Notices by Renee DiResta (noupside@saturation.social), page 2

Does media shape public perception or is it just people’s firsthand experiences of government not working for them?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/27/republicans-democrats-democracy-polling/

Matt Taibbi has now gone on the Hill TV and claimed that my work is sponsored by DHS and State (it is not), so my calls to use section 230 to “bring these companies to heel” were an “overt threat” (I said no such thing; he lied about this below). CHD is quoting the appearance for their audience. This repetition is how they launder their lies into reality for their followers.

https://saturation.social/@Noupside/112128214710568718

Matt Taibbi is currently having a multi-day meltdown over the extent to which his Twitter Files conspiracy theory was destroyed in SCOTUS oral arguments Monday. And in keeping with his deception over the last year, he deliberately misquoted and lied about me again.

First image is Matt’s post. Second is what I actually said. I was literally expressing *the opposite* point of view - that CDA 230 is not a fix for misinformation and it’s a waste of time when Govt tries to use it that way.

Fascinating article on use of generative AI for overt political propaganda — making a cuddly cute avatar of a General running for office in Indonesia. There’s a lot more in here that’s likely also covert - bots etc - but worth reading some reaction commentary from people consuming the stuff.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/generative-ai-faces-major-test-indonesia-holds-largest-election-since-boom-2024-02-08/

Conversations with the 3yo on this family holiday visit: “what are you going to be when you grow up?”

“A human. But a little bit taller.”

Academic institutions - many institutions - just do not know how to respond to bad faith attacks. The game has changed. The opponents don’t care about facts, only optics. Communications teams must start to understand what they’re actually engaging with.

I just turned in my book manuscript!

I could have second-guessed every word for many more weeks but it feels so good to just be done with it.

Since Alex Jones is back on Twitter and it is being processed in the context of “free speech” I would like to share one of my favorite content policy documents of all time: Infowars’ TOS.

All civilizations have rules.

As the first election in the age of unreality approaches, it’ll be interesting to see how compliance shapes up, and how this is enforced.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-06/google-to-require-prominent-disclosures-for-ai-generated-election-ads

What will YOU spend your precious 600 posts a day on?

ngl…I appreciate this real-time experiment in friction in design 😂

“My follower count is dropping! I’m being censored!”

Lol no your mid content just resulted in unfollows bc people don’t want to accidentally consume you as part of their 600 posts.

People say a lot of crazy things on the internet; I usually ignore it. But today, after nearly a full month of being smeared by Twitter Files writer Michael Shellenberger, including in sworn Congressional testimony, I’m releasing some files of my own: our WhatsApp texts, email conversation, and an interview that he did of me but never published.

https://reneediresta.substack.com/p/fiction-vs-reality-my-texts-with

People who have apparently never considered the design of social media platforms or the business incentives of companies are missing the point here.

Put another way: a proliferation of harassment and brigading - things twitter struggled with in the past, which technically qualify as “free speech” - stifles assembly on the platform, as other users self-censor or leave to avoid that harassment.

Everything You've Ever Wanted To Know about Generative AI and Influence Operations - a new report out today by my team at SIO, Georgetown CSET, and OpenAI.

That is not really the title. It's "Generative Language Models and Automated Influence Operations: Emerging Threats and Potential Mitigations". But it's a whitepaper hopefully of interest to both AI research and disinfo/influence ops research communities. :)

https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/publication/generative-language-models-and-automated-influence-operations-emerging-threats-and

Facts don’t matter when an influencer commands an online mob. This has been true for years now. There is no counter-speech from outsiders that will be taken seriously or trusted. The targets of lies aren’t asked for their side, and wouldn’t be believed anyway, so there’s little incentive to participate (and legitimize the “controversy”). There is no 3rd party fact-check that will be carefully evaluated on its merits.

This is really the only dynamic that matters in our politics today.

Life comes at you fast.

The Platform Accountability and Transparency Act got reintroduced- here’s a summary of the latest. If you’re an academic who studies social media, or a civil society researcher or journalist, this is one to be paying attention to. The mercurial dynamics of the bird app - API access at the whims of management - should hopefully clarify why this has always mattered and why regulatory attention is worthwhile.

https://techpolicy.press/the-platform-accountability-and-transparency-act-take-two/

Interesting graph of follower growth of certain politicians on Twitter…the top few appear among the Suggested Follows list that shows up after following EM.