The Orwellian age of misinformation is here! I just heard this article on NPR and knew that it should be shared here.
I think it's safe to say that the weaponizing using of misinformation is in its infancy, but we're here. This reminded me of the thread about whether or not cyberpunk should be considered fiction anymore. This just seems to be one more element in place, it just needs to be developed more to be a psychological weapon, and I don't think that social media websites are ready to tackle this prblem, we barely even recognize it as a problem.
If anyone has other articles about this stuff then please share.
The article does point out one possible avenue of defense:
We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.
I'm pretty sure that liberals are not immune to this either, you just have to know how to appeal to them, the lie has to be good enough. Wendell said in an episode of The Tek that the best lies are based on truth. Liberals are the experts on twisting data and implying that correlation is causation, in my opinion.
I'd cite this topic as an example of this issue currently. Everyone is convinced their source is the right one. Social media has an interest in showing us what we want to see. I have another post related here:
TLDR This video kind of outlines this issue better than I could:
Yeah guys, I know that the spreading of misinformation is an idea that's been out for a while, ancient times even, but hearing this on the radio got me to thinking that were entering into a new wave of this kind of thing. Because of the internet, the effectiveness of this tool is going to go way up, way fast, what's happening now is just the first experiments. The kind of stuff that the advertising agencies are learning from the psychologists and neurologists on their payroll is very applicable here, it's the same thing really, you're just trying to sell an idea, not a physical product.
I've seen the anonymous parts of the internet where people claim to have worked for these shady companies before who invade online communities and inject ideas or project a message there and they've talked about some of the clever writing tricks to say the same thing multiple ways so as to create artificial echo chambers and they can try to measure their success by seeing who and how many play along.
The Orwellian nightmare is that there would be so much disinformation out there that not even strong AI can sift through all the clutter.
That's what I get concerned about. Because in the new era, you can even create backers for your misinformation. The Koch Brothers have been doing this for years with traditional media and have graduated to social media. Its covered a lot in the book 'Dark Money' something I will likely read in full one day.
IMO, you don't need fake news, you just need to know how to manipulate the real news, promote facts that support your narrative, down-play those that don't. Stir up one group to protest something, then paint them in a bad light and expose any failings in their leaders. This stuff is old, as pointed out the Nazi's (and Soviets) became experts at it.
The ideas are that the western media was less likely to fall for it because you had professional independent journalists who could not be easily manipulated and had the sense/critical thinking to see right through it. Of course they might have a political bias, but that is different to what's being talked about. Unfortunately this type of journalism is now struggling, the internet and the social media bubbles people surround themselves with means that the news they hear, is the news they want to hear. This also makes it easier to manipulate them, their actions and their votes.
I was attempting to be a bit humorous and lighten it up, and now that I read my post again I realized it maybe didn't come across as humorous. Thank you for correcting me. Indeed, everyone can be had when April Fools extends to every day of the year.
Or... fake news within fake news within fake news :) .
But seriously, wouldn't it make more sense to have multiple, strongly biased watch groups opposing each other and debunking each other's "information", rather than having any single entity policing it? Like its supposed to be in a functioning democracy? What is preventing us? Are we being busy applying our energy to fighting wrong fights? Having our emotions jerked around so our minds can't operate with clarity?
Wouldn't such a biased watch group, if they really had the curiosity to provide quality debunking, as opposed to only appealing to and calling out deaf emotions, earn a significant degree of trust, no matter their political color? Or do you guys feel we are without that ability and beyond that possibility? I am kind of unable to accept that kind of defeat.