meme track # network analysis

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</div><div>see alt rt track</div><div>
</div><div>see academic suppression benghzi BS
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<div>i think i saw ref to 2 orgs but might be the related ones below</div><div>so many hARD TO TRACK
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</div><div>=</div><div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/jim-jordan-disinformation-subpoena-universities">https://www.propublica.org/article/jim-jordan-disinformation-subpoena-universities
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">3 23
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</div><div>house Republicans have sent

letters to at least three universities and a think tank requesting a

broad range of documents related to what it says are the institutions'

contributions to the Biden administration’s “censorship regime.”

The letters are the latest effort by a House subcommittee <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/09/1155459408/house-panel-on-weaponization-of-the-federal-government-will-hold-its-first-heari">set up in January</a>

to investigate how the federal government, working with social media

companies, has allegedly been “weaponized” to silence conservative and

right-wing voices. So far, the committee’s investigations have amplified

a variety of dubious, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/13/house-republicans-govern-lie-weaponization-committeee/">outright false</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/house-church-committee-weaponization-overreach/">highly misleading</a>

Republican grievances with law enforcement, many of them espoused by

former President Donald Trump. Committee members have cited supposed

abuses that include the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, its investigations

of Jan. 6 rioters and the Biden administration’s purported use of

executive powers to shut down conservative viewpoints on social media.now, universities and their

researchers are coming under the spotlight of the committee, which the

Republicans have labeled the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the

Weaponization of the Federal Government. The letters, signed by Rep. Jim

Jordan, R-Ohio, who is chair of both the House Judiciary Committee and

the subcommittee, were sent in early March.

They cover an investigation

into how “certain third parties, including organizations like yours,

may have played a role in this censorship regime by advising on

so-called ‘misinformation,’” according to a copy of one of the letters

obtained by ProPublica.

        
    
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The committee requested

documents and information dating back to January 2015 between any

“employee, contractor, or agent of your organization” and the federal

government or social media organizations pertaining to the moderation of

social media content. ProPublica confirmed the requests went to

Stanford University, the University of Washington, Clemson University

and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The letters have prompted a

wave of alarm among those in the field that the congressional inquiry

itself, no matter what it finds, will lead universities to pull back on

this research just as the 2024 election gets underway. “Recent efforts

definitely have a chilling effect on the community of experts across

academia, civil society and government built up to understand broader

online harms like harassment, foreign influence and — yes —

disinformation,” Graham Brookie, who leads studies in this area at the

Atlantic Council, told ProPublica.

“The ‘weaponization’

committee is being weaponized against us,” another researcher told

ProPublica. Like half a dozen others interviewed for this story, this

person asked not to be identified because of the ongoing congressional

probe.

Democrats have called the committee <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/us/politics/house-republican-committee-weaponization-government.html">a modern-day House Un-American Activities Committee</a>, akin to the congressional committee that pursued alleged communists during the McCarthy era.

Since Rep. Jordan took over the gavel of the judiciary committee in January, he has <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/documents/letters">issued</a> more than 80 subpoenas and requests for documents. Recipients have included <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/02/15/jim-jordan-subpoenas-ceos/11265052002/">the CEOs</a> of social media companies, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/14/repubicans-hunter-biden-probe/">intelligence officials</a> who signed on to a statement about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 campaign and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/jim-jordan-parents-rights-disinformation-school-board-5280de301156d47b72ff03abfb511974">members of the National School Boards Association</a>

who asked the Justice Department to investigate threats of violence

against school board officials. Jordan himself refused a subpoena to

testify before the Democratic-led House Select Committee on the January 6

Attack, prompting that committee to refer the matter to the House

Ethics Committee.

Jordan’s missives were

sent a day after a committee hearing on the “Twitter files,” leaked

internal communications from the company that purported to show how

right-wing accounts were sidelined and silenced. In written testimony, a

panelist accused a broad swath of organizations and individuals of

being <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf">members of the “Censorship Industrial Complex,”</a>

including, he implied, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, CIA,

Department of Defense and universities. The witness wrote disinformation

researchers, working with the government, are “creating blacklists of

disfavored people and then pressuring, cajoling, and demanding that

social media platforms censor, deamplify, and even ban the people on

these blacklists.”

