There are good lies and bad lies, apparently. It’s bad propaganda when Russians buy ads on social media, but it’s good propaganda when the CIA does. The Soviet Union emitted a lot of propaganda, and Voice of America didn’t.
Meanwhile, the politically naive complain about “post-modernism” and how everyone acts as though the truth is relative. Well, what else did you expect? [part 1, stderr]
You’re probably familiar with change.org, a media platform for coordinating citizen campaigns. [co] Is it propaganda?
When you click ‘like’ on Facebook or Twitter, or click “send an email” on change.org, have you been influenced by propaganda, or are you simply following your confirmation bias: you found something you already support, so you decided to click your approval. This is the fulcrum around which the entire question of propaganda revolves: to what degree are we creating public opinion rather than merely expressing our existing opinion.
Creating and manipulating public opinion is what the Russians are accused of doing in the 2016 election. One of the tools that we heard a great deal about was their “bot farms” and sockpuppet clouds. Is change.org a sockpuppet cloud? That’s a serious question.
What makes a “bot farm”? Here, it appears that a software layer is being used to harness people into a “meat cloud” of sockpuppets. In a way, I suppose it’s completely ‘legitimate’ since it’s real people. Or, is it? [appstore] Pro-israel propagandists have created an app called Act.Il which coordinates opinion-pushing operations, turning its users into a meat cloud. It’s clever: you’ve got an interface that gamifies political activity – as you carry out your robot-controllers’ orders, you get in-game rewards and achievements.
That’s certainly innocent. Because it wasn’t done by Russians.
As a thought-experiment, imagine that this tool had a red and yellow background with a big hammer/sickle logo at the top, and you were getting your “worker’s capitalist critique” badge, by going on Facebook and posting 10 anti-capitalist memes. Would there be general freak-out if someone did that? Probably not, because Apple would not host the app in the app store. But it hosts App.Il.
It tells you what page to like, it tells you what kinds of tweets to report, it tells you to go out and find an image to get offended at and report it.
The whole time, you have ‘free will’ and you’re not really being a robot.
While I was researching this, I couldn’t help thinking that a “SJW” app would probably be pretty cool. Crowd-source 100,000 people to leave critiques whenever Sam Harris makes a bad argument about torture, or have 100,000 comments on youtube ‘correcting’ Jordan Peterson’s definition of ‘cultural marxism’ whenever he uses the term. In a sense, this is an automation tool for the kind of “pharyngulation” that PZ used to trigger when someone posted a stupid online poll. And, that’s exactly what this tool is for: to coordinate (and therefore manipulate) public response.
I’ve just signed up for it; I want to see if I am told to promote a particular agenda, or whether I am to suppress another agenda.
To me, this introduces the question of the motive of the poster/commenter, and that’s why I usually shelter my arguments about ‘authenticity’ in aesthetic terms: I find inauthenticity to be unattractive. I don’t think it can hold in moral terms; I can’t say: I find inauthenticity to be wrong. This manipulation is suspiciously close to lying, because the users of the system are appearing as though they are acting spontaneously, when they are not. Someone who does not know better might mistake a meat cloud for a surge of popular support. That’s important because social media is believed to capture expressions of popular support; that’s what all the marketing people are paying for and that’s what the people at Cambridge Analytica went to all that trouble to steal.
When we analyze propaganda and how it works, we can think of propaganda as an information theory problem; there is a signal, which is public opinion and there is noise, which is all the sockpuppets and meat clouds. In their attempt to shape and use public opinion, marketing and propaganda obscure it. Consider this: what was the impact of Act.Il on Cambridge Analytica’s models? I would say it made them garbage, but they were garbage to begin with because this elusive “public opinion” is illusory.
I was curious enough about Act.Il to sign up for it and see what missions it offered me. It ordered me to report for take-down an image that I thought was rather well-executed, which I had already ‘liked’ on Facebook.
That is another argument against inauthenticity, namely that in order to lie and manipulate, you must first lie to yourself. Propagandists may believe that they are working for a good cause but by choosing lies as their method, are they not tacitly admitting that the truth is not good enough?
