Trolling, Free Speech and the Law

@FluffyMcChicken: That's less a consequence of deliberate choices on the part of social media platforms and more to do with the limitations of moderation software design. The big tech companies' business models depend on not having to hire tens of thousands of full time moderators to police their sites manually, and in spite of all the progress made in machine learning in recent years, it's still very difficult for algorithms to recognize the context of a statement, meaning a system designed to cull hate speech would likely end up banning a huge number of people for no apparent reason and miss a good number of low hanging fruits.

Recognizing particular images and objects on the other hand has dramatically improved to the point where there's not much of a gap between a sophisticated algorithms and a human's ability to recognize an image of a female nipple, to use one example of something that tends to be culled from social media platforms.

edited 7th Nov '17 9:56:38 AM by CaptainCapsase

I would love to see Facebook and other platforms forced to pay more sophisticated attention to the content loaded up to their site, but that costs money, which is the main problem as far as US law is concerned. The Republicans would die on the barracades before they allowed taxpayer subsidies be used to fact-check the news.

NVM

edited 8th Nov '17 11:13:22 PM by M84

I'm not exactly sure if this is the right place for this, but this Website is a great resource for tracking how Russian Trolls are pushing disinformation on twitter. They have a tool that tracks what topics and hashtags are being pushed by 600 Russia aligned Twitter accounts.

http://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org

They also post analysis on the findings every two weeks on their twitter account.

https://twitter.com/SecureDemocracy

That second link appears to cover all the most popular forms of social media, not just Twitter. BTW, I took a look at their Board of Advisors, and they have some heavy hitters there. Mike Chertoff, Bill Kristol, a former head of the CIA, and others of that caliber. Interesting.

edited 20th Nov '17 5:22:37 PM by DeMarquis

This guy is good too. He's an actual data scientist, and tends to have great content and analysis on how Fake News and misinformation is propagated and spread. I also like that they use graphs and visuals so you can visually see the connections he's making. These are just a few examples that might be interesting to this thread.

Analyzing a dataset from /r/Donald (he has the downloadable Dataset of anyone else wants to look at it themselves)

Disinformation campaigns and fake news sites

How to spot a Russian Troll

#FollowTheWhiteRabbit, or how a crazy conspiracy theory that started on 4chan ended up trending on twitter (This one is nuts)

I quoted a tweet that said Hillary was spotted "ingesting Dihydrogen Monoxide" (aka water) with that Hashtag and a Trump Supporter actually liked it, although they might have been a Russian troll.

edited 21st Nov '17 6:54:18 AM by megaeliz

Too... much... analysis... brain... drowning...

But seriously, thanks for sharing that.

that is fascinating.... terrifying, but fascinating

And the really scary thought is that this isn't some insane conspiracy that has no basis in reality, but actual data based conclusions drawn from big data on social media.

edited 21st Nov '17 11:38:36 AM by megaeliz

I can't embed this since it's on Facebook, but I do think it's relevant.

Lessons Learned: Combatting Disinformation in the United States and Europe.

It's a trans-Atlantic, discussion, on the problem of Russian Trolls, historical precedent, and what we can learn from other countries who have dealt with this kind of misinformation campaigns before.

Also Facebook will be releasing a tool that allows its people to see what pages created by Russian actors they may have liked or followed by the end of the year. It's not perfect, because it only shows it stuff you liked or followed, but it's a start.

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/361557-facebook-will-let-users-see-russian-content-theyve-interacted-with?amp

edited 23rd Nov '17 7:26:57 AM by megaeliz

Hey, so I'm working on a group project for class on the debate about free speech on campus, and we need a video of some sort. Does anybody here know of a short video that sums everything up briefly without being too politically skewed (that is to say, not launching into a defense of bigotry)?

Not a video, but this well sourced Twitter thread might be of service too.

Left-leaning faculty moderate students who would be otherwise radicalized by their fellow students, among other things.

And, of course, student protests on campus have been a thing since the 60s.

Here's another website for identifying and exposing Russian Propaganda. They have a lot of resources for how to identify it, and have put together a crowdsourcing campaign in an effort to highlight Russian Propaganda sources.

Here's the checklist they have set up for identifying Propaganda

example of how to identify propaganda using the checklist

How Geotaggging can Give Trolls Away

Other Resources

Crowd Sourced Propaganda identification campaign

@Ambar Sonof Deshar "Says someone who has never been doxxed or harassed. Says someone who has never actually had people calling for his death, and has never had someone try to act on it. Women and minorities are continuously inundated with threats from the white members of the online troll brigade. Some of them go on to act on it, as evidenced by the real people who have actually been harmed. But I guess those people don't count, do they? "

I would like a source on this, because to my knowledge there is no record of internet harassment and trolling escalating to real-world violence and harm. Most internet trolls simply want to upset and demean their victim, not kill or incapacitate them, because doing the latter risks a lengthy prison sentence where their ability to continue harassing people over the internet is now impaired.

I'm sorry, are you aware of what doxing is?

Yes. I'm also aware that the government is technically doxing you when you vote, as they display this information on the internet for everyone to see under voter registration information. If you have any employment records those are all publicly available on the internet as well. Phonebooks have technically been doxing people for decades. Chances are your personal information is already very public.

But what does this have to do with violence born out of internet trolling?

edited 28th Nov '17 12:18:05 PM by ThePest179

As far as real-world stuff goes, Brianna Wu, a game developer who's been continuously harrassed by alt-righters and other internet thugs, has had pictures of her everyday hangouts sent to her with a message saying "I know where you live" and has woken up to her window smashed by a rock.

This antiquated idea of the internet being this wholly separate, segregated environment where there are no real-world consequences and that you can just walk away from any time really needs to be dropped, because it no longer applies.

How about Swatting.

While that is rather concerning, the only casualty here was a broken window. Internet trolls are too cowardly to risk doing something as serious as murder.

That's quite a bit more serious, although AFAIK no-one has died or been seriously injured from SWATing. It is a felony, and rightfully so though, because it's a severe form of disruption and saps police resources in fighting actual violent crimes.

I stand corrected.

edited 28th Nov '17 12:29:59 PM by ThePest179

Ya know, when someone's only response is 'at least they did not kill anyone' then maybe it is time for that person to leave the conversation.

The implication that nothing short of murder is something to worry about is itself, worrisome.

edited 28th Nov '17 12:24:53 PM by ViperMagnum357

Yes, that's why they get a cop to do it for them.

edited 28th Nov '17 12:24:47 PM by Krieger22

What I'm trying to say is that death threats you get online are usually empty and carry little risk of actual violence. Of course there are exceptions like , but they are exceptions for a reason (namely because trolls are usually looking to cause emotional distress rather than physical harm).

Death Threats are a grave offence. The point is not how likely they are to be carried out, but the very intent to make the recipient fear that they might be.

I don't understand what you're arguing for at this point.

edited 28th Nov '17 12:37:42 PM by TheHandle

You were responding to a post saying that “some” of the people who dox and harass go on to carry out such threats, so I don’t see how you can disagree with that when admitting that some do go on to do such things. You seem to be trying to recolour your original position in light of evidence, there’s no shame in admitting that you thought something incorrect but have now been proven to have been wrong.

Also I think a few mass shooters have been found to have spent a lot of time on Red Pill and harassed and threatened women online.

edited 28th Nov '17 1:19:07 PM by Silasw