Misinformation Networks

Entire networks, vast, deep, and coordinated. Not to imply conspiracy theories; they aren't that coordinated. But they are big, and myriad.

A description of how one of these networks operates:

"The group was able to gain followers by setting up innocent-looking pages and groups. It later renamed them, and started posting politically-motivated content...including topics like immigration, free speech, racism, LGBT issues, far-right politics, issues between India and Pakistan, and religious beliefs including Islam and Christianity."
-BBC

"We're taking down these pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they posted."
-Facebook via BBC

They call it "co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour". I don't recall hearing this as part of the story of digital surveillance in general, but it sounds like an improvement. (Well, there's articles dating back to Nov 2018 at least, where this term is used.) Behavior is data-rich, and makes Content look one-dimensional in contrast. Coordinated behavior is even more data-rich, because we're talking about the behavior of people in the context of other people.

-image source: MIT


Notes:
Facebook finds UK-based 'fake news' network
Mar 2019, BBC News

Bot Barometer

I'd really love to hear what other totally untrafficked weblog authors have to add to this (ah, the irony). I'm convinced that because no real person ever visits my page, all my traffic must be bots, that is, automated web explorers, looking for data gold in the distant lands of the blogosphere.

The dozen or so hits I get for every post are most likely the result of some kind of trawling spider, sniffing every corner of the web, every day. And every once in a while, I get a spike of hundreds, sometimes a few hundred views. And guess who is my #1 audience.