
We can weaponize fiction, but how do we monetize truth? - anigbrowl
https://modernmythology.net/we-can-weaponize-fiction-but-how-do-we-monetize-truth-ef9ffb52299e
======
Animats
There's a nice analysis of the Colombia Chemicals hoax at [1]. The fake
article on Wikipedia was quickly detected and deleted. The fake Facebook page
stayed up but Facebook's systems didn't propagate it widely. The Twitter spam
got further, but was recognized as spam reasonably quickly.

Here's the Wikipedia history. Fake article: [2] 1 hour 10 minutes later,
tagged as "hoax - proposed deletion", which put a warning notice on the
article.[3] An hour and a half later, tagged as "hoax - speedy deletion",
which put a bigger warning banner at the top of the article.[3]. Within an
hour after that, the article had been turned into an article about the hoax,
which it remains today.

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150309221009/https://medium.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150309221009/https://medium.com/in-
beta/media-hacking-3b1e350d619c) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Columbian_Chemica...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Columbian_Chemicals_Plant_explosion_hoax&oldid=625105924)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Columbian_Chemica...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Columbian_Chemicals_Plant_explosion_hoax&oldid=625105924)

~~~
aaron-lebo
_Columbian_

------
saint_fiasco
I'm surprised the author does not mention prediction markets.

Those encourage people to honestly search truth without over-optimism and
politeness. They only work for the part of truth that can be eventually
verified and objectively confirmed/disproved but it's a start.

~~~
kanzure
> [Prediction markets] only work for the part of truth that can be eventually
> verified and objectively confirmed/disproved but it's a start.

Requires an arbiter/judge, otherwise you'll just end up with one of the two
sides refusing to sign the multisig payout transaction.

For truly objective determination you could do zkSNARKs and zero-knowledge
contingent payments, I guess: [https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-
knowledge-conting...](https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-
contingent-payments-announcement/)

~~~
saint_fiasco
Requiring an arbiter isn't a bad thing. The arbiter should be the person who
cares about that particular truth, the one who sponsored the market in the
first place.

Say you want to know how long it will take to develop some project (people
famously always get this wrong due to optimism bias). You could sponsor a
prediction market, ask people to make predictions. Then when the project is or
is not finished you will decide who gets the money, since you are the one who
will be upset at the people who predicted wrong.

~~~
thaumasiotes
That approach has no defense against people who want to declare something true
for ideological reasons.

~~~
kanzure
Yes, so you end up having to select a person that is mutually agreeable
between the parties or something, and that person is then responsible for
judging the evidence. In my experience the problem has been that finding a
mutually agreeable person is quite difficult, especially when one side makes a
pre-emptive threat to make false allegations about a judge that rules against
them :(. I literally ran into this problem in rbtc:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/589nlj/someone_asked_m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/589nlj/someone_asked_me_today_whats_the_best_way_to/d8yvydi/?context=3)

(although, again, zk-snarks and formal verification might be workable, but
only in situations where all parties can forego making false accusations about
who backdoored what or who has secret knowledge about formal verification
holes or whatever...)

~~~
kanzure
> or who has secret knowledge about [SNARKs vulnerabilities and/or] formal
> verification holes or whatever

[http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/snarks/A%20Note%20on...](http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bitcoin/snarks/A%20Note%20on%20the%20Unsoundness%20of%20vnTinyRAM's%20SNARK.pdf)

------
Dowwie
This was a challenging read -- a bit over-engineered -- but worth the effort.

Goldwater successfully sued a magazine editor for libel after it published a
pseudo-psychiatric evaluation of him as he was running for office and just
like that, a weaponized media tactic was disarmed. [1] America needs more
successful lawsuits like this to stop new tactics. To my knowledge, HRC hasn't
pursued anyone yet (please correct me if wrong!). Rather than engage bad
actors, she's instead given her party access to the weaponry that they will
use in future elections.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule)

