I really don't know how we're going to stop fake or misleading news--but this article hits the top mark when looking for it.
"Google, whether you’re aware of it or not, is a total slaughterhouse. Trump’s data team (he’s reportedly set up a “war room” to combat the Russia story) has weaponized information, and for about a year now has been slaying American brains: Trump supporters’ brains. It started with the election, then died down, but now it’s coming back, vengeful and desperate.
As a result, we’re at a pivotal point not just in the life of our democracy, but in how we think, read, and make choices. Selective information is being presented to us in a way that encourages selective reading and offers psychological and social rewards for, to put it bluntly, being stupid and submissive and spreading stupid to submit others.
This is, of course, about the truth, and about the cognitive and emotional vulnerabilities of Americans. This is nothing new for propagandists. What’s different now is that this propaganda is being gamed by professionals in a massive, orchestrated data campaign at a volume, pace, and consistency that not only muddies the truth, but completely eclipses the truth. Destroys the very notion of truth.
I can describe it in no other terms but a war.
The truth about the truth is that we believe because we want to, because our ability to think independently is a point of pride for Americans. The people behind the curtain are telling us the same story we tell ourselves about ourselves. But this is also a vulnerability: Independence is in its purist form a kind of division. If you exploit it the right way, you can turn a democracy against itself. If I think about this for too long I grow terrified and want to take everyone’s computer away. But it might be too late.
Beyond the Bots: Trump’s Twitter Toupee
"The past few days, we’ve seen some good reporting about the surge of Trump bots on social media. (Bots are automated, non-human accounts.) And though he didn’t, as some people have claimed, net five million new Twitter followers in three days (though he did gain three million in May), nearly half of his followers, a full 49 percent, aren’t real people.
That’s right: "Trump is being followed by 15 million robots."
This article goes on to list other examples of how we're being mislead by political hackers on Google, Facebook & other social media sites and is an excellent article, and there's a lot to learn in this article. It also gives examples.
How the Trump-Russia Data Machine Games Google to Fool Americans
"Google, whether you’re aware of it or not, is a total slaughterhouse. Trump’s data team (he’s reportedly set up a “war room” to combat the Russia story) has weaponized information, and for about a year now has been slaying American brains: Trump supporters’ brains. It started with the election, then died down, but now it’s coming back, vengeful and desperate.
As a result, we’re at a pivotal point not just in the life of our democracy, but in how we think, read, and make choices. Selective information is being presented to us in a way that encourages selective reading and offers psychological and social rewards for, to put it bluntly, being stupid and submissive and spreading stupid to submit others.
This is, of course, about the truth, and about the cognitive and emotional vulnerabilities of Americans. This is nothing new for propagandists. What’s different now is that this propaganda is being gamed by professionals in a massive, orchestrated data campaign at a volume, pace, and consistency that not only muddies the truth, but completely eclipses the truth. Destroys the very notion of truth.
I can describe it in no other terms but a war.
The truth about the truth is that we believe because we want to, because our ability to think independently is a point of pride for Americans. The people behind the curtain are telling us the same story we tell ourselves about ourselves. But this is also a vulnerability: Independence is in its purist form a kind of division. If you exploit it the right way, you can turn a democracy against itself. If I think about this for too long I grow terrified and want to take everyone’s computer away. But it might be too late.
Beyond the Bots: Trump’s Twitter Toupee
"The past few days, we’ve seen some good reporting about the surge of Trump bots on social media. (Bots are automated, non-human accounts.) And though he didn’t, as some people have claimed, net five million new Twitter followers in three days (though he did gain three million in May), nearly half of his followers, a full 49 percent, aren’t real people.
That’s right: "Trump is being followed by 15 million robots."
This article goes on to list other examples of how we're being mislead by political hackers on Google, Facebook & other social media sites and is an excellent article, and there's a lot to learn in this article. It also gives examples.
How the Trump-Russia Data Machine Games Google to Fool Americans
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