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Pro-Gun Russian Bots Flood Twitter After Parkland Shooting (wired.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: In the wake of Wednesday's Parkland, Florida school shooting, which resulted in 17 deaths, troll and bot-tracking sites reported an immediate uptick in related tweets from political propaganda bots and Russia-linked Twitter accounts. Hamilton 68, a website created by Alliance for Securing Democracy, tracks Twitter activity from accounts it has identified as linked to Russian influence campaigns. On RoBhat Labs' Botcheck.me, a website created by two Berkeley students to track 1500 political propaganda bots, all of the top two-word phrases used in the last 24 hours -- excluding President Trump's name -- are related to the tragedy: School shooting, gun control, high school, Florida school. The top hashtags from the last 24 hours include Parkland, guncontrol, and guncontrolnow.
While RoBhat Labs tracks general political bots, Hamilton 68 focuses specifically on those linked to the Russian government. According to the group's data, the top link shared by Russia-linked accounts in the last 48 hours is a 2014 Politifact article that looks critically at a statistic cited by pro-gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety. Twitter accounts tracked by the group have used the old link to try to debunk today's stats about the frequency of school shootings. Another top link shared by the network covers the "deranged" Instagram account of the shooter, showing images of him holding guns and knives, wearing army hats, and a screenshot of a Google search of the phrase "Allahu Akbar." Characterizing shooters as deranged lone wolves with potential terrorist connections is a popular strategy of pro-gun groups because of the implication that new gun laws could not have prevented their actions. Meanwhile, some accounts with large bot followings are already spreading misinformation about the shooter's ties to far-left group Antifa, even though the Associated Press reported that he was a member of a local white nationalist group. The Twitter account Education4Libs, which RoBhat Labs shows is one among the top accounts tweeted at by bots, is among the prominent disseminators of that idea.
While RoBhat Labs tracks general political bots, Hamilton 68 focuses specifically on those linked to the Russian government. According to the group's data, the top link shared by Russia-linked accounts in the last 48 hours is a 2014 Politifact article that looks critically at a statistic cited by pro-gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety. Twitter accounts tracked by the group have used the old link to try to debunk today's stats about the frequency of school shootings. Another top link shared by the network covers the "deranged" Instagram account of the shooter, showing images of him holding guns and knives, wearing army hats, and a screenshot of a Google search of the phrase "Allahu Akbar." Characterizing shooters as deranged lone wolves with potential terrorist connections is a popular strategy of pro-gun groups because of the implication that new gun laws could not have prevented their actions. Meanwhile, some accounts with large bot followings are already spreading misinformation about the shooter's ties to far-left group Antifa, even though the Associated Press reported that he was a member of a local white nationalist group. The Twitter account Education4Libs, which RoBhat Labs shows is one among the top accounts tweeted at by bots, is among the prominent disseminators of that idea.
What we need is news control laws. When the Constitution was written, there were no high speed presses, no electronic news, no way people could be flooded 24/7 with "news" and commentary.
It's clear that these school shootings are driven by crazies wanting to "copy-cat" other school shooting they're heard about, sometimes just to get their own 24 hours of fame. Yet, the modern media irresponsibly continues to glorify these events and saturate every media channel with them, just encouraging more copy-cats. That clearly needs to change.
We have to do something. We already have lots of gun laws. We now need some reasonable, common-sense, media control laws. Just as an private citizen can't get and has no reason to have a machine gun, no media needs a high speed Internet web site - when the "right to a free press" was created, it was in reference to Gutenberg presses. Same with radio/tv/cable. Such powerful methods of communication, so easily abused, should be highly regulated for private use. Only the government is responsible enough to be allowed to use them. Journalists should be licensed, subject to a background check to make sure they're not mentally ill, and don't have a criminal history. Photocopy machines should be registered. Scented magazine inserts should be outlawed. Cheap, Saturday night special, smartphones should be outlawed. A license should be required to carry a concealed smartphone.
As a bonus, such restrictions would also solve all of this "Russian facebook/twitter" cruft.
None of these reasonable, common-sense actions would infringe on 1st Amendment or natural rights in any way, but would go a long way to ending the bloodshed. Think of the children.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
You're under that impression, because of the people in this country stirring the shit, attempting to keep the left and the right distracted and at each other's throats, while they continue to loot what's left of America.
Just about every war we've ever gotten into has started over a lie. You'd figure people would have learned by now. Yet all you have to say is that country X is looking at us the wrong way to get everyone back into the fighting mood again. Pro-gun Russian bots.....give me a break!
Since the advent of the modern military, can you think of a single instance where armed civilians freed themselves from tyranny using their firearms?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Ahh. A sophist. "Militia" doesn't mean what you think it means, and a prefatory clause isn't binding.
As a self professed liberal, do you also support other laws which would restrict civil liberties? How about the 1st A? It starts with "Congress shall make no law...". So, that means that the States (which definitely aren't "Congress") can make laws establishing religion, restricting speech and press, etc. Right?
Living in a system with the fundamental principles of freedom and liberty means you accept more risk. Fortunately for you, you can move to almost anywhere else and trade that freedom and liberty for less risk and more security. Your choice.
Except you're not actually accepting of more risk in exchange for more freedom, at least not if you're like most people who oppose gun control.
People generally try to maintain a certain level of risk. If your car gets a seat belt you speed up, if you hit wet pavement you slow down. Guns and gun control are no different.
Ever notice the other things people who favour gun rights tend to believe? They think law enforcement should have a much freer hand to enforce order. They want to get rid of Mexicans, Muslims, and other outsiders who seem dangerous. They try to repress LGBTQ and people who live alternative lifestyles. This isn't a coincidence, they correctly realize that guns are dangerous, so at the same time they're trying to make guns more available they're trying to reduce the number of people whom they find threatening (particularly if they have a gun).
It's the same thing that's happening now, neither side wants school shootings. So one side wants gun control to reduce the number of shootings, the other wants guns in the classroom so the teachers can enforce greater order and they want those weird loner kids made normal so they're less likely to become a shooter.
Gun rights people don't have a greater belief in freedom, they're just willing to live with a higher perceived risk from firearms by accepting a lower perceived risk from other sources.
I stole this Sig