Ask HN: How can I help against disinformation? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I help against disinformation?

7 pointsarisAlexis10 comments

I just read that Russians are even more united in favor of Putin after the war started and made me despair.

I want to somehow help. What are some startups that try to solve the problem of disinformation? Maybe some open source projects I can contribute? I have donated some already but I'm not sure how it solves the problem. By problem I define lies told to the public by dictators (sometimes elected too).

I am talking about projects trying to deliver messages to people to oppressed people through other means of media etc.

Edit: as many pointed out, the poll could be disinformation itself too. Doesn't matter, if anything it makes these projects more important still.

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I think that the base issue is the intended target, i.e. "the Russians".

There are maybe 15-20% of Russians that are young enough, technologically capable enough, capable of reading in another language and possibly also capable of spending enough to be able to "connect" to the rest of the world and thus be able to read non-Russian sources.

Taken away a probable 5-10% that simply doesn't care at all about their government and its actions as long as they aren't touched by them directly, it remains some 70-80% which only have available state TV and newspapers.

It is this 70-80% that should be somehow reached and (counter-)informed, but I don't think there are practical ways to do so, they simply have no internet or don't use it (and even if they use it they are not allowed to access most of it outside Russia).

That's why it's a problem to be solved. Humanity depends on it actually. You think it's unsolvable? Maybe.

I don't know if it is unsolvable, I was only saying that the amount of people in Russia being reachable via internet is very small (besides and before any recent firewall/blocking/censorship that may have been introduced recently).

Maybe what you read about Putin's renewed popularity is itself disinformation. Yesterday I was reading the opposite from another (dis)information source.

There are no technical solutions to the veritas problem.

You can't task or pay someone else to solve this problem.

But what you can do is promote truth - as a moral principle. And doing so as a strong principle requires a HUGE HUGE effort in these times. In a world where deception makes money, and money is our god, it's hard to live an hour without hypocritically feeding the machinery of profitable lies. Even your post, made in good faith and sincerity has unwittingly spread the (probable) falsehood about Putin. And this reply of mine probably adds to the fire in some unseen (by me) way.

This has to come right from your soul and sometimes requires a vicious and merciless honesty. You will not be popular or liked.

In which way my post spread some falsehood about Putin?

By accident. Because you don't know if its's true. And by posting it as "something you've read somewhere" you spread that idea. Yesterday I was reading the opposite (From GCHQ; that Putin's standing is wavering in the face of internal political tension). At least one of us is propagating untrue information. Ergo; Maybe - what you read about Putin's renewed popularity is itself disinformation.

Does that make sense? It's not an _accusation_ or criticism, it's a quasi-logical statement about the information in general.

respects

Yes it does, I'm not sure about this information either good point. That's why we need to spread only factual info to oppressed people somehow. Cheers

The first thing you should do is ask yourself, do you actually want to stop the spread of misinformation, or do you only want to stop it when it comes from the other side, and sit idle when it comes from your own?

Regardless of what the conflict is, who the involved parties are, and where it is taking place, the first step is to step out of the echo-chamber and begin to speak truthfully, and often, realize that misinformation comes from both sides.

In the West factual disinformation is less. Most Russians think Putin did not invade Ukraine. More, he tells them that the leadership is Nazi while Zelensky is Israeli that suffered from the Naxis. There is truth and there is subjective views. I want to address the truth and mostly in oppressed countries that media doesn't work.

It's very important to realize that disinformation is not something that you can usually solve with tech. [1]

It's a problem of trust and emotion, almost purely social and psychological.

If you try to "solve" disinformation with tech, you almost certainly make the problem worse.

So if you want to do something about it, teach people empathy, human values, and work on accountability and transparency. That helps a lot.

[1] see e.g. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051219889...

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