A <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf">New York University </a><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf">study</a><a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b6df958f8370af3217d4178/t/6011e68dec2c7013d3caf3cb/1611785871154/NYU+False+Accusation+report_FINAL.pdf"> concluded</a>

in 2021 that social media had not silenced those on the right. “The

claim of anti-conservative animus” by social media companies, the study

said, “is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable

evidence to support it."

        
    
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A spokesperson for Rep. Jordan did not respond to requests for comment.

Since the 2016 elections,

Stanford, UW, Clemson and others have engaged in research, sometimes in

partnership with social media platforms, government officials and each

other, into ways that disinformation can pose tZreats to democracy and

how such efforts can be meaningfully countered. The role of lies and

disinformation leading to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol gave

increased prominence to their work.

As ProPublica has

previously reported, sustained accusations by congressional Republicans

and right-wing influencers that the Biden administration is stifling

dissent have <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/dhs-disinformation-elections-biden-gop-midterms">caused the administration to back away</a>

from its efforts countering disinformation, including canceling

research contracts and sending messages inside the administration that

disinformation work is too hot to handle.

Those moves followed a bungled rollout of a clumsily named “Disinformation Governance Board” to coordinate efforts to counter <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/National-Strategy-for-Countering-Domestic-Terrorism.pdf">what the administration had called</a>

“dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist

violence.” Following criticism, the administration disbanded the board

and accepted the resignation of its executive director, Nina Jankowicz.

Jordan <a href="https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2023-03-06-jankowicz-deposition-subpoena-cover-letter.pdf">has subpoenaed</a> Jankowicz, too. She is scheduled to testify April 10 and said she will <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/politics/jordan-subpoenas-head-of-former-dhs-disinformation-board/index.html">happily testify under oath</a>.

“This sort of inquiry

isn’t something that belongs in the United States Congress,” said

Jankowicz. “But given that this method of bullying has caused other

institutions to fold to Republican pressure in the past, I fear we may

see the blunt force of congressional committees continue to be used in

ways that are in direct opposition to the safety, security and free

expression of the American people."<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-google-teneo-video-big-tech-breakup" class="story-promo section-articles" /><div class="story-promoinfo" dir="auto"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-google-teneo-video-big-tech-breakup" class="story-promo section-articles"></a><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-google-teneo-video-big-tech-breakup" class="story-promo section-articles">deSantis Privately Called for Google to Be “Broken Up”

                            </a></font></div><p /><aside data-pp-id="21" data-pp-blocktype="promo" data-pp-location="story promo" dir="ltr" class="bb-promo-story story-promo-group size04 right out02 wide-sm wrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/desantis-google-teneo-video-big-tech-breakup" class="story-promo section-articles">
        </a></font>

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Stanford did not answer a question about whether it stood by its research or make its researchers, the <a href="https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io">Stanford Internet Observatory</a>’s Alex Stamos or Renee DiResta, available for comment. The university referred ProPublica to an <a href="https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/background-sios-projects-social-media">online fact sheet</a>

addressing “inaccurate and misleading claims” made in the congressional

testimony about Stanford’s “projects to analyze rumors and narratives

on social media relating to U.S. elections and the coronavirus.” The

German Marshall fund said it was working to address the request and

Clemson University’s media relations department did not respond to

requests for comment.

The University of Washington’s <a href="https://www.cip.uw.edu/">Center for an Informed Public</a> issued a <a href="https://www.cip.uw.edu/2023/03/16/uw-cip-election-integrity-partnership-research-claims/">statement</a>

that said “We’re incredibly proud of our work,” adding that “some of

the projects CIP researchers have contributed to have become the subject

of false claims and criticism that mischaracterizes our work, a tactic

that peer researchers in this space are also experiencing.” The

statement did not specifically address the House requests.

