Author: Eric Saeger
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1732583501
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
It's beyond dispute that trolls and automated "bots" helped Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Some of the troll operations involved were based in Russia, but domestic interests also participated in the invasion. In fact, trolls of all types, from all corners of the internet, came together in a perfect storm of propaganda, disinformation, and political dissent. The confusion wrought by the multi-pronged troll invasion still affects our online spaces today, leaving many questions unanswered. Who are the trolls? What do they want? How do they operate? Why couldn't our intelligence agencies put a stop to Russian and right-wing trolling? Can trolling be stopped? And what's with all the freakin' Nazis? One thing is certain: the troll invasions wouldn't have succeeded if America hadn't been divided on many pressing issues. Deep cultural woes, such as racism, our "New Generation Gap," and the slow destruction of the middle class, were part of the toxic environment that allowed trolls to flourish. This book - the first from software expert, award-winning internet troll and long-time underground-culture fixture Eric Saeger - examines all these issues with an impartial eye. The limitations and realities of current technology are explained in clear, simple language, revealing the tactics of everyday trolls and describing how future technology promises to make the internet a safe, livable place for everyone. Most important of all, along the way, you'll see the humor in our dire but salvageable situation. Once we understand the invaders, we'll no longer fear RUSSIAN NAZI TROLL BOTS!
Author: Eric W. Saeger
Publisher: Metro Clarion Media
ISBN: 173258351X
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 166
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Book Description
It's beyond dispute that trolls and automated "bots" helped Donald Trump win the White House in 2016. Some of the troll operations involved were based in Russia, but domestic interests also participated in the invasion. In fact, trolls of all types, from all corners of the internet, came together in a perfect storm of propaganda, disinformation, and political dissent. The confusion wrought by the multi-pronged troll invasion still affects our online spaces today, leaving many questions unanswered. Who are the trolls? What do they want? How do they operate? Why couldn't our intelligence agencies put a stop to Russian and right-wing trolling? Can trolling be stopped? And what's with all the freakin' Nazis? One thing is certain: the troll invasions wouldn't have succeeded if America hadn't been divided on many pressing issues. Deep cultural woes, such as racism, our "New Generation Gap," and the slow destruction of the middle class, were part of the toxic environment that allowed trolls to flourish. This book – the first from software expert, award-winning internet troll and long-time underground-culture fixture Eric Saeger – examines all these issues with an impartial eye. The limitations and realities of current technology are explained in clear, simple language, revealing the tactics of everyday trolls and describing how future technology promises to make the internet a safe, livable place for everyone. Most important of all, along the way, you'll see the humor in our dire but salvageable situation. Once we understand the invaders, we'll no longer fear RUSSIAN NAZI TROLL BOTS!
Author: Eric W. Saeger
Publisher: Metro Clarion Media
ISBN: 1732583536
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
In 2020, a veteran culture critic took on a social media experiment he called "Supersize Me Twitter" (he refuses to call it "X"). For one full year (which turned into four), he would post about politics every day on "leftist Twitter," but without "choosing a side" between Democrats, socialists, communists or progressives. This is the story of that bad idea and what he learned during that time. Informed by such thinkers as Alvin Toffler, Barbara Ehrenreich, Chalmers Johnson, Mark Blyth, Michael Hudson, Clara Mattei, Robert Ovetz, Steve Keen and dozens of others, this book is intended as a "travel guide" for activists, organizers and curiosity seekers alike. It demystifies such recent developments as the decline of corporate social media platforms, the rise of independent media (the "Fifth Estate") as it replaces the mainstream media, "punk economics," divisions within the "online left" itself, and why the US economic system has entered its "late stage capitalism" phase. The second book from Russian Nazi Troll Bots author Eric Saeger examines what a "unified online left" could accomplish by coming to agreement on real-world objectives, combatting divisive propaganda and joining forces, first by looking at alternative social media platforms, then by looking at the commonalities and differences between liberals and "farther-leftists," and finally by offering practical advice on activist strategies like hashtag campaigns and other techniques that could potentially augment the work of organizers involved in labor, climate and other areas of activism.
