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An algorithm developed at Carnegie Mellon University makes it easier to determine if someone has faked an Amazon or Yelp review or if a politician with a suspiciously large number of Twitter followers might have bought and paid for that popularity.
The method, called FRAUDAR, marks the latest escalation in the cat-and-mouse game played by online fraudsters and the social media platforms that try to out them. In particular, the new algorithm makes it possible to see through camouflage that fraudsters use to make themselves look legitimate, said Christos Faloutsos, professor of machine learning and computer science.
In real-world experiments using Twitter data for 41.7 million users and 1.47 billion followers, FRAUDAR fingered more than 4,000 accounts not previously identified as fraudulent, including many that used known follower-buying services such as TweepMe and TweeterGetter.
Bad news for the nascent astroturfing industry.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @04:02PM
A single vote has a statistically insignificant chance of changing the result of the presidential election.
Why don't you just vote for who you think is the best? You won't be responsible for the outcome of the election either way.
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Friday September 09 2016, @04:19PM
If most people did this, instead of insisting to themselves and others the propaganda position that there are "only two choices", the two-parties-two-choices stranglehold would be broken within a couple cycles.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday September 09 2016, @05:01PM
That assumes the person you think is the best can be voted for. If you think Bernie Sanders is the best, whom will you vote for?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @05:10PM
I guess it depends on the ballot, but you could write-in whoever you want.
I don't vote for candidates that I don't like, so I leave the vote blank if I need to.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 09 2016, @05:12PM
At this point, what's the margin of reelection for an Obama third term?
We're ignoring the 4th, the 5th, and often the 1st. I'm pretty sure half of the country would be fine with ignoring the 22nd just this one time...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kromagv0 on Friday September 09 2016, @05:22PM
In the case of a true Bernie believer I would say that Jill Stein would likely be the best choice, or maybe Alyson Kennedy of the Socialist Workers Party depending on where you fall on other issues. Those are the ones who are on the MN ballot who at a first glance seem likely to be the best fit.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone