Stanford Internet Observatory wilts under legal pressure during election year The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), which for the past five years has been studying and reporting on social media disinformation, is being reimagined with new management and fewer staff following the recent departure of research director Renee DiResta. The changes coincide with conservative legal challenges to the US …
@Khaptain: you have no idea what I think. What I observe is that the Republicans are overtly weaponizing government against their political enemies and against the very idea of integrity if it threatens their power base and manipulation of the media, whether social or otherwise.
Your attempt at derailing the conversation through a false equivalency argument has been noted, however.
"What I observe is that the Republicans are overtly weaponizing government against their political enemies"
Projection much? Remember the dems who said if you elect us that they will 'get trump'?
"manipulation of the media"
Pretty much the entire media machine is running defence for Biden and his latest dementia addled gaffes.
And if you remember correctly Hillary was investigated, found to have done the things she was accused of but the feds decided not to go any further as they didn't think they could secure a conviction. And then nothing more happened.
Now with Trump he was investigated, found to have NOT done the things they tried to initially stitch him up with (election interference, campaign finance violation) so they concocted the most convoluted and deeply legally questionable charges to try and finally get a conviction.
I don't recall any GOP DAs or AGs running on the platform of 'we will get Hillary' or groups of has-been celebs making tiktoks saying Hillary needs to be brought to justice.
I find the whole "free speech" angle to this fascinating.
In older times "free speech" meant you are able to express your opinion without fear of beeing punished for it.
However you were also free to bear the consequences of your speech, e.g. others discussing your staments and call you an idiot or liar.
Today, the "free speech" argument is more and more used to supress discussion about statements one has made and to avoid the consequences.
Exposing wrong facts, dissenting opinions, even calling a liar a liar is free speech as well.
So in fact "free speech" in this case is used as argument to effectively limit free speech, not only of the political opponent, but also of neutral observers.
However, the fact that the US conservatives are using this tactic is quite understandable.
There simply is no longer any rational argument they could use to ask voters to vote for their broken agenda or their idiotic candidates.
Since their only tactic left is lying to the general public, suppressing dissent and neutral observers becomes essential...
The TDS is strong with this one!
Remember what the Biden admin said about inflation? It is transitory, it will pop up and go right back down, printing billions of dollars won't cause inflation? Remember any of that? All complete and utter bovine excreta.
Jenn Psaki has been caught red handed in her book by claiming Sleepy Joe didn't look at his watch during a dignified transfer, only after it was over. Well, you could fertilise your garden with that one as Joe is on video repeatedly checking his watch.
Or how about the whole 'you're not a horse' thing and now Chris Cuomo has admitted to taking ivermectin for long covid?
The public are being gas lit by the current admin and the likes of the SIO are running cover for them.
In older times "free speech" meant you are able to express your opinion without fear of beeing punished for it.
No it didn't. It meant that you could not be prevented from stating your opinion, i.e. thrown in gaol to stop you saying something.
You've always had to face the consequences of your speech, if what you said was, say, slanderous or inciting illegal behaviour, etc. You had freedom to speak, not immunity from what you said.
"You've always had to face the consequences of your speech, if what you said was, say, slanderous or inciting illegal behaviour, etc. You had freedom to speak, not immunity from what you said."
Unless you are a member of the political far left when you can not only call for violence against groups or individuals without any comeback but you can even perform said violence without consequences.
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So it was "misinformation" to question the Steele Dossier... which was paid for by the DNC and full of actual "dezinformatsiya". .
So it was "misinformation" to state that Hunter Bidens laptop was genuine... the laptop which was used as primary evidence to convict Hunter Biden..
So it was "misinformation" to question the wet market origin of SARs CoV 2 even though the full paper trail of gain of function research research in Wuhan IV had been online until quickly scrubbed in late January 2020. Or that any standard biological warfare textbook pre 2020 had a whole section on weaponizing SARs
So it was "misinformation" to question that the CFR/IFR for SARs CoV 2 was "even worse" than SARs CoV 1. Even though the WHO numbers was medically impossible and pure politics. Yet the excess mortality rate in 2020 was well within the 10 year range.
So it was "misinformation" to question why a vaccine type which had never successfully passed the FDA 505(b)(1) approval process (which takes 5 to 7 years for very basic statistical reasons) was now rolled out as a public health vaccine (early trialed with no control group) even though it failed ever single test for all previous public health vaccines.
And so on and so on.
"Misinformation" was invented in its modern form in 2016. Barely a mention before that. At least as an attempt to control the media narrative. Politically motivated censorship wrapped in weasel words.
The track record of what "misinformation researchers" consider as "misinformation" is so politically partisan one sided that it reminds me of the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980's which used Psychiatry (science dont you know) as a way of shutting down and locking up anyone who dared challenge the official state narrative. Of the CPSU. Like Sakharov, Brodsky, Medvedev and many thousands of others.