Wouldn’t it be nice if Andre Breton were alive today, and could be contracted to develop a surrealist mission app like act.il? “Today, you are to paint the outline of a raven using the stencil you will find at ${URL} and black spraypaint. Paint it everywhere you can; use at least one spray can worth of paint. To get the gold level achievement, use a case of paint. To get the platinum level achievement, paint it on a cop.”
“I would say it made them garbage, but they were garbage to begin with because this elusive “public opinion” is illusory.” That summarizes my skepticism about a lot of social science studies – there is a signal, and there is noise, and I am not convinced that any amount of statistical manipulation will give sufficiently fine detailed measurement of the signal.
Is Act.Il the kind of technology that Sam Harris fans use? “Alert! HJ Hornbeck made a posting critical of Sam! Here”
The Act.Il app has had some embarrassing security flaws, including one that leaked the email database of all its users. [intercept] It would be interesting indeed if it turned out that there were sockpuppets using a sockpuppeting app; how good is their tradecraft?
No, that’s not entirely accurate. It wouldn’t be called “good propaganda,” because, after all, “good propaganda” is an oxymoron. I have no doubt that American politicians don’t want to use rhetorical devices that are intended to reveal a paradox. When Russians do it, it’s called “propaganda”; however, when the CIA does it, it’s called “education campaign.” In debates, you have to use words that support your position. This is why your political opponents are “doing what the elites want,” yet you are “doing what the experts advise.” When criticizing others, you will talk about “low labor protection standards”; your opponents in the same debate will be talking about “flexible labor regulations.” You will choose solutions that are “simple and easy to accomplish,” yet your opponents will be criticizing your plan for being “simplistic” and you for “choosing the easy option.” You will be talking about “illegal occupation,” yet your opponent will be talking about “freeing the locals.” One’s choice of words makes a lot of difference. Not to mention cases like “Falklands” vs. “Malvinas” or “Derry” vs. “Londonderry.”
Personally, I wouldn’t choose this strategy. An aesthetic statement is very easy to make. You don’t even have to give arguments or defend your claim. However, such a statement is also just as easy to dismiss, as in “you may perceive X as ugly, but I and many other people perceive it as beautiful.” This is why, when making an argument, I’d rather go for it and make a claim that “X is wrong.”
Moreover, when I make a claim “X is unattractive,” I’m not implying that humanity should stop doing X. I can say, for example, that “lies in advertisements are unattractive,” and this claim of mine won’t imply that humanity should stop making misleading advertisements. After all, I only stated my personal aesthetic opinion. However, when making a statement that “lies in advertisements are wrong, because . . .,” I am also implying that humanity should stop making and tolerating them.
It depends. You seem to use the word “authenticity” when referring to various and somewhat different phenomena. This is also why, sometimes, when you talk about “authenticity,” I agree with you and perceive whatever you are complaining about as a problem, while at other times I don’t agree with you that the thing you are talking about really is an issue. It’s pretty hard to defend the idea that it is wrong for politicians to employ speechwriters or for writers to have an editor. Nor would I like to defend in a debate a claim that it is wrong for businesses to send letters with recipient’s address printed in a font that resembles handwriting. Those would be some hard arguments to defend. On the other hand, I find it easy to defend a claim that “lies and misinformation are wrong.” If I can prove that something is a lie or an attempt to dishonestly manipulate people’s opinions, then it’s possible to argue that it’s not just ugly, but also wrong.
That article you linked said: “But not everyone on the app was a mere volunteer. A review by the Intercept of the email addresses that became available through the security flaws suggested that dozens of Act.il’s earliest users have email addresses connected to organizations that funded or developed the app. That means Act.il, which purports to be a grassroots campaign, was essentially seeded with paid activists.”
This was funny. When Putin does the exact same thing (namely, paying people for typing and making clicks online), that’s called “troll farms.”
Ieva Skrebele@#1:
No, that’s not entirely accurate. It wouldn’t be called “good propaganda,” because, after all, “good propaganda” is an oxymoron.
Don’t always read my words literally; I am not practicing philosophy or debate here.
But, that said, I can make an argument that here is “good propaganda” – we just call it ‘outreach’ or something like that. When atheists/skeptics have a podcast, we believe we are explaining stuff and teaching people, but an evangelical fundamentalist might see that as “propaganda.”
