'Relatively Few' Twitter Bots Were Needed To Spread Misinformation and Overwhelm Fact Checkers, Study Finds (nbcnews.com) 85
A new study conducted by Indian University researchers found that "relatively few accounts are responsible for a large share of the traffic that carries misinformation," with just 6 percent of Twitter accounts identified as bots responsible for 31 percent of "low-credibility" content. "Bots amplify the reach of low-credibility content, to the point that it is statistically indistinguishable from that of fact-checking articles," researchers wrote. NBC News reports: The study analyzed 14 million tweets that linked to more than 400,000 articles from May 2016 until the end of March 2017. Of those articles, 389,569 were from "low credibility sources" that had been repeatedly flagged by fact-checking organizations for containing misinformation, as well as 15,053 articles that originated from "fact-checking sources." Of that sample, over 13.6 million tweets linked to "low-credibility sources" and around 1.1 million tweets linked to known fact-checking sources, leading researchers to attribute greater virality with "fake news." To achieve maximum exposure, the study found that "social bots" used two methods to manipulate users into trusting the linked article's validity.
"First, bots are particularly active in amplifying content in the very early spreading moments, before an article goes 'viral,'" researchers wrote. "Second, bots target influential users through replies and mentions." Users struggled to differentiate bots from other human users, as humans "have retweeted bots who post low-credibility content almost as much as they retweet other humans," according to the researchers. The researchers noted that social media platforms have moved to address the spread of misinformation by bots, but said "their effectiveness is hard to evaluate."
"First, bots are particularly active in amplifying content in the very early spreading moments, before an article goes 'viral,'" researchers wrote. "Second, bots target influential users through replies and mentions." Users struggled to differentiate bots from other human users, as humans "have retweeted bots who post low-credibility content almost as much as they retweet other humans," according to the researchers. The researchers noted that social media platforms have moved to address the spread of misinformation by bots, but said "their effectiveness is hard to evaluate."
Man, slashdot trolling is out of control (Score:1)
Between this post, and especially the last Pai post, the trolling of slashdot is becoming worrisome.
It gets exhausting to sort through the obvious trolls, the repetitive trolls, and the obscure trolls.
Cannot something be done about this?
This was already observed by Mark Twain (Score:1)
Who stated way back in the early 1900s that a lie could spread halfway around the world before the truth could get its pants on.
Or maybe not, I forget.
Don't minimize the problem. (Score:1)
Bad choice of wording: Could be "ONLY 6 percent of Twitter accounts". There is nothing "just" about it.
Bad choice of underlying idea: Should be "A HUGE number of Twitter accounts, 6 percent", are robots spreading dishonest information.
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It isnt 6% of all Twitter accounts. It is "6 percent of Twitter accounts identified as bots" as in, out of some unspecified number of twitter accounts identified as bots 6% of those were responsible for 31% of "low credibility" content
The article is VERY poorly written. (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead of:
"... with just 6 percent of Twitter accounts identified as bots responsible for 31 percent of 'low-credibility' content."
It could be:
"Of the 6 percent of Twitter accounts that were identified as bots, 31 percent were responsible for 'low-credibility' content."
When I think about that, I am confused about what could be the underlying meaning. Does that mean 94% of the bots were doing something else besides giving dishonest content? W
Most important: We need major improvements. (Score:1)
Also, it is important how much time is wasted trying to avoid the useless content.
Even more important: We need major social improvements.
Re:Don't minimize the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Twitter as it’s designed is shit which is why it’s been used in this way. Maybe in another decade we’ll be able to get social networks right, but they’re all awful right now and mostly make people miserable addicts.
Why does the internet need "fact-checking"? (Score:3, Insightful)
The social media brand is not a publisher.
Social media just connects users. The users create the content.
Users do not need "fact-checking organizations" as they are not publishers.
They find something funny, creative and want to share it.
It could be a political cartoon, a meme, an image of a politician not able to keep up with campaigning.
Should the internet not get a good LOL at that because of "fact-checking organizations"?
Should party political government and think tanks set limits on what users can link to as funny? As creative? As news?
A users failed political campaign cartoon is a thinks tanks party political investment.
Should a partisan think tank get to remove a funny political cartoon?
Should a gov get to remove user uploaded images about the results of their gov policy?
Why should a think tank and organizations get to censor the free and open internet?
Let social media publish its own news and have its own "fact-checking" for its own published news under it own news brand.
Let users get on with LOL at news, events, art, faith, culture, celebrities, bad movie scripts, computer games and politics.
What will "fact-checking" remove next? Any comments about DRM? A bad game review? Movie review? Music? A user created political cartoon? What a new OS patch does to a file system?
Let users publish and enjoy their social media internet. They pay for social media with the ads they view and ads they are tracked by.
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Users do not need "fact-checking organizations" as they are not publishers.
A free press is an absolute prerequisite for a functioning democracy, but the reason they are a prerequisite, but not a sufficient condition is because they promote the spread of accurate information.
Because of this accurate information is also a prerequisite to a functioning democracy. It just is. Fact checking is required to preserve as much accurate information as possible with respect to issues people might vote based on.
It is because accurate information is a prerequisite to a functioning democracy t
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Like the Shield and Sword of the Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] AC?
So the internet does not spread the funny cartoon about a political party?
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For democracy to function well the population needs to be informed. If the population is poorly informed or outright deceived we have seen what will happen, and it's not pretty.
Also, people don't like being deceived and would prefer that these social networks do something to block or flag fake news and fake accounts. So there is a business case for addressing the problem.
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What nations gets to ban news globally? German? France? Spain?
Do cults and faith groups get to go to the US gov and ask for all news about their faith to be removed?