Because you are obviously crazy if you question the official narrative. As stated on Vremya, Pravda, Izvestia etc. And hundreds of Soviet psychiatrists many with eminent academic qualifications were only too glad to assist in locking up these obvious sick and ill-informed people. It was for their own good. And for the social stability of the state.
Funny how so much of the what those researchers classify as "misinformation" turned out to be better supported by primary sources than the official acceptable narrative as laid down by the BBC, NYT, etc.. Which usually have little or no backing in multiple verifiable primary sources.
Pay attention and you might start noticing the jarring Gell-Man Amnesia (or just amnesia) of so many of the "well informed" RightThink people.
Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!
Just remember that there are only two kinds of people in the world: our kind, and the enemy.
It's a binary situation, and the bottom line is: kill or be killed—survival of the fittest.
Not forgetting the enshittification of everything, because there is nothing good.
We only exist in order to die, and then rot.
Yes, life is death, lies are truth, truth is lies, and there is nowhere safe to stand when you live with a mindset of hatred, paranoia, and fear.
Remember, destroy the enemy before the enemy destroys you.
The enemy are not like us.
I am the enemy.
(and so on and so forth, blah blah blah, ad infinitum, ad nauseum)
What did that drivel you wrote even mean. A 3'rd rate mind writing 4'th rate pseudo-intellectual profundities. In other words pure twattery.
I've heard more sensible things said by a street junkie raving on the corner of 8'th and Market in San Francisco.
Should n't you be studying for you GCSE's...
Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!Just remember that there are only two kinds of people in the world: our kind, and the enemy.
Maybe 3 kinds, those that want to make money proving misinformation services. I include politicians and lobbyists in this category.
So waaaay back in the old days, the UK Internet industry created this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation
The IWF operates informal partnerships with the police, government, public, and internet companies across the world. Originally formed to police suspected child pornography online, the IWF's remit was later expanded to cover criminally obscene material.
Which was originally an initiative prompted by the Internet being kinda new, some heavy handed threats from the police, and a few Demons for good measure. Something needed to be done & so it got done, ISPs agreed it was a GoodThing(TM) and the IWF was born. Nobody wanted CP on their services and ISPs invidually didn't really have the skillset, knowledge or even legal protection to deal with it. I remember seeing high traffic, narrowed that down to a couple of websites we were hosting that were pron, but not CP. Then one of those innocent questions from the boss.. Is this illegal? We had no idea being a bunch of netengs and sysadmins. So we contacted the police and they sent over a couple of vice officers to review the site and explain the law.
Which is really the point. If it's illegal content, then it should be removed. But there was a FUN! LINX meeting when a new head of the IWF told ISPs he wanted to expand their remit to include political content and 'hate' material. Which at the time wasn't necessarily illegal, and started to drift into free speech territory. So that proposal was pretty roundly rejected. So the IWF carries on it's work with both ISPs and LEAs.
Current policies and pressure to counter 'misinformation' gets a whole lot harder and a whole lot murkier because it's not as well-defined in law as pron and other illegal content is. Election law is a complex field, so if people see something they consider illegal, they can report it to LEAs, and if it is determined illegal, content can be taken down. But all too often there's 'official' misinformation masquerading as 'facts', or 'fact checkers' who get things wrong because either they're not competant to determine the facts, or might be biased. Subconscious bias can be hard to overcome, conscious bias just means efforts to counter 'misinformation' become propaganda and censorship.
Churchill certainly didn't say that, as he spoke English. He might have said "A lie goes halfway round the world before the truth gets its boots on", but there's no evidence he ever did.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/
seems a fairly comprehensive investigation.
And as Churchill was an enthusiatic and skilled user of both true and false propaganda, and massive deceptions, I'm sure he would have embraced the opportunities offered by social media in wartime (and probably peacetime too - he was never a nice person).
The Stanford Internet Observatory was hardly a research organization. They were run by a CIA Fellow (Renee DiResta), were funded mainly by the US government, and existed mostly a front for government agencies to issue content takedown requests to social media companies. In other words, an intermediary for government censorship. The SIO existed to obscure government intervention of free speech.
If they were actually doing "disinformation research," I doubt anybody would have had an objection.
I dunno, you can believe your article, or you can believe the reporters who combed through actual Twitter internal communications (The Twitter Files) and can point to actual internal e-mails of this happening.
Here's a summary of the specific point in question by one of the Twitter Files reporters:
https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1801663101915341075
One of Musk's requirements for making Twitter internal communications available to journalists was that the journalists in question report their findings on Twitter. So you seem to have made a decision to keep yourself deliberately ignorant of the subject at hand.
