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Isn’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 forei
by skhunted 3y ago
Isn’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".
- skhunted 3y agoIt’s ok to try to stop a bad act from happening even though other bad acts are also occurring.
- mythrwy 3y agoAttempting to fix the cracks in society itself (including the corruption and shocking lack of honesty from many western government officials) is likely to be more fruitful then attempting to stop adversaries from pointing the cracks out. If people feel represented and informed and wisely governed and have a stake in the system, adversarial information wars will be much less effective.
- skhunted 3y agoIt’s hard to have an “informed” society while simultaneously not trying to fix the disinformation problem.
- mythrwy 3y agoYou can't fix adversarial disinformation with domestic disinformation. Trust in western governments is not great at the moment. The primary cause of this is probably not adversarial disinformation.
- shrimp_emoji 3y agoThe Establishment: We have to lie to them for the good of society! Also the Establishment: We also have to stop disinformation!
- pests 3y agoNot all information is disinformation.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- skhunted 3y agoYou should read the article. No reasonable person is proposing a domestic disinformation campaign. The proposal is for a information campaign. To identify fakes and let people know at the time they first encounter whatever it is that was faked.
- snakeyjake 3y ago[flagged]
- lif 3y ago@dang we o.k. w/ ad hominem at HN now?
- snakeyjake 3y agoThis isn’t ad hominem. I read every single thing they ever posted to HN (in context) before making that, quite frankly generous, assertion.
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- declan_roberts 3y agoI'm flattered! Although I will respectfully agree to disagree with your summary judgement against me.
- shrimp_emoji 3y agoThey can be correct regardless of their motivation.
- Pokerface777 3y agopretty sure he was being sarcastic. which he should be.