Author: Teri Kanefield
Publisher: First Second
ISBN: 1250370272
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Lies destroy. Disinformation tears at the fabric of democracy. A Firehose of Falsehood: The Story of Disinformation breaks down disinformation tactics and offers tools for defending and restoring truth. From Darius I of ancient Persia (522-486 BCE), to blood libel of the Middle Ages, to Soviet disinformation tactics and modern election deniers, Teri Kanefield and Pat Dorian show how tyrants and would-be tyrants deploy disinformation to gain power. Democracy, which draws its authority from laws instead of the whim of a tyrant, requires truth. For a democracy to survive, its citizens must preserve and defend truth. Now that the Internet has turned what was once a trickle of lies into a firehose, the challenge of holding on to truth has never been greater. A Firehose of Falsehood offers readers these necessary tools.
Author: Mira Sucharov
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487587473
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230
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Book Description
How can twenty-first-century scholars and other experts engage with wider audiences beyond their peers? In Public Influence, Mira Sucharov walks readers through the ins and outs of op-ed writing and social media engagement. Enlivened with discussions of an array of hot-button issues and sharp analysis of the delicate dynamics of social media, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to harness the opportunities of public engagement in this vital digital age.
Author: Carlo Penco
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 631
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Book Description
What is disinformation, and why does it matter? How can we understand and detect different kinds of disinformation? With an analysis of relevant events of the period 2012-2022, the book attempts to answer these questions. The book is organized into four parts. (1) The first part presents the notions of post-truth and fake news using some of the most recent critical studies, analyzing some typical examples and the environment in which some of them originated. (2) The second part introduces the notion of conspiracy theory and describes the emergence of the idea of white supremacy and its ramifications, together with the narratives developed during the COVID restrictions. (3) The third part describes the emergence of the algorithms behind social networks and their role in propaganda, making examples of US and European elections and the Brexit referendum. An analysis of 'Cambridge Analytica' shows the tip of an iceberg of disinformation that is spreading around the world. Some remarks by comedians and philosophers help to give a new view on the concept of freedom of speech, with particular attention to the more and more difficult freedom of the press. (4) The fourth part gives some “emergency tools” for detecting disinformation at an individual level, understanding the most hidden mechanisms of disinformation, and the biases that almost unavoidably enter our minds. These tools come from the results both of traditional theories and the most recent social philosophy of language, not despising references to statistics. This is a fundamental book for having a general survey of this period of political turmoil, consulting a wide list of references and official documents, and having a grasp of the means of intellectual self-defense. This book is non-standard: it relies on the most sophisticated theories of language and yet it gives everything in simple and colloquial language. Differently from sophisticated analyses of linguistic phenomena, it gives the feeling of participating in a tour around what happened in the last decade, with a disenchanted eye that uses some results of the critical literature, without compelling one to become a theoretician in the field of philosophy or critical analysis. The hidden focus of the book is freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and what they mean today in an era of more sophisticated and widespread disinformation permitted by the algorithms governing social networks...
Author: Michiko Kakutani
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0525574832
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize–winning critic comes an impassioned critique of America’s retreat from reason We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left clinging to the beliefs that best confirm our biases. How did truth become an endangered species in contemporary America? This decline began decades ago, and in The Death of Truth, former New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani takes a penetrating look at the cultural forces that contributed to this gathering storm. In social media and literature, television, academia, and politics, Kakutani identifies the trends—originating on both the right and the left—that have combined to elevate subjectivity over factuality, science, and common values. And she returns us to the words of the great critics of authoritarianism, writers like George Orwell and Hannah Arendt, whose work is newly and eerily relevant. With remarkable erudition and insight, Kakutani offers a provocative diagnosis of our current condition and points toward a new path for our truth-challenged times.
