe nothing. In the worst case scenario people feel justified in arbitrarily believing whatever they want to believe. You lose any sort of notion of institutional authority, integrity, or trust. There was a recent article shared that today "only" 25% of Americans believe the media is not actively misleading them (50% do, 25% undecided). [1] I put only in quotes, because that number seems quite high to me! Imagine if something like The Pentagon Papers was released today. There's a good chance the mainstream media simply would not cover it. And the government itself would also likely claim it was just some sort of a Russian or Chinese disinformation campaign. At best, it'd end up being some sort of a partisan issue. Those that supported the war in Vietnam, or supported the current political party in power, would claim it was all disinformation. Those against it would claim it was the worst thing since Pearl Harbor. The solution to disinformation is not disinformation, censorship, or anything else. It's simply more information. Because the truth always finds a way. Even in the days of the Soviet Union where the political powers had not only complete control of the media, but even strictly controlled travel in/out of the country, people knew the politicians were full of it. And that's kind of a nice moral from 'the truth always wins' type story, but really shitty from the reality of living in a society where the most correct response to basically anything is to assume, as a default, that it's, at best, a half truth. And that is the endgame of domestic disinformation. [1] - https://fortune.com/2023/02/15/trust-in-media-low-misinform-mislead-biased-republicans-democrats-poll-gallup/ https://fortune.com/2023/02/15/trust-in-media-low-misinform-...

somenameforme 4y ago

Your post can also be used as an argument for how disinformation claims are being weaponized. Hamilton 68 was a key figure in the Russian disinformation stuff. They claimed to have pinpointed hundreds of Russian bots and used this to create an interactive dashboard, headed by a former FBI counterintelligence official, enabling real time tracking of the latest "Russian disinformation." It was repeatedly referenced by both the media and high level politicians alike. This included Adam Schiff, The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, PBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, and many more. Mother Jones ran at least 14 articles on their "research" alone. The problem is that this was, itself, all complete disinformation. Their "Russian bots" were largely made of normal, and very real, conservative Americans. [1] Many were of substantial note, including authors, lawyers (one had published a book on the constitution), news editors/hosts, and more. So you ended up in this zone where anything conservative individuals were talking about was immediately claimed to be Russian disinformation, which was equated with fake news. But you'll never see anything about this in those same news sites that ran stories based on the disinformation. Nor is their any grand demand that we shut down Hamilton 68. In fact you can still find their dashboard on the "Securing Democracy" page. [2] So normal genuine conversation was being censored under the guise of 'securing democracy against state sponsored disinformation' while major examples of genuine disinformation, which did (and continue) completely distort democracy, remain completely ignored. Very little of it has anything to do with integrity, security, or safety. It's all petty politics. And supporting the government banning apps, with no proven misdeeds, is one heck of a nasty precedent. [1] - https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1619029772977455105 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1619029772977455105 [2] - https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/ https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/hamilton-dashboard/

legitster 4y ago
I feel like this is missing the forest for the trees. The whole point of misinformation campaigns is to draw in real people. You wouldn't engage in astroturfing if you didn't think actual humans would show up. I haven't heard about Hamilton 68 but I can't seem to find any verification about it. It also seems narrowly focused on bots and not the hundreds of professional (human!) trolls and hackers that countries like Russia (and others) employ. I will grant you that the "fake news" problem was a completely separate issue and largely domestic: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/50... We should be clear when we talk about "misinformation" we are talking about things that are materially true! Just weaponized. Russia hacked both the DNC and the GOP, but only leaked the DNC emails. Nothing was made up! We were just given a selective and unfair version of the truth. Honestly, I consider myself a somewhat conservative leaning myself. But foreign countries are engaging in these psyops programs believing them to be effective (as is our own government)! So I think it would be incredibly naive to let foreign agents with ulterior motives run free through our systems under the guise of political speech. I want my political trolling to be domestically produced!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- somenameforme 4y ago
  I'm not really following your logic there. The endgame of domestic produced disinformation is where we're, more or less, already at. In the best case scenario people believe nothing. In the worst case scenario people feel justified in arbitrarily believing whatever they want to believe. You lose any sort of notion of institutional authority, integrity, or trust. There was a recent article shared that today "only" 25% of Americans believe the media is not actively misleading them (50% do, 25% undecided). [1] I put only in quotes, because that number seems quite high to me! Imagine if something like The Pentagon Papers was released today. There's a good chance the mainstream media simply would not cover it. And the government itself would also likely claim it was just some sort of a Russian or Chinese disinformation campaign. At best, it'd end up being some sort of a partisan issue. Those that supported the war in Vietnam, or supported the current political party in power, would claim it was all disinformation. Those against it would claim it was the worst thing since Pearl Harbor. The solution to disinformation is not disinformation, censorship, or anything else. It's simply more information. Because the truth always finds a way. Even in the days of the Soviet Union where the political powers had not only complete control of the media, but even strictly controlled travel in/out of the country, people knew the politicians were full of it. And that's kind of a nice moral from 'the truth always wins' type story, but really shitty from the reality of living in a society where the most correct response to basically anything is to assume, as a default, that it's, at best, a half truth. And that is the endgame of domestic disinformation. [1] - https://fortune.com/2023/02/15/trust-in-media-low-misinform-mislead-biased-republicans-democrats-poll-gallup/ https://fortune.com/2023/02/15/trust-in-media-low-misinform-...