06-02-2024, 12:13 AM
This post was last modified 06-02-2024, 12:44 AM by Maxmars.
Edit Reason: spelling
As could be explected, the news of this research has spawned more coverage of the "opinion-making" variety.
From The Register: Twitter 'supersharers' of fake news tend to be older Republican women
Subtitled: Tiny percentage of users make X miss the spot
(Sadly, the bias is here from the opening shot... This research uses data from before Musk bought and renamed Twitter "X." But some authors are very eager to trash "X" whenever, and wherever, they can.)
About 80 percent of the fake news shared on Twitter during the 2020 US presidential election came from just 0.3 percent of users, according to researchers from Israel and the US.
These "supersharers" were disproportionately likely to be older, Republican women from Texas, Florida, and Arizona, according to a study published in the journal Science by Sahar Baribi-Bartov, Briony Swire-Thompson, and Nir Grinberg.
And their output was not the result of automation, it's believed, but rather reflects "manual and persistent retweeting," the academics say. "These findings highlight a vulnerability of social media for democracy, where a small group of people distort the political reality for many."
Clearly, the data used in the research included voting registry information. But the article did include a comparison that surprised me...
These supersharers thus had more reach than Russia's foreign influence campaign on Twitter in 2016, based on estimates that 3.4 percent of Americans on Twitter at that time followed a Russia-controlled account.
Well, that little stat kind of belies the outrage chanting of security 'experts' and 'consultants' who deman huge increases in defense spending over the threat of Russia characterized as momentous and dangerous.
Here these folks ... not anything exceptional in the way of "organization..." beat them to the "political relevance" punch. Someone calcualted that it would have taken $20 million dollars worth of political ads to have the same reach as simply "sharing" links with "Fake News" origins. And the fact that they were "Republicans" can soon be expected to be used to disparage anyone of that political bent... just wait for it... it's "how they do."
And, in true think-tank method, they also offer this little point -
"Our research shows that platform interventions that target supersharers or impose retweet limits could be highly effective at reducing a large portion of exposure to fake news on social media," the researchers argue.
Once again... the answer is "controlling" the user, and what they should be "allowed" to share. Withour ever once focusing on exactly what defines "Fake News" (other than "they don't like it.")
It is clear that whoever is the think in this work feels entitled to determine what content "should be allowed."
"I personally think that what we're seeing right now is platforms with very loose limits on speech, and my personal opinion is that we are seeing mostly potential harms and abuse of this unlimited quantity of speech, while the benefits of letting it run without limitation are not that clear."
Unlimited 'free speech'... that can only be a 'bad' thing, right?
From The Register: Twitter 'supersharers' of fake news tend to be older Republican women
Subtitled: Tiny percentage of users make X miss the spot
(Sadly, the bias is here from the opening shot... This research uses data from before Musk bought and renamed Twitter "X." But some authors are very eager to trash "X" whenever, and wherever, they can.)
About 80 percent of the fake news shared on Twitter during the 2020 US presidential election came from just 0.3 percent of users, according to researchers from Israel and the US.
These "supersharers" were disproportionately likely to be older, Republican women from Texas, Florida, and Arizona, according to a study published in the journal Science by Sahar Baribi-Bartov, Briony Swire-Thompson, and Nir Grinberg.
And their output was not the result of automation, it's believed, but rather reflects "manual and persistent retweeting," the academics say. "These findings highlight a vulnerability of social media for democracy, where a small group of people distort the political reality for many."
Clearly, the data used in the research included voting registry information. But the article did include a comparison that surprised me...
These supersharers thus had more reach than Russia's foreign influence campaign on Twitter in 2016, based on estimates that 3.4 percent of Americans on Twitter at that time followed a Russia-controlled account.
Well, that little stat kind of belies the outrage chanting of security 'experts' and 'consultants' who deman huge increases in defense spending over the threat of Russia characterized as momentous and dangerous.
Here these folks ... not anything exceptional in the way of "organization..." beat them to the "political relevance" punch. Someone calcualted that it would have taken $20 million dollars worth of political ads to have the same reach as simply "sharing" links with "Fake News" origins. And the fact that they were "Republicans" can soon be expected to be used to disparage anyone of that political bent... just wait for it... it's "how they do."
And, in true think-tank method, they also offer this little point -
"Our research shows that platform interventions that target supersharers or impose retweet limits could be highly effective at reducing a large portion of exposure to fake news on social media," the researchers argue.
Once again... the answer is "controlling" the user, and what they should be "allowed" to share. Withour ever once focusing on exactly what defines "Fake News" (other than "they don't like it.")
It is clear that whoever is the think in this work feels entitled to determine what content "should be allowed."
"I personally think that what we're seeing right now is platforms with very loose limits on speech, and my personal opinion is that we are seeing mostly potential harms and abuse of this unlimited quantity of speech, while the benefits of letting it run without limitation are not that clear."
Unlimited 'free speech'... that can only be a 'bad' thing, right?
