Re How Fiction Becomes Fact on Social Media

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Hasan Diwan <hasan.diwan () gmail com>
> Date: October 22, 2017 at 2:55:11 PM EDT
> To: "dave () farber net" <dave () farber net>
> Subject: Re: [IP] How Fiction Becomes Fact on Social Media
>
> Prof Farber,
> [for IP, if you should so choose, comments inline]
>
> > On 22 October 2017 at 03:05, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > > Hours after the Las Vegas massacre, Travis McKinney’s Facebook feed was hit with a scattershot of conspiracy 
> > > theories. The police were lying. There were multiple shooters in the hotel, not just one. The sheriff was covering 
> > > for casino owners to preserve their business.
> > >
> > > The political rumors sprouted soon after, like digital weeds. The killer was anti-Trump, an “antifa” activist, said 
> > > some; others made the opposite claim, that he was an alt-right terrorist. The two unsupported narratives ran into 
> > > the usual stream of chatter, news and selfies.
> > >
> > > “This stuff was coming in from all over my network of 3ll00 to 400” friends and followers, said Mr. McKinney, 52, 
> > > of Suffolk, Va., and some posts were from his inner circle.
> > > But he knew there was only one shooter; a handgun instructor and defense contractor, he had been listening to the 
> > > police scanner in Las Vegas with an app. “I jumped online and tried to counter some of this nonsense,” he said.
> > >
> > > In the coming weeks, executives from Facebook and Twitter will appear before congressional committees to answer 
> > > questions about the use of their platforms by Russian hackers and others to spread misinformation and skew 
> > > elections. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Facebook sold more than 
> > > 100,000worthofadstoaKremlin−linkedcompany,andGooglesoldmorethan100,000worthofadstoaKremlin−linkedcompany,andGooglesoldmorethan4,500
> > >  worth to accounts thought to be connected to the Russian government.
>
> I've noticed this phenomenon in my network as well. My mother sent me a message regarding how Brexit would lead to 
> increased immigration controls and how there were 100,000,000 Romanians landing in Britain every week. She had a 
> distribution list several screens long of friends, relatives, people I'd met, people I'd never met. 
>
> Now, 100 million daily arrivals would swamp any society. Yes, if they were landing in London, they'd be taking 
> everyone's job. So I mentioned that this was higher than the population of Britain and asked everyone in a "Reply 
> All" if they heard exclusively Romanian in their given day. Instead of a response to my question, I was accused of 
> being an "EU plant". No amount of explaining how this claim fell flat on the face of the ONS' (the UK Office of 
> National Statistics) published figures dispelled this notion.
>
> And we're an Asian family. My grandparents came to Europe as immigrants and I found it hard to believe that my own 
> mother, raised in cosmopolitan France, would be forwarding this tripe.  
> > > Agents with links to the Russian government set up an endless array of fake accounts and websites and purchased a 
> > > slew of advertisements on Google and Facebook, spreading dubious claims that seemed intended to sow division all 
> > > along the political spectrum — “a cultural hack,” in the words of one expert.
> > >
> > > Yet the psychology behind social media platforms — the dynamics that make them such powerful vectors of 
> > > misinformation in the first place — is at least as important, experts say, especially for those who think they’re 
> > > immune to being duped. For all the suspicions about social media companies’ motives and ethics, it is the 
> > > interaction of the technology with our common, often subconscious psychological biases that makes so many of us 
> > > vulnerable to misinformation, and this has largely escaped notice.
> > >
> > > Skepticism of online “news” serves as a decent filter much of the time, but our innate biases allow it to be 
> > > bypassed, researchers have found — especially when presented with the right kind of algorithmically selected “meme.”
>
> The "fake news" phenomenon reminds me of what an instructor once said of religion, that it necessitates leaving your 
> brain outside the place of worship. The instructor was laid off soon after. In my opinion, said instructor was right. 
> -- H
> > > At a time when political misinformation is in ready supply, and in demand, “Facebook, Google, and Twitter function 
> > > as a distribution mechanism, a platform for circulating false information and helping find receptive audiences,” 
> > > said Brendan Nyhan, a professor of government at Dartmouth College (and occasional contributor to The Times’s 
> > > Upshot column).
> > >
> > > For starters, said Colleen Seifert, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, “People have a 
> > > benevolent view of Facebook, for instance, as a curator, but in fact it does have a motive of its own. What it’s 
> > > actually doing is keeping your eyes on the site. It’s curating news and information that will keep you watching.”
> > >
> > > That kind of curating acts as a fertile host for falsehoods by simultaneously engaging two predigital 
> > > social-science standbys: the urban myth as “meme,” or viral idea; and individual biases, the automatic, 
> > > subconscious presumptions that color belief.
> > >
> > > The first process is largely data-driven, experts said, and built into social media algorithms. The wide 
> > > circulation of bizarre, easily debunked rumors — so-called Pizzagate, for example, the canard that Hillary Clinton 
> > > was running a child sex ring from a Washington-area pizza parlor — is not entirely dependent on partisan fever 
> > > (though that was its origin).
> > >
> > > For one, the common wisdom that these rumors gain circulation because most people conduct their digital lives in 
> > > echo chambers or “information cocoons” is exaggerated, Dr. Nyhan said.
> > >
> > > In a forthcoming paper, Dr. Nyhan and colleagues review the relevant research, including analyses of partisan 
> > > online news sites and Nielsen data, and find the opposite. Most people are more omnivorous than presumed; they are 
> > > not confined in warm bubbles containing only agreeable outrage.
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> > > Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
> >
> > Archives  | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now        
>
>
>
> -- 
> OpenPGP: https://sks-keyservers.net/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xFEBAD7FFD041BBA1
> If you wish to request my time, please do so using http://bit.ly/hd1ScheduleRequest.
> Si vous voudrais faire connnaisance, allez a http://bit.ly/hd1ScheduleRequest.
>
> Sent from my mobile device
> Envoye de mon portable



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/18849915-ae8fa580
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-aa268125
Unsubscribe Now: 
https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-32545cb4&post_id=20171022154849:04102A1E-B762-11E7-AB29-84788B6216F1
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com