Am reading through the comments and I have to say westerners really think all news is about them. People who don't understand the context of a story arguing out the ethics of a story they have no idea about. PS: I am a Kenyan. That being said, any Kenyan here who uses Twitter regularly will agree with the article. Go to Twitter right now and you will see the disinformation in action. Trend number 1 (Nyonga) Trend number 3 (Kenya under Raila) are all political trends that are being promoted by "fake accounts" pushing the hashtags. Everyday new hashtags come up peddling the same misinformation against political rivals. This has been happening almost EVERYDAY for the last several months and it will only get worse as we near elections which is exactly one year away.
I've noticed that this is happening on any divisive subject, no matter what. Abortion, LGBTI rights, politics, sports, it doesn't matter there is always a bunch real people involved backed by an army of bots.
There are some people mapping this out manually, I'm surprised that the likes of Twitter don't take a harder stand against this because it likely is going to ruin the platform long term (if that hasn't already happened).
> Am reading through the comments and I have to say westerners really think all news is about them.
As a westerner, I've discovered that we forget that we are less than 20% of the global population. Bringing that up in conversation can surprise people.
This is a huge issue in South Africa too. It's become blatant to the point you can often immediately tell if a trending hashtag is being pushed by bot efforts just by looking at the way it's phrased + a few of the top tweets circulating it.
> Everyday new hashtags come up peddling the same misinformation against political rivals.
Is how I've been feeling for the past couple of years at least.
It's really not any different here. For good or ill, this is the Twitter-nature.
I deleted my account and made a 'connection-less' one so when I follow links and see tweets directly on Twitter, there's no further engagement to be had, beyond looking at whatever is 'trending'… which is literally, what you describe, localized. I am looking at whatever third parties are trying to promote as the 'vox populi', with a certain amount of organic interaction/reaction with it.
It's the twitter-nature. I know you're not wrong here.
Well put. Too many of those commenting here are unable to view political issues in other countries through anything other than (mostly) American political paradigms.
The debate around freedom of speech, for instance, is different for those of us in Kenya and South Africa than it is in the US, just by virtue of having different legal frameworks, recent histories, and other factors. The same is true for the debate in European countries.
The media, too, is a complex phenomenon with the interplay between the big international media companies like the BBC, Reuters, CNN, etc and local media. There's also a difference between local news outlets that publish in English and those that publish in one or more local language. The CNN vs Fox News tribalism that grips so much American political discourse about the news is completely irrelevant.
These disinformation campaigns also have real impact. One campaign orchestrated by the Bell Pottinger PR company on behalf of South Africa's corrupt then president and a family of benefactors helped provide the cover to dismiss key incorruptible individuals in government and paved the way for the capture of key departments, institutions, and state-owned enterprises by private interests. The country has still not recovered from the damage caused.
This site has been the target of disinformation campaigns by far right groups for a while now. Don't give too much credence in what you read in the comments.
It's the same in the US, pushing false narratives and misinformation constantly. Horse dewormer ivermectin is a major example from just a few days ago.
Why is Mozilla, of all orgs, performing foreign activism and reporting on Twitter users in hopes of getting them banned? "We want to do good", sure, but that's two bits of a stretch here.
Nothing in the article as posted indicates that the "disinformation influencers" were nefarious actors. For all the description given, it might have been grassroots citizens action, only labeled "disinformation" by officials or government-aligned sources. The end result is Mozilla making arbitrary choice between two opposing camps of political activists - and reports on Twitter users along those lines with clear hopes of getting them banned.
I'd understand the point if the activism was directly related to open internet, to freedom of expression, interoperability of services, ease of access and so forth - if there were concerns closely related to Mozilla's core mission. However nothing in the article nor in the linked PDF seem to allude to any of such concerns. It feels like a small group of Mozilla employees[1] ran this research and reported on users for their own private reasons.
[1] "in-house activists" might be a more charitable characterization
The article is blaming Twitter for being callous with its trending algorithms being abused with some coordination between larger number of folks. I think this is very much Mozilla’s business, just as much as any campaign in the West.
The researchers are based in Kenya, writing about Kenyans. They just happen to be employed by Mozilla. Sorry I don’t get why that is a problem?
