There are some people mapping this out manually, I'm surprised that the likes of Twitter don't take a harder stand against this because it likely is going to ruin the platform long term (if that hasn't already happened).
One example:
https://twitter.com/galactic_potato/status/14352650994770002...
Unless there's imminent legal action or people stop using the service, it's easier just to delay and hope that the horse learns how to sing…
Hard to say how many people recognize that, but it's long since happened.
As a westerner, I've discovered that we forget that we are less than 20% of the global population. Bringing that up in conversation can surprise people.
What percent of the global economy? What percent of industry/invention? What percent of entertainment? What percent of military?
Edit: No one wants to address military
> Everyday new hashtags come up peddling the same misinformation against political rivals.
Is how I've been feeling for the past couple of years at least.
It's really not any different here. For good or ill, this is the Twitter-nature.
I deleted my account and made a 'connection-less' one so when I follow links and see tweets directly on Twitter, there's no further engagement to be had, beyond looking at whatever is 'trending'… which is literally, what you describe, localized. I am looking at whatever third parties are trying to promote as the 'vox populi', with a certain amount of organic interaction/reaction with it.
It's the twitter-nature. I know you're not wrong here.
The debate around freedom of speech, for instance, is different for those of us in Kenya and South Africa than it is in the US, just by virtue of having different legal frameworks, recent histories, and other factors. The same is true for the debate in European countries.
The media, too, is a complex phenomenon with the interplay between the big international media companies like the BBC, Reuters, CNN, etc and local media. There's also a difference between local news outlets that publish in English and those that publish in one or more local language. The CNN vs Fox News tribalism that grips so much American political discourse about the news is completely irrelevant.
These disinformation campaigns also have real impact. One campaign orchestrated by the Bell Pottinger PR company on behalf of South Africa's corrupt then president and a family of benefactors helped provide the cover to dismiss key incorruptible individuals in government and paved the way for the capture of key departments, institutions, and state-owned enterprises by private interests. The country has still not recovered from the damage caused.
Nothing in the article as posted indicates that the "disinformation influencers" were nefarious actors. For all the description given, it might have been grassroots citizens action, only labeled "disinformation" by officials or government-aligned sources. The end result is Mozilla making arbitrary choice between two opposing camps of political activists - and reports on Twitter users along those lines with clear hopes of getting them banned.
I'd understand the point if the activism was directly related to open internet, to freedom of expression, interoperability of services, ease of access and so forth - if there were concerns closely related to Mozilla's core mission. However nothing in the article nor in the linked PDF seem to allude to any of such concerns. It feels like a small group of Mozilla employees[1] ran this research and reported on users for their own private reasons.
[1] "in-house activists" might be a more charitable characterization
The researchers are based in Kenya, writing about Kenyans. They just happen to be employed by Mozilla. Sorry I don’t get why that is a problem?
I take umbrage with those characterizations.
The practices described (pre-arranged release of information, voicing mutual support in coordinated manner, agreed-upon language and form) have for decades been the hallmark of professional marketing and journalism. Back when print and broadcast media were the top game, those methods were used by the small groups of legitimate journalists and marketers.
Twitter correctly recognizes coordinated release of information as signal of particularly important and valuable content. People organically coordinate release of information for it to get its full due impact and attention. People also organically ask their friends and business contacts to chip in with an upvote or reblog (or whatever is the equivalent on Twitter). Calling Twitter's or users' behaviors "callous" or "inauthentic" when it's the regular people - that is way off the mark.
My uncharitable read of it is - this whole venture reeks of gatekeeping for the old-guard legitimate journalism.
People getting paid money to perform coordinated repost of content sent to them by anonymous sources?
Fake accounts used to amplify and retweet the messages?
What else are you looking for? It's like they told you someone stole money at gunpoint and you said you don't see anything indicative of theft.
I really like their activist products such as container tabs, privacy enhancing technologies and reduced tracking (compared to Chrome, Safari etc).
And Mozilla itself has hardly been politically neutral in the past few years - if anything, I'm more immediately skeptical of anything that Mozilla asserts as true than anything a blue-check twitter account owner in Kenya does.
You're right, it's only about 5% of the population, but they occupy administrative roles inside organizations and reshape them according to their fundamentalist beliefs. They are convinced they are doing good and have moral authority. As such, they have no qualms about ostracizing or firing dissenters. People are terrified of that and go along with it for fear of retaliation, so it seems larger than it is.
Taking administrative roles with an intolerant belief structure and chilling effect on speech is how the Successor Ideology is so effective despite being small in number.