A university spokesperson,

Victor Balta, said in an email, “The UW stands behind this important

research aiming to resist strategic misinformation and strengthen our

discourse. We have received a request for documents and information, and

a response is in progress.”=</div>=</div><div>N 11 22</div><div>Conspiracy theories and misinformation did not greatly impact the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/11/18/misinformation-midterms-experts" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">2022 midterm elections</a>, a new analysis has determined.According to Axios, many of the far-right election deniers that participated in critical races also lost elections, which signals that the influence of misinformation is not as detrimental as experts feared.Speaking to the news outlet, Jared Holt, a senior research manager for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, weighed in with his perspective of misinformation. Although there is still a mass circulation of misinformation, Holt has emphasized that the impact of it is not as apparent.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/how-anti-vaxxers-are-finding-clever-workarounds-to-instagrams-anti-misinformation-algorithms-report/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">How anti-vaxxers are finding 'clever workarounds' to Instagram’s anti-misinformation algorithms: report</a>"Denialism narratives are still out there circulating," Holt said. "The difference here is that they just don't seem to be exciting people like they did in 2020.""It's hard to say how much of that is attributable to [actions from] tech platforms, and how much is just general public sentiment," Holt said.Experts also noted that misinformation was more of a driving force in 2020 as opposed to now. The news outlet noted, "Though misinformation remains present in large quantities, this time it had less reach, was more spread out, and was harder to find."During the Stanford Law School's "Moderated Content" podcast last week, Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory who also oversees the non-partisan coalition Election Integrity Partnership, also weighed in with similar sentiments.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/gretchen-carlson/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Watch: Former Fox News anchor explains how network's viewers have been brainwashed into believing conspiracy theories</a>"The amount of content we saw that you could call kind of election disinformation was actually larger than what we saw in 2020 — but overall, the effects were much more muted," Stamos said.
The news outlet also noted that five factors have also helped to diminish the impact of misinformation: De-platforming, too many new apps, an overall rejection of election deniers, defamation fears, more education.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/no-evidence-reporter-kari-lake/" target="self" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'No evidence': Reporter confronts Kari Lake after she dangles a conspiracy theory about voting machines</a></div><div>=</div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/tulsi-gabbard/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/tulsi-gabbard/</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor of Middle East studies and digital humanities at Hamad bin Khalifa University, featured Gabbard's tweets about Ukraine and "biolabs" as the latest Russia conspiracy theory propagated by right-wing media in the U.S.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/tulsi-gabbard/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/tulsi-gabbard/</a></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div> Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor of Middle East studies and digital humanities at Hamad bin Khalifa University, featured Gabbard's tweets about Ukraine and "biolabs" as the latest Russia conspiracy theory propagated by right-wing media in the U.S.</div><div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-testified-that-the-companys-algorithms-are-dangerous-heres-how-they-can-manipulate-you-169420">https://theconversation.com/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen-testified-that-the-companys-algorithms-are-dangerous-heres-how-they-can-manipulate-you-169420</a></div><div>
</div><div>Former Facebook product manager Frances Haugen testified before the U.S. Senate on Oct. 5, 2021, that the company’s social media platforms “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd2yC63DMBE" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" outline="outline" none="none" white-space="white-space" pre-wrap="pre-wrap" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" break-word="break-word">harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy</a>.”</div><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Haugen was the primary source for a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Wall Street Journal exposé</a> on the company. She called Facebook’s algorithms dangerous, said Facebook executives were aware of the threat but put profits before people, and called on Congress to regulate the company.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Social media platforms rely heavily on people’s behavior to decide on the content that you see. In particular, they watch for content that people respond to or “engage” with by liking, commenting and sharing. <a href="https://www.axios.com/trolls-misinformation-facebook-twitter-iran-dd1a13b4-de1f-48cd-91a6-cac66202344b.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Troll farms</a>, organizations that spread provocative content, exploit this by copying high-engagement content and <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">posting it as their own</a>, which helps them reach a wide audience.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=f_kGJwkAAAAJ&hl=en" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">computer scientist</a> who studies the ways large numbers of people interact using technology, I understand the logic of using the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/175380/the-wisdom-of-crowds-by-james-surowiecki/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">wisdom of the crowds</a> in these algorithms. I also see substantial pitfalls in how the social media companies do so in practice.