> Mozilla making arbitrary choice between two opposing camps of political activists
And Mozilla itself has hardly been politically neutral in the past few years - if anything, I'm more immediately skeptical of anything that Mozilla asserts as true than anything a blue-check twitter account owner in Kenya does.
You're right, it's only about 5% of the population, but they occupy administrative roles inside organizations and reshape them according to their fundamentalist beliefs. They are convinced they are doing good and have moral authority. As such, they have no qualms about ostracizing or firing dissenters. People are terrified of that and go along with it for fear of retaliation, so it seems larger than it is.
Taking administrative roles with an intolerant belief structure and chilling effect on speech is how the Successor Ideology is so effective despite being small in number.
I think mozilla is trying to draw a line that separates it from privacy invading tech giants.. while still taking billions to host their tech in its browsers
Mozilla is wasting its limited funding fighting random individual boogeyman rather than develop software that helps protect our freedoms. It's really sad.
Having read the report, I think this is an interesting but rather weak analysis.
Detection of inauthentic behavior is very hard and fraught with false positives, so it's really important to be very transparent in the methods.
That said, the numbers are not too small, they do have some interviews with participants and Twitter seems to have removed some accounts - all these lend the report some credibility.
Mozilla and Twitter are US concerns. What is it their business how politics are conducted in other countries?
What’s the difference between Mozilla and United Fruit when it comes to political interference? They both were are agitating for their PoV and not concerned with local mores. They both have foreign agendas.
One could argue United fruit advanced agriculture and provided jobs whereas Mozilla gets involved but provides no jobs to locals. Yes United fruit engaged in bad behavior but Mozilla should not get a pass either for interfering in foreign affairs.
> "New research by two Mozilla Fellows reveals how malicious, coordinated, and inauthentic attacks on Twitter are undermining Kenyan civil society"
i am glad that we here in the west are not subject to this sort of social media engineering and can participate in open and thoughtful debate on topics no matter how our elites feel about them
Because this is exactly what is the case! We are here and can participate in these discussions, more than ever before in history.
There are limits to free discussions (i.e. if you threaten or plot to kill somebody), but these limits have never been less in any country in any time.
So are platforms supposed to regulate speech or not? People complain if they stay neutral and don't remove false information and people complain if they moderate and do remove false information.
I'm confused as well. When it benefits these platforms to be private orgs they claim to be within their rights as a private org. When it's beneficial to claim they're a town square of sorts then suddenly they're a town square. If you think that moderating posts infringes on free speech then perhaps they should be regulated as a utility?
I personally have no issue with any of these platforms moderating to their heart's content for the following reasons:
We are entitled to free speech but we are not entitled to use Twitter's megaphone.
I am against megaphones. I don't like companies like Twitter. With any hope, the more they moderate the more people will move away from centralized platforms. Don't regulate them and they will moderate themselves out of existence (I wish).
It's a normative continuum between full state regulation (i.e. totalitarian but defensive) and no state regulation (i.e. completely free speech but vulnerable).
The US is very liberal. Most European countries are leaning towards regulation.
See the book "How Democracies Die" for a summary of the three most prominent legal approaches.
Sorry but unless you provide actual links to so-called misinformation, I’m going to assume that this is either overexaggerated or labeling anything against Western values as disinformation.
Especially when it is described as ”This industry’s main goal is to sway public opinion during elections and protests” which is different than every other media organization how, exactly?
I think you're missing the point, as a Twitter user, do you expect other users to be paid money to post and retweet things that they were told to post and retweet by some patron? Do you expect to be baited by some fake account that is sold to the best bidder for amplification? And do you expect the recommendations and trending to be full of manipulated content that actually all come from a single source of coordinated promotion?
It doesn't really matter what the messages in those are, it could be wishing everyone a good day, it is still disinformation, because it is trying to masquerade itself as a popular opinion on Twitter, and as being a real representation of real people's personal opinion that they hold so strongly they are willing to be actively expressing it publicly on Twitter.
To me, this amounts to fraud, and Twitter has a huge problem with this stuff. It's similar in nature to fraud on Amazon with fake reviews, and with selling aftermarket goods and fake brands.