Well the political left do see the 1A as a barrier to achieving their goal of dictatorial rule. Diversity is strength so long as it is not diversity of thought.
In the last few days a labour MP had to cancel a hustings due to security issues. However this was NOT from the right as people like to make claim but from the far left due to the MP daring to have opinions that upset a tiny minority.
Well, "CIA Renée" makes some good points in that Atlantic piece (from 06/15/24) linked by Throatwarbler. If you find her somehow "suspicious" then I can't begin to imagine how bad your head must have exploded when CIA Director George Bush was elected POTUS (and yet that would explain a lot ...). In relation to JJ's Manchurian Don Quixote quest, she notes:
"merely labeling social-media posts as potentially misleading is portrayed as a form of censorship"
which differs strangely from the PTAs' positions on explicit lyrics in rap songs and games (rather hypocritically). She also notes that:
"Conspiracy theories are thrilling; reality is not."
and (my edit):
"sweeping online conspiracy theories, [are] far from dissipating upon contact with the real world".
Essentially then, fighting their spread is an uphill battle, and Mark Twain's advice about arguing with fools should probably be heeded in this. Hormonal imbalance is the most likely cause of a lot of conspiracy theories imho, a likely result of eating large amounts of genetically engineered chicken produced in CIA underground mine-farms! (eh-eh-eh!)
Holy shit. Now I understand why the chicken meat is so white. They don't get any sun down in the mine-farms.
Now I understand why we don't have nuclear power in America any more since the chicken farmers took over the uranium mines because the chickens grow faster with more hotwings.
Because the Stanford Internet Observatory has been proven to be tool of the US state security agencies. It is also particularly badly biased against anti-establishment figures and movements.
Listen to Glen Greenwald on "disinformation research" and you will get a good idea of why it is all nonsense.
People should really read the Twitter files posted on X by Taibbi, Weiss, Fang, Shellenberger, Zweig and Berenson before letting their fingers fly about who has been coercing censorship under threat of additional govt regulation. Hint: it wasn't Republicans. SIO was one of many organizations (FBI, CIA, CSIA, etc) that was utilizing direct and exclusive portals into social media companies to curtail what they deemed "mis/dis/mal-information" and promote Biden Administration narrative relative to election security, COVID severity, and the necessity of mRNA vaccination; all false. Republicans on Capitol Hill have been slow to respond to those 1A violations. Substantial arguments were presented in the Murthy v. Missouri before then Supreme Court. A ruling is expected in coming weeks. While I don't believe the case was argued as well as it could have been I sincerely hope that SCOTUS will rule that state coerced censorship which had turned social media into nothing less than a propaganda engine for the Biden Administration violates the 1st Amendment.
Not American kiddies. Most of the shitposters (either side of whatever "argument" they are crying about) are not Yanks, they are just shitposters. Treat them accordingly.
When in doubt, have a glance at their posing history. The shitposters stand out like a sore thumb.
How about the word of someone who was there?
https://web.archive.org/web/20240614113031/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/06/14/sunak-defends-biden-wandered-off-g7-event/
Here's the video you requested, clearly showing that anyone who claims Biden was randomly wandering off is a liar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaETKH5XN4A
Does ElReg allow the removal of the "post anon" tag? If not, damn cats! —jake
Ah, context, yes. And now Rishi is a source of truth and facts too ;)
No, he wandered off. If you believe the 'fine people' or 'inject bleach' BS then I'm sticking to the Biden is a doddering old man who needs to be guided everywhere.
"Here's the video clearly showing that Biden is a liar."
See how that works ;)
Maybe just knowing what foreign govs are posting in your countries social media could have value? Funny to say "Dems did it" or "Repubs are at it again" when the more likely explanation is foreign actors are promulgating misinformation to help meet their own goals.. The amount of finger pointing and vitriol caused certainly shows this is effective... Frankly it is the GOVERNMENTS job to keep it's country safe from enemies, and usually Universities play some role at this, or at least historically that has been the case... The lack of critical thinking about this is frightening..
...and their even more interesting very opaque financing.
At least the hedge funds / private equity who finance people on the other floors of the building are a lot more up front in where the money comes from.
Most buildings on The Farm have very interesting sources of funding for those working inside them. Not just money Stanford defrauds from the Federal government. Now there was a scandal. $50K for kennels for the University Presidents dogs...
In other "misinformation" news. The longest running regular "misinformation" TV programme looks like it too was also recently canned. The morning programme АнтиФейк on 1tv RU just after the morning newscast. Thats Anti-Fake for the Cyrillic deficient.
Looks like even the Russians have given up on trying to counter "fake news/misinformation" on Russian social media. You know, the truth. Or as close as you will get to it.
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