
She Warned of ‘Peer-To-Peer Misinformation.’ Congress Listened - mtviewdave
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/12/technology/social-media-disinformation.html
======
thisisit
I have been highlighting this article on Obama's election, every time these
stories come up: [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-
us...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/509026/how-obamas-team-used-big-
data-to-rally-voters/)

He was lauded for using "big data" and "data science" to run a successful
campaign.

The social media companies picked on this and ran with it. Now this seems to
have backfired.

Then there has been the culture of "attack ads", a lot of them based on
misrepresenting facts to put it mildly.

So, now Congress and politicians want to do some posturing on Russian
"interference". In case they do pass laws banning RT or some special interests
from buying ads/bots etc. What then? The can of worms is already open.

People will find a way around. It can be as simple as registering a LLC and
then having the Russian "data scientists" work through that. Or even American
companies knowingly engaging in this.

The root problem here is the data collection being run by every other company
out there. It helps companies and invariably advertisers identify people based
on their tastes. So, will Congress and the politicians actually ban outright
data collection? My guess is they wont. Posturing this as a Russian and a
commie problem gets them enough brownie points.

~~~
Eridrus
I've come to the conclusion is that politicians have decided that tech is a
safe punching bag for both Republicans and Democrats. Republicans can punch up
on tech companies to seem like they care about Russian interference without
beating up their own candidate, or examining their own advertising practices,
and Democrats are still angry that the election was so close and tech seems
like something they can just keep punching unlike Comey or Clinton.

We basically need to weather the storm here and act contrite since no one has
come to this topic with good intentions of actually trying to fix our
elections.

------
bobjordan
I'm struggling with the takeaway here. Most of the people on the planet have
grown up watching blatant misinformation being broadcast on TV, radio, and
print. Specifically, during every single government election of note, anyone
recall John Kerry and the swiftboats? Social networks now present a new tool
to amplify a message, in addition to TV, Radio, Print. So is this a movement
to police the messages? And where does this lead, marketing companies can't do
business with international organizations during elections? And who decides
what messages are allowed and disallowed? Seems this line or reasoning only
leads to infringement of freedom of speech.

~~~
xr4ti
The difference is the ease and scale with which identity and source can be
hidden or spoofed to exploit trust relationships and herd instincts on the
internet.

Whether something is white (e.g. RT, Voice of America, etc), grey (e.g. swift
boat vets for truth, astroturfed citizens for X), or black hat propaganda
(e.g. Black Matters, @TEN_GOP) depends on whether you represent yourself as
(a) yourself, (b) a neutral party, or (c) your adversary.

So yeah, the problem is one of policing identity rather than messages. In
other words, how do we make it more difficult for people to get catfished?

~~~
rjzzleep
Can you explain to me why a couple hundred thousand in ads matter more than a
couple billion of super PACs and why those people that spent those billions
are blaming it on the couple hundred?

I mean maybe they do, but I feel like in that case you just have to be really
shit in marketing and sales, no?

EDIT: you may say: "But I mentioned so many other topics", yes, true, yet the
very first in your list is RT. and no I have no skin in this game

~~~
sjg007
The Facebook ads are hyper-targeted and more effective than tv ads. They are
also viral so they get larger exposure without requiring repeat "airing".

------
eegilbert
Tanushree Mitra wrote a computational paper on this in 2016 [1], finding
something similar:

"Using four years of longitudinal data capturing vaccine discussions on
Twitter, we identify users who persistently hold pro- and anti-attitudes, and
those who newly adopt anti-attitudes towards vaccination. After gathering each
user's entire Twitter timeline, totaling over 3 million tweets, we explore
differences in the individual narratives across the user cohorts. We find that
those with long-term anti-vaccination attitudes manifest conspiratorial
thinking, mistrust in government, and are resolute and in-group focused in
language."

[1]
[http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/icwsm16.vaccine.mitra.p...](http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/icwsm16.vaccine.mitra.pdf)

------
nl
There's a lot of pushback on these kind of findings from those in the tech
industry.

One common argument is "oh, old media is just trying to undermine new
players", and sometimes there is some truth to this.

But that misses the point. New media is winning is because it is _effective_ ,
and misinformation campaigns on social media platforms are much more effective
than traditional media.