<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">From lions on the savanna to likes on Facebook</h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The concept of the wisdom of crowds assumes that using signals from others’ actions, opinions and preferences as a guide will lead to sound decisions. For example, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prediction-market.asp" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">collective predictions</a> are normally more accurate than individual ones. Collective intelligence is used to predict <a href="https://augur.net/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">financial markets, sports</a>, <a href="https://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">elections</a> and even <a href="https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/Center-projects/disease-prediction-project.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">disease outbreaks</a>.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Throughout millions of years of evolution, these principles have been coded into the human brain in the form of cognitive biases that come with names like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/208859" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">familiarity</a>, <a href="https://dictionary.apa.org/mere-exposure-effect" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">mere exposure</a> and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stronger-the-broken-places/201708/the-bandwagon-effect" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">bandwagon effect</a>. If everyone starts running, you should also start running; maybe someone saw a lion coming and running could save your life. You may not know why, but it’s wiser to ask questions later.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Your brain picks up clues from the environment – including your peers – and uses <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/simple-heuristics-that-make-us-smart-9780195143812" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">simple rules</a> to quickly translate those signals into decisions: Go with the winner, follow the majority, copy your neighbor. These rules work remarkably well in typical situations because they are based on sound assumptions. For example, they assume that people often act rationally, it is unlikely that many are wrong, the past predicts the future, and so on.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Technology allows people to access signals from much larger numbers of other people, most of whom they do not know. Artificial intelligence applications make heavy use of these popularity or “engagement” signals, from selecting search engine results to recommending music and videos, and from suggesting friends to ranking posts on news feeds.<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Not everything viral deserves to be</h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Our research shows that virtually all web technology platforms, such as social media and news recommendation systems, have a strong <a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24121" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">popularity bias</a>. When applications are driven by cues like engagement rather than explicit search engine queries, popularity bias can lead to harmful unintended consequences.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok rely heavily on AI algorithms to rank and recommend content. These algorithms take as input what you like, comment on and share – in other words, content you engage with. The goal of the algorithms is to maximize engagement by finding out what people like and ranking it at the top of their feeds.<figure libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative;"><div class="placeholder-container" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; position: relative; --aspect-ratio-percent:56.25%;"><figcaption helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" sans-serif="sans-serif" cursor="cursor" default="default" style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 18px;">A primer on the Facebook algorithm.[vid?]</figcaption></div></figure><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On the surface this seems reasonable. If people like credible news, expert opinions and fun videos, these algorithms should identify such high-quality content. But the wisdom of the crowds makes a key assumption here: that recommending what is popular will help high-quality content “bubble up.”<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34203-2" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">tested this assumption</a> by studying an algorithm that ranks items using a mix of quality and popularity. We found that in general, popularity bias is more likely to lower the overall quality of content. The reason is that engagement is not a reliable indicator of quality when few people have been exposed to an item. In these cases, engagement generates a noisy signal, and the algorithm is likely to amplify this initial noise. Once the popularity of a low-quality item is large enough, it will keep getting amplified.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Algorithms aren’t the only thing affected by engagement bias – it can <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/information-overload-helps-fake-news-spread-and-social-media-knows-it/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">affect people</a> too. Evidence shows that information is transmitted via “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0184148" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">complex contagion</a>,” meaning the more times people are exposed to an idea online, the more likely they are to adopt and reshare it. When social media tells people an item is going viral, their cognitive biases kick in and translate into the irresistible urge to pay attention to it and share it.