Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Socialbots Start Their Own Country, Declare War on the United States


Russia doesn't usually take the spotlight on the Fake Stage, but we've got a couple good ones here:

Russian trolls' chief target was 'black US voters' in 2016
Oct 2019, BBC News

People smuggler 'built fake Russia-Finland border posts'
Dec 2019, BBC News

Social media platforms leave 95% of reported fake accounts up, study finds
Dec 2019, Ars Technica
A questionably real user commented thus, and I can't agree more:
"If an algorithm wishes to identify as a human, who would be so insensitive as to delegitimize its perspective?"
Post Script
Google steps up battle on 'deepfakes' with data release
Oct 2019, phys.org
A dataset of fake faces has been standardized so it can be used to judge the fakeness of future faces. 
A 'Jackalope' of an ancient spider fossil deemed a hoax, unmasked as a crayfish
Dec 2019, phys.org
Local Chinese farmers skillfully craft a deceiving ancient spider fossil onto a not-so-ancient crayfish not-so-fossil. 
People do this with dinosaur fossils pretty often, as it can make good money. In this case, it's different because the fake spider is not just making money, it's making a new entry into the book of life -- this new spider was given its own scientific name, which was eventually taken back.
US and China clash over Uyghur harassment in Australia and 'fake police cars'
Dec 2019, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
"In an interview with ABC News Breakfast last Thursday, US ambassador Arthur B Culvahouse Jr said China was monitoring and intimidating Uyghurs living in Australia, and that this involved the use of fake Chinese police cars."

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