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UW professor: The information war is real, and we’re losing it


The true common denominator, she found, is anti-globalism — deep suspicion of free trade, multinational business and global institutions.

“To be antiglobalist often included being anti-mainstream media, anti-immigration, anti-science, anti-U.S. government, and anti-European Union,” Starbird says.

So it was like the mind of Stephen Bannon, chief adviser to Trump, spilled across the back channels of the web.

Much of it was strangely pro-Russian, too — perhaps due to Russian twitter bots that bombarded social channels during the presidential campaign (a phenomenon that’s now part of the FBI investigation into the election, McClatchy reported last week).

The mainstream press periodically waded into this swamp, but it only backfired. Its occasional fact checks got circulated as further evidence: If the media is trying to debunk it, then the conspiracy must be true.


Starbird is publishing her paper as a sort of warning. The information networks we’ve built are almost perfectly designed to exploit psychological vulnerabilities to rumor.

“Your brain tells you ‘Hey, I got this from three different sources,’ ” she says. “But you don’t realize it all traces back to the same place, and might have even reached you via bots posing as real people. If we think of this as a virus, I wouldn’t know how to vaccinate for it.”

Starbird says she’s concluded, provocatively, that we may be headed toward “the menace of unreality — which is that nobody believes anything anymore.” Alex Jones, she says, is “a kind of prophet. There really is an information war for your mind. And we’re losing it

kalm wrote:So Spandos, are you in this for the money, the ideology, or are you just a Russian bot?

UW professor: The information war is real, and we’re losing it


The true common denominator, she found, is anti-globalism — deep suspicion of free trade, multinational business and global institutions.

“To be antiglobalist often included being anti-mainstream media, anti-immigration, anti-science, anti-U.S. government, and anti-European Union,” Starbird says.

So it was like the mind of Stephen Bannon, chief adviser to Trump, spilled across the back channels of the web.

Much of it was strangely pro-Russian, too — perhaps due to Russian twitter bots that bombarded social channels during the presidential campaign (a phenomenon that’s now part of the FBI investigation into the election, McClatchy reported last week).

The mainstream press periodically waded into this swamp, but it only backfired. Its occasional fact checks got circulated as further evidence: If the media is trying to debunk it, then the conspiracy must be true.


Starbird is publishing her paper as a sort of warning. The information networks we’ve built are almost perfectly designed to exploit psychological vulnerabilities to rumor.

“Your brain tells you ‘Hey, I got this from three different sources,’ ” she says. “But you don’t realize it all traces back to the same place, and might have even reached you via bots posing as real people. If we think of this as a virus, I wouldn’t know how to vaccinate for it.”

Starbird says she’s concluded, provocatively, that we may be headed toward “the menace of unreality — which is that nobody believes anything anymore.” Alex Jones, she says, is “a kind of prophet. There really is an information war for your mind. And we’re losing it

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... buffer_f_m

Grizalltheway wrote:

kalm wrote:So Spandos, are you in this for the money, the ideology, or are you just a Russian bot?



http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... buffer_f_m

The bitches, man. He's in it for the bitches.

kalm wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote: The bitches, man. He's in it for the bitches.

Does he collect them?

Grizalltheway wrote:

kalm wrote:So Spandos, are you in this for the money, the ideology, or are you just a Russian bot?



http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-new ... buffer_f_m

The bitches, man. He's in it for the bitches.

andy7171 wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote: The bitches, man. He's in it for the bitches.

Yeah man. Get with it Kalmy, hate the game not the player!

kalm wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote: The bitches, man. He's in it for the bitches.

Does he collect them?

AZGrizFan wrote:

kalm wrote:
Does he collect them?

Binders full...

CAA Flagship wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
Binders full...

Bicycle spokes.

kalm wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote: Bicycle spokes.

That's just weird...

CAA Flagship wrote:

kalm wrote:
That's just weird...

phpBB [video]

kalm wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote: The bitches, man. He's in it for the bitches.

Does he collect them?