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.

Comments

WTF

[geek]

Title says 500 million. Summary says half a million. Does not compute

Re: WTF

[BlueStrat]

You have read too much bad fiction. In reality armed people usually helped authoritarian governments because former soldiers and gun nuts are usually just fine with authoritarian governments, provided it is their kind of authoritarian.

I find it telling that out of all the things I listed which are pretty much equal in terms of building-blocks towards fomenting and enabling the rise of authoritarianism in a relatively free & open society, firearms are what you chose to focus on.

Strat

What's good for the goose...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What's good for the goose...

[AthanasiusKircher]

Where I'm from, they're called politicians.

Yeah, this is pretty insightful. From the summary:

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)

I'd say if you remove "on the internet" from this definition, it's pretty much a description of a lot of actions by modern political parties.

Political parties are not generally interested in being "fair and balanced" -- they cite only the ideas supporting their point of view. They have no interest in lauding alternative political views. That's pretty much the definition of ideological "bias." And it's very common for political parties to focus on facts and information that will make their argument appear stronger, while leaving out inconvenient facts and information that could undermine their argument. In the world of "accuracy" and "truth," that practice can vary from "misleading" to telling an outright "lie of omission." (And that doesn't even count the times politicians deliberately lie outright with misrepresentations so egregious that no rational person could say their perspective is a fair representation of facts -- if this weren't the case, we wouldn't have a multitude of "fact-checking" organizations that rate political statements on their trustworthiness.)

And that leaves "inauthentic." Do we really need to give examples of that for politicians, who routinely get caught in situations like visiting a fast food restaurant to "be among the people" and trying to order something ridiculously fancy or not on the menu? Or going to a grocery store but not having a clue about the prices of everyday items or the kind of stuff "normal people" buy? We have even had things like a Rhodes scholar adopting an Arkansas hick "bubba" personality and rhetoric at times to seem more "likeable." Or Bush Jr.'s similar antics.

As for "artificially amplifying their ratings," just listen to the rhetoric at any rally. You'd think everyone on the planet was standing up and cheering for them from the way they talk about their campaign.

I'm NOT saying political parties are exactly the same as "trolls" -- internet trolls often push these elements to greater extremes (well, maybe not more so than our current Republican candidate). But there's something fundamentally similar about the misleading rhetoric of politics and that of trolls. The main difference seems to be that a lot of internet trolls just do it for the kicks, whereas political parties do it for money and power.

Re:Trool?

[ArmoredDragon]

Sometimes sharing valuable information can be trolling. But either way, on the internet, there are no such thing as safe spaces that trolls like myself cannot penetrate.

Re:They already invested in Slashdot

[whipslash]

Yet you're still here

That... That's not trolling at all.

[Pluvius]

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.

No, that's commonly referred to as "astroturfing." Trolling is something totally different, and not something that state actors generally get involved in.

Rob

Even with magnitude corrected, way too much

[SuperKendall]

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.

First Amendment in the way?

[fustakrakich]

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

Re:First Amendment in the way?

[AaronW]

The same could be said of Trump who promises to sue the media for negative stories about him. There can be a fine line with hate speech, just like you can't yell fire in a crowded theater or threaten to harm someone. Hate speech has consequences. Joining a hate group (or any group that advocates violence) is a good way to get on the police or FBI's radar, for example.

Re:First Amendment in the way?

[AmiMoJo]

I'm not saying that people shouldn't be able to sue for libel, I'm saying that a legal system where the mere threat of suing is chilling due to the high cost of litigation, and where the person with the most money usually wins is bad for everyone.

At least try to understand the argument you are rebutting before going full brexit on us.

Re:State trolling

[Pluvius]

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

Re:They already invested in Slashdot

[Okian Warrior]

Much as you say, but I note that HRC has invested heavily in something called correct the record.

Looking at their about page, we find this helpful description:

Correct The Record is a strategic research and rapid response team designed to defend Hillary Clinton from baseless attacks.

The news article (first link, above) has some interesting sections, such as:

Citing “lessons learned from online engagement with ‘Bernie Bros,’” a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC is pledging to spend $1 million to “push back against” users on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram.

Correct the Record’s “Barrier Breakers” project boasts in a press release that it has already “addressed more than 5,000 people that have personally attacked Hillary Clinton on Twitter.” The PAC released this on Thursday.

Some Bernie Sanders-supporting users on Reddit already started to notice the changes on Thursday afternoon.

“This explains why my inbox turned to cancer on Tuesday,” wrote user OKarizee. “Been a member of reddit for almost 4 years and never experienced anything like it. In fact, in all my years on the internet I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

Correct the Record, which has received $5 million this campaign season and has spent almost $4.5 million of it, according to OpenSecrets.org, outlined its strategy against “swarms of anonymous attackers” in a press release.

“While Hillary Clinton fights to break down barriers and bring America together, the Barrier Breakers 2016 digital task force will serve as a resource for supporters looking for positive content and push-back to share with their online progressive communities, as well as thanking prominent supporters and committed superdelegates on social media,” the statement read.

Due to FEC loopholes, the Sunlight Foundation’s Libby Watson found this year that Correct the Record can openly coordinate with Clinton’s campaign, despite rules that typically disallow political campaigns from working directly with PACs.

I suppose it's OK, because HRC only wants to "break down barriers and bring America together", because of course the ends justify any means. Right?

I wonder if any of these commisars^w um... partisans^w um... truth seekers have come to Slashdot?

(Also relevant This XKCD comic.)

Re:They already invested in Slashdot

[PopeRatzo]

You're doing a fine job, whipslash. You've got my vote and if you ever fix the goddamn subscribe button, I'll gladly donate to Slashdot again.

Re:Someone spends way too much time on Twitter

[HBI]

They do, but the Soviets used to register and control typewriters. And for all the samizdat activity in the old S.U., what ultimately undid them were blue jeans. Or more precisely, lack of consumer goods. So you can be way too paranoid, y'know?

Re: They already invested in Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Why isn't the source code for Slashdot open source again? That would settle this once and for all. It used to be open, and it makes sense for a site that posts a lot about open source. Hosting it on SourceForge would be a good gesture to start restoring trust in a name that was dragged through the mud for a long time.

Re:They already invested in Slashdot

[Coren22]

Frankly, if what AC is talking about really happened, APK would never be able to post again. I can only see this as a positive development for the future of Slashdot.