Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/363/36303.htm#_idTextAnchor000

by DanBC • 8 years ago

35 58 8 years ago

publications.parliament.uk

w_t_payne• 8 years ago

The use of the term 'algorithmic auditing' heralds a shift towards a more regulated environment for software engineering.

This means that web software development may end up looking more like software engineering in the healthcare, aerospace, nuclear and automotive industries.

Sadly, there is a real dearth of good open source tools for (e.g.) requirements engineering, configuration management etc... Most of the integrated PLM solutions that companies use to help meet regulatory requirements tend to be expensive, complex, and awkward to use.

I think that there is a significant future need here.

joshlk• 8 years ago

tempodox• 8 years ago

I thought clicks and eyeballs were the only requirements for “web software”. Selling your users' data seems to be the only business model left out there.

Moodles9• 8 years ago

Is anyone else disheartened by the fact that the discussion on "fake news" has focused around e.g. regulating social media, rather than just teaching people basic critical thinking skills?

threeseed4• 8 years ago

Absolutely not.

Because (a) most people simply don't have the time or skills to fact check every single piece of information and (b) even if they did it assumes that they have the awareness to do so. Both assumptions have been proven wrong again and again.

What we can do instead as a society is force the the billion-dollar social media companies to take responsibility for the content that they chose to display and the ads they chose to serve. Same as newspapers do, television stations do, and every other media format do every single day.

Moodles9• 8 years ago

But I don't think it's that hard or time consuming to fact check the news you read. Some people don't have the skills, yeah, which is why we should focus on teaching them critical thinking. That's not an argument for not trying to teach them.

kingofhdds3• 8 years ago

What I see in your comment: people are too stupid to understand what's right for them, so we "as a society" should make commercial entities to censor their platforms to pre-filter information available to general public.

Few questions arise: If you believe that people can't be trusted to decide if not guarded against unwanted information, do you really believe in democracy? Who are "we as a society"? Apparently, you are not talking about all people, or even majority.

azangru5• 8 years ago

Same as newspapers do, television stations do, and every other media format do every single day.

But newspapers, tv stations etc. are centralized hierarchical structures that can afford to have editorial policies. They have such thing as reputation to think about. Social media, on the other hand, at least how I envision them, are open platforms for anyone to find topics that interest them and express whichever ideas they want. Social media are amorphous, are different for every user, and should not have any agenda to push. They are a delivery mechanism, not an instrument for selectively amplifying some voices and selectively suppressing others.

sh1989• 8 years ago

Not really. If you take a look at some of the publications that Vote Leave put out during the 2016 referendum, some of them actually had nothing to do with the campaign! They put out advertisements about seemingly unrelated subjects, purely to build, collate and triangulate a distribution list for the main material. There was no sign these were from a political organisation.

In my opinion the regulation and reporting of political campaigning and advertisments is absolutely necessary. The ground has shifted below the regulators so much and it's perfectly reasonable to keep regulation up to date.

saulrh4• 8 years ago

Is anyone else disheartened by the fact that the discussion on "snake oil" has focused around e.g. regulating clinical trials and pharmaceutical manufacturing, rather than just teaching people basic critical thinking skills and label-reading skills?

Answer: No. Modern advertising techniques are effective enough that most people simply cannot defend themselves against them. Micro-targeting of extremist viewpoints is so effective that I tend to think of it as a low-grade basilisk attack of sorts, a political equivalent of the langford death parrot: If you don't have your special protective goggles on there is nothing you can do to keep your opinion from being pushed around in depressingly predictable ways.

There are studies that demonstrate that information that you consciously and correctly refute and disregard still affects your beliefs. And that's only useful if you're perfect; there's a rather nasty ratchet effect at work on your confidence bounds, so every single error leads to a nearly permanent skew that can be used to lever you arbitrarily far away from "truth". Even if you could correctly discard information that was outside believable confidence bounds, these systems can just denial-of-service your ability to gather competing information and pull off a good Cartesian evil demon act.

Moodles9• 8 years ago

But I think teaching kids to read the label on their food is a good idea...

kingofhdds3• 8 years ago

The logical consequence of the belief in people being unable to defend their minds against elaborate ads is that we should abolish democracy. How can you trust those stupid voters to make any choice if this choice is predetermined by ads?

Personally, I think people can defend themselves against lies (though it doesn't happen instantly) if they have alternatives. And that's why we should resist censorship, and not prescribe filtered news to societies.

1337biz• 8 years ago

Modern advertising techniques are effective enough that most people simply cannot defend themselves against them.

This worldview is just sad and wrong. You are dehumanizing human beings, victimizing people and trying to strip them of their agency. How can you let people vote when in your view they are incapable to make informed decisions?

mike_hearn5• 8 years ago

Modern advertising techniques are effective enough that most people simply cannot defend themselves against them

There is plenty of evidence that this belief is complete nonsense. You're asserting it as if it's fact but you have no sources or citations, and actual real world events contradict you, most obviously, Clinton outspent Trump 2:1 and still lost. If "modern advertising techniques" were really so powerful that could never have happened.