<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Not-so-wise crowds</h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We recently ran an experiment using <a href="https://fakey.iuni.iu.edu/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">a news literacy app called Fakey</a>. It is a game developed by our lab that simulates a news feed like those of Facebook and Twitter. Players see a mix of current articles from fake news, junk science, hyperpartisan and conspiratorial sources, as well as mainstream sources. They get points for sharing or liking news from reliable sources and for flagging low-credibility articles for fact-checking.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We found that players are <a href="https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-033" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">more likely to like or share and less likely to flag</a> articles from low-credibility sources when players can see that many other users have engaged with those articles. Exposure to the engagement metrics thus creates a vulnerability.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The wisdom of the crowds fails because it is built on the false assumption that the crowd is made up of diverse, independent sources. There may be several reasons this is not the case.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">First, because of people’s tendency to associate with similar people, their online neighborhoods are not very diverse. The ease with which social media users can unfriend those with whom they disagree pushes people into homogeneous communities, often referred to as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-020-00084-7" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">echo chambers</a>.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Second, because many people’s friends are friends of one another, they influence one another. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121066" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">famous experiment</a> demonstrated that knowing what music your friends like affects your own stated preferences. Your social desire to conform distorts your independent judgment.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Third, popularity signals can be gamed. Over the years, search engines have developed sophisticated techniques to counter so-called “<a href="https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/L/link_farming.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">link farms</a>” and other schemes to manipulate search algorithms. Social media platforms, on the other hand, are just beginning to learn about their own <a href="https://theconversation.com/misinformation-on-social-media-can-technology-save-us-69264" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">vulnerabilities</a>.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">People aiming to manipulate the information market have created <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/13/black-fake-twitter-accounts-for-trump/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">fake accounts</a>, like trolls and <a href="https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204021-the-rise-of-social-bots/fulltext" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">social bots</a>, and <a href="https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/18075" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">organized</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/turning-point-teens-disinformation-trump/2020/09/15/c84091ae-f20a-11ea-b796-2dd09962649c_story.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">fake networks</a>. They have <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06930-7" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">flooded the network</a> to create the appearance that a <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2020/10/23/qanon-conspiracy-theories-draw-new-believers-scientists-take-aim-misinformation-pandemic-1538901.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">conspiracy theory</a> or a <a href="https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/14127" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">political candidate</a> is popular, tricking both platform algorithms and people’s cognitive biases at once. They have even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1507-6" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">altered the structure of social networks</a> to create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147617" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">illusions about majority opinions</a>.<h2 libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">Dialing down engagement</h2><p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">What to do? Technology platforms are currently on the defensive. They are becoming more <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/09/technology/twitter-election-ban-features.html" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">aggressive</a> during elections in <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-outlines-its-evolving-efforts-to-combat-misinformation-ahead-of-ne/597129/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">taking down fake accounts and harmful misinformation</a>. But these efforts can be akin to a game of <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/facebook-plays-whack-a-mole-with-foreign-election-interference/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">whack-a-mole</a>.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">A different, preventive approach would be to add <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/29/social-distancing-social-media-facebook-misinformation" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">friction</a>. In other words, to slow down the process of spreading information. High-frequency behaviors such as automated liking and sharing could be inhibited by <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/how-captchas-work/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; overflow-wrap: break-word;">CAPTCHA</a> tests, which require a human to respond, or fees. Not only would this decrease opportunities for manipulation, but with less information people would be able to pay more attention to what they see. It would leave less room for engagement bias to affect people’s decisions.