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Month: February 2018

“Precision Propaganda on the Internet”

“Precision Propaganda on the Internet”

It’s not the message, its the medium – duh! The central problem of disinformation corrupting American political culture is not Russian spies or a particular social media platform. The central problem is that the entire industry is built to leverage sophisticated technology to aggregate user attention and sell advertising. There is an alignment of interests between advertisers and the platforms. And disinformation operators are typically indistinguishable from any other advertiser. Any viable policy solutions must start here. Source: Digital Deceit:…

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"Precision Propaganda on the Internet"

"Precision Propaganda on the Internet"

It’s not the message, its the medium – duh! The central problem of disinformation corrupting American political culture is not Russian spies or a particular social media platform. The central problem is that the entire industry is built to leverage sophisticated technology to aggregate user attention and sell advertising. There is an alignment of interests between advertisers and the platforms. And disinformation operators are typically indistinguishable from any other advertiser. Any viable policy solutions must start here. Source: Digital Deceit:…

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Duh: Automated propaganda

Duh: Automated propaganda

This sounds familiar, where have I heard this? 🙂 Experts, however, say what they call “computational propaganda” doesn’t just piggyback on social platforms; it is baked into the DNA and the business model of companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter. And it’s going to take more than an algorithm tweak to get rid of it. Source: Fake news is part of a bigger problem: automated propaganda – Columbia Journalism Review It’s because Internet Research Agency trolls used social media exactly…

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Governments upset that social media is reducing their influence on the world

Governments upset that social media is reducing their influence on the world

Starting to see a trend here: Oppressive governments around the world have realized that social media have become powerful alternative voices to official propaganda, so governments have not stopped looking for ways to combat political and social dissent on those media. Governments persecute dissenting voices either by openly denying access to the Internet and social media or by harassing critics, especially during elections or turbulent events. Source: Game of Trolls: The Sinister Face of Facebook Related: Billionaire upset that social…

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Media upset that social media reduces their influence on the world

Media upset that social media reduces their influence on the world

Okay, whatever: There’s no doubt in my mind that the ones that have been harmed most by it are news organizations, political parties and government. It was pretty clear to me five years ago they had already lost their power. Right now, they’re grappling with the reality of that and trying to understand what that means. The problem is new changes will be upon us, and I’m worried that by the time they come to terms with it, they’ll miss…

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