Internet Politics 📍

Political Hobbyists Are Ruining Politics – The Atlantic

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Political Hobbyists Are Ