
Real or not? USC study finds many political tweets come from fake accounts - hemapani
http://news.usc.edu/110565/rigged-usc-study-finds-many-political-tweets-come-from-fake-accounts/
======
xnull2guest
Yup, in the US and elsewhere.

It's called "astroturfing". The US military has been doing it for a decade or
more (Operation Earnest Voice, etc).

The new technology is to augment bot behavior with "persona management"
software. Basically contractors who sit around all day and impersonate
simulated people online in communities where messages are targeting
permeation.

Militaries around the world participate in this, with the UK and US organized
into information warfare brigades.

~~~
generic_user
Well, David Brock and his Correct The Record army did exactly that for the
past four or five months. Reddit and a bunch of other sites were crawling with
copy paste Hillary spam twenty four seven.

But the story was about bots and 'fake news'. There was no mention of what
your talkin about "persona management". If you have some liks to that then
post them.

This flurry of stories about 'fake news' looks more like a coordinated media
nariatve then anything else. Another angle to try and keep the political
agitation going and keep people angry. As WikiLeaks has show the media is part
of the party machine and they have an agenda in this.

~~~
kartan
> This flurry of stories about 'fake news' looks more like a coordinated media
> nariatve then anything else.

I have seen this fake news first hand. I live in Sweden and time to time my
friends contact me to ask me how bad is here and how chaotic is the situation.
I don't know what they are talking about until they point to some obscure news
site that talks about "chaos in Sweden" because 1) Women equality 2) Refugees.
It is annoying and has been going for a while.

For sure just the fact that media talks about this instead , for example, of
talking about the increasing wealth inequality is biased. And shows how much
no one with resources wants to talk about the real issues. But that doesn't
makes the fact that fake news are more widespread false.

~~~
skylan_q
No one denies that there's "fake news"

This is an attempt by the media to control the narrative by gatekeeping what's
"real news" and what isn't: i.e. what they disagree with or
citizen/independent journalism that is beating traditional media in providing
better coverage.

~~~
kristjansson
Isn't the complaint about 'fake news' that it's _false_ , not that it's from a
non-traditional source?

~~~
xnull2guest
No, it's motivated that way to get support, but it's about source and
credibility.

Namely, the traditional media market is an advertising platform: it makes its
money by selling stories and perspectives in the form of media narrative to
its audience. Large corporations and governments contract with the media to
determine what those stories are.

You will get stories, and entertaining ones, sure. But it's hardly "true" in
the true/false sense. It's like asking if the story Goldilocks is true or
false. It isn't either.

Indeed, that news media industry sold stories to the American people to - for
example - get them into the Iraq war. This was a combination of very true and
also false facts. You could point to any particular story and argue
pointlessly about whether the individual story was true or false, like
Goldilocks.

Because of widespread distrust of the 'narrative morals' of mainstream media,
alternatives have been appearing. There is a desire by information moguls -
both public and private industry - to maintain credibility and to make in
various forms alternative narratives not feasible.

For public appeal, selective choices are being taken to highlight articles
with clearly fabricated facts, with the message being: all alternatives are
like this. The first part is true: there exist articles that are complete
bullshit both inside and outside the main "credible" media industry. But the
second part is not. There's plenty of very well researched, very well
documented, very well analysed information that does not get any play in the
mainstream media.

I remember recently an audio recording of John Kerry talking to Syrian rebel
forces was leaked. I got the NYT take. And then I listened to the leaked
audio.

The content was completely different than the NYT tried to make it out to be
and in some cases the point Kerry was making was the exact opposite of the NYT
had published. In this case, it was quite clear what the political
implications would be of honestly reporting on the content, and including the
parts that were selectively edited out.

~~~
hackuser
I believe that discrediting all serious news media is part of the same general
disinformation campaign as the 'fake news'.

For one, it's a very standard, expected strategy for such campaigns: The only
solution to masses fake information is the credibility of some sources; we
trust them to sort through the mess and find the truth. If you want to sow
confusion, an obvious tactic is to attack the credibility of the trusted
sources. In the U.S., the right-wing bloggers, Fox, etc. have openly done this
for many years.