Post-modernism appears to hold a winning hand when we get into linguistic relativism.
In debates, you have to use words that support your position. This is why your political opponents are “doing what the elites want,” yet you are “doing what the experts advise.”
I would argue that when we are debating we are engaging in a simulated war of ideas and – because of the oppositional structure (which is a pretty artificial construct) that gamifies the supremacy of one idea over the other – debaters are engaged in a contest of marketing. After all, if the idea under debate were self-evident, there would be no debate.
One’s choice of words makes a lot of difference. Not to mention cases like “Falklands” vs. “Malvinas” or “Derry” vs. “Londonderry.”
Yes, in marketing we have “absorbent” and “extra-absorbent.”
If we are choosing our words in order to present our views in a better light than we otherwise expect people to take them, are we being honest?
Personally, I wouldn’t choose this strategy. An aesthetic statement is very easy to make. You don’t even have to give arguments or defend your claim. However, such a statement is also just as easy to dismiss, as in “you may perceive X as ugly, but I and many other people perceive it as beautiful.” This is why, when making an argument, I’d rather go for it and make a claim that “X is wrong.”
I don’t think, often, that I can make an argument that something-or-other is wrong. I’m sure you’ve noticed me using moral language here and there – but I try not to unless I believe that what I am talking about is self-evident or a statement of simple fact. The problem with relying on “self-evident” things is that it turns out that damn few things are self-evident. For example, one cannot make a claim that “vaccines are obviously good” when it’s obviously non-obvious to some people.
An aesthetic statement is easy to make and it’s easy to defend (and dismiss) “hey, it’s how I roll” is hard to argue with.
Life is not an endless debating team practice. There are some arguments that you may not need to win. In which case, why bother?
Moreover, when I make a claim “X is unattractive,” I’m not implying that humanity should stop doing X. I can say, for example, that “lies in advertisements are unattractive,” and this claim of mine won’t imply that humanity should stop making misleading advertisements. After all, I only stated my personal aesthetic opinion. However, when making a statement that “lies in advertisements are wrong, because . . .,” I am also implying that humanity should stop making and tolerating them.
Yes, except you left out the important part, which is why are lies wrong? I’m not sure I can make that argument well, though I’ve tried here in the past. I’ll note that I didn’t see a great wave of conviction arising from my attempt, so either my argument was not convincing, or I’m wrong, or it’s obvious, or – perhaps I stunned everyone into silence with my brilliance. I suspect it’s the first of the list.
You seem to use the word “authenticity” when referring to various and somewhat different phenomena. This is also why, sometimes, when you talk about “authenticity,” I agree with you and perceive whatever you are complaining about as a problem, while at other times I don’t agree with you that the thing you are talking about really is an issue. It’s pretty hard to defend the idea that it is wrong for politicians to employ speechwriters or for writers to have an editor.
I have made that argument, you know…? It’s OK if it didn’t convince you. But:
If you value articulate and beautiful speeches from politicians how can you not feel they are cheating when they present someone else’s work as their own? If you value politicians not sounding ignorant, then a politician who uses an editor to sound better-educated than they are, is mis-representing themself to you for political effect.
If I can prove that something is a lie or an attempt to dishonestly manipulate people’s opinions, then it’s possible to argue that it’s not just ugly, but also wrong.
We live in a post-modernist world (i.e.: the modernists never succeeded) There is no “proof.”
Using a handwritten font on an envelope of marketing material is a deliberate attempt to fool me into thinking it is a personal letter, not a bunch of marketing material. Imagine my disappointment when I excitedly open what appears to be a personal letter from the President of the NRA, and it turns out to be another robotic fund-raiser letter. For a moment, I thought I mattered.
That article you linked said: “But not everyone on the app was a mere volunteer. A review by the Intercept of the email addresses that became available through the security flaws suggested that dozens of Act.il’s earliest users have email addresses connected to organizations that funded or developed the app. That means Act.il, which purports to be a grassroots campaign, was essentially seeded with paid activists.”