Some media organizations focus on spreading information. I would say NPR focuses on that. They're not infallible, sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they miss an angle, but I get the sense that they're truly more interested in spreading information than spreading opinion.
Wikipedia as well. Other people try to use Wikipedia to sway public opinion, but Wikipedia itself seems rather opposed to articles designed for that.
Reuters seems to do some solid work as well. I don't usually get a heavy spin vibe from them, but maybe it's an international spin that I'm not in on.
The whole disinformation question is very complicated, but this particular question is very easy.
Media are legitimate influences on public opinion with accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices.
Disinformation is illegitimate (i.e. illegal) influence on public opinion by hidden actors without accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices.
[edit] Perhaps I should say what I mean by legitimate. Legitimate here means: Society agreed to allow media to exist in the form that they do, by creating laws in support and by refraining from creating laws that would prevent them. As long as there is no political consensus and/or riots which would fundamentally undermine the media's standing, they benefit from a special role (and are held to that standard).
bunnernana|4 years ago
jacquesm|4 years ago
There are some people mapping this out manually, I'm surprised that the likes of Twitter don't take a harder stand against this because it likely is going to ruin the platform long term (if that hasn't already happened).
One example:
https://twitter.com/galactic_potato/status/14352650994770002...
mfer|4 years ago
As a westerner, I've discovered that we forget that we are less than 20% of the global population. Bringing that up in conversation can surprise people.
parabyl|4 years ago
> Everyday new hashtags come up peddling the same misinformation against political rivals.
Is how I've been feeling for the past couple of years at least.
Applejinx|4 years ago
It's really not any different here. For good or ill, this is the Twitter-nature.
I deleted my account and made a 'connection-less' one so when I follow links and see tweets directly on Twitter, there's no further engagement to be had, beyond looking at whatever is 'trending'… which is literally, what you describe, localized. I am looking at whatever third parties are trying to promote as the 'vox populi', with a certain amount of organic interaction/reaction with it.
It's the twitter-nature. I know you're not wrong here.
_djo_|4 years ago
The debate around freedom of speech, for instance, is different for those of us in Kenya and South Africa than it is in the US, just by virtue of having different legal frameworks, recent histories, and other factors. The same is true for the debate in European countries.
The media, too, is a complex phenomenon with the interplay between the big international media companies like the BBC, Reuters, CNN, etc and local media. There's also a difference between local news outlets that publish in English and those that publish in one or more local language. The CNN vs Fox News tribalism that grips so much American political discourse about the news is completely irrelevant.
These disinformation campaigns also have real impact. One campaign orchestrated by the Bell Pottinger PR company on behalf of South Africa's corrupt then president and a family of benefactors helped provide the cover to dismiss key incorruptible individuals in government and paved the way for the capture of key departments, institutions, and state-owned enterprises by private interests. The country has still not recovered from the damage caused.
user764743|4 years ago
Zababa|4 years ago
gorwell|4 years ago
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1434539307415519238
dexen|4 years ago
Nothing in the article as posted indicates that the "disinformation influencers" were nefarious actors. For all the description given, it might have been grassroots citizens action, only labeled "disinformation" by officials or government-aligned sources. The end result is Mozilla making arbitrary choice between two opposing camps of political activists - and reports on Twitter users along those lines with clear hopes of getting them banned.
I'd understand the point if the activism was directly related to open internet, to freedom of expression, interoperability of services, ease of access and so forth - if there were concerns closely related to Mozilla's core mission. However nothing in the article nor in the linked PDF seem to allude to any of such concerns. It feels like a small group of Mozilla employees[1] ran this research and reported on users for their own private reasons.
[1] "in-house activists" might be a more charitable characterization
harikb|4 years ago
The researchers are based in Kenya, writing about Kenyans. They just happen to be employed by Mozilla. Sorry I don’t get why that is a problem?
didibus|4 years ago
People getting paid money to perform coordinated repost of content sent to them by anonymous sources?
Fake accounts used to amplify and retweet the messages?