For another, it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. This "MSM" is not a monolithic
group, but very many competing organizations. Any criticism that seems, on its
face, poorly thought through.

~~~
xnull2guest
This comment is so confusing.

It points out that the media industry isn't a monolithic group that is
composed of competing organizations, and therefore not subject to scrutiny.

Then it argues that "fake news", which isn't a monolithic group and is
composed of competing organizations, is collaborating and subjects it to
scrutiny.

I think you're right about the second part. Alternative narratives are going
to question - rightfully - the narratives for the current media market. That's
the strategic thing to do.

But I think you're wrong about the first part for the same reason you are
right about the second. Establishment narratives are going to question -
rightfully - the narratives of the alternative media market. That's the
strategic thing to do.

It's important to mention that while modern media companies compete, they
compete on a very particular basis: to tell the better publicly endorsed
narrative. Deviating from that endorsed narrative gets the organization in
trouble (AP during the Obama Administration), loses them access, and loses
them incredibly important government contracts.

It's also important to not take sides and then try to work backwards to
determine who you believe (you'll end up in a circle of cognitive bias, I
think well illustrated by what you've posted so far). Looking at the arguments
of both the mainstream media and alternative outlets on their own merits is
important.

What I suspect you'll find is that both are right. Alternative outlets have
their own biases, and ones you might not agree with! But you'll also find that
establishment media is deeply biased and incredibly compromised in terms of
credibility, everything from whitewashing war crimes, excusing government
torture and covering Snowden documents as "bulk collection" rather than "mass
surveillance".

That is, if you're apt to make intellectual mistakes like thinking in black
and white and ideological totality - you're bound to not only discredit the
side that you want to "lose" but credit the other side with more than they are
worth!

In this case the mistake would be coming away thinking that the media and
advertising market is unbiased and impartial, unpolitical, complete and that
it's coverage - especially on topics of national security concern - is
credible.

Walking away with that mistake I think would be the most illustrative of how
easy it is for people to be swallowed by fallacious reasoning.

~~~
hackuser
No, it's not all relative, all the same, subject to interpretation, or just a
matter of political preference. There are lies and truth, propaganda and real
information. If we fail to distinguish between them, we will have critical
problems and many people will suffer.

As I said, all these theories, claiming it's all relative, are part of the
disinformation campaign, wittingly or not.

> establishment media is deeply biased and incredibly compromised

You can make that claim, but it's not true. Everything you listed were
uncovered and reported by leading journalism organizations.

Finally, please don't remark on anything but my comment. You have no idea who
I am or how I think, and I'm not interested in your ignorant, amateur,
cliched, personal advice.

~~~
xnull2guest
> There are lies and truth, propaganda and real information. If we fail to
> distinguish between them, we will have critical problems and many people
> will suffer.

This is precisely my point with US propaganda and "the mainstream media".

How many people have suffered and died as a direct result of that mass
manipulation? Hundreds of thousands to MILLIONS, with a region of the world
thrown into chaos.

Somehow, you're trying to argue that Facebook rumors are on par with invasion,
torture programs, global surveillance and assassinations.

The difference is palpable and it's a disgrace arguments like the one above
are trying to confuse the consequences, the credibility, and the stakes.

------
Teever
I wonder how much of the content posted in www.reddit.com/r/the_donald was
organic and how much was dessiminated by paid users.

Producing graphic memes and youtube videos with remix songs is something that
can't yet be automated easily but it struck me how conveniently the high
quality seeds of a meme would be planted and how quickly it would filter
through to the more common subreddits.

~~~
angry-hacker
Just a thought:

While I believe every political party uses paid astroturfers, what is it with
Trump that now everyone is so convince it happened?

If it was other way around people would call you lunatic Glenn Beck follower
etc.

In fact, there is at least one known instance Democrats have used the
technique.

~~~
Teever
Because the CTR stuff was so piss-poor and blatant. No one denies that they
took over /r/politics/ to the point that it felt like a fucking North Korea
parade.

What's more interesting is the prospect that /r/the_donald/ was also
astroturfed. It seems odd to think that they would astroturf their own echo
chamber until you stop viewing /r/the_donald as an echo chamber and start
viewing it as a staging ground for crowd sourced meme-based advertising that
started as paid astroturfing.

~~~
internaut
> until you stop viewing /r/the_donald as an echo chamber and start viewing it
> as a staging ground for crowd sourced meme-based advertising that started as
> paid astroturfing.

Right!

I think there were important psychological differences, perhaps represented by
Trump's retort 'Because you'd be in jail' and "I'm with you" in response to
"I'm with her". The content doesn't matter but the wordplay does. I don't
remember Clinton using his slogan against him or cracking a real joke. With
the two examples I've given I feel like she walked straight into them.

This difference also exists with their supporters.

There is a humour element at The Donald (even the name) that I felt was
missing from /r/politics.They often were playing caricatures of themselves as
an in-joke e.g. copying Trump's mannerisms, making obviously absurd claims
"ten feet higher!".

