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I can't wait for an official government arbiter (or better yet a "partner" not bound by the constitution or FOIA disclosure laws) deciding what is and what is n
by declan_roberts 3y ago
I can't wait for an official government arbiter (or better yet a "partner" not bound by the constitution or FOIA disclosure laws) deciding what is and what is not foreign manipulated media. Hopefully they get this going before the election before Americans start electing the wrong candidates.
Rest assured it's for our safety. Those pesky Russians are always trying to destroy us!
- squigz 3y agoChina also makes a good BBEG.
- skhunted 3y agoEspecially since it genuinely is. I’m not claiming the U.S. is better in an objective sense but clearly the two countries are in opposition to each other. China clearly would love a divided U.S.
- squigz 3y agoThe US loves a divided US, too
- tmaly 3y agoIt is in the citizens interest that the do gooders be divided so they get nothing done.
- skhunted 3y agoConsider the possibility that this due to influence by foreign controlled bots and targeted information warfare against American citizens.
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoIt could be both a) foreign influence and b) the media and politicians benefiting from polarisation.
- squigz 3y agoIt is indeed. Yet a foreign government can't pass laws curtailing the freedom and invading the privacy of a citizen on their own country's soil.
- krapp 3y agoI tend to mistrust the motives of the government warning me to fear the nebulous influence of commie spies lurking around every corner and that I should accept government sanction and censorship to protect me from their sinister mind control algorithms than I do the red menace. Dissent is good. It's a vital component in any free society. The first two amendments of the US Constitution exist to preserve the right of the people to dissent, to the point of violence. Theoretically. Legally you can't just shoot a politician in the head, however cool Thomas Jefferson might have been with it. Point being, the US is supposed to be a society in which instability and dissent is always present, threatening but hopefully never toppling the edifice. Of course that requires an educated and informed populace capable of discerning between critical thinking and cynicism, likely truth and horseshit, and a free press that isn't wholly subservient to corporate and government interests, and a lot of civic and cultural traits the US lacks. But that's what we should be focusing on, and that remains the case regardless of whether one is talking about Chinese propaganda or American. It's all the same. Over half of the anti-vaxx conspiracy content spread across social media during COVID came from only twelve people[0], one of whom was a Kennedy. Mind you, i'm pro deplatforming - as long as it's the platform's decision. Platforms should absolutely be free to reject whatever they like on whatever terms they wish, freedom of speech doesn't compel anyone to spread that speech against their will. But when the government steps in and says it's on my side, I assume that eventually they'll just want to send me to the camps. [0]https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-doze...
- jfengel 3y agoand a lot of civic and cultural traits the US lacks Indeed, that feels like the root of the matter. If men were angels we wouldn't need laws. Real people are messy, and bumper-sticker principles don't adequately characterize us well enough to design a set of pragmatic laws. A real compromise leaves everyone mad, and given how mad we are already I'm at a loss to suggest how to proceed. I'll be honest that I'm pretty angry myself; I think we've allowed ourselves to be taken in by some pathetically obvious propaganda. I wish we were at least talking about subtle and interesting problems. Instead we seem to be gleefully re-litigating the obvious.
- 3y ago
- djbusby 3y agoBBEG: Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal
- skhunted 3y agoIsn’t it obvious that Russia and China have been waging an information war against the U.S.? Isn’t it in the national and societal interests to prevent a foreign power from sowing dissent amongst the citizens of the country? It’s been estimated that around 50% of the comments on the internet are bots. It’s cheap and easy to target people with messaging that influences their behavior. It’s worthwhile to try to prevent this.
- bilbo0s 3y agoIt’s been estimated that around 50% of the comments on the internet are bots That's just the sort of false misinformation being propagated through the internet and social media these days that makes it difficult for us as a society to properly assess and deal with our problems. There is no way that only 50% of comments on the internet are sock puppets of one kind or another.
- sylware 3y agoIt is way worse and that's not going to get better: AI trolls. Strap a neural net to an headless blink/webkit with a virtual mouse and keyboard. Click farms would be used to generate the data for machine learning.
- genman 3y ago> There is no way that only 50% of comments on the internet are sock puppets of one kind or another. No way? Why not? First the content doesn't have to be original, just a variation of some provided template, then it doesn't have to be unique. Now combine this with automated tools and voila - even a single person can produce a lot of content but now multiple it with multiple accounts re-sharing it and you can increase it by order of magnitude.
- swayvil 3y agoIt isn't russia/china fuckery OR usa autofuckery. It's russia/china fuckery AND usa autofuckery. And to further fuzz the culprits, the usa/china/russia people invest in each other's "countries".
- ajkjk 3y agoI... actually can't wait? You're not wrong that it can be overused but there is risk in both directions and pretending like there isn't just fully exposes you to one of them.
- gopher_space 3y agoYeah I've got to say I'm not sold on OP's whole "let's embrace chaos!" approach.
- declan_roberts 3y agoThe USA has 248 years of legal jurisprudence regarding freedom of the press. I would personally not categorize it as chaos.
- ajkjk 3y agoOf course but the point stands. There are opposing forces here and it would be foolish to care about one and ignore the other.
- gopher_space 3y agoObviously foolish. One of the downsides to this format is that you're exposed to opinions nobody would bother to maintain face to face.
- nicechianti 3y ago[dead]
- mc32 3y agoIt’s pretty amazing that $100k can decide an election much better than $1B is able to achieve. The simple conclusion is traditional campaigns are money laundering and money wasting operations but you really want to win, just pay the Russians and Chinese a rounding error of an amount and they’ll change the outcome in your favor!
- aaomidi 3y agoThe arguments the US is using is literally the exact arguments Iran uses for why the censorship. It's fascinating to see Americans cheer this on.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]