I listened to a podcast with a guy who runs a ring of disinformation sites in the US.
I don't think it's as big of a problem as most people think.
People don't get hit with some disinformation article and then suddenly start supporting another political party. Fake news is mostly just something to make people feel better about their views -- which are already completely set in stone.
Yes, it's fueling a bit of radicalization, which isn't great.
But I think more people are focused on this because they think it's the reason one party is getting more votes than the other. It's just not how fake news works.
And it's important to spend money make them feel better about their wrong beliefs, even though it doesn't matter?
Actually, yes.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17380040-our-political-n...
People don't go from being Democrats or swing voters to reading an article about how Hillary Clinton feasts on aborted babies in a whore house she runs in Russia, to suddenly voting for Trump.
I mean, sure, some people do. But the vast majority of disinformation is reinforcing.
What is the output of this radicalization? Just how big of a problem is it compared to what people are making out it? We know someone opened fire a pizza place as a direct result of this. Do you think the rise in hate crime (especially violent crime) is in some way related, too? Perps have left behind manifestos, like at El Paso, Christchurch, etc., with the same language as disinfo campaigns.
People are focused on this because it's the reason that people are being murdered because of their religion or where they were born.
Pizzagate resulted in someone firing a single shot at the lock on a closet door to open it. In a discussion of disinformation, I think your characterization is misleading and exemplary of disinformation as well - in a manner quite similar to the disinformation that led that individual to decide to do a vigilante raid on the pizza parlor.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory#Cr...
[2] https://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20161205/dc-pizza-place-...
Was able to find multiple corroborating sources for the 3 shots number.
I find it amusing that I'm receiving downvotes for this clarification - I'd love to understand the reasons behind them. I assume they are idealogical, but what ideology find the difference between 1 and 3 gunshots significant?
I've seen several kinds of fallacious arguments related to allegations of a rise in hate crimes. One is based on allowing people to simply claim that a hate crime occurred, without any evidence, verification, or objective definition of hate crime. Many of these claims were later shown to be false, though they continued to be cited as part of the evidence of a 'rise in hate crimes'. In these studies, the actual truth is that there is a rise in unsupported allegations of hate crime, wherein the reporter also decides for themselves what constitutes a 'hate crime.' This doesn't tell us very much about changes in the frequency or nature of real world crime.
My intuition also tells me that a big part of the reason people are so focused on it is that it gives them a reason to hate on their out-group. The reason I feel this is because when you encounter someone engaging in "group <x> is bad because <y>" type of behavior, and you ask them how they know(!) that <y> is true, they rarely have an answer, and they get even angrier.
Misinformation spread on Facebook led to the genocide in Myanmar[1].
Yes, it's fueling a bit of radicalization, which isn't great.
Radicalization is the real problem because it leads to rejection of democracy as a method for solving disagreements.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook...
It's true that the Facebook app or company didn't suddenly kill them. But my claim was very specific ("Misinformation spread on Facebook led to the genocide in Myanmar") and well backed up by the evidence.
It's the same as the role Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) played during the Rwandan genocide.
http://www.genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw/index.php/Radio_T%C3...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...
The report concludes that, prior to this year, we weren’t doing enough to help prevent our platform from being used to foment division and incite offline violence. We agree that we can and should do more.[1]
and
In a surprising concession before the Senate intelligence committee in September 2018, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg even accepted that Facebook may have a legal obligation to take down accounts that incentivize violence in countries like Myanmar. Sandberg called the situation “devastating” and acknowledged that the company needed to do more, but highlighted that Facebook had put increased resources behind being able to review content in Burmese. Shortly before the hearing, Facebook announced that it had taken the unusual step of removing a number of pages and accounts linked to the Myanmar military for “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” and in order to prevent them from “further inflam[ing] ethnic and religious tensions.”[2]
The report Facebook itself commissioned and posted at [1] says:
the consequences for the victim are severe, with lives and bodily integrity placed at risk from incitement to violence. and there is a high likelihood of these risks occurring in practice(they have occurred in the past and are happening today) (page 35).
I think it's a pretty reasonable thing to believe if Facebook themselves say it too.
[1] https://about.fb.com/news/2018/11/myanmar-hria/
[2]https://www.lawfareblog.com/facebooks-role-genocide-myanmar-...