<p libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" serif="serif" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">It would also help if social media companies adjusted their algorithms to rely less on engagement signals and more on quality signals to determine the content they serve you. Perhaps the whistleblower revelations will provide the necessary impetus.<div>=</div></div><div>=no lnx twtWelcome back to HEATED, a newsletter for people who are pissed off about the climate crisis—written by me, Emily Atkin.A new anti-climate leaderDan Bongino, a climate denier who spread the Texas wind energy lie, is gearing up to take Rush Limbaugh's place today.Emily Atkin May 24 Dan Bongino at Fox News Channel Studios on June 18, 2019 in New York City. Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images.Rush Limbaugh’s death in February left a deep hole where some of America’s most influential climate disinformation used to be. That hole will start being filled today, as far-right Fox News pundit Dan Bongino steps in to take Limbaugh’s place.Twitter avatar for @TPPatriotsTea Party Patriots @TPPatriots]Donald Trump to Be First Guest on Bongino's Show, Expect a Powerful Debut Episode in Limbaugh's Old Time Slot Dan Bongino will begin a new chapter of conservative talk radio Monday with former President Donald Trump as his first guest.patriotproject.com May 23rd 2021 204 Retweets1,127 LikesBongino, who in 2018 declared his life mission as “owning the libs,” is already an popular purveyor of general disinformation. His Facebook page, The Bongino Report, regularly boosts false claims of election fraud, among other things.Though the page only has about 135,000 followers, these posts “consistently land among the site’s top posts and outperform mainstream news outlets like The New York Times, CNN and Fox News,” reports Forbes. That’s in part because Facebook’s algorithim rewards misleading content from conservative creators, as Wired reported in March:According to researchers at the Cybersecurity for Democracy project at New York University, far-right purveyors of misinformation have by far the highest levels of engagement per follower compared to any other category of news source. Indeed, the researchers found that while left-leaning and centrist publications get much less engagement if they publish misinformation, the relationship is reversed on the far right, where news organizations that regularly publish false material get up to 65 percent more engagement than ones that don’t. Bongino is about to be rewarded even further with his new radio show. Though it’s yet unclear exactly how many of the 600 stations that once ran Limbaugh’s show will pick up Bongino’s, the opportunity to pick up some of Limbaugh’s 15 million regular listeners is large. In addition, earlier this month, Fox News also announced that it would start airing a new show on Saturday nights lead by Bongino, called “The Big Saturday Show.” Bongino is thus well-positioned to soon become one of the most influential sources of right-wing disinformation in America. Here’s what we can expect on climate front.Less flagrant denial, more insulting liberalsBongino is a straight-up climate denier, and for the most part, is not particularly shy about it. “These climate change alarmists have been wrong about just about everything. All their charts have been debunked,” he said on Fox in 2019. “The climate’s been relatively stable. There’s not any evidence that storms are out of control. All this stuff is made up.”But just like the fossil fuel industry, Bongino’s anti-climate policy talking points lately have moved further away from flagrant denial. Instead, they promote more insidious falsehoods— like that wind energy was a significant contributor to deadly blackouts in Texas following February’s deep freeze, and that liberals were trying to cover it up.Bongino delved into that subject specifically for a February episode of his podcast, which he began by strongly defending the quality of his own information regarding “What really happened with Texas and the energy system failures there.” “I never want to be first if I don’t have the facts,” he said. “I’m tired of the lies.”Bongino went on to disparage “These filthy people on the left who can never ever tell the truth,” like MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who he called a “sick little turd” for debunking Texas Republican officials’ prolific claims that wind energy was the culprit of Texas’s woes. Bongino did admit that natural gas and nuclear energy failed as well. But he said wind turbines had failed, too, and the only reason liberals were mad that Republicans were pointing it out was because they had to “protect their golden calf.”He said liberals were taking “advantage of an ongoing tragedy to score cheap political points,” and added: “The hacks at Facebook and soviet fact-checkers will ding this segment because the facts trouble them.”In reality, the blackouts in Texas were caused not by any particular power source, but by Texas’s failure to prepare for climate change-fueled extreme weather. In order to protect their “golden calf”—fossil fuels—Republican officials publicly sought to place the majority of the blame for Texas’s blackouts on wind reliability. Practically every major news outlet in the country debunked that lie, an attempt to use a tragedy to score political points.Still, Bongino adopted wholesale the argument made by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which was that the only reason nuclear and gas failed during the deep freeze was because it was trying to make up for the gaps in wind power. Ironically, that editorial was debunked by the journal’s own news section.