Misinformation in some weird ways

[rslade]

Misinformation, and disinformation, is rife, and we need to find ways to address it.  To address it, we need to study it.

We know that there is a significant chunk of misinformation that is simply being created as "clickbait": stories merely created to drive traffic to various sites, primarily for monetary compensation.  (Studies have demonstrated that most of this traffic, and these stories, appeal to the right wing of the political spectrum, possibly because of lack of education or the appeal of simplistic positions, but most clickbait contractors are just in it for the money.)

A recent story notes, essentially, the theft of legitimate content, and some (probably automated) means of modifying the stories and preventing plagiarism detection.

[Caute_cautim]

@rslade    Very good plural stories; a Chinese experiment or even Russian?   Testing new systems to see how the public react and how well they influence outcomes?   This is analogous to Google Datasets, which are available - but honestly how were they collected, what bias has been applied to them and are they telling the truth and nothing but the truth.  What is the quality of those datasets?  Have they been filtered from many sources removing people's names, places and other identifying aspects?  What incorrect information has been fed into them, which may cause inappropriate decisions being made

Regards

Caute_cautim