Detection of inauthentic behavior is very hard and fraught with false positives, so it's really important to be very transparent in the methods.
That said, the numbers are not too small, they do have some interviews with participants and Twitter seems to have removed some accounts - all these lend the report some credibility.
What’s the difference between Mozilla and United Fruit when it comes to political interference? They both were are agitating for their PoV and not concerned with local mores. They both have foreign agendas.
One could argue United fruit advanced agriculture and provided jobs whereas Mozilla gets involved but provides no jobs to locals. Yes United fruit engaged in bad behavior but Mozilla should not get a pass either for interfering in foreign affairs.
i am glad that we here in the west are not subject to this sort of social media engineering and can participate in open and thoughtful debate on topics no matter how our elites feel about them
Because this is exactly what is the case! We are here and can participate in these discussions, more than ever before in history.
There are limits to free discussions (i.e. if you threaten or plot to kill somebody), but these limits have never been less in any country in any time.
So - let's not be overly pessimistic?
That said, I don't know from what angle you're deadpanning, or which elites from where you mean, but… heh. noted. how nice for us
I personally have no issue with any of these platforms moderating to their heart's content for the following reasons:
We are entitled to free speech but we are not entitled to use Twitter's megaphone.
I am against megaphones. I don't like companies like Twitter. With any hope, the more they moderate the more people will move away from centralized platforms. Don't regulate them and they will moderate themselves out of existence (I wish).
When did Twitter ever claim to be a "Town Square?" Furthermore, when would it benefit them to claim that?
The US is very liberal. Most European countries are leaning towards regulation.
See the book "How Democracies Die" for a summary of the three most prominent legal approaches.
Florida governor signs bill barring social media companies from blocking political candidates - May 24, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/24/florida...
[Florida governor] applauds fired whistleblower’s Twitter suspension, the latest in an ongoing feud - June 7, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/07/rebekah-j...
See e.g. the book "Hate Spin" on religious hate speech which explicitly deals with this two-sided phenomenon.
Especially when it is described as ”This industry’s main goal is to sway public opinion during elections and protests” which is different than every other media organization how, exactly?
It doesn't really matter what the messages in those are, it could be wishing everyone a good day, it is still disinformation, because it is trying to masquerade itself as a popular opinion on Twitter, and as being a real representation of real people's personal opinion that they hold so strongly they are willing to be actively expressing it publicly on Twitter.
To me, this amounts to fraud, and Twitter has a huge problem with this stuff. It's similar in nature to fraud on Amazon with fake reviews, and with selling aftermarket goods and fake brands.
The difference between this revolution in social media influencing, and previous revolutions in social media influencing seized and used for fascism such as the use of new radio preceding WWII, is this:
With radio, you were told things by a trusted stranger and believed them because it was on the radio and, thus, news.
Now, you are told things by what is apparently the personal friend of your personal friend, 'privately'. And you believe them because it is real. Your friend said so. Sort of.
It's an advance in propaganda technology for SURE. I don't know where it goes, but it's not like humanity hasn't had to weather this sort of thing before. The parallels are completely obvious, historically. It is nothing more than recontextualizing how to get information past critical questioning, and it's just as effective as the first radio was in its day.
What do you think the network of “real media” is?
Wikipedia as well. Other people try to use Wikipedia to sway public opinion, but Wikipedia itself seems rather opposed to articles designed for that.
Reuters seems to do some solid work as well. I don't usually get a heavy spin vibe from them, but maybe it's an international spin that I'm not in on.
Media are legitimate influences on public opinion with accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices.
Disinformation is illegitimate (i.e. illegal) influence on public opinion by hidden actors without accountability, transparency and formal ethics codices.
[edit] Perhaps I should say what I mean by legitimate. Legitimate here means: Society agreed to allow media to exist in the form that they do, by creating laws in support and by refraining from creating laws that would prevent them. As long as there is no political consensus and/or riots which would fundamentally undermine the media's standing, they benefit from a special role (and are held to that standard).
Are you seeing much of this lately? Lately as in the last 40 years? I certainly am not.
> Disinformation is illegitimate (i.e. illegal) influence
So hopefully there's a space in-between: is it still legitimate (or legal) for me as an individual to influence people, or does that count as disinformation? Is it because I don't possess a codex?
> Society agreed to allow media to exist
"Society" was actually never asked. In liberal democracies, you don't have to ask permission to publish something. Anyone is allowed to do it.
> (and are held to that standard)
Goodness, can you really be talking about "mainstream" media? I don't see anyone holding them to any standard.
