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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...."
Free speech, anyone?
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.
We all know where this is headed, classifying what we don't like as trolls and foreign propaganda, even if it doesn't fit the definition. The former happens here all the time.
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
..filtering such content. That means the FBI would get to pass on whether your comments constituted propaganda or not. Just a larger Southern Poverty Law Center list of unacceptable words, comments, sites, and blogs. Since everything expands despite good intentions, this would become oppressive of free speech rapidly. The goal is laudable, the actual result would be China.
E Proelio Veritas.
I see fake news on TV all the time. The worst of the stories get retracted -- eventually. The worst fakers get fired or reassigned (Dan Rather, Brian Williams, etc.) But there is a steady stream of anonymously sourced stories, presented as "news", only to magically disappear when it becomes obvious that somebody made it up.
http://www.washingtonexaminer....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://dailycaller.com/2017/06...
http://elections.huffingtonpos...
Gee, maybe the powers that be will actually have to encourage the training of critical thought in the population at large, so people can approach the marketplace of ideas with some discernment.
Naaah. They'd much rather have sheeple they can trivially manipulate themselves. If they get derailed by some foreign power's propaganda, they can be put right again by doubling down on their own propaganda. I'm sure it'll be fine.
This is nothing new. The only difference is modern technology and connectivity makes the reach and impact greater. There have always been propaganda in the form of shortwave radio broadcasts, printed text (leaflets, magazines, books), one on one contact and even television. It's just that in the past a person had to more actively seek out these communications to be exposed to them. Now it is coming through in our more normal day-to-day lives.
The problem is that the bulk of the Western public is naive and takes too many things at face value. There's an innocence, if you will. A big part of that is not having been (too terribly) deceived by government to the point it led to things like mass imprisonment or death.
Misinformation and gullibility is rampant on social media and it needs to be addressed more fundamentally, but unfortunately social media represents one of the truest forms of democracy, and the results shed light on the fact that the "average" person is simply not very intelligent when it comes to certain matters.
For example, the people constantly sharing Facebook posts that say crap like "We ordered too many luxury RVs and they are last year's model so we have to give them away", and all the various permutations thereof ( http://www.snopes.com/luxury-r... ). It really takes a special kind of naivety to share something like that.
The one that is particularly annoying to me at this moment are people sharing pictures of this traffic jam from Rita (Texas, 2005) claiming it is from the Irma hurricane hitting Florida right now (and then it typically includes other stuff like "this is why so many people have to shelter in place and not evacuate"): http://www.hurricanescience.or... That is a much more subtle type of misinformation, but it is still "fake news".
So no, in answer to the question, we don't need government / corporations / etc trying to protect the American people from foreign propaganda. We need to educate the populace in a more general way to identify and filter out manipulative "fake news" and other garbage of the sort.
Better known as 318230.
Just a reminder:
That isn't qualified by saying "except for foreign political views the US government doesn't approve of".
The First Amendment is as much a guarantee to be able to receive information freely as it is to speak freely.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
You think maybe we should stop interfering in everybody else's elections before we demand everyone else stop interfering in ours?
No. You can do both at the same time.
Twitter bans popular, but "offensive" accounts.
YouTube is creating a system to isolate "bad" videos (commenting disallowed, won't find in search, possibly can't be embedded/linked). Jordan Peterson lost his YouTube *and* GMail account because someone thought he made offensive videos (complaints eventually got it back, but what about people without clout?).
These companies have made open platforms for the public at large to use them. It would be simple enough to say that anyone who makes offers such a service to the public for free will have to comply with the principles of freedom of thought. (EULAs or Terms of Service won't get them out of this since those are contracts and the terms of contracts are set/enforced by the government.) They can ban porn and commercial spam, fine, but expressing unpopular sentiments should be allowed.
Quick clamp down on the internet! Free speech must only be allowed when its to OUR tune. God forbid we actually educate our citizens on what is really going on so they won't be so easily persuaded by the enemy. This here is when the internet goes to shit folks, when it challenges those in authority. It was a good run while it lasted.
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?
The network we built to survive nuclear war has been weaponized against us and DARPA is giving out grants now to study how its child turned into a killer.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news...
Russia is trying to incite civil war and very few people see how. Their end game is not a glorious Trump presidency but a demoralized and ineffectual United States that no longer intrudes in their sphere of influence.
We're a nation of useful idiots now. Our partisan hatred makes us more willing believers in the alleged atrocities of our enemies. Credulity is vulnerability. Patriotism now requires skepticism of atrocities by political opponents and criticism of real misbehavior by our allies that feeds weaponized narratives.
there's literally nothing the FBI can do to stop a propaganda operation
And since it is not illegal, why should they want the power to try?
There are no laws apart from fraud, libel and slander that dictate that everything everyone says has to be true. And if there was, then no politician would last 5 minutes before having their ass hauled off to jail.
The FBI seem to have created their own "issue" here, defined it as bad and then decided that someone else should have the duty and the obligation to fix it for them. Well, that isn't how democracies work. If something is illegal, have the law enforcement deal with it. If it isn't illegal then either make it so, or let is go.
But trying to prevent people saying stuff, just because you don't like it, is not the way to go.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
It must be worrying when your own propaganda machine is being neutralised. The horror.
Requiem for the American Dream
No, it's not enough.
People who came to the United States from actual police states (like my father who grew up in Egypt) would be able to describe the differences to you in minute detail. The fact that secret policemen are not breaking your door down this instant just for posting your comment is all the proof you need.
Although I want to say that I agree with all the specific points you made, but I don't think we're that far gone yet.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.