It's easy to see this, by looking at where advertising spending has moved. If
it works for selling contact lenses, it sure works for selling "Don't mess
with TX Border Patrol"[1] or "Get ready to secede" or "Being Liberal/Bernie
Sanders: Clinton Foundation is a Problem"

[1]
[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a377ej/facebook-i...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/a377ej/facebook-
instagram-russian-ads)

------
0x445442
How is peer-to-peer misinformation any worse than centralized misinformation?

I've seen a lot of hand wringing from the Legacy media over every other
source's misinformation but I've yet to see a story from the NY Times calling
bullshit on their own bullshit.

~~~
nl
_I 've yet to see a story from the NY Times calling bullshit on their own
bullshit._

[https://www.nytimes.com/section/corrections](https://www.nytimes.com/section/corrections)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-
the...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-the-times-
and-iraq.html)

~~~
Turing_Machine
Sure, it only took the NYT 58 years to issue a retraction of their
whitewashing of Stalin.

[http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/opinion/the-editorial-
note...](http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/opinion/the-editorial-notebook-
trenchcoats-then-and-now.html)

~~~
nl
I dunno - are you really serious about criticizing them for something they
published between then 1920 and 1940s? When already "the editorial page
vigorously dissented from his accounts."

And I'd also note that the NTTimes post WW2 wasn't pro-Stalin at all, and it's
only in the modern era that people seem to expect a whole mea-culpa about that
kind of thing.

But I guess it is a credit to them for going back and writing about something
everyone else had forgotten, 27 years ago, 50 years after it occurred.

I guess we are still waiting for the corrections from Hearst and Pulitzer over
the US/Spanish war, though. Any day now....

~~~
Turing_Machine
> When already "the editorial page vigorously dissented from his accounts."

Yeah, that's just ass-covering and weaseling.

> But I guess it is a credit to them for going back and writing about
> something everyone else had forgotten

Stalin was murdering and enslaving people within living memory, and his
successors continued the process until 1991.

I assure you that the surviving victims and their friends and families have
not "forgotten".

~~~
nl
And the NY Times reported that murdering and enslaving that whole time,
including while that dodgy reporter was reporting otherwise.

Here's one from the year before that apology (ie, from 1989):
[http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-
paper-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/04/world/major-soviet-paper-
says-20-million-died-as-victims-of-stalin.html)

------
arkem
In a somewhat similar vein in 2009 I wrote about how useful Twitter is for
spreading disinformation.

Some of the points I made were somewhat mitigated by Twitter product changes
but I still think it holds up as an article/paper.

[http://memeover.arkem.org/2009/12/twitter-as-vector-for-
disi...](http://memeover.arkem.org/2009/12/twitter-as-vector-for-
disinformation.html)

~~~
Smushman
Seems that would feed nicely into driving the social prompting (ie the thumbs
up) facebook relies on to push their product.

------
thomastjeffery
Again, the problem is that "social media" is so centralized.

It seems to me that there is too much focus on "how Facebook and Twitter are
doing it wrong". Reliance on Facebook and Twitter to solve misinformation is
absurd. We should be focused on _alternatives_.

~~~
dredmorbius
Because of information and attention dynamics, I seriously doubt any stable
altenative regime that doesn't look muchlike the present one will appear.

Zipf's Law, network effects, advertising concentration, ec., etc.

~~~
thomastjeffery
> altenative regime

Why must it be a regime?

There is no _need_ to use centralized platforms.

~~~
dredmorbius
regime: 2a "A way of organizing or managing something; a system:"

[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/regime](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/regime)

~~~
thomastjeffery
regime: 1a, 1b, 3.

~~~
dredmorbius
Curiously enough, those weren't the definitions I offered as those weren't the
definitions I was using.

------
Smushman
Does anyone else think it is possible this could explain the 'surprise' part
of the loss by the presidential Democratic campaign?

Considering Democrats probably are also the most social media
savvy/participant of all the voting participants it just seems plausible.

~~~
Turing_Machine
It wasn't a surprise to anyone who wasn't immersed in the bicoastal media
bubble.

------
dredmorbius
Could the title be changed swapping "She" for "Renee DeResta"?