[Twitter avatar for @EricKleefeld Eric Kleefeld @EricKleefeldTexas’ utter failure to winterize — despite a freeze and rolling blackouts 10 years ago — makes the choice of particular energy sources irrelevant. Their whole system is going down across the board!This happens when you only pursue short-term cost cuts, don’t invest in safety.February 18th 2021 44 Retweets213 Likes]Green New Deal-bashing, arguments for human dominionHere are some other trademark Bongino climate claims that we can expect to proliferate on conservative talk radio and Fox News as his profile continues to rise:People who compare the challenge of climate change to World War II are participating in the “Moron Olympics.”The Green New Deal is “outrageous,” “ridiculous,” and “expensive.” It looks “like it was conceived by a high schooler” and “proofread by a bartender.” It’s also not actually about climate change at all. It’s a “bad joke.”“The climate changes all the time. Temperatures have been flat for 18 years.”“We should care about the environment. It’s the right thing to do, if you’re really a God-loving person. But God gave us the world, not the other way around.”“The Left is the one destroying their own credibility. Because ironically there are a lot of Republicans, me included, who are absolutely open to a conversation about a cleaner, better future, just not with a bunch of lunatics telling me the world is going to blow up.”Moving forward, it’ll be interesting to see which advertisers are willing to sponsor claims like these. Bongino’s interview with Trump airs at noon EST. So, you know. Right now.Bonus: Gina McCarthy on HBO]=</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/right-wing-media/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/right-wing-media/</a>Trump was furious when, on Election Night, Fox News' decision desk called Arizona for Joe Biden — and many of Trump's followers share his sense of betrayal. Trump has been urging his MAGA base to look to sources other than Fox News or Fox Business for information, and according to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/right-wing-social-media-finalizes-its-divorce-reality/617177/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Renée DiResta</a> — a technical research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory — some right-wing social media outlets are happy to tell Trump devotees what they want to hear.After Fox News called Arizona for Biden, DiResta notes this week in an article for The Atlantic, the internet was full of anti-Fox hashtags from his supporters. And Trump devotees, according to DiResta, are also angry with Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.DiResta explains, "Throughout Election Day, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube had been cracking down on a flurry of allegations about voter fraud in Arizona; the platforms quickly applied warning labels to new posts containing false or disputed information and reduced the distribution of groups spreading them. In response, pro-Trump influencers exhorted their followers to congregate on Parler."[twt]DiResta cites the social media app Parler as one of the right-wing outlets that has been willing to help Trump promote "baseless conspiracy theories." And she points out that for some Trump supporters, Newsmax TV and One America News have become far-right alternatives to Fox News."For most of Trump's term, Facebook and others had been loath to crack down on even baseless conspiracy theories, including those repeated by the president himself," DiResta explains. "Freedom of expression, the argument went, covers the right to think and say even floridly false things, which were best addressed through corrections and counter-speech. Yet the major platforms concluded that misleading theories about the election were a distinct class of misinformation because of their potential to cause significant harm to the body politic."Other Trump-friendly outlets, DiResta observes, range from the tube sites Rumble and BitChute to the social media site Gab — which has been described as a far-right equivalent of Twitter."People are joining Parler today to find like-minded users to validate their own beliefs, but ultimately, some percentage will get bored and move on," DiResta argues. "That subset will ultimately drift away from the app. It's less user-friendly than Facebook, and it lacks one of the primary appeals that Twitter affords its core users: the ability to criticize people at the other end of the political spectrum. For some Trump supporters, the whole point of politics is to 'own the libs,' but on Parler, there are no libs around to own."<div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="text-transform: uppercase;">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2014/06/how-right-wing-echo-chamber-helped-spawn-las-vegas-white-supremacist-shooters/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">How the Right-Wing Echo Chamber Helped Spawn the Las Vegas ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/research-exposes-how-right-wing-media-misled-viewers-about-the-coronavirus/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Research exposes how right-wing media misled viewers about the ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trumps-limp-coup-is-falling-apart-but-right-wing-media-and-certain-gop-politicians-dont-know-when-to-cut-bait/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Trump's limp coup is falling apart — and right-wing media is losing it ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/business/media/steve-bannon-china.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">How Steve Bannon and a Chinese Billionaire Created a Right-Wing ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/media/right-wing-media-election-denialism/index.html" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">How right-wing media is encouraging Trump's election denialism ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/right-wing-social-media-finalizes-its-divorce-reality/617177/" class="around-the-weblink" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Right-Wing Social Media Had to Divorce Reality - The Atlantic ›</a></li></ul></div><h2>=</h2></div><div>=</div><div>Graphika? sp?</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://commonreader.wustl.edu/tracking-hate-in-near-real-time/">https://commonreader.wustl.edu/tracking-hate-in-near-real-time/</a></div><div>
