Taking back Social Media from Russia & friends

[RainCaster]

I follow this great blog on computer security called "Schneier on Security". Lots of great information of a highly technical nature explained in easy to understand language. His blog this week is a timely topic for us and it explains how Vlad & Co. have infiltrated our social media, and what we must do to stop this. It's long, detailed, and rather non-technical. Lots of common sense practical stuff, really.

Step 1: Find the cracks in the fabric of society­ -- the social, demographic, economic, and ethnic divisions. For campaigns that just try to weaken collective trust in government's institutions, lots of cracks will do. But for influence operations that are more directly focused on a particular policy outcome, only those related to that issue will be effective.

Countermeasures: There will always be open disagreements in a democratic society, but one defense is to shore up the institutions that make that society possible. Elsewhere I have written about the "common political knowledge" necessary for democracies to function. That shared knowledge has to be strengthened, thereby making it harder to exploit the inevitable cracks. It needs to be made unacceptable -- or at least costly -- for domestic actors to use these same disinformation techniques in their own rhetoric and political maneuvering, and to highlight and encourage cooperation when politicians honestly work across party lines. The public must learn to become reflexively suspicious of information that makes them angry at fellow citizens. These cracks can't be entirely sealed, as they emerge from the diversity that makes democracies strong, but they can be made harder to exploit. Much of the work in "norms" falls here, although this is essentially an unfixable problem. This makes the countermeasures in the later steps even more important.

Step 2: Build audiences, either by directly controlling a platform (like RT) or by cultivating relationships with people who will be receptive to those narratives. In 2016, this consisted of creating social media accounts run either by human operatives or automatically by bots, making them seem legitimate, gathering followers. In the years following, this has gotten subtler. As social media companies have gotten better at deleting these accounts, two separate tactics have emerged. The first is microtargeting, where influence accounts join existing social circles and only engage with a few different people. The other is influencer influencing, where these accounts only try to affect a few proxies (see step 6) -- either journalists or other influencers -- who can carry their message for them.

Countermeasures: This is where social media companies have made all the difference. By allowing groups of like-minded people to find and talk to each other, these companies have given propagandists the ability to find audiences who are receptive to their messages. Social media companies need to detect and delete accounts belonging to propagandists as well as bots and groups run by those propagandists. Troll farms exhibit particular behaviors that the platforms need to be able to recognize. It would be best to delete accounts early, before those accounts have the time to establish themselves.

This might involve normally competitive companies working together, since operations and account names often cross platforms, and cross-platform visibility is an important tool for identifying them. Taking down accounts as early as possible is important, because it takes time to establish the legitimacy and reach of any one account. The NSA and US Cyber Command worked with the FBI and social media companies to take down Russian propaganda accounts during the 2018 midterm elections. It may be necessary to pass laws requiring Internet companies to do this. While many social networking companies have reversed their "we don't care" attitudes since the 2016 election, there's no guarantee that they will continue to remove these accounts -- especially since their profits depend on engagement and not accuracy.

So how can we do this individually and collectively? I will continue to call out the Idiot Posters I find on Facebook and other social media I frequent. Obvious fake accounts will continue to be flagged by me as well.

[Skittles]

2. question

is DU considered "social media"?

[Clarity2]

3. No

I don't consider it social media in a traditional sense, because its not susceptible to bots, trolls and propaganda. Ok, so you get an individual troll here and there, but obviously this site is very well moderated. I’ve belonged to forums here and there since the 80s, way before the term social media was ever used.

[Skittles]

4. um

there are definitely trolls on DU

[Skittles]

6. LOL I was pointing out a FACT

DONE here