/r/politics was stocked with 'issues' and veryseriousstuff. I don't think the
Clinton supporters were deliberately attempting to engage in theatrics beyond
the lookatthisoutrage threads. The Donald is filled with outrage threads too
but with a side of jesting/in-jokes.

------
davesque
Honestly, why would a malicious actor _not_ do this? Automate the e-mail
creation, the sign-up, hook your script up to the post forms and you've got an
instant larger-than-life megaphone. Hell, I bet you could even train a RNN to
make passably realistic short-length responses to people that decide to engage
your posts.

------
generic_user
This story reads more like 'fake news' won the election narrative peddling
more then new insight into the bot situation. There has been plenty of
research on the avalanche of bots spewing tweets, comment and stories for
years now that 'sway peoples opinions'. Not just political but in every other
domain also.

Why is this now, after the election a big important story thats popping up all
over the media.

~~~
adnzzzzZ
Is it really a big surprise? The legacy media has noticed they don't have as
much of an influence over people as they used to after their candidate lost
the election, and so they're trying to understand how that could possibly have
happened. Clearly they aren't at fault because they're never wrong, so it must
that Russian bots are creating fake stories and that most people are too
stupid to realize all those stories are fake.

You're watching the last gasps of desperation of legacy media in its attempt
to drive people away from alternative sources of media. This will fail
spectacularly and further diminish legacy media's influence over people.

~~~
spiderfarmer
By your logic they should not learn from their failures, but roll over and
die? How un-american is that?

By the way, lots of media outlets have admitted they were wrong. Fake news is
a real issue that deserves to be reported about, it's not a scapegoat

~~~
adnzzzzZ
>Fake news is a real issue that deserves to be reported about, it's not a
scapegoat

It's too late to start treating fake news as a real problem after such an ugly
an biased coverage of the election on their part. No one trusts them anymore

~~~
spiderfarmer
> No one trusts them anymore

Disagree. I'd say that your nation is so divided that 50% doesn't trust the
other 50%. That means that a large part still trusts eachother.

As an outsider, I think bias was just a small part of what was wrong with the
coverage. I mean, if you know that an outlet is left or right leaning, you can
place their news in a certain light.

But the coverage was all focused on the wrong issues. The right wouldn't shut
up about Benghazi and e-mails. And the left was way too "OMG look at this
monster". Not a word on actual policies.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
> 50% doesn't trust the other 50%

Nah, even most of those who voted for the media's candidate knew how biased
they were.

Not buying used cars from them any time soon.

(Also, only between 50 and 60% of the voting age population do vote:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections)
)

~~~
soundwave106
There is no such thing as unbiased news. Failure to admit so immediately shows
a bias in itself. :)

While I have an assumption of what you mean by "the media's candidate", "the
media" is a broad term. Many traditional newspapers were more behind Hillary
Clinton; many websites like Breitbart were more behind Donald Trump. They are
both "the media".

I actually agree more with spiderfarmer. I would be willing to bet an atypical
Breitbart reader does not trust the New York Times. I would be willing to be
an atypical New York Times reader does not trust Breitbart.

------
hackuser
This is also good, from the same author (and linked to at the bottom of the
article):

[http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204021-the-rise-of-
soci...](http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204021-the-rise-of-social-
bots/fulltext)

Also, see the Project on Algorithms, Computational Propaganda, and Digital
Politics at Oxford:

[http://politicalbots.org/](http://politicalbots.org/)

------
kriro
I thought it was interesting/a bit strange that Obama mentioned this problem
during his "farewell tour" press conference in Germany (along with the
portrayal of USA=Russia and the like on social media).

~~~
75j
Obama mentioned that he wants an internet "curating function" for determining
truthful information. Watch about 5 minutes of this talk starting at 58:00 to
get the full context:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BikQFWNYct4&t=3480s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BikQFWNYct4&t=3480s)

I refuse to believe that he's not smart enough to know how problematic that
is. It's not totally clear from his speech (does he just want a central
repository of trusted information, or does he want to actually remove certain
information from the internet?) but it's a perfect example of Obama couching
dangerous ideas in soft, pragmatic language.

~~~
dao-
It seems like we have no ideal choices here. Clearly we can't just sit back
and let fake news / propaganda go viral and eventually determine the course of
civilization.

Curating is a very broad term, it can mean anything between having websites
soft-rated, wikipedia-style crowdsourced curating, and opaque state-level
censorship. The devil is in the details.

