
U.S. Unleashes Military to Fight Fake News, Disinformation - chadmeister
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-31/u-s-unleashes-military-to-fight-fake-news-disinformation
======
creato
The title is absurdly misleading. It sounds like this project is an effort to
detect deep faked content, by DARPA. The article does a ton of editorializing
around that.

Ironic, considering the topic of the article.

~~~
DSingularity
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a part of the
military. If it is launching a project to fight dis/mis-information then isn’t
that an accurate title?

~~~
azinman2
It’s a research arm handing out grants. That’s very different from what the
title implies, which is as if it were like any other war/operation with top
active command and a ton of resources. The use of the word unleash implies
there’s some strong existing momentum just being held back by an arbitrary
gate.

DARPA funded the internet. Did the US unleash military to network computers? I
think we could all agree that’s hyperbolic.

------
zaroth
This a a grant program running by DARPA called Semantic Forensics. [1]

> _The Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) program will develop technologies to
> automatically detect, attribute, and characterize falsified multi-modal
> media assets (text, audio, image, video) to defend against large-scale,
> automated disinformation attacks._

The primary use case for this is election security, but more generally being
able to detect and defend against an adversary trying to seed political
discord with fake accounts, or fake news, so-called "deep fakes", etc.

[1] - [https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-
opportunity.html?oppI...](https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-
opportunity.html?oppId=319894)

~~~
lwansbrough
Tangentially related: what's the name for the approach where you analyze word
choices and sentence structure in order to fingerprint a person?

~~~
eukaryote31
Stylometry?

~~~
lwansbrough
That's the one, thanks!

------
polyakoff
I am interested in the technical aspect of implementing such a system.

I know the founder of
[https://www.fakeskiller.com](https://www.fakeskiller.com) which is a browser
extension for highlighting fake news (they also released a mobile app not so
long ago).

They use fact checking organizations to classify news as fake news and
highlight posts in social media, which contain links to fake news. They also
provide link to rebuttal.

But since there is always a lag between producing clickbait fake news and
working on proving it's a fake, I assume those who fight disinformation and
propaganda will be on the losing side.

That's why the founder of Fakeskiller always invites everyone on educating
those "useful idiots", who are sharing those fakes and sharing truth with
them.

But can the propaganda be effectively fought technically? I assume, no.

------
smsm42
Non-clickbait title: US DARPA finances a project that aims to detect
disinformation campaigns.

------
mlb_hn
I'm a bit confused on what sort of authorities anyone's got here or what the
actual intent of the program is. Ultimately, does DOD have any sort of
authorities to do anything about potential US person speech and how would that
be constitutional? They have a need to understand who's doing what in various
theaters, but I'm not sure why anyone would want DOD messing with content in
the US.

~~~
luckylion
They aren't necessarily going to (try to) defend against misinformation.
You'll also want to study defense if your objective is offense - knowing how
the other side will defend will hopefully lead to finding ways around that
defense.

------
specialist
Emphasis on "fake news" and fact checking is so misguided.

The core problem is unsourced, unattributed information. The difference
between gossip and journalism.

What is the provenance of every statement?

The Correct Answer is adding signatures to every thing, so we can
independently verify that someone said something.

Once we have traceability, people can figure out what is more true (less
wrong), over time. Just like with academic publishing.

------
godelski
Relevant video by Smarter Every Day[0]. Basically interviewing military people
talk about the information part of war in the modern era.

> I just made a weapon?!

-Dustin @21:35

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOTYgcdNrXE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOTYgcdNrXE)

------
Leary
There should be a clear distinction between news that are factually false and
those that share viewpoints that are counter to the mainstream. Labeling the
latter "disinformation" is a mere act of political speech.

~~~
specialist
I respectfully disagree.

I just want two things.

1/ Show your work. Data, code, citations, attributed quotes, whatever.

2/ Sign your work.

Then everyone so inclined can determine truthiness at their leisure. Just like
with academic publishing.

Omitting 1 means it's just opinion, 2 means gossip, both means propaganda.

------
ISL
What could go wrong?

------
ryacko
>to defend against large-scale, automated disinformation attacks.

I realize cable news has become entertainment without even trying to correct
themselves the next day, but if it was really viable to automatically generate
a quasi-ARG experience, wouldn’t Hollywood have developed it first?

I for one welcome the coming onslaught of fake news, at least I won’t have to
question the motive of the news source.

------
nraynaud
Will they give the actual civilian toll after drone attacks on Yemen?