Yes, it was a troll farm. But it’s not a “troll farm” if Israel or the CIA do it.
I hate to disillusion anyone, but it ought not surprise us to discover that the CIA has a “troll farm” that it used to ‘like’ all the comments it posted about how great Gina Haspel is.
So I got it wrong once again. . . Sorry. Apparently, I really suck at this.
I can think of scenarios where I would perceive it as dishonest. For example, once I had a religious boss. When he started talking about religion, I didn’t hide the fact that I’m not religious; however, I intentionally changed my language and choice of words in order to make my attitude towards religion more palatable for a Christian like him. Back then it felt for me like I’m being dishonest and lying, even though, technically, I didn’t lie—I only toned down the fact that I dislike Christianity.
However, I can also think of scenarios where I wouldn’t perceive as dishonest the act of presenting my views in as good light as possible. Sometimes, that’s just common sense. After all, intentionally doing the opposite and portraying your ideas in worse light would be silly.
My benchmark for dishonesty is whether the speaker’s views align with their words. If you believe that something is amazing and you also use the word “amazing” while describing that thing, then you are being honest. However, if you believe that something is merely “good” but publicly call it “amazing,” then you are being dishonest.
Because arguing is fun.
It’s impossible to prove that lies as such are always wrong. After all, your opponent can just come up with some scenario where a lie is a good thing, for example, a situation where lying saves somebody else’s life. Personally, I wouldn’t argue that lies themselves are wrong. Instead, I would argue that it’s wrong to use lies and deception for the sake of hurting other people. It’s wrong, because in this situation another person (and innocent victim) ends up being hurt as a result of your lie.
The thing is, I just don’t feel like they are cheating. When I go to the theater, I value articulate and beautiful speeches from the actors on stage. I don’t feel like the actors are cheating just because somebody else (a playwright) wrote their text for them. I can appreciate a beautiful performance from the actors, and I can also separately appreciate the beautiful text written by the playwright. It’s the same for politicians. I don’t feel like it’s obligatory for the performer and the writer to be one and the same person.
If a politician claimed that they are writing all their speeches, never employing and editor, managing all their social media accounts, and have no advisors, but afterwards this politician got caught not doing all this stuff and instead relying on hired employees to do this work instead, then I’d be pissed off and feel cheated. But not because the politician used a speechwriter—I’d feel cheated, because the politician lied about not doing so. As long as the politician openly admits that they are employing other people, I’m fine with that. Granted, I do feel like speechwriters and advisors get too little credit for their work. I’d like if they got more acknowledgement. But then again, if the person who wrote some speech is satisfied with their job contract, who am I to tell that the contract terms ought to be different?
Personally, I have singlehandedly written less than 50% of all the speeches I have ever made. Before each debate, it is customary for debate club members who make a team to discuss their ideas with each other. Thus each speech is the result of teamwork, it’s not like the speaker wrote it while locked up in a room where they had no contact with the outside world. I just don’t see teamwork as a bad thing.
As for using an editor to sound better-educated than you are and thus misrepresenting yourself, I feel like everybody does this all the time. With my sex slave (who used to be a teacher in my first debate club), whenever one of us is preparing some speech or writing an article for publishing, we often send our drafts to each other to check. I’m fixing spelling mistakes in his texts; he tells me his opinion and often gives me useful ideas for how to improve my texts. People just do these kinds of things. Why should politicians be forbidden from doing that as well? And sounding better-educated than you are. . . I have a habit of reading some book or article and afterwards just re-telling all my friends what I read. This sure makes me sound educated, but in reality I’m only repeating somebody else’s ideas.
Handwritten text looks very different from printed text. You can immediately tell them apart at a glance. If it’s a deliberate attempt to fool somebody, then they aren’t going to succeed. Personally, I see the choice of the font as just an aesthetic decision.