------
rini17
Did I miss it after all the build-up, or is the conclusion actually "we must
ask ourselves how to monetize truth" unanswered?

~~~
jxramos
I thought to myself it's probably more tangible to quantify the costs of
falsehood. This usually takes the form of bad policy that enacts unintended
consequences, something akin to "The Burden of Bad Ideas"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyEu6bAukJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyEu6bAukJ8).
Might be a better concept to define inversely.

------
cirgue
> Surkov is one of President Putin’s advisers, and has helped him maintain his
> power for 15 years, but he has done it in a very new way. He came originally
> from the avant-garde art world, and those who have studied his career, say
> that what Surkov has done, is to import ideas from conceptual art into the
> very heart of politics.

This guy, Vladislav Surkov, is fascinating. He writes fiction under the pen
name Nathan Dubovitsky:

[http://grandmotherafrica.com/cloudless-sky-short-story-
natha...](http://grandmotherafrica.com/cloudless-sky-short-story-nathan-
dubovitsky/)

------
nautilus12
I wonder how many on the left are going to read this and think this is an
attack on Trump when in fact its more likely an attack on the left or both
sides. Refering to Russiagate as a "red scare" does not sound like an
endorsement of that mentality. However, confirmation bias (as the author
points out) is going to make those on the left believe its a vindication of
their world view anyway, when in fact its the imaginary charicatures of both
sides thats the enemy.

------
lasermike026
It kills me. Write and operate a news organize just like the Financial Times
of London. Facts concisely written and priced so the organization can keep
it's head above water.

------
tomc1985
"we must ask ourselves how to monetize truth" WTF does that even mean?
"Monetize" "truth"? This just screams BS. Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew

------
Spooky23
Punish organizations spreading fake bullshit.

Facebook makes a lot of money on the parade of bullshit that they enable and
propagate. Sanction them, tie them up in investigations and fines and
magically they'll find a way to stop propaganda.

Alex Jones is a snake oil salesman. Aggressively pursue his financial dealings
and poof, he goes away.

~~~
notahacker
The implications of this idea look a little less attractive when one considers
who has the power to impose fines on people and corporations for publishing
news they don't agree is true...

~~~
Consultant32452
This is the best thing about Donald Trump being the President. Perhaps the
only good thing. "We should fine people for saying untrue things." "You think
it's a good idea to let Donald Trump determine what is true and levy fines
against anyone he disagrees with?" I'm trying to turn this into a "thing." If
you wouldn't let Donald Trump manage your 401k, maybe we shouldn't give our
retirement funds (SS) to the government. How about your health insurance? Want
him running that? etc.

~~~
bsder
> If you wouldn't let Donald Trump manage your 401k, maybe we shouldn't give
> our retirement funds (SS) to the government. How about your health
> insurance? Want him running that? etc.

Your analogy is poor: I wouldn't want Trump running the fire department, but I
want that as a government function. We _know_ what privatizing a fire
department does.

Trump is a symptom, not the cause. The cause is a set of people willing to
swallow propaganda and fear, uncritically.

~~~
Consultant32452
>I wouldn't want Trump running the fire department, but I want that as a
government function.

This is not an either or proposition.

>We know what privatizing a fire department does.

Half of Denmark's population is served by private fire departments. What has
it done, exactly?

For the record, I'm not opposed to public fire departments, but this
illustrates the benefit of pushing the power of government as locally as
possible.

Let's consider the 'face punch' theory of political discourse. If your county
commissioner is really fucking things up, there's a fair chance you'll
eventually run across them at the local coffee shop and you can punch them in
the face. Maybe you wind up in jail for a few days, but enough face punches
and things will start to change. If you try that on the President, you'll
probably be killed before you ever lay a finger on him. Now, I'm not actually
advocating violence here, just illustrating the differential of influence in a
hopefully comical way.

------
randyrand
sell information to people!

good information can go for a lot of money!

~~~
anigbrowl
That already happens, but such informational asymmetries are hard to monetize
because they require substantial upfront capital investment for uncertain
return. See EIU and various OSINT organizations, for example.

------
artur_makly
This is why [http://TrumpTweets.io](http://TrumpTweets.io) exists. Truth
Weaponized.

~~~
Buge
3/4 of the page above the fold is dedicated to creating fake tweets and
attributing them to Trump. I wouldn't call that truth.

