Battling the weaponised drones of popular opinion

Posted November 3, 2014 in comment, politics, twitter  |  No Comments so far

Kevin at Strange Attractor on what the tactics of Gamergaters tell us about the future of online political discourse.

When you look at the techniques being used by some of these groups, you quickly get a sense of how the next partisan political scorched earth campaign will be fought. Sockpuppets will become the weaponised drones of popular opinion, amplifying marginal views so that they swamp mainstream opinion.

The article’s broadly pessimistic tone resonates with me, but I feel more positive when thinking about the countermeasures that could protect against these tactics. The Eliza chatbot set up to engage these sock puppets is just one example, acting more as chaff—attracting attackers and wasting their resources—than as an offensive weapon.

If ideas like that proliferate and evolve we might just escape a future where we have to abandon the web to swarms of hate-spewing bots.


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