Apparently I’m a lot more cynical than you. If I got a letter (even a handwritten one) from some business, I wouldn’t think even for a second that I might matter for them. Of course, they don’t care for me. And they shouldn’t. When I buy some stuff from some business, they might care about ensuring that I’m satisfied with my purchase—after all, having to deal with returns is a loss of money. They might also care about ensuring that I’m happy with their customer service—returning customers are good for business. But they don’t care about me as a person, they only care about getting my money. For the person who handled my purchase I’m just a name and an address on an invoice. They don’t know me. People tend to care about others only when they personally know them. If some business shows you lots of attention and act as if you were important, then that’s only because they are expecting to get lots of money from you. When buying stuff online, I have occasionally gotten handwritten “thank you for your purchase” notes in my boxes of stuff. I don’t care about these kinds of notes. They don’t make me feel any different. What matters for me is just getting the stuff I ordered. If my stuff is dispatched in a timely manner and corresponds to what I expected, then I’m fine.
People who sent you that letter with the address printed in a font that resembles handwriting could have instead increased their marketing budget and hired somebody to do handwriting on envelopes for 8 hours each day. Would this somehow prove that they care about you? Would this increase the quality of the actual goods they are offering for sale? Would this, at least, be a reliable indicator about the quality of the actual goods they are trying to sell to you? No, of course. It would only prove that they have decided to spend some additional money on marketing. When businesses try to create an illusion that they actually care about you, it’s just an illusion, it’s fake. I don’t mind them doing this, but I certainly don’t need it. I don’t care one way or the other. When I pay for something, I expect to get the stuff I paid for. For example, in a restaurant I expect my waiter to bring me the right food without spilling any of it on me. If they do that, it’s sufficient for me. A fake smile is optional.
The problem with telling whether people really care for you is that this is hard to tell. “Caring” is hard to measure; hence people try to employ simple proxies, which are supposed to facilitate figuring out whether somebody perceives you as important. Handwriting is a really bad proxy, though. I could write somebody’s address on an envelope in about a minute. I could also spend a couple more minutes to take my dip pen and do some pretty decorative copperplate script. Would it prove that I care? Not necessarily. After all, I’m a professional artist who’s done plenty of calligraphy. For me doing some nice looking handwriting is quick and takes no effort. Typing this blog comment took me a lot more time than making some handwritten stuff with a short text. By the way, I write addresses on envelopes only for stuff I’m sending within my country. For international shipments I always try to print the address. Latvian J, I, Z and z letters look different from how English speaking people are expected to write these letters. Once you are a polyglot, you realize that handwriting conventions differ in various countries. Thus I fear that post workers in some foreign country might struggle with correctly deciphering what I wrote.
What bothers me instead is when marketers try to fool me into thinking that we have a friendly relationship going on. For example, sales reps who go to nightclubs or play golf with their customers. I would absolutely hate it if somebody tried this on me. I cannot stand it when somebody pretends to be my friend.
I also hate it when people I have personal relationships with lie to me. For example, I spend an evening with somebody I perceive as a friend. The person smiles and acts as if they are enjoying my company. Only afterwards I find out that they actually were bored and didn’t enjoy spending time with me. It turns out that my whole experience was fake and not what I perceived it to be. I don’t like this shit— I want truth in my private life. Sometimes people can be too polite. If somebody told me to get lost in a rude voice, I’d actually prefer that to having these kinds of fake experiences—at least people are honest when they are rude. And then there are also cases when people pretend to enjoy sex with you while in reality they didn’t. . . This sucks.
My overall attitude towards various types of imitation depends on the circumstances. Often I don’t care about them. All those ugly and tasteless imitations out there (for example, a poorly chosen font on an envelope) are something I just ignore. I don’t like them, but they don’t bother me much either. As long as an imitation is honest about being an imitation and doesn’t try to actually mislead me about its true nature, I’m fine with it.
Sometimes I actually love imitations. I’m fascinated by the art of faux finishes, trompe-l’œil is super cool. Painting a wall to look like marble, painting some surface to look like wood grain, making faux patinas on faux metal surfaces, doing various tricks that can be achieved with gold leaf. . . Hell, yeah, I love that. But again, I like the art of faux only as long as the artist is honest about what it is. If an artist did some cool looking things with gold leaf and openly admitted that this is gold leaf, then I’d like it. If the same artist instead claimed that this is real gold and lied about the technique, then I’d no longer like it. When some imitation actually tries to fool and deceive me about its true nature, then it really bothers me—I don’t like being lied to.