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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the believe-it-or-not dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

More and more countries are mounting disinformation campaigns online

[...] That's a long way of saying that I forgive you if you'd like to skip today's news and instead just read nothing but explainers and Twitter threads about impeachment. It's kind of the biggest story in the world right now, and it will all play out in new and exciting and probably terrifying ways across all our big social platforms, and if you want to read some speculation on how I'd point you to this savvy Kevin Roose piece on the subject (further excerpted below).

But say you've finished your impeachment reading for the day and are eager to luxuriate in a good old-fashioned tale of platform-based information warfare. In that case may I please recommend a new report from researchers at Oxford University on the usage of disinformation campaigns by governments around the world. And usage is ... well, I bet you can guess!

Here's Davey Alba and Adam Satariano in the New York Times:

The researchers compiled information from news organizations, civil society groups and governments to create one of the most comprehensive inventories of disinformation practices by governments around the world. They found that the number of countries with political disinformation campaigns more than doubled to 70 in the last two years, with evidence of at least one political party or government entity in each of those countries engaging in social media manipulation.

In addition, Facebook remains the No. 1 social network for disinformation, the report said. Organized propaganda campaigns were found on the platform in 56 countries.

You can read the report yourself here. Personally I found it useful to just read a straightforward guide to the varieties of state-sponsored information attacks — most of which have long been in use, of course, by more garden-variety trolls.


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 03 2019, @03:42PM (2 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday October 03 2019, @03:42PM (#902315) Homepage Journal

    I scoff at the naivete of cynics. Seriously though, even those that to all outward appearances are entirely altruistic in their motives are corrupt. Whether you're selling people's liberties to corporations or saying things you know to be untrue to save lives is just a matter of flavors.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:08PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday October 03 2019, @04:08PM (#902330)

    saying things you know to be untrue to save lives

    I think that falls under the job description of most "security" related postings.

    As for corruption - I have interacted personally with a couple of non-self-serving schoolboard members, and later a wife of a personal friend actually got on to her local school board purely with the intention (and result) of "doing good for the community." She was particularly exasperated with the (majority of the) board members who were just using schoolboard as a stepping stone to higher political office and power brokering - losers at that level are such frustrating people to deal with. I was personally frustrated with the chairman of our local schoolboard who barely took off his KKK garb before stepping into the chambers, discrimination wasn't just his middle name, it was his first and last word on every issue - carefully composed to stay one hair inside the federal guidelines, on paper at least.

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