Also, Google wouldn't make billions out of text ads, billions made mostly by not showing people ads for things they don't already want.

azangru5• 8 years ago

I am, yes! Nice to see a kindred spirit :-)

arel• 8 years ago

Its both:

1. Platforms have a civic responsibility to not promote disinformation.

2. Citizens have a responsibility to escape their bias and bubbles and reject disinformation.

But in the current environment where even basic truth and sources are under attack by yelling 'fake news' where is the foundational truth on which to even arrive at critical thinking?

This is the authoritarian's great trick.

Critical thinking is hard work and discomforting, its much easier to pick a side and allow yourself to be manipulated.

We need critical thinking but more importantly we need to attack the tribalism and polarisation that prevent us even making the journey to critical thinking.

azangru5• 8 years ago

But in the current environment where even basic truth and sources are under attack by yelling 'fake news' where is the foundational truth on which to even arrive at critical thinking?
This is the authoritarian's great trick.

Is it an undeniable fact that the current environment is significantly different in people’s attitude towards foundational truths than the previous environments?

In truly authoritarian (or totalitarian) countries, there are very few outlets broadcasting what goes there for the foundational truths. People are supposed to believe what is being told them via these outlets, yet many (especially the intellectuals) develop defensive mechanisms and learn to ignore what is presented to them as foundational truths. Take the Soviet Union as an example. There were several state-run newspapers and TV channels translating what went for foundational truths, yet with time many learned to disbelieve what they saw on TV or read in newspapers.

CM302• 8 years ago

Yes. Because it feels like a blatant attack on alternative news sites and media sources, and makes me worry that any attempt to shut down fake news will be used to shut down real news that paints authorities or the mainstream media in a bad light.

It makes me think of the debates about encryption backdoors and police master keys for security systems. In the same way a backdoor for the police/authorities can quickly become one for criminals and foreign agents, limits on news sites, media sharing or freedom of speech can become weapons of government or corporate oppression/censorship.

Fake news can certainly be an issue, but it feels like any solution will just be another tool for incumbents to secure their power and freedoms to be restricted.

Moodles9• 8 years ago

I'm not sure if it's a "blatant attack on alternative news sites". I think probably people actually have good intentions here rather than some establishment conspiracy. I'm not convinced that regulating social media news is the best policy to focus on, though.

bepotts• 8 years ago

I've noticed that the politicians who discuss regulating social media the most are often times the same politicians who've had their worldview challenged recently.

In the US we have Democrats using Facebook and Twitter as a scapegoat for the rise of Trump. To Democrats, it's not that they're smug and look down on half the country, it isn't that they want to raise taxes to fund programs half the country doesn't want, or that they look down upon gun owners. No, it's the fact that Facebook's algorithms keep people bubbles, and Twitter gave Trump a megaphone that's the problem. To them, if those social media companies were heavily regulated then Trump wouldn't exist.

First it was "fake news"; then it the Russians; then it was the affect social media has on society; then it was Cambridge Analytica; and now we're at Silicon Valley as a whole being a problem, with Google's search algorithms distorting democracy and social media companies not allowing "real news" to flourish over fake news.

At no point do these people take a step back and say,"hey, maybe Trump got elected because people don't like us?"

And I say this as someone who is socially liberal. I see this as clear day and I get annoyed by it; I can only imagine how I'd feel if I were a conservative.

You see a similar process play it in the UK, except with Brexit. At first it was leave voters being too stupid to know what's good for them, then it was the dishonesty of Farage and Johnson (as if politicians lying were a new phenomena), and now they're on to blaming social media and some shady campaign financing from leave groups.

The world order has been challenged in the West and instead of mounting a defense of the establishment, the establishment blames the methods that the dissenters used to organize and punch them in the face. That's what makes the who social media debate frustrating to me. Politicians are obfuscating their true intentions and motives. It's as clear as day.

Social media needs to clean up its mess, but the fact that there's no gatekeepers and everyone can have a voice is a good thing. That ability has allowed people in the middle east to topple dictators and shine a light on human rights abuses. Politicans in the UK and the United States should just learn how to govern better.

CM302• 8 years ago

At no point do these people take a step back and say,"hey, maybe Trump got elected because people don't like us?"

This is arguably the key point. And I think the reason that's the case is because well, what were the mainstream politicians and parties offering?

Not much. At least, not much that their bases wanted, and not much that'd improve people's standard of living. It was 'more of the same', with a helping of pro corporation laws and tax breaks.

And their marketing was especially dire during the EU Referendum and 2016 election. Tons of comments about how wrong or stupid or 'deplorable' the other side was, lots of assumptions about how they'd automatically win. No promises about how the world/population would be better off under their system or how things would improve in general.

Will either Trump or Brexit or what not make things better?

No, likely not, but the solution isn't to try and lock down communication systems to stop it happening again, it's to take a long look at your party and political platform and start offering things people want rather than what gets you money or power.

pohl• 8 years ago

Unfortunately, the forces that fake news are currently being leveraged for happen to be the ones who do not want strong education policy (because tax cuts) and they currently have the upper hand. The boil-the-ocean strategy of just teaching everyone critical thinking isn’t really on the table at the moment.

jaimex2• 8 years ago

Media and social media have all but lost their reputations, or at least in my eyes anyway. Does anyone still believe anything they read on social/regular media?