Author: Steve Almond
Publisher: Red Hen Press
ISBN: 1597092231
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
“Almond draws on everything from The Grapes of Wrath to the voting practices of his babysitter to dismantle the false narratives about American democracy.” —Cheryl Strayed, international-bestselling author of Wild Like a lot of Americans, Steve Almond spent the weeks after the 2016 election lying awake, in a state of dread and bewilderment. The problem wasn’t just the election, but the fact that nobody could explain, in any sort of coherent way, why America had elected a cruel, corrupt, and incompetent man to the Presidency. Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country is Almond’s effort to make sense of our historical moment, to connect certain dots that go unconnected amid the deluge of hot takes and think pieces. Almond looks to literary voices—from Melville to Orwell, from Bradbury to Baldwin—to help explain the roots of our moral erosion as a people. The book argues that Trumpism is a bad outcome arising directly from the bad stories we tell ourselves. To understand how we got here, we have to confront our cultural delusions: our obsession with entertainment, sports, and political parody, the degeneration of our free press into a for-profit industry, our enduring pathologies of race, class, immigration, and tribalism. Bad Stories is a lamentation aimed at providing clarity. It’s the book you can pass along to an anguished fellow traveler with the promise, This will help you understand what the hell happened to our country. “Almond holds up literature as a guide through America’s age-old moral dilemmas and finds hope for his country in family, forgiveness, and political resistance.” —Booklist
Author: Frederik Stjernfelt
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030259684
Category : Freedom of speech
Languages : en
Pages : 295
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Book Description
This open access monograph argues established democratic norms for freedom of expression should be implemented on the internet. Moderating policies of tech companies as Facebook, Twitter and Google have resulted in posts being removed on an industrial scale. While this moderation is often encouraged by governments - on the pretext that terrorism, bullying, pornography, "hate speech" and "fake news" will slowly disappear from the internet - it enables tech companies to censure our society. It is the social media companies who define what is blacklisted in their community standards. And given the dominance of social media in our information society, we run the risk of outsourcing the definition of our principles for discussion in the public domain to private companies. Instead of leaving it to social media companies only to take action, the authors argue democratic institutions should take an active role in moderating criminal content on the internet. To make this possible, tech companies should be analyzed whether they are approaching a monopoly. Antitrust legislation should be applied to bring those monopolies within democratic governmental oversight. Despite being in different stages in their lives, Anne Mette is in the startup phase of her research career, while Frederik is one of the most prolific philosophers in Denmark, the authors found each other in their concern about Free Speech on the internet. The book was originally published in Danish as Dit opslag er blevet fjernet - techgiganter & ytringsfrihed. Praise for 'Your Post has been Removed' "From my perspective both as a politician and as private book collector, this is the most important non-fiction book of the 21st Century. It should be disseminated to all European citizens. The learnings of this book and the use we make of them today are crucial for every man, woman and child on earth. Now and in the future." Jens Rohde, member of the European Parliament for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe "This timely book compellingly presents an impressive array of information and analysis about the urgent threats the tech giants pose to the robust freedom of speech and access to information that are essential for individual liberty and democratic self-government. It constructively explores potential strategies for restoring individual control over information flows to and about us. Policymakers worldwide should take heed!" Nadine Strossen, Professor, New York Law School. Author, HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship.
Author: Timothy Snyder
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0525574476
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of On Tyranny comes a stunning new chronicle of the rise of authoritarianism from Russia to Europe and America. “A brilliant analysis of our time.”—Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New Yorker With the end of the Cold War, the victory of liberal democracy seemed final. Observers declared the end of history, confident in a peaceful, globalized future. This faith was misplaced. Authoritarianism returned to Russia, as Vladimir Putin found fascist ideas that could be used to justify rule by the wealthy. In the 2010s, it has spread from east to west, aided by Russian warfare in Ukraine and cyberwar in Europe and the United States. Russia found allies among nationalists, oligarchs, and radicals everywhere, and its drive to dissolve Western institutions, states, and values found resonance within the West itself. The rise of populism, the British vote against the EU, and the election of Donald Trump were all Russian goals, but their achievement reveals the vulnerability of Western societies. In this forceful and unsparing work of contemporary history, based on vast research as well as personal reporting, Snyder goes beyond the headlines to expose the true nature of the threat to democracy and law. To understand the challenge is to see, and perhaps renew, the fundamental political virtues offered by tradition and demanded by the future. By revealing the stark choices before us--between equality or oligarchy, individuality or totality, truth and falsehood--Snyder restores our understanding of the basis of our way of life, offering a way forward in a time of terrible uncertainty.
