UW professor: The information war is real, and we're losing it

[L. Coyote]

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/uw-professor-the-information-war-is-real-and-were-losing-it/

A University of Washington professor started studying social networks to help people respond to disasters. But she got dragged down a rabbit hole of twitter-boosted conspiracy theories, and ended up mapping our political moment.
By Danny Westneat -- Seattle Times -- March 29, 2017

It started with the Boston marathon bombing, four years ago. University of Washington professor Kate Starbird was sifting through thousands of tweets sent in the aftermath and noticed something strange.

Too strange for a university professor to take seriously. “There was a significant volume of social-media traffic that blamed the Navy SEALs for the bombing,” Starbird told me the other day in her office. “It was real tinfoil-hat stuff. So we ignored it.”

Same thing after the mass shooting that killed nine at Umpqua Community College in Oregon: a burst of social-media activity calling the massacre a fake, a stage play by “crisis actors” for political purposes. “That was a terrible mistake. We should have been studying it.”

Starbird is in the field of “crisis informatics,” or how information flows after a disaster. She got into it to see how social media might be used for the public good, such as to aid emergency responders.

Instead she’s gone down a dark rabbit hole, one that wends through the back warrens of the web and all the way up to the White House. .................

[JonLP24]

1. K&R&Bookmarked

[Initech]

2. This is how Alex Jones and Fox News are able to get away with the shit they do.

No media accountability = jackpot for conspiracy theorists!

[Maraya1969]

3. I think the DNC needs to hire a thousand anti-trolls to post on social media - Youtube

Twitter, Facebook and in the comments pages of right winged propagation sites like Breitbart and Info-wars.

If you look at some of these places there are so many posts that look the same. "I am praying for our great president Trump" for example.

Even if they were given short progressive FACTS to post and re-post we could at least have a hand in this dis-information game.

I cannot see us winning another presidential election unless these fake news and fake trolls are contained. (Also we need to use an algorithm to get real news to the top of Google for a fucking change)

It may not even take a thousand people, (maybe a couple hundred college students part time?). I have made anti-Trump posts with a link and just kept clicking on pro-Trump videos and pasting them as the latest comment. It does not take that long to bombard a lot of pro-Trump and racist videos if you just keep pasting. I know that is what the Russian bots do

[L. Coyote]

4. I like this idea. Make an OP for starters. It will have traction.

[Maraya1969]

6. OK. But I think I already have in the past. I'll try again anyway. Thanks

[L. Coyote]

5. Don't underestimate the power of disinformation

Link to tweet

[Blue_Tires]

8. And remember, the purpose of disinfo is not to make you believe lies

the purpose is to muddy the waters to the point where you don't know what's legit and what isn't...

[L. Coyote]

10. And/or to make you question evident truth. Also, to simply tune out and not vote at all.

There is a strong push going on in social media to blame the DNC for everything, same old crap they did during the primary to divide and conquer. It works, people fall for the lies.

[L. Coyote]

7. kick for visibility

[yardwork]

9. This is how Trump got elected and why the Republicans control Congress.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

11. Sounds like we should all ignore Twitter. Problem solved!

I sat dumbfounded for a time as she spooled through tweets in her database: an archive of endless, baseless speculation that nevertheless is evidence of a political revolution.

#tweetingisstupid

[Solly Mack]

12. Years ago a woman I knew was emailing around a BS letter that was supposed to

be from a General. The letter was full of ain't we great, America is number 1, curses to all the naysayers who say we've lost our way, America wins all wars because we have God and right on our side, blah, blah, blah. The letter claimed several facts not in existence. This was at the height of the Iraq invasion.

So I mentioned the letter was a fake. No such General existed. Said fake general did not write the letter, and it was a means to sway people through emotion instead of presenting facts.

Her response?

She got angry with me. Told me it didn't matter if it wasn't real because the letter made her feel good. That people wanted words that made them feel good about things and not facts anyway.

A Major, around the same time, wanted me to know about the Pepsi, pledge of allegiance/under God lie making its way around the internet and how outraged he was, and how much he liked Pepsi but wouldn't buy it any longer.

I told him that was a lie. It didn't happen. Just another Internet myth meant to influence people's thinking.

His response?

To look at me as if I was an idiot.