Everything is either regurgitated clickbait or a vortex of hate inducing fluff piece. Eventually you just desensitise.

dredmorbius• 8 years ago

If you prefer reading this as a single PDF document:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcu...

(From: https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z...)

schalab• 8 years ago

The basic problem is astroturfing.

In politics if I create a bot network to artificially boost the more divisive tweets, over time the entire political network may become more polarized and toxic. And it would necessarily elevate fringe candidates who are most equipped to deal with chaos. Its absolutely fascinating that you can create a real world riot just through a simple algorithm over time.

And politics is probably small potatoes compared to the commercial applications. Imagine if you can make your product go viral, suppress all dissent and at the same time sabotage your opponent's user base. And all that for very little investment. That is an unbelievable competitive edge.

So, the question is how do you stop this?

The internet is designed for anonymity and is not easily traceable across national lines.

So, if a Chinese/Russian company is involved in massive botting, what can you even do, except hire them yourself to stop your opponents gaining an advantage.

I am struggling to see a solution or how government involvement doesnt make this problem worse.

mike_hearn5• 8 years ago

What makes you think such political botting even exists?

This Parliamentary report is extremely dangerous because the politicians writing it themselves appear to be victims of fake news, namely, deliberately created fake news about political bots on social media.

I used to work on anti-botting at Google and got suspicious about this story when the Times started pushing the idea that academics had found hundreds of thousands of "bots" pushing pro-Brexit views and that this is why Leave had won. Although this thread is full of people asserting that nobody fact-checks the media, some people do, and I spent a while tracking down the sources of this story and analysing them. I wrote up the results here:

https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f...

I was quite shocked by what I found: the claims were based on an academic paper that was riddled with bad science and outright fraudulent claims.

Unfortunately the establishment very much wants to believe this narrative. After publishing this analysis I got in touch with the journalist at the Times who wrote the original article and let him know, but of course, nothing ever happened.

At the end of the article I wrote that the abuse these academics and journalists were engaging in was very dangerous because they were distorting the beliefs of politicians. We now see the results.

mandelbulb3• 8 years ago

Off-topic: Why is everyone adopting the term fake news, thus leaving a linguistic legacy of that illiterate mafiosi? He obviously used that neologism due to his limited vocabulary, and popularized it further as a buzzword of his campaign.

jpttsn• 8 years ago

Aren't you answering your own question? He popularized it. Therefore, everyone is adopting it.

mandelbulb3• 8 years ago

He popularized it. Therefore, everyone is adopting it.

So you jump when everyone else jumps?

But more importantly, he popularized it among his own base. There was and is no need for anyone else to pick up that term, especially outside the US.

dragonwriter• 8 years ago

Why is everyone adopting the term fake news, thus leaving a linguistic legacy of that illiterate mafiosi?

He adopted it as a way of neutralizing it because other people were using it about propaganda supporting him that appeared, at the time, to follow what RAND Corp had earlier described as the “firehose of falsehoods” propaganda model employed in recent years by the Russian government (and with the benefit of hindsight appears to have been, in no small part, actual Russian government propaganda, which would explain it following that model.)

So, I guess there is a sense in which it connects to his legacy, but not the way you seem to think.

He obviously used that neologism due to his limited vocabulary

Trump may be an idiot, but the people crafting his campaign messaging were not, and his use of “fake news” was much more careful than you suggest (and effective, as your own mistaken idea of how it came to be prominent in the 2016 campaign illustrates.)

mandelbulb3• 8 years ago

but the people crafting his campaign messaging were not

Yeah, many people would dispute that. In particular, you can't forget that he rarely followed scripts. His team definitely observed and measured what people and the press responded to, and brainstormed how it might benefit them in the future. But it certainly all started as what he could think of or remember best.

The success of campaign slogans and buzzword relies heavily on creativity, luck, and your own success. The work the campaign teams invest is usually more about damage control than profound strategies on how to rule society.

So, I guess there is a sense in which it connects to his legacy, but not the way you seem to think.

What are You talking about?

Fake news had been a trivial phrase, used in different contexts throughout the years but without any grand emphasis on its own existence—hence the lack of an entry in dictionaries. Even throughout 2016, it had no explicit connection to Trump. Hillary also used it shortly before Trump famously called CNN out as fake news. [1] Even then the term was an unnecessarily misleading trivialization. But Trump redefined and weaponized that afterwards as his own catchphrase.

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/08/politics/hillary-clinton-...

mike_hearn5• 8 years ago

My recollection is quite different. I remember his political opponents started to use it quite extensively during the Clinton campaign, but that was a mistake, because trust in journalism is lowest amongst Republicans. So Trump started using it in the sense of "what, that isn't fake news, YOUR news is fake news" and from there it took off. But it's a term used mostly by the left, as far as I can tell. At least they're much more obsessed with the idea.

Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report

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