The Grim Consequences of a Misleading Study on Disinformation:
Last month the esteemed Oxford Internet Institute [(OII)] announced a major report on disinformation and "cyber troops" with a press release describing an "industrial-scale problem." Worldwide press coverage echoed claims that OII had revealed the "increasing role" private firms play in spreading computational propaganda. Actual evidence presented in the annual "survey" of social media manipulation, however, is much thinner than the hype.
While the report's website declares, "Cyber troop activity continues to increase around the world," inside the report, OII claim they show "publicly identified" cases of disinformation operations have "grow[n] in number over time." They point to their own studies counting public reporting as evidence of actual operations increasing since 2017. Citing OII's last report, which was based on similar evidence, The New York Times in 2019 heralded that "the number of countries with political disinformation campaigns more than doubled to 70 in the last two years."
The big problem here is the phrase "publicly identified."
[N.B. - This is an opinion piece from the Wired web site.]
As a longtime propaganda scholar, I know we struggled to get disinformation and propaganda reported on before the 2016 US election and Brexit, when journalistic interest suddenly grew. In 2015, a NexisUni search reveals, the Times mentioned disinformation in just 33 articles; there were 95 in 2016, 274 in 2017, 586 in 2018, and 684 in 2019. This is, of course, an indication of increased reporting of disinformation.
[...] OII's methodology also acknowledges that its findings may be impacted by "media bias." This is unacceptable in a study assessing disinformation. The problem is worse than they admit, because their evidence appears to hang on the hope that all the media reporting I describe above reflects the scale of disinformation, not reporters' sudden discovery of it.
Once one knows all this, numbers in the report come to seem largely meaningless. Take the claim that disinformation has increased to 76 out of the 81 countries they found using computational propaganda. If so, politicians in five of these countries apparently never lie online. Wherever that is, I'm going.
The problem is that figures are then presented as authoritative with colorful tables and charts. Statistics look more persuasive than anecdotal examples. And many journalists seem to have taken away from the press release a few impressive numbers without examining the methods.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday February 20 2021, @09:02PM (21 children)
Oh look! It just so happens that the same day Wired published the article, The New York Times also published an opinion piece about "misinformation." And both articles could be best summarized as
Noticing things like how organized Jewish propagandists can't even wait to stagger the publishing dates because they are that afraid of losing their grip on public opinion, or perhaps just sloppy in their arrogance. From the NY Times article I posted:
The Chutzpah of these fucking Yids. Stormfront users are better at propaganda than I? I don't fucking think so. I thought Stormfront "users" were all just a bunch of dumb-ass rednecks! Dumb enough to be feared by Conde Nast and the New York Times that, unlike Stormfront, have gazillions of dollars and bot-farms at their disposal.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday February 20 2021, @09:04PM
(Doh. Forgot NYT Article link) Don't Go Down the Rabbit Hole [nytimes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2021, @09:49PM (12 children)
Just got back from the landfill this morning. I saw bags of garbage smarter than this yahoo. ^^
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2021, @10:04PM (11 children)
He is our resident racist idiot. Sticks around because other slightly less racist idiots think he is just trolling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @12:38AM (10 children)
I learn interesting things from many of his posts, and hope the LGBTQUX mob doesn't cancel him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @12:42AM
I thought LGBTQ was implied in all practitioners of UX?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:03AM (8 children)
You are "learning" disinformation and racist talking points. I would suggest you assume everything he says is bullshit, and only then go verify. Undoubtedly some portions of truth, but used to fill your head with fuckwittery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:25AM (7 children)
Do you get these cancel-culture talking points in a weekly newsletter from Democrat HQ?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Tork on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:35AM
Ohhh the hilarity of using a term like 'cancel culture' to complain about others acting on propaganda. 🤡
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:46AM (1 child)
The term cancel culture is bullshit invented by the right to claim victim hood. Open criticism of stupidity is not Vance culturae, it’s calling out bullshitters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @06:09AM
Yeah, like when the legacy news services invented the term "fake news" to use against the right, and then it got turned against them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @02:59AM (1 child)
We shouldn't cancel him. His racist rants are as equally valid as any rational well thought out argument. Not. Sometimes ya just gotta bring out the ban hammer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @05:16PM
What do you mean "we?" You may be the next one to go.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @04:35AM (1 child)
Oh waaaaah
If I was actually trying to "cancel" EF why would I have said:
"I would suggest you assume everything he says is bullshit, and only then go verify. Undoubtedly some portions of truth"
I would have just used his racism as a cudgel to say he is a lying moron with zero value. That is not true, like any human he has some amount of value but given his trolling and racist agenda I warn you to be skeptical.