What else are you looking for? It's like they told you someone stole money at gunpoint and you said you don't see anything indicative of theft.
ceilingcorner|4 years ago
commandlinefan|4 years ago
And Mozilla itself has hardly been politically neutral in the past few years - if anything, I'm more immediately skeptical of anything that Mozilla asserts as true than anything a blue-check twitter account owner in Kenya does.
gorwell|4 years ago
You're right, it's only about 5% of the population, but they occupy administrative roles inside organizations and reshape them according to their fundamentalist beliefs. They are convinced they are doing good and have moral authority. As such, they have no qualms about ostracizing or firing dissenters. People are terrified of that and go along with it for fear of retaliation, so it seems larger than it is.
Taking administrative roles with an intolerant belief structure and chilling effect on speech is how the Successor Ideology is so effective despite being small in number.
thunkshift1|4 years ago
deft|4 years ago
uniqueuid|4 years ago
Detection of inauthentic behavior is very hard and fraught with false positives, so it's really important to be very transparent in the methods.
That said, the numbers are not too small, they do have some interviews with participants and Twitter seems to have removed some accounts - all these lend the report some credibility.
orangepurple|4 years ago
mc32|4 years ago
What’s the difference between Mozilla and United Fruit when it comes to political interference? They both were are agitating for their PoV and not concerned with local mores. They both have foreign agendas.
One could argue United fruit advanced agriculture and provided jobs whereas Mozilla gets involved but provides no jobs to locals. Yes United fruit engaged in bad behavior but Mozilla should not get a pass either for interfering in foreign affairs.
recursivedoubts|4 years ago
i am glad that we here in the west are not subject to this sort of social media engineering and can participate in open and thoughtful debate on topics no matter how our elites feel about them
uniqueuid|4 years ago
Because this is exactly what is the case! We are here and can participate in these discussions, more than ever before in history.
There are limits to free discussions (i.e. if you threaten or plot to kill somebody), but these limits have never been less in any country in any time.
So - let's not be overly pessimistic?
Applejinx|4 years ago
That said, I don't know from what angle you're deadpanning, or which elites from where you mean, but… heh. noted. how nice for us
ziml77|4 years ago
2OEH8eoCRo0|4 years ago
I personally have no issue with any of these platforms moderating to their heart's content for the following reasons:
We are entitled to free speech but we are not entitled to use Twitter's megaphone.
I am against megaphones. I don't like companies like Twitter. With any hope, the more they moderate the more people will move away from centralized platforms. Don't regulate them and they will moderate themselves out of existence (I wish).
uniqueuid|4 years ago
The US is very liberal. Most European countries are leaning towards regulation.
See the book "How Democracies Die" for a summary of the three most prominent legal approaches.
bo1024|4 years ago
FeepingCreature|4 years ago
h2odragon|4 years ago
orangepurple|4 years ago
ceilingcorner|4 years ago
Especially when it is described as ”This industry’s main goal is to sway public opinion during elections and protests” which is different than every other media organization how, exactly?
didibus|4 years ago
It doesn't really matter what the messages in those are, it could be wishing everyone a good day, it is still disinformation, because it is trying to masquerade itself as a popular opinion on Twitter, and as being a real representation of real people's personal opinion that they hold so strongly they are willing to be actively expressing it publicly on Twitter.
To me, this amounts to fraud, and Twitter has a huge problem with this stuff. It's similar in nature to fraud on Amazon with fake reviews, and with selling aftermarket goods and fake brands.
curryst|4 years ago
Wikipedia as well. Other people try to use Wikipedia to sway public opinion, but Wikipedia itself seems rather opposed to articles designed for that.
Reuters seems to do some solid work as well. I don't usually get a heavy spin vibe from them, but maybe it's an international spin that I'm not in on.
uniqueuid|4 years ago
Media are legitimate influences on public opinion with accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices.
Disinformation is illegitimate (i.e. illegal) influence on public opinion by hidden actors without accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices.
[edit] Perhaps I should say what I mean by legitimate. Legitimate here means: Society agreed to allow media to exist in the form that they do, by creating laws in support and by refraining from creating laws that would prevent them. As long as there is no political consensus and/or riots which would fundamentally undermine the media's standing, they benefit from a special role (and are held to that standard).
merricksb|4 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28444490
aaccount|4 years ago
koreanguy|4 years ago
[deleted]
bob229|4 years ago
[deleted]
gootler|4 years ago
[deleted]