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Agreed. From a game theory perspective, this needs to be tit-for-tat. Implement a fund dedicated to toppling hostile regimes and creating chaos for them via di

by ericb 2y ago

Agreed. From a game theory perspective, this needs to be tit-for-tat. Implement a fund dedicated to toppling hostile regimes and creating chaos for them via disinfo in their own countries. Then, measure disinfo operations in the US, and allocate the funds to retaliation in-kind as exactly as possible.

IAmGraydon 2y ago
That's sort of a digital MAD. An interesting idea. Beyond that, US sites which willingly allow the spread of misinformation should be heavily fined. Reddit, for example, is a complete cesspool of foreign influence campaigns. It's not like it's hard to pick up on. They target populations that are already likely to believe misinformation and conspiracies. The conspiracy subreddit, for example, is rife with obviously foreign accounts that come out of nowhere, post divisive misinformation tens or even hundreds of times per day, and the posts get thousands of upvotes out of nowhere. The idea is that if you seed a small contingent of the population with misinformation, they will do the rest of the work and spread it for you in the rest of the population. No, Reddit cannot do away with 100% of this, but it is absolutely clear that they aren't even trying to control it. That has to stop. A simple change like requiring phone verification before you can create an account (and not allowing Google voice numbers) would do a lot to quell this. They don't care. They just want the traffic.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Do note, this was the only actual piece of new information from the twitter files. Twitter would whitelist psy-op accounts so they wouldn't get banned [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files#Nos._8%E2%80%939:_Relationship_with_the_U.S._government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files#Nos._8%E2%80%939...
akira2501 2y ago
> to toppling hostile regimes and creating chaos From a real world perspective you're being awfully cavalier with the lives of people who are just as much victims of their own government as you perceive yourself to be. > measure disinfo operations in the US Yet you take no stock of the same operations the US already runs in other parts of the world. What a petty short term victory you're aiming for.
- ericb 2y ago
  > Yet you take no stock of the same operations the US already runs in other parts of the world. What a petty short term victory you're aiming for. Not at all. When the incentive becomes not to do it, then it will stop. > Yet you take no stock of the same operations the US already runs in other parts of the world. Nowhere did I advocate for doing so, or continuing to do so. In general, the US has followed a reckless know-it-all policy of regime change that has backfired many more times than it has ever worked, and is overall a net negative even for the US. This is different--it is a strategic public deterrent. It isn't directly goal oriented, only deterrence oriented, and any country will have a simple way to stop it at any time--stop putting disinfo into the US infosphere. And in fact, this works better if the US stops doing these things for any other purpose.

by ericb 2y ago

IAmGraydon 2y ago

That's sort of a digital MAD. An interesting idea. Beyond that, US sites which willingly allow the spread of misinformation should be heavily fined. Reddit, for example, is a complete cesspool of foreign influence campaigns. It's not like it's hard to pick up on. They target populations that are already likely to believe misinformation and conspiracies. The conspiracy subreddit, for example, is rife with obviously foreign accounts that come out of nowhere, post divisive misinformation tens or even hundreds of times per day, and the posts get thousands of upvotes out of nowhere. The idea is that if you seed a small contingent of the population with misinformation, they will do the rest of the work and spread it for you in the rest of the population. No, Reddit cannot do away with 100% of this, but it is absolutely clear that they aren't even trying to control it. That has to stop. A simple change like requiring phone verification before you can create an account (and not allowing Google voice numbers) would do a lot to quell this. They don't care. They just want the traffic.

lesuorac 2y ago
Do note, this was the only actual piece of new information from the twitter files. Twitter would whitelist psy-op accounts so they wouldn't get banned [1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files#Nos._8%E2%80%939:_Relationship_with_the_U.S._government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files#Nos._8%E2%80%939...

akira2501 2y ago

> to toppling hostile regimes and creating chaos From a real world perspective you're being awfully cavalier with the lives of people who are just as much victims of their own government as you perceive yourself to be. > measure disinfo operations in the US Yet you take no stock of the same operations the US already runs in other parts of the world. What a petty short term victory you're aiming for.

ericb 2y ago
> Yet you take no stock of the same operations the US already runs in other parts of the world. What a petty short term victory you're aiming for. Not at all. When the incentive becomes not to do it, then it will stop. > Yet you take no stock of the same operations the US already runs in other parts of the world. Nowhere did I advocate for doing so, or continuing to do so. In general, the US has followed a reckless know-it-all policy of regime change that has backfired many more times than it has ever worked, and is overall a net negative even for the US. This is different--it is a strategic public deterrent. It isn't directly goal oriented, only deterrence oriented, and any country will have a simple way to stop it at any time--stop putting disinfo into the US infosphere. And in fact, this works better if the US stops doing these things for any other purpose.