AP: Cyborgs, Trolls and bots: A guide to online misinformation

While the below AP article doesn't get into disinformation websites like OANN that is designed to look like real news sites, nor the fact that anything with a chat feature is being attacked nonstop, it does have some valuable information.

https://apnews.com/4086949d878336f8ea6daa4dee725d94


Anyone that wants a very good place to start learning how the Russians are attacking our democracy (and every democracy worldwide), this is a very good video:

If interested in how all of our data is being used in politics, I highly suggest watching this Cambridge Analytica talk about how they are using data to drive political campaigns advertising just after Iowa caucus in 2016:


The big takeaway from this is how they have data driven personality profiles on every single American that they can use in combination with A.I. to pinpoint which type of propaganda/issues you are most likely to respond to and use that to micro target EVERYONE with extremely specific messaging on the issues that matter most to the specific person.


Below is the hearing where the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower explains that the Russians did get their data.


Once the Russians had acquired these tools and Facebook data from Cambridge Analytica, Putin was able to use the Russian military to do things like spamming voters (who liked/visited more racially insensitive stories/memes) with more racist information while being able to target their friends/family/significant others that are turned off by the blatant racism, a similar message with less racial overtones, or just staying away from certain topics all together, or if that particular person is going to respond negatively to it, amplifying the differences so much that they quit talking all together when they start fighting with each other (hardening their bubble).



More insidious is when the Trump campaign gave the Russians our voting data which helped them not only target our citizens based on their personalities and use AI to sort which propaganda to send them, but they were then able to do it down to the states/districts to nudge people into not voting for Clinton into voting 3rd party if they were not going to vote for Trump and didn't fall for the voter suppression campaigns.



The scariest things for me is that this data has only grown over the last 3 years under Trump. This means that the information on what impacts us has only grown.

Rep. Ted Lieu @1:59:00 questioning starts.

@2:01:00 asked the most important questions about election interference and troll farms.
(CSPAN if that link dies eventually will carry the hearing: https://www.c-span.org/video/?468923-1/fbi-director-wray-testifies-oversight-hearing&start=7168 )

Unfortunately Christopher Wray agrees that it is been ongoing and increasing with proximity to elections, and that worst of all, they are not really doing anything about it. They are relying on the social media companies to deal with it.

This is not going to get any better under a Trump administration.

The Atlantic has a very good article on disinformation and how Trump used it to get elected, and how he found it is being used today to trap people in a information bubble that is constant.

Must read article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/


It really shows that if you are ruthless and are willing to lie unabashedly, technology today makes it very easy to spread that message in a very real way, add to it the power of the Presidency (and foreign nations militaries) and it is scary effective.

I really want to post the entire article, but it is crazy long, because it is covering so much really important information. From Trump's #1 Domestic Propaganda Troll Brad Parscale's complete lack of shame in his pushing of lies, to the very real problem of should the Democrats start just fighting fire with fire and just go 1984 along with the Republicans and just create their own narratives instead of trying to keep to reality and facts.

But this portion really deserves to be in this thread as it gets into some of the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica story and how the above post is so scary that our government is not doing anything to stop it:

This is the interview that I originally saw about the above article. I really think it is insightful how the journalist started out thinking he knew enough to not fall for the Trump disinformation campaign but found himself unsure about what facts were real. We are all human and very programmable.

I watch "Good Morning Joe" and Ari Melber weekdays like a religion, lol. Good mix of moderate Republicans (Michelle Wallace, Michael Steele, Joe Scarborough, and more moderate gop) and Democrats. ZERO conspiracy theorists (like FOX news)/// Just never cared for CNN much, their hosts seem second rate.

Couch_buzz said:

I watch "Good Morning Joe" and Ari Melber weekdays like a religion, lol. Good mix of moderate Republicans (Michelle Wallace, Michael Steele, Joe Scarborough, and more moderate gop) and Democrats. ZERO conspiracy theorists (like FOX news)/// Just never cared for CNN much, their hosts seem second rate.

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Same I like MSNBC, but I do get pretty annoyed when Mika/Joe start up on how so and so is unelectable, and start demanding better tag lines from politicians. I wish they would understand that reality is not easily packaged into a populous message and they are just playing into the disinformation game half the time.

Much like Katy Tur was in this video:

I understand that they are trying to make interesting TV and go for the throat a lot like the 'other side' would, but it is not really constructive.

@BurtMaklin Posting this in here, because I hope you look through this thread, especially at the video in the first post. It really is that important to understand what is happening.

BurtMaklin said:

Oh FFS, drop the "Russia" garbage. They're influence is a drop in the bucket compared to corporate lobbying and the corporate influence in media. Russia has the GDP of Texas, and you're worried that they're your #1 threat? You aren't living in reality.

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You are ignorant of the danger that they (and other foreign nations) pose to our democracy, or just trying to cover for it.

It is not about the actual money that they spend (was $1.25 million per month for just Russia in 2014, and Epoch times is currently spamming people with mailers, youtube videos, and emails pushing propaganda for Trump, and that is before Saudi Arabia, Israeli, and UAE are figured in), it is about the entire network of fake websites that look like news (like OANN), the fact that they are using all of our voting data down to the district to collect everything people type online/websites they visit/stories they read (using cookies) to dump into their personality profiles files on everyone.

Which is used to tease out exactly what propaganda to hit you with and where it will be most effective to achieve their goals.

They also don't have to follow our laws and are currently at war with us according to every government agency with an ongoing and pervasive online attack. And nothing is being done about it, because it benefits Trump.

They are even attacking our children for fucks sake. Every website with a comment section, every video game with a chat feature, snapchat, all that shit is being used to collect information and spread their lies. You are only keeping you and your family in danger by pretending it is not a problem.

Russian Military indictment showing their $1.25 million a month budget to attack our elections:


Russian Disinformation Report showing that they were attacking our kids on their video games:

Couple really good videos on trolls and bots that are attacking our democracy.


And a warning on how they have been collecting data for years to add to the mountains of information that the Russians/foreign nations already have on us.

PBS Newshour is the best news in the United States.

Deutch Wella in my opinion is the best in Europe.

Reuters, Politico and ProPublica are the best on the web.

An interesting interview with a paid Russian internet troll.

TacoMac said:

PBS Newshour is the best news in the United States.

Deutch Wella in my opinion is the best in Europe.

Reuters, Politico and ProPublica are the best on the web.

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Believe it or not, Aljazeera is considered to be a legitimate news source for [edit] U.S. intelligence.

There are better sources for one's news. No reason to settle for a biased site with less than excellent history of factual news reporting. No reason, that is, unless one only wishes for news that supports their own bias. We are all biased. No need to look for more.

Al Jazeera



Factual Reporting: MIXED
Country: Qatar
World Press Freedom Rank: Qatar 125/180
LEFT-CENTER BIAS
These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information, but may require further investigation. See all Left-Center sources.

• Overall, we rate Al Jazeera Left-Center biased, based on story selection that slightly favors the left and Mixed for factual reporting due to failed fact checks that were not corrected and misleading extreme editorial bias that favors Qatar.

Sofa King Smoooth said:

Believe it or not, Aljazeera is considered to be a legitimate news source for [edit] U.S. intelligence.

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Ah, no. I don't.

Dont know your background but ive read plenty of INTSUM reports. Aljazeera has less BS to sift through with more factual info then major US media.

Been part of the action that was reported on from iraq several times and dont care if you believe it or not. It is true based on the news that was reported in the US vs. news Aljazeera repoted.

It is true that "we" (coalition forces) were considered occupation forces and were not loved by majority of middle eastern nations, however the facts were more credible than the Fox and CNN we carried around and babysat during missions.

The reporters that were with me on missions then did their live broadcast to the states were full of pure bullshit.

According to intel officers that are currently active, if you want to read reports that are accurate look at aljazeera before ANY US news source.

Common sense goes a loooooong way with deciphering intel. Probably why there are not very many in that field of expertise.

Common sense is NOT common.

Average citizen is naive and uneducated enough to believe whatever BS that spews from the tv, newspaper, or internet without any effort to cross check and verify

Sofa King Smoooth said:

Dont know your background but ive read plenty of INTSUM reports. Aljazeera has less BS to sift through with more factual info then major US media.

Been part of the action that was reported on from iraq several times and dont care if you believe it or not. It is true based on the news that was reported in the US vs. news Aljazeera repoted.

It is true that "we" (coalition forces) were considered occupation forces and were not loved by majority of middle eastern nations, however the facts were more credible than the Fox and CNN we carried around and babysat during missions.

The reporters that were with me on missions then did their live broadcast to the states were full of pure bullshit.

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A left side bias with mixed record of factual reporting by a news site owned and reporting to a king?

We don't have to go to them for our news. There are plenty of sites that have better records for accuracy and are less biased.

FT.com (paywall but worth it)
Washington Post
Politico
Politifact
NPR

All are better sources than AlJazeera.

I read that site when I want to know more about the happenings in the middle east.

To this day I can find archived reports from missions i was personally involved in where Aljazeera is the only report close to the truth.

Sofa King Smoooth said:

Dont know your background but ive read plenty of INTSUM reports. Aljazeera has less BS to sift through with more factual info then major US media.

Been part of the action that was reported on from iraq several times and dont care if you believe it or not. It is true based on the news that was reported in the US vs. news Aljazeera repoted.

It is true that "we" (coalition forces) were considered occupation forces and were not loved by majority of middle eastern nations, however the facts were more credible than the Fox and CNN we carried around and babysat during missions.

The reporters that were with me on missions then did their live broadcast to the states were full of pure bullshit.

According to intel officers that are currently active, if you want to read reports that are accurate look at aljazeera before ANY US news source.

Common sense goes a loooooong way with deciphering intel. Probably why there are not very many in that field of expertise.

Common sense is NOT common.

Average citizen is naive and uneducated enough to believe whatever BS that spews from the tv, newspaper, or internet without any effort to cross check and verify

Click to expand...

Regarding how the US are viewed by majority of middle eastern nations, I agree. We are seen as imperialists and occupiers. But here you are citing public opinion, which is important but not necessarily accurate and unbiased in and of itself.

I'd like to see the US end it's military aid to Israel and transition away from its international role of world wide military leader. OTOH, China and Russia must be opposed. They aren't exactly doves in this world and won't go away when people point and shake fingers at them. Talk to the people of Ukraine and Tibet about how bad the US is. So, yeah, common sense is not common. The truth is even harder to get.

Sofa King Smoooth said:

To this day I can find archived reports from missions i was personally involved in where Aljazeera is the only report close to the truth.

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so?

So I should take news unfiltered from a media outlet owned by a king because it accurately reported on something that happened 15 or so years ago?

I DID say I turn to them for information about the Middle East, did I not? I'm just saying that we have sources with better reputation who don't report out of a country that sits in the bottom third when it comes to press-freedom in the world.

Agreed.
ALL sources need to be looked at for what it is and where it comes from. None are to be 100% trusted as pure truth. It is extremely difficult for any human to write or speak without some prejudice coming through.

Everyone isn't on top of it like you seem to be.