World War Disinformation
July 20, 2018 9:04 PM Subscribe
"Combining virtual hate mobs, surveillance, misinformation, anonymous threats, and the invasion of victims’ privacy, states and political parties around the globe have created an increasingly aggressive online playbook that is difficult for the platforms to detect or counter." Bloomberg's Michael Riley, Lauren Etter, and Bibhudatta Pradham: A Global Guide to State-Sponsored Trolling.
From the Institute for the Future: STATE-SPONSORED TROLLING
How Governments Are Deploying Disinformation
as Part of Broader Digital Harassment Campaigns (.pdf).
From the Institute for the Future: STATE-SPONSORED TROLLING
How Governments Are Deploying Disinformation
as Part of Broader Digital Harassment Campaigns (.pdf).
In this paper, we examine the emergence of a new phenomenon: state-sponsored trolling. We define this phenomenon as the use by states of targeted online hate and harassment campaigns to intimidate and silence individuals critical of the state. There is evidence that governments around the world, leveraging the surveillance and hacking possibilities afforded by a new era of pervasive technology, are using new digital tactics to persecute perceived opponents at scale. These campaigns can take on the scale and speed of the modern internet with pinpoint personalization from troves of personal data afforded by cheap surveillance technologies and data brokers.
Though state-sponsored trolling occurs in a variety of countries and polities, several commonalities are evident, especially in the strategies and tactics used to carry out attacks.
And all America had to do was have a few radio hosts and a cable news channel and they get all their dumb dipshits do the same work for free. This tells me that Turkish and Indian peasants are much more rational than the average American because they get an actual price for their labour.
posted by Space Coyote at 9:38 PM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Space Coyote at 9:38 PM on July 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
Sorry, I meant to say "I can't but think that things are going to have to reach Peak Worst"
Sort of a double-negative. I think that clarifies everything, if you'd just put that in there...
posted by hippybear at 10:12 PM on July 20, 2018
Sort of a double-negative. I think that clarifies everything, if you'd just put that in there...
posted by hippybear at 10:12 PM on July 20, 2018
Peak Worst will be when the BCI stuff comes online. And if its state sponsored, it means the best and brightest at palantir and google and whatnot are now engaged in targeted, personalized, 24/7 trolling and harassment. Soon the expensive human operators will be replaced by custom design AI systems so victims won't even be able to defend themselves since nobody will be listening.
posted by infini at 12:04 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by infini at 12:04 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Since hte internet doesn't have the geographic hard stop border that countries and continents do, and big data algorithms aren't hte most accurate in the world, Peak Worst Nightmare would be random Asians being harassed to vote for Trump.
posted by infini at 12:06 AM on July 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by infini at 12:06 AM on July 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
So...what did people do before the internet?
Because I think we’re going back to that. Somehow.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:55 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Because I think we’re going back to that. Somehow.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:55 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Good point about forecasts missing this, hippybear.
This seems to describe the arc from prediction to reality:
In response to revolutions and social movements launched on Twitter and Facebook, national governments initially censored content, blocked access to social media and used surveillance technology to monitor their citizens. But it turned out to be far more effective to simply inundate the platforms with a torrent of disinformation and anonymized threats—what the researchers dubbed a strategy of “information abundance” made possible by the rapid spread of social media.
posted by doctornemo at 7:50 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
This seems to describe the arc from prediction to reality:
In response to revolutions and social movements launched on Twitter and Facebook, national governments initially censored content, blocked access to social media and used surveillance technology to monitor their citizens. But it turned out to be far more effective to simply inundate the platforms with a torrent of disinformation and anonymized threats—what the researchers dubbed a strategy of “information abundance” made possible by the rapid spread of social media.
posted by doctornemo at 7:50 AM on July 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
So...what did people do before the internet?
We read newspapers and magazines and often attended one-time lectures or speeches, then would talk about them in person when you ran into others shopping for music or at a movie or coffee. We would stop at a convenience store to call home and get any messages, then call the person back and meet somewhere, maybe a temporary gathering somewhere that did not seek or earn the designation of party until it was over. Word was often left behind where this was to update anyone else. Otherwise everyone would be at some event or show that was promoted on a lamp post and a copied poster the size of a sheet of paper, and you didn't have anyone's number under these circumstances, but you knew where they lived usually, and could drop by unexpectedly to watch a video or have a drink or arrange a future meetup, maybe outdoors somewhere. I personally wrote nearly a dozen short letters to the editor, all different publications across decades, in order to correct misinformation about this or that that I knew about. And we read those too. It was all filtered by professionals. In smaller town newspapers, they would allow letters to the editor to become running battles between people, where it often became personally insulting based on past rumors, and it looked more like the internet today. That was post-sixties, and before then and its recorded media distractions, the adults would simply gather for dinner and drinks and arrange dates for their kids, or otherwise let them do whatever the hell they wanted in very large cars all night, talking or shouting along the street with hundreds of people in a few short hours, which they did without seat belts, going very fast, sometimes in the wrong lane.
posted by Brian B. at 10:18 AM on July 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
We read newspapers and magazines and often attended one-time lectures or speeches, then would talk about them in person when you ran into others shopping for music or at a movie or coffee. We would stop at a convenience store to call home and get any messages, then call the person back and meet somewhere, maybe a temporary gathering somewhere that did not seek or earn the designation of party until it was over. Word was often left behind where this was to update anyone else. Otherwise everyone would be at some event or show that was promoted on a lamp post and a copied poster the size of a sheet of paper, and you didn't have anyone's number under these circumstances, but you knew where they lived usually, and could drop by unexpectedly to watch a video or have a drink or arrange a future meetup, maybe outdoors somewhere. I personally wrote nearly a dozen short letters to the editor, all different publications across decades, in order to correct misinformation about this or that that I knew about. And we read those too. It was all filtered by professionals. In smaller town newspapers, they would allow letters to the editor to become running battles between people, where it often became personally insulting based on past rumors, and it looked more like the internet today. That was post-sixties, and before then and its recorded media distractions, the adults would simply gather for dinner and drinks and arrange dates for their kids, or otherwise let them do whatever the hell they wanted in very large cars all night, talking or shouting along the street with hundreds of people in a few short hours, which they did without seat belts, going very fast, sometimes in the wrong lane.
posted by Brian B. at 10:18 AM on July 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Once again, it seems Neal Stephenson called it: In Anathem, which takes place in an alternate time line where science took off long before it did in the real world, their version of the Internet, the Reticulum, was at one point rendered nigh-useless due to automated systems injecting false information. "Early in the Reticulum-thousands of years ago-it became almost useless because it was cluttered with faulty, obsolete, or downright misleading information."
posted by Blackanvil at 10:30 AM on July 21, 2018
posted by Blackanvil at 10:30 AM on July 21, 2018
So...what did people do before the internet?
I was 29 when I first saw the internet. I'd only read about it until then. I was a prolific reader. And a regular letter writer to a number of friends. I wrote poetry. I took my moped out for rides. Before college, when I was still living with my family, my sister and I would draw stories together, creating imaginary worlds and people, regular characters with adventures and drama. These days I miss my imagination more than I can say. I've begun working very hard to get that relaxed, idle mind time back from the dopamine control levers. The past four days have been hard work to focus on reading, taking walks, going shopping, sitting in the backyard with the neighbours, and not just sit on the laptop all day. I haven't brought it down to zero yet but shifted teh social media immersion to metafilter, which at least isn't designed to make me hit refresh even if I do find myself doing it. Otoh when I catch myself in that mode, I immediately shut the laptop down and force myself to do something else. There's a lot I've started rearranging in my life and I hope to look back by Christmas to say, oh, look at how my daily life has changed.
posted by infini at 12:27 PM on July 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was 29 when I first saw the internet. I'd only read about it until then. I was a prolific reader. And a regular letter writer to a number of friends. I wrote poetry. I took my moped out for rides. Before college, when I was still living with my family, my sister and I would draw stories together, creating imaginary worlds and people, regular characters with adventures and drama. These days I miss my imagination more than I can say. I've begun working very hard to get that relaxed, idle mind time back from the dopamine control levers. The past four days have been hard work to focus on reading, taking walks, going shopping, sitting in the backyard with the neighbours, and not just sit on the laptop all day. I haven't brought it down to zero yet but shifted teh social media immersion to metafilter, which at least isn't designed to make me hit refresh even if I do find myself doing it. Otoh when I catch myself in that mode, I immediately shut the laptop down and force myself to do something else. There's a lot I've started rearranging in my life and I hope to look back by Christmas to say, oh, look at how my daily life has changed.
posted by infini at 12:27 PM on July 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
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The question is, will it Be Too Late before Peak Worst happens?
posted by hippybear at 9:27 PM on July 20, 2018