Can political connected intellectual leaders at a "think tank" get to set what is funny art online? What a cartoon can be about politically?
US freedom of speech starts looking great after considering the regulations, laws and rules of an online Spain or Germa
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You are stuck in this post-truth bullshit mindset where there are no objective facts and no outright lies. Overcome that and you will be able to understand that it's more than just a war between opposing bullshitters.
The Nirvanic Land (Score:1)
Supposedly inhabited by your mythical truth will do guess what to influence those who are opposed to your ideology?
NOT ONE DAMN THING!
The people who would share a falsity could care less what the truth is. Their mind is made up and you are just as big of a fool as they when you suppose you can influence them,
They already believe you are liars. No amount of "Snopes" is ever going to change that.
You are wasting your frigging time.
That my friend is the truth and if you cannot fathom it well that's your prob
A few Twitter bots (Score:2)
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Looks like my post whoooshed over the heads of the mods...
The Firehose of Falsehoods (Score:3)
https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html [rand.org]
It goes into detail about the asymmetric nature of these kind of mass manipulation techniques.
Fact Checking Twitter? (Score:3, Interesting)
... it is twitter... it is the place you go to read drunken rants from celebrities or updates to a concert or something.
Twitter is a terrible information source and always was a terrible information source.
Who "honestly" thinks twitter even should be fact checked? And who would be crazy enough to pay someone to do that. Imagine that job listing "wanted 5000 people to fact check tweets"... No.
Most information sources shouldn't be fact checked because you can get to the same place just by exercising a little skepticism.
And really, a lot of the mainstream media guys deserve to be in the same boat. Look at mainstream media guys using anonymous sources. We're seeing that in the New York Times now. This was understood until recently to be a gold standard violation of establishment media. You don't do certain things.
1. You don't mix your editorials/opinions with straight news reporting. They violate that all the time now.
2. You don't use anonymous sources because they can't be fact checked by third party sources which means you could just make it all up. They do that all the time now.
3. You don't pay people for sources and you don't use information as a source that was bought. We've seen a few examples of that recently as well.
The above violations are what used to separate tabloids from the boring but accurate newspapers.
Well, what actually is the difference now? Seriously. What rule or code of ethics separates the two? I don't see it.
And on top of that to suggest Twitter of all things should be fact checked when they're clearly not upholding journalistic ethics in the mainstream newspapers?
The mad are running the asylum.
As it stands, fact checking organizations or processes seem to have entirely broken down. So, I have to fact check everything myself personally. And I suggest everyone do the same until this bought of unethical behavior passes. Keep an open mind, listen to what people have to say, but reserve judgment until you've checked it out. And until then... jump to no conclusions.
it is a little like your local water utility leaking sewage into the pipes. Which happens sometimes. Don't just drink it... boil it to kill the bacteria that might be in it and muddle through the mess. At some point, the media will fix itself. But at this point, the media won't even acknowledge it has a problem.
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Twitter allows you to participate in democracy in a way that was not possible for most people before. For example, I talk to powerful politicians regularly about Brexit, and while I can't claim to be a great influencer their views do seem to evolve as ordinary people interact with them.
It also gives me an insight into their character and their thinking. That includes the ones who have their staff write their tweets for them, because that in itself tells you a lot about them.
I also follow some interesting se
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well yes and no... we used to be closer to our politicians.
In the colonial days there was one representative for every 30k people. Power was less centralized.
Even now, if you want to talk to politicians in the US, they are generally obliged to listen to you. the hoops have increased recently mostly because of terrorism. But if you want to see your congressman that is generally not a big deal. You can just call up the office and make an appointment.
Talking to senators, governors, and presidents is generally
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You don't use anonymous sources because they can't be fact checked by third party sources which means you could just make it all up. They do that all the time now.
You're wrong on both accounts. Anonymous sources are sometimes the only key to unlocking that big story, throwing back the curtain on corruption, fulfilling the journalistic missions of watchdog on the government and informant to the citizens. Think "Deep Throat" and Watergate.
And contrary to your claim that use of anonymous sources is on the rise, it looks like the opposite is true: “Over the recent decades, quality news organizations have been less and less inclined [poynter.org] to use anonymous sources, an
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worth looking at:
http://ethics.npr.org/tag/anon... [npr.org]
Regardless, we've seen anonymous sources issue personal attacks in mainstream press reports. So the violation is there regardless.
It won't get better until people sharpen up their standards. And until that happens confidence in the press will continue to deteriorate. If the press wants their credibility to improve, then the impression of unethical behavior will have to be addressed. Simply denying everything and refusing to make any reasonable reforms is jus
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Perhaps NPR is the gold standard for reporting and we should hold all journals to their standards. On the other hand, it may be a bit hyperbolic to cite a single case of a journal failing to meet another media organizations ethics guidelines and claim that the press in general are "Simply denying everything and refusing to make any reasonable reforms".
Tweet Shaming (Score:3)
If someone retweets fake news originally from a low-quality information source, it should affect someone's 'credibility score', which would be prominently shown as a percentage next to their name.
This'd make it easy to tell at a glance if someone retweeting something is likely to be retweeting fake news, and could prevent people from retweeting things from less-credible accounts. It'd also encourage people not to retweet crap since they'd be (potentially) shamed by having a low credibility score.
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What if they post the comment "This is fake news, debunked (here)" along with it?
All the people debunking stuff would quickly get a bad rep.
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That should be a reply to the tweet/retweet, rather than making a new retweet. If you send a message "check out how dumb this obviously-fake conspiracy theory is" you'll get some people who didn't know about it that will then believe it despite your derision. Therefore, it's better to reply than to retweet misinformation.
Indian University? (Score:2, Informative)
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disinformation is fun ; factual info not (Score:2)