OH THE HORROR! OH THE HUMANITY!
Tell me, have you ever considered yourself a member of the "party of personal responsibility"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @05:41AM
High throughput night soil producer. Solely for the reason he uses more than one of his orifices for excretion.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2021, @10:58PM (6 children)
The entire "white supremacy" scare of the past ten years is to cover up the fact that the Rothschilds were caught paying al-Qaeda to overthrow Libya because its proposal for a new African currency threatened their control over currency trading, and laundering money from the Golden Chain network to the Obama campaign, and using their new strategic partners to set up a global Internet censorship mechanism after they had founded ISIS, and diverting public funds to pay the Muslim Brotherhood to invade Europe. People in the intelligence community were starting to notice -- especially after one of the missiles that Clinton sold the Qataris ended up in the side of an American helicopter in Afghanistan -- so there had to be a massive campaign to remove all of these "white supremacists" from the police, military, spy services, businesses, educational institutions, etc.
8/pol/ figured out that the people posting the nastiest anti-jew stuff were the same Muslims that the Rothschilds were putting in charge of the Strong Cities police network and the campaign against white supremacy. That's why it all disappeared in an instant. They were an organized and disciplined spy ring. Pakistanis, Saudis, and others.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:01AM (4 children)
Ah yes, that is why the white supremacists lost their fucking minds when Obama was elected. Gotta love you conspiracy tards, little nuggets of truth wrapped by the thickest bullshit available.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:44AM
Obama was a foreign agent of both Saudi Arabia [investors.com] and the USSR [1776channel.com]. Of course that makes it "white supremacist" to freak out when he won the election and put Bill Ayers and Hady Amr in charge of the education system and he put Hamas in charge of national security and another ex-communist Saudi agent in charge of the CIA. What did you think "community organizer" meant? That was spy talk for "this guy's a spy!"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:55AM (2 children)
Conspiracy first lowers share common characteristics. Socially inept, often isolated, deep seated feelings of inadequacy which are in conflict with their narcissist personality. They need to believe in something that makes them special, part of a group, to bolster their lack for f self-esteem, this validate their need to be with something. But deep down where they rarely look inside their lives they know they are just worthless shit. Same as white supremists, same as the lgbq haters. They lack the courage to abandon their dysfunctional behaviour even though they are jealous or f those they oppose and claim are oppressing them because it takes guts that administration t you’ve based your life on lies me stupidity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @03:52AM (1 child)
Really pathetic that D fandom cannot find any way to bolster their own self-esteem, except repeating these fantasies to each other.
The more hours in the day you waste imagining how contemptible the other people are, the less chance you have yourself to become anything better than useless parasite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @05:18AM
Denial. The most predictable of all human responses.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday February 21 2021, @02:09AM
Related: How Qatar buys politicians and influence:
https://www.docdroid.net/DtiLYBH/bender-affidavit.pdf [docdroid.net]
Long read, but enlightening.
See also Stephen Coughlin's briefs:
https://vladtepesblog.com/stephen-coughlin-red-pill-brief-all-10-videos/ [vladtepesblog.com]
https://vladtepesblog.com/stephen-coughlin-ottawa-brief-sept-17-2015/ [vladtepesblog.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2021, @09:05PM (12 children)
Instead of this opinion piece, I would have rather seen one of the submissions by AzumaHazuki about the Texas disaster. All were submitted at about the same time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2021, @09:08PM (7 children)
Nah. Texas will recover, but dumbness goes on forever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2021, @09:32PM
Texans love liberals!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPjc5-ck_W0 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 20 2021, @10:17PM (5 children)
> but dumbness goes on forever.
Yes she does.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:33AM (4 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:59AM (3 children)
Her existence is sufficient l.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Sunday February 21 2021, @02:05AM (2 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @02:02PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @04:32PM
And somehow that post isn't flamebait?
In poker, that's called a "tell."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @12:58AM (2 children)
Because nobody at all clued in takes these clickbait articles seriously, and who gives a shit about the clueless. At least the disaster in Texas is based on facts. And a damn sight more relevant.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @05:55AM (1 child)
I care a lot about the clueless. They're a large enough percentage of the population to have tremendous impact the productive members of society. If you don't think they aren't affecting you, then you may be...
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @05:57AM
Oops! Double negative. I swear, I previewed that post. I may be a...
