Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists
thewire.in
thewire.in
If topics are manufactured and outrage is being artificially generated in that fashion classic media will probably jump onto the bandwagon because doing so will increase advertising clicks and views. It will increase revenue for said media outlets. Also social networks have every incentive to not quell these things as they drive engagement and with that advertising revenues. The same for video platforms. Basically (nearly) any ad driven revenue stream will want to participate. Thos will be adding fuel to the fire and just increase the reach of the fabricated stories as well as the outrage and the accompanying division of societies. Creating measures to effectively quell such things on the other hand will (nearly) inevitably create measures of mass censorship that once implemented will one day be abused because I have yet to see an example of humans not using any weapon/means to further their agenda.
So the question remains what societies, as well as everybody for themselves, can do to protect themselves against these forms of manipulations.
I have to admit that I do not have a good idea what could work. And what the side effects of doing something (as well as not doing something) could be.
Much progress against malicious political discourse has been made by philosophical and cultural innovations that aim to influence the behaviours of politically empowered elites, and to develop systematic approaches to 'fairness' in decision making (logicism, empiricism) as well as systems of political and personal ethics/morality (Stoicism, Utilitarianism etc..).
Today, these same values need to have a broader base within our society; most urgently within those communities who are most influential in driving technological change, but also within the wider community of those who are funding and using these technologies that have proven so effective at industrializing harmful political discourse.
The Tek Fog app, according to this report, targets people including women journalist who are critical of current PM of India or the Party BJP.
Most journalists in India are not critical of PM Modi but a few of them are, and in fact you will never find this report on the Indian MSM.
A better title would be:
Tek Fog targeting Anti-BJ/ Anti-Modi journalists in India.
But this article talks specifically about attacking women journalists in particular, using targeted language like calling them prostitutes or referring to their specific body parts or skin color, etc. The headline seems fine to me.
The previous articles by TheWire on this were of better quality and didn't seem to stretch facts to push a narrative.
They have given no evidence that only women journalists were targeted primarily.
They sound like one of the opinion pieces saying "Hurricane Katrina strikes ..., women specifically targeted/affected".
I will note that regardless of my criticism of the linked article, I agree that Tek Fog can have significantly adverse impact on the quality of discourse and whether its usage is legal is something that needs to be brought to the court.
This is classic Gamergate style attack, with misogyny, doxxing, etc. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_(harassment_campaign...]
It's no wonder that so many people struggle with the effects of trauma from (seemingly omnipresent) misogynistic abuse.
Is there any escaping it? Any way to fight back?
But you know who this is indirectly critical of even if he is not mentioned. There are enough devotees of that person on HN that every thread tangentially involving him becomes flagged and removed eventually. This appears to be a chilling effect on the discussion, but moderators are very reluctant to step in. They would much rather there was no discussion of Indian politics at all, given that every conversation becomes so heated.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Having said that, I don't consider The Wire to be a dispassionate source when it involves he who you don't want to name.
I'm not interested in who wins the election because I can count on any government to negatively impact my life by eroding my ability to support myself and my family through taxation, corruption and government ineptitude. Our currency will be devalued with each passing year, and most of our savings will not keep up.
Having further clarified this, I fully expect the current ruling party to engage in technology fuelled surveillance and other privacy related invasions because the megalomania is clear and apparent from their rhetoric and overall positioning.
I also know that they are probably amongst the most popular leaders in the world, enjoying above 75% popularity in the general population. I have zero respect for the competence of the opposition because they lack pragmatism, skill or political instincts to change this. What we have instead is an embarrassing coalition of clowns.
Government will only continue to disappoint, and partisans are part of the problem. I only take seriously issues that are framed in the manner of citizen vs government.
Having qualified all of this - this story is unsurprising and entirely believable.
It’s having an auto complete feature for creating better hate speech.
The politics is one thing the tech is another.
They're intrinsically linked
What is that number based on? Their vote share in the 2019 general elections was ~37%.
If you look at polling organizations that do "approval ratings" type of poll, they have been 50-70% for years. The recent West Bengal incursion is probably a good example, they went from no presence to becoming the primary opposition.
The commenter is saying that HN is often subjected to these devotees’ campaigns. He is probably right, in my opinion. I am Indian and most of my friends and family are devotees. They often coordinate their outrage on WhatsApp groups. Someone will post links to critical articles and the others will jump on them.
As an Indian, I do feel they are right since I’ve rarely seen such posts on homepage. Even this one, I found in Second Chance.
These so called reporters are inimical toward India, write incendiary lies and collaborate with Pakistan, Jihadis and Soros style ngos. So if you gonna dish it out you better take it too from the people as that is democracy. They indulge in worst kind of Twitter tricks using fake videos and fake news weekly.
Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.