~~~
cmdrfred
I don't think an ideal solution exists for practically anything at a global
scale. Modern sanitation increased public health significantly, but what of
the plight of the humble chamberpot maker? What we have is ideology, and in
America we have an ideology that speech is to be free and unrestricted.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
Online, immediate publish, publicly visible, no barrier to entry, crowd source
moderation / no moderation, mass access media...

Is toxic.

Convince me otherwise.

~~~
csydas
I would agree that it has a lot of serious issues right now, but I would
disagree on "toxic".

The free flow of information is incredibly important and has introduced a new
age of information for the planet. With small SoC computers becoming more and
more regular and fit for purpose of general computing at a phenomenally low
price, this brings an incredible swath of information available to the masses
in a way that has not been available before in history, and it also gives
"experts" a means of communicating their expertise to audiences without the
need for traditional publishing routes that existed before. Seriously, this is
a really wonderful time to live in, and I hope that development for software
on the various SoC's continues so that we can truly be in a world where
everyone can access and share information.

The downside to this is that there is now a higher burden on readers to vet
their information and to be trained in how to research. Traditional
gatekeepers of information (news, text books, etc) no longer have the strength
they once had - these mediums aren't irrelevant, but their authority has been
completely underminded, and we're in an adjustment period as people learn how
to properly research and interpret information. This isn't me being coy and
suggesting that a certain interpretation or filtering out specific viewpoints,
this is me suggesting that most people don't know the basics of research, like
the stuff many of us learned in gradeschool, such as actually read and
understand evidence before you make a claim, find opposing viewpoints and
research and try to understand how this information affects your understanding
of what you currently know, and, perhaps most importantly, how to withold
judgement when there isn't enough information to even begin processing what
you have been provided.

I am grateful for the immediately published, publicly visible, no barrier to
entry, no moderation videos providing me with information on how to plumb a
sink, or how to fix a washing machine that doesn't drain, or the numerous
science experiments or even just opinion pieces that are presented on various
content curating websites. (Youtube, Medium, et. al.,) A lot of it is trash
and non-sense that is not congruent with reality , but at least I have the
ability to research and determine if it's congruent with reality or not.

I agree - it's very frustrating how much influence spam accounts, people
gaming reputation algorithms, and just assholes in general have in the current
age of information; relying on algorithms to save us from this is the wrong
idea and it's a poor idea. But this is the reality of the world when
information flows freely - as a people, we need to learn how to better assess
the information we're given and we need to learn how to withold
judgement/reactions until information is better vetted, corroborated, and
confirmed, and we need to learn healthy skepticism when it comes to the
sources of information available to us now. It will take time to adjust, and
there are many bad-faith efforts to vet information, with many online sources
trying to take on the role of gatekeeper for people and doing so in bad-faith.
But the information isn't going to go away, nor are the shysters who use it to
further their agendas. Institutions that curate information as well as people
who access this information need to get better collectively at interpreting
it.

~~~
colllectorof
I thought about this a lot recently. Expecting people to spontaneously more
skeptical and analytical is unrealistic. Non-shit mass media is something we
desperately need these days, but it's not the only solution.

We have tools to make producing and consuming information easy for an average
person. It's pretty clear that we also need tools that augment our ability to
_analyze_ information. The key, I think, is to ignore the immediate issues
with politics and think in higher order terms of knowledge acquisition.
Douglas Engelbart talked about such things in the past and Alan Kay with Bret
Victor talk about them right now.

Personally, I imagine the following. Custom search bots that we control.
Networks that allow users to ask questions, rather than just read and write
self-contained posts. Tools for rapid modeling, record-keeping and statistical
analysis.

For example, being able to plot Twitter activity and connections in an easy
fashion would likely reveal a lot of paid shills and bots. But it's really
hard to do right now. You need to mess around with bad APIs, complex software
and the data is often unavailable in the first place. But it doesn't have to
be this way. (Publishing was way more complicated and we made it trivial.)

~~~
slavik81
Will more analysis actually help? People post complete misinformation on their
Facebook feed. I post a snoopes link thoroughly debunking it, and nobody
cares. They want to believe.

------
gozur88
The article doesn't render on my browser for some reason. But what does that
mean, "fake accounts"? Accounts made by computers?

If it's just people creating accounts under assumed names, well, that's not
too surprising.

~~~
mcphage
They mean bots.

------
quantum_state
I m not surprised .. there r real ppl tweeting fake news .. fake ppl tweeting
real news n fake ppl tweeting fake news ... not surprised it is more common
than thought ..

------
B1FF_PSUVM
What a surprise. Because people who are gainfully employed are all itching to
get the Brandon Eich treatment.