(Score: 1) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 21 2021, @04:14AM
Pointing out bad science isn't really opinion. The qualifications for good scientific methodology aren't opinions, so pointing out specific instances someone factually, verifiably hasn't followed them is not an opinion.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday February 20 2021, @10:45PM (3 children)
They're still assuming that policy recommendations and decisions would be relevant, if the information on disinformation were much better. But what can government really do here? Police disinformation or create channels of good information? They and other governments are the primary generators - it's asking the fox to guard the henhouse. The stuff that actually works are things like regulation the accuracy of ads and such. You have a clearly identifiable source of the disinformation in that case and a well recognized liability.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @02:06AM
It’s not even that. Occam’s Razor - the simplest explanation is that he right one. Lazy writers with a deadline and nothing to report. Same as budget cuts to increase shareholder value being behind the replacement of investigative journalism and news reporting with “news segment” about posts on Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 21 2021, @04:47AM (1 child)
The media and certain supposedly science-oriented organizations are doing all the damage themselves. Last year we watched as mass protests were blessed by 1300 health officials while every small business was destroyed by social distancing laws. People who had private gatherings at homes got arrested or doxed. Four four years Trump couldn't get a positive story published about him in anything but right-biased press, but now that Biden is in office, the press is falling all over themselves to report on which character he plays Mario Kart as. Then you have all the "follow the science" people who treat science as a dogma certain people vote on, rather than a method for obtaining knowledge.
If the media and science organizations want to be taken seriously, they need to figure out how to mute their biases. To expect trust on the public's side while acting in the most biased manner possible, is astoundingly naive.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 21 2021, @04:42PM
I think a significant part of the present day resistance to mask rules and such are these double standards. If these health officials took covid seriously and consistently, would they have supported protests? It's doubtful since they advocated closing so much else down.
Indeed. This has been a remarkably hard lesson to learn for some. Being an expert is not a blank check. People can figure out when you're acting inconsistently and they're not going to listen for long to experts who play these games.
(Score: 5, Funny) by shortscreen on Saturday February 20 2021, @11:27PM (1 child)
Is that another name for JavaScript?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @11:51AM
hehehe, such a poetic commentary, thank you.
I'd upvote but i don't have an identity.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @01:22AM (4 children)
"Misleading Study on Disinformation" totally fits the pattern.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @02:35AM (3 children)
The redundancy department would like to speak with you, and have a conversation about that.
Statist astroturfing is everywhere, including SN. But that is actually the less insidious part. The real insidious part is the advertising dollars that are spent trying to target critics of goverments with ads specifically designed to induce deviant behavior, or do psychological damage. There are a lot of people getting pushed over the edge, because countries are trying to incite problems in other countries. The bad actors are empowered to do so, predominantly by ad-tracking technology. The threat is subtle, but it isn't small.
In the United States, persons who have normal lives are dependent on technologies that deny them the right and the ability to defend their own mental health. Many many crimes, have their origin in sustained premeditated induction of cognitive dissonance on an unknowing public. It is a pestulence. Ad-tracking is the DDT and Asbestos of the mental health industry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @03:40AM
There are trivial measures to mitigate that kind of attacks.
Auto-deleting cookies between sessions, except those very few that are useful for YOU and deserve protecting.
Disabling Javascript unless you need to do something requiring it on the given website.
Using Internet "as is" these days, is asking every company to have unprotected sex with your brain.
One who cannot be bothered to protect oneself, deserves the consequences. We cannot bypass natural selection in this new kind of jungle we found ourselves in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @02:07PM (1 child)
Ad tracking didn’t cause widespread mental stupidity like QAnon or Trumpism. A shitty education system did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @04:47PM
Isn't the shitty education system a bipartisan effort?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act#Legislative_history [wikipedia.org]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @04:47AM (2 children)
We must continue our indoctrination. There's always the chance somebody might discover critical thinking. Keep repeating...
Whitey=Bad
Founding Fathers=Bad
Free Enterprise=Bad
Independent Thought=Bad
Bill Of Rights=Bad
Promotion Based On Merit=Bad
Texas Freezing=Racial Justice
Dolly Parton=Racist
Mathematics=Racist
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @05:21AM (1 child)
I think we should let red states open their schools....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 21 2021, @04:23PM
Don't tell the legacy news, but schools in Red States have been open for months.
Kids show up, they learn ethics and skills and history. Nobody gets shot or dies of the Chinese Virus. I live a couple of blocks from a high school; it's clean, civil and healthy. No walls, no gangs, no security. All kinds of kids, one kind of American.