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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.
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.
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
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!”
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
Honestly, Hillary has been the subject of attacks against her character since before we had Obama as a President. In fact, that's how we got Obama as a President, as back then "America isn't ready for a woman President" (and yet after Hillary was out of the race, it was time to bolster failing ratings by offering up Sarah Palin!).
If nobody wants to charge her, it's because there isn't a charge. Any District Attorney would charge her if there was the basis of even half-a-case because it would be enough news coverage to be famous for years, if not decades. Certain FOX news anchors leveraged their "worked for he DA-ness" and became mini-celebrities. That they can't find a DA that would do it means only one thing, the DA would be disbarred for trying someone without evidence.
You can make a career out of being a poorly performing DA (withholding evidence, making false statements, disregard for due process, playing fast an loose with ethics, and prosecutorial misconduct) with good looks and a big mouth (Nancy Grace), but you can't make a career out of being a disbarred lawyer.