</div><div><header class="article-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 3em; text-align: center; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; line-height: 1.1;">Tracking Hate in Near Real-Time</h1><a href="https://commonreader.wustl.edu/authors/john-griswold/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">John Griswold</a><div class="article-meta" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; text-transform: uppercase;"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2020-02-21T21:26:24-06:00" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline;">FEBRUARY 21, 2020</time></div></header><section class="article-body {{styleModifier}}" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 66.6667%; margin: 0px auto 2em;">Memes can be fun, witty, stupid, or offensive, but they are also used by right-wing and other hate groups to spread propaganda, and their use has increased. A <a href="https://ncri.io/wp-content/uploads/NCRI-White-Paper-Memetic-Warfare.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;">report</a> was released last week on the danger to our country from this “memetic warfare.”“Cyber Swarming, Memetic Warfare and Viral Insurgency: How Domestic Militants Organize on Memes to Incite Violent Insurrection and Terror Against Government and Law Enforcement,” is from Rutgers’ Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience and is “powered by” the Network Contagion Research Institute.NCRI is a nonprofit of scientists and engineers that acts as “a neutral and independent third party whose mission it is to track, expose, and combat misinformation, deception, manipulation, and hate across social media channels.” It recently developed the ability (a “massive data ingestion and machine learning/semantic analytic platform”) to watch the spread of a particular meme, the “boogaloo,” across social media, as it exploded over the last three to four months.
“The boogaloo catchphrase…is based on the 1984 movie sequel Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, which critics panned as a shockingly unoriginal, near-mirror copy of the original film. As adopted by meme culture, the term is often used by libertarians, gun enthusiasts, and anarchists to describe an uprising against the government or left-wing political opponents that is a near-mirror copy, or sequel to, the American Civil War.”
The boogaloo meme is actually a variety of memes that advocate extreme violence against the government and law enforcement, and push for civil- and race-war with “inside jokes and plausible deniability.” These include a graphic with the words, “The 2A is for shooting cops,” and a photo of men in special warfare gear, shining laser sights in a dark forest, and the words, “Boojahideen playing seek and boog with the Virginia National Guard.” (Boojahideen is from Mujahideen, Islamic guerrilla fighters.)
Other memes share ingredients for napalm, CS gas, and thermite grenades, and “printable blueprints for a Glock 17, an AKM assault rifle, and a printable AR-15 fully automatic modification.”Social media sites of this stripe have tens of thousands of followers.
The authors of the NCRI study, Alex Goldenberg and Joel Finkelstein, analyzed 100 million social media comments, to begin tracking and indexing viral security threats as they “metastasize…across Facebook, Instagram and the chans.” A goal was to document how apocalyptic militia groups “strategize [and] share instructions….”
“Far from a marginal influence, our research exposes platforms and conspiracies that exert a powerful influence on public opinion, with users who aim to demoralize and destabilize public trust. Of note, the individuals and groups that leverage meme culture in their violence have been keenly selective to target vulnerable religious and ethnic segments of the American population,” they say.
What they found were two massive, recent spikes in this sort of shared information. The first was at the end of November, during the “<a href="https://heavy.com/news/2019/11/whiskey-warrior-565-alex/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;">Whiskey Warrior</a>” standoff with police; the second was within 24 hours of the House of Representative’s impeachment of Donald Trump.
Of special concern are memes that might target the veteran and <a href="https://commonreader.wustl.edu/military-sympathies-75-years-after-battle-of-the-bulge/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">active-military</a> communities, since “the meme’s emphasis on military language and culture poses a specific risk to military communities due to the similar thematic structure, fraternal organization, and reward incentives.” (The veterans’ online community is already rife with anger and inflammatory comments.)
While the memes are often passed off as jokes, they may “set the stage for massive real-world violence and sensitize enthusiasts to mobilize in mass for confrontations or charged political events.”
The report says that once the “DNA of the most dangerous and threatening memetic ideologies” is indexed, a “civil messaging/information vaccine approach against weaponized information” can be developed. This can be deployed in “’red zones’ of hateful-memetic contagion…where polarized communities reside, both on social media and/or in the real world.” (Along with law enforcement and even troops, if need be, one assumes, though this is not mentioned in the report.)
“The very tools which map the epidemic can repeatedly assess the success of civil campaigns and calibrate counter messages adaptively,” the report says.
This is a powerful technology, and like any other technology, it could be used for good or bad. One can imagine its use for the control of political messaging, perhaps during elections, but then I am probably not the first to think of it.</section></div><div>=</div><div> Digital Forensic Research Lab</div><div>=</div></div></div>