Carefully crafted social media posts and other online propaganda are fighting to make people around the world take sides, harden their positions and even move broader public opinion.
To understand this information war, we need to understand where and how arguments and ideologies are promoted and developed online.
Inside the dark web, those developing mis- and disinformation can use techniques that are used by legitimate marketing companies in the outside world. They can experiment with messages, and test the responses they receive to them. On dark web forums, groups of activists can collaborate on messaging, imagery, timing and targeting to best effect.
Another origin of much misinformation is “troll farms”, which are staffed by government agents or their proxies in China, North Korea and Russia etc...
They are increasingly using AI-driven bots programmed to spread particular narratives or key words or phrases. “Viral” bots magnify the reach of their content by getting networks of other bots to repost it, which in turn encourages search engine and social media algorithms that favour popular and provocative posts to give it greater prominence.
(PDF URL)
https://oro.open.ac.uk/66155/8/70-Article%20Text-258-2-10-20190906.pdf
The dark web origins of misinformation makes it much harder for governments to track and stop the people creating it, as does the use of encrypted messaging services
The traditional media is also struggling to sift through and counter the weight of misinformation about Gaza, which appears in social media much faster than journalists can verify or debunk it. And the death of so many journalists in Gaza is making accurate news harder to gather.
So when traditional news is seen as inadequate or hard to come by, people are more likely to turn social media and its flood of dark web-created misinformation.
@ecksmc: Yep.
What's happening with AI is *EXACYTLY* what we/others said was going to happen and that it was going to happen long and fara and away before anyone in the traditional media, any government, and any NGO was going to have the slightest handle on how to counter it, but "No!" we were assured/scolded. "Nobody will allow that to happen."
Just like porn wasn't going to be one of the dtiving investors and developers of CG, streaming, e-commerce, and CD-ROM tech.
@ecksmc Meanwhile they could probably be making memes and eating some sort of decent food and having a good time .....hmmm
Misinformation contractors
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-dark-webs-latest-offering-disinformation-as-a-service
now make their services available on the dark web (an encrypted part of the web that makes it very difficult to identify users) to people looking to mount widespread campaigns.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/15/revealed-disinformation-team-jorge-claim-meddling-elections-tal-hanan