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Should Congress Force Social Media To Investigate Foreign Propaganda Trolls? (politico.com)
"I fought foreign propaganda for the FBI," writes a former special agent from its Counterintelligence Division. Now an associate dean at Yale Law School, he's warning that "the tools we had won't work anymore." An anonymous reader quotes Politico:
The bureau is now faced with huge private companies, like Facebook and Twitter, which are ostensibly neutral and have no professional or ethical obligation to vet the material they distribute. Further, foreign intelligence service propaganda agents are no longer human operatives on American soil -- they are invisible "trolls," often operating from a foreign country and behind social media accounts that make them impossible for the FBI to approach directly. Or, in the case of so-called bots -- software programs designed to simulate humans -- they might not even be people at all... [S]ocial media platforms can reach an almost limitless audience, often within days or hours, more or less for free: Russia's Facebook ads alone reached between 23 million and 70 million viewers.
Without any direct way to investigate and identify the source of the private accounts that generate this "fake news," there's literally nothing the FBI can do to stop a propaganda operation that can occur on such a massive scale... But Congress could pass legislation that requires social media companies to cooperate with counterintelligence in the same ways they do with law enforcement. For example, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires telecommunications companies to design their digital networks in such a way that would permit wiretaps for criminal cases. Similarly, requiring social media platforms to develop ways to vet and authenticate foreign users and proactively report potential bots to the FBI would enable the FBI to identify perception management operations as they are occurring. In addition to monitoring these specific FIS-based accounts, the FBI could publicly expose the source of particular accounts, ads or news...
"At this point, we have no choice: It's clear that our current counterintelligence strategy hasn't caught up to the age of asymmetrical information warfare," the former counterintelligence agent concludes. "Until it does, we'll be silently allowing our freedoms to be manipulated...."
Without any direct way to investigate and identify the source of the private accounts that generate this "fake news," there's literally nothing the FBI can do to stop a propaganda operation that can occur on such a massive scale... But Congress could pass legislation that requires social media companies to cooperate with counterintelligence in the same ways they do with law enforcement. For example, the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires telecommunications companies to design their digital networks in such a way that would permit wiretaps for criminal cases. Similarly, requiring social media platforms to develop ways to vet and authenticate foreign users and proactively report potential bots to the FBI would enable the FBI to identify perception management operations as they are occurring. In addition to monitoring these specific FIS-based accounts, the FBI could publicly expose the source of particular accounts, ads or news...
"At this point, we have no choice: It's clear that our current counterintelligence strategy hasn't caught up to the age of asymmetrical information warfare," the former counterintelligence agent concludes. "Until it does, we'll be silently allowing our freedoms to be manipulated...."
There is nothing they can do? I'm sure they could post a rebuttal, from their official account, and people would share it in response. Facebook already adds "contested" tags to some stories, with links to sources that contest it. Have they asked about being added to that system?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Let's start with our own media and politicians who can say whatever they want without any accountability. This is the new millennium "boy who cried wolf". With the deluge of fake news, misinformation, disinformation and unsubstantiated information that we are bombarded with daily people are now disbelieving of anything and everything. Before we concern ourselves with foreign "information" we need to first get our own house in order.
No clue why you were down-modded - what you're saying makes perfect sense to me. I understand that the 'intelligence community' needs to concern itself with foreign influences; but really, as you've pointed out, the more direct, present, day-to-day threat to democracy and social well-being comes from within. Yammering about vague foreign threats is just one more circus act distracting the populace from how they're being lied to and screwed over by corporations and by their own governments.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Before 2008 nobody in the US gov cared about foreign propaganda. Now they worry about people saying things they don't like. That's the same thing USSR was worried about all the time since post-WW2 at least... people must not speak freely, or they will tell things the Nomenklatura cannot allow to pass over as truth.
IMHO, this means that US propaganda (yes, there is) is not working anymore. American people, or at least a significant part of it, has stopped thinking what the deep state (and the media, and the elites) wants they to think. The writing is on the wall. Now the million dollar question is: what american people is going to think? What will they held as truth, what will they value most, what will they ask to their government?
By little bubble, you mean our continent-sized nation that sets the cultural tone for the rest of the world? You do realize cultures come to us and we integrate them, right? Growing up in Detroit i got to experience all sorts of cultures..Polish, Irish, Greek, Arabs (Muslim and Christian), Italians, Germans, Slavs, Yugos, Croats.. Try a better tack next time besides 'America is culturally bankrupt'.
Good-bye