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Feds Spend Nearly $500K To 'Combat Online Trolling' (freebeacon.com)
mi writes: Washington Free Beacon reports: "The National Science Foundation is spending roughly half a million dollars to combat 'online trolling.' A joint project by Northwestern and Northeastern universities is examining how to create 'trolling-free environments' on the internet. The researchers define online trolls as those who try to influence public opinion by boosting 'misleading' and 'inauthentic comments.'" Just how can the "misleading" and "inauthentic" speech be eliminated by the government without violating the First Amendment? "Today almost every browser click that users make is collected by numerous trackers associated with a variety of online services (e.g., advertising networks, online social networks, e-commerce platforms)," a grant for the project states. "Users have often expressed concern about the lack of privacy and control over their personal data. Nonetheless, despite a substantial effort to expose and control this prevalent behavior, the reality is that users keep accepting updated online privacy policies, which in turn grant the gathering of more personal data. This project explores re-using this extensive tracking infrastructure for the benefits of both the users themselves and web services, with a goal of preventing online trolling (scenarios in which various groups deploy tactics to influence public opinion on the internet, by leaving biased, false, misleading, and inauthentic comments, and then artificially amplifying their ratings). The project aims to show how the tracking infrastructure can be re-used as a user 'fingerprint,' allowing a lightweight and privacy-preserving form of identification for third-party web sites." The lead researchers on the project, Aleksander Kuzmanovic from Northwestern University, and Alan Mislove from Northeastern University, said: "Public opinion is of paramount importance in any society. It is thus not a surprise that many governments, political parties, and various other groups deploy tactics to influence public opinion on the internet, a practice commonly referred to as trolling." They say their work could help combat "troll armies" used by Russia and China.
Joe Scarborough killed his intern in 2001.
Is that trolling or sharing valuable information?
We devalued the currency by 1000.
--sf
Title says 500 million. Summary says half a million. Does not compute
The researchers define online trolls as those who try to influence public opinion by boosting 'misleading' and 'inauthentic comments.'
Where I'm from, they're called politicians.
title says $500M should be $500K text even says "almost half a million" why have a moderator at all?
They're developing more ways to track people.
Obviously.
No, that's commonly referred to as "astroturfing." Trolling is something totally different, and not something that state actors generally get involved in.
Rob
500k is an absurd amount of money to do what basically amounts to "reversing fundamental human nature".
I could spend $50 and spend the day examining how various popular online forums worked, and probably gain a lot more insight than they ever will...
Probably most of the $500k is going to Hillary election funds through various shell companies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
if I were them I would combat the shilling and astroturfing that's going on here... it's just sicko...
This word "troll"...I do not believe it means what you think it means.
"Just how can the "misleading" and "inauthentic" speech be eliminated by the government without violating the First Amendment?"
The same way as always: just pay someone else to do what you aren't allowed to do yourself.
Happily my custom HOSTS file already blocks out all online trolling for me. Why is this board so empty, though? Not a single comment in 30 mins?
Watch as 'trolling' becomes 'opinions I don't agree with'.
This is how 1984 becomes a reality.
P.S. Posting as AC because I don't have an account.
Just how can the "misleading" and "inauthentic" speech be eliminated by the government without violating the First Amendment?
Easy! Just call a constitutional convention and eliminate the First Amendment. Since it's growing more unpopular every day, it shouldn't be a difficult task. In fact we can put the entire Bill of Rights on the block. Anybody got a problem with that? After all, there is a war on... and all this freedom stuff is only making total victory more elusive.
As a side note, watch for possible shadow banning, and please inform us if you see any evidence of it happening
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Tempests in teapots. I'm sure people online like to think collective opinion matters here, but it doesn't, really.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
before the title was fixed.
Some individual low-level state employees earn more than $500K, courtesy of the taxpayer. If I was going to go apoplectic over the amount, there's where I would start.
That's more exciting than a bowl of hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants.
I avoid touching ritalyn and its variations users as well. :D (trust me, I'm always happy when I know a girl uses my voice to cum around)
Again, that's not trolling, regardless of what some people are calling them. That's astroturfing for the Russian government and Putin, and against the US, Ukraine, and Alexei Navalny. Trolling is when you say controversial, annoying, and/or inflammatory shit just to get a response from people. That's not the aim of this astroturfing, which is just a relatively new way of disseminating the same old FUDdy propaganda that governments have been producing since the invention of writing.
Rob
I, actually, agree with you on the original meaning of "trolling". And yet, TFA talks about that "other" trolling and this subthread of ours is purely "semantics" now.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
...from a lifetime on the internet, it's that 99.9% of the time when someone says " is a troll", what they really mean is "My opinion is so self-evidently, unquestionably correct that anyone who claims to disagree with me is a liar just trying to start shit."
It's not just semantics--there's a big difference between the government funding methods to discourage people from saying things that are surely just "inauthentic comments" meant to provoke a reaction, which is what "creating trolling-free environments" suggests (and is even how it is read in the quote in the /. summary), and the government funding methods to combat Russian disinfo sockpuppet factories, which is what is actually happening. Ironically, the researchers themselves could be argued to be trolling people with the word choice, though I don't think that's deliberate.
Rob
I'm tired of being constantly trolled by Hillary and her troll army. They seem to have ramped up operations after she had Harambe "taken care of", too many victims now I suppose. You can't hide the truth anymore! #gorillalivesmatter
Government established and maintained truth. What could go wrong? People who would be protected from inconvenient truth would have to include religious leaders (especially evangelical), current political figures (especially Hillary) and the ghost of Ronald Reagan. And what does "misleading" and "inauthentic" speech mean?
Opinions do not all have the same weight, you are using poor reasoning skills. "The World is Round" is an opinion, and a very good one. The world is Flat is another opinion, but that opinion is bad. See how that works? There is almost nothing that is a pure true or pure false opinion, yet there are surely "good" and "bad" ones.
That people can make poor opinions is a different question. I don't care that your poor opinion is made public, it gave me a chance to make a correction for all to see.
I really didn't pay much attention to the remainder of your post. First impressions and all that.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Mod parent up, link is the Snowden leak on Jtrig, the UK's astroturf, fake victim, false rape claim group, used to discredit targets with smears. (e.g. Assange et al).
But regardless, GP claim is false "Astroturfing" and "Trolling" are one and the same, FREE SPEECH. Trolling is speech which in the opinion OF THE READER is something they view as a troll, but in others opinion it might be a legitimate reply. FBI has ZERO business interfering in free speech.
Look, let me give you a concrete example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6KQATOxxH4
This is Evalions "How to spot a feminist", it's usually the subject of endless take down requests, its a harsh critic of feminism, which lets twats get it suppressed as hate speech or similar random claims. However it is just someone expressing a view. The troll aspect is a function of the Material+Viewer. If a viewer gets a comment taken down because they don't like it, they are the bad in that situation.
Leave aside the fact that a lot of state actors don't operate in a vacuum and have a tech team guiding them in the use of proxies, VPNs, and browser add ons specifically designed to minimize or obfuscate tracking...
They really expect all the companies doing the tracking to just turn over data being given to them for a piddling half a million bucks? That MIGHT cover Google if they were feeling magnanimous AND were being promised favors as well.
Might.
But probably not. Still smarting from those NSA taps i'd bet.
No, it's just semantics. The summary defines what trolling means in this context very clearly, and the only contribution you have is a disagreement over the definition.
Indeed. Another good quaint concept - "equal protection under the law". When the government gets into the realm of serious persuasion in the free speech arena, there clearly are resulting groups that are more and less served by the government propagandists. I'm pretty sure this is probably a long understood common vector for large scale corruption. It's pretty much the slippery slope. Trolling is about as subtle as free speech gets. Instituting some new government agency to be judge and jury over what free speech is allowed, and which is combatted by official state propaganda...
The right answer is for the government to support free speech empowerment with the internet. Which they are very clearly not doing. If they were, we would have far superior privacy enhancing FOSS communication tools available to us, with highly effective reputation systems drastically lessening the impact of the kind of negative trolling described in the summary. Instead of that, we get to have no choice but to have faith that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others of the same profit-at-all-costs-to-serve-the-shareholders, ... faith that they will allow what we say to be heard widely and unimpeded enough (of course synergizing maximally with their advertisers wishes).
There's zero difference, you can have paid for trolling, and free astroturfing. And non-governmental astroturfing and governmental backed trolling.
As ever, if its a lie, counter the lie with truths and facts, if its true and you don't like it, why should you get to silence what you don't like? Anyway its not for the FBI, control of speech is none of their business.
As for the latest trick in this: "radicalizing speech" that is a bullshit MEME designed to stop you thinking its an attack on free speech.
Think about: is it the *meaning* of the words that radicalize, or the words themselves (e.g. like a magic spell or incantation). If the *meaning* isn't true then it can easily be countered by the truth. So what are they actually saying there? That some truths cannot be told because its not what we want!! And instead of that they pretend its the words themselves that are radicalizing, like a hex or a voodoo spell, and need to be silenced!?
You can throw a more concrete example in to decide. e.g. "West is defending Assad, who gases innocent Syrians, from muslims trying to depose him".
Is that a) a lie b) radicalizing speech, or c) an unpleasant thing we don't want said because it makes us look bad and the enemy slightly less bad?
Censorship is a tool of tyranny.
what Gregory responded I am blown away that a student can profit $8486 in a few weeks on the internet .
see more at---------->>> http://tinyurl.com/hqp45wu
...and the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQdvhmPbqbE&feature=youtu.be
Sure sounds like they'll be quashing anything that doesn't agree with "the official party line". CNN will be the new SNOPES.
If people believe everything they read in a message board or a web site and don't bother trying to verify it, then they are stupid.
And fundamental human nature does need reversed
That word, fundamental, I do not think it means what you think it means...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How do you differentiate from American citizens here speaking of legitimate problems with our government--from foreign agents?
In the new world, everyone is a suspected terrorist, and governments become paranoid and attack their own people.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Pale almost green tinted skin, squishy forehead with rolls of wrinkles, eyes too close together, moles with more than 1 hair coming out of it.
If you question the banksters, the war industry or their cultural marxist support troops. THAT is trolling.
Waking up is always the hardest thing.
Their plan is to turn the world of the white man into a muselmanic tyranny. See the actions of Merkel and see what Clinton has in stock for you.
All the lefties hate our people, our values and our civilization. And they love middle eastern tyranny.
Signed
A Troll/Freedom Fighter.
The science of all communists, including Hillary, includes coming down hard on those who question communism, banksterism and the action of corporations. These fucktards want to create a Ministry of Truth and I guess their muselmanic paymasters in Riad (who pay Hillary and the Prince of Wales and Merkel) fully approve of that.
Only Trump has blasted the Riad terror financiers.
Because your opinions are worth more than others, we must erect some form of censorship to protect your opinion, correct ?
You mean like press releases from federal agencies and the White House?
...always read SD at -1. That is where the nuggets are to be found.
Communist surf in their "safe space" to be fed the Bankster-approved bullshit at the default filter of SD.
Hillary is untouchable, as has been demonstrated by EmailGate. Every normal diplomat would have been locked up for 25 years for what she did. Face it, Hillary is about as accountable as king Louis XIV.
Russia has some legitimate grievances, about the criminals who run the show in the rotten Anglosaxon world. They do it by means of internet comments instead of covertly supplying Strela manpads to Mexico and Ireland. Have you thought about that ?
Your people are deeply rotten and have destroyed the nations of Iraq and Syria just recently. I hope Karma will catch up with you.
The Anglosaxon Imperium is by now worshipping money, sexual perversion and war. Just for the fun of it.
Clinton and her fellow communists want to mass import muselmans, which inevitably leads to muselmanic tyranny. That is what muselmanism is all about.
Liberals == Banksters == Commies
The banksters and their communist foot troops fear that some of the "trolling" is perfectly accurate. So they paid billions to bribe all the mainstream journalists and politicians into submission.
Then comes along Pedro Suarez of Madrid and blows a hole into their marvellous vessel of lies.
THAT is what they fear.
I think with this article and others we can safely say that the definition of trolling has now changed, as sad as I am to say that..
Yeah, I've been pointing out that guns are pretty ineffective combat weapons and that people who believe in their armament rights (I've stopped referring to the amendments when talking about rights that the amendments are merely a sham at protecting). I also point out the Shays and Whiskey Rebellions and refer to them as the good guys. I also make people aware of Thomas Hobbes and Alexander Hamilton and refer to them as villains and darlings of the university and politics circles.
Just how can the "misleading" and "inauthentic" speech be eliminated by the government without violating the First Amendment?
Simple. It's not being eliminated. They are fighting speech with more speech.
At least that was my take-away from TFS. If I am wrong, please let me know, and why. But the way I see if, if the government posting a reply to someone telling them they are wrong (not telling them to shut up, just that they are wrong) counts as a 1st Amendment violation, then the government is not ever allowed to speak.
"I validly refuted every one of your points" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Thursday November 19, 2015 @04:14PM
'll give you the opportunity to try (& fail publicly again in, lol) on "AlmostALLAdsBlocked"'s MASSIVE inferiorities to hosts (you'll try move the goalposts to DNS, fine - I'll dust you with facts there too, easily).
"APK, I have done so much more than you" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Thursday August 11, 2016 @12:19PM
Prove it!
P.S.=>
"As far as IQ, there are people smarter then I, but not many" - by Coren22 (1625475) on Thursday December 16, 2010 @11:44AM
I must be one @ a 135/140 IQ so yours MUST be lower! 15++ yrs. in IT on your end & you can't show you've done anything beyond menial tasks (lol, which you can't prove from yourself either)? Admins NEED @ least scripting skills in *NIX shells or Windows powershell (but that's NOT full-blown bulletproof & bugfree GUI stuff I do that users here & worldwide like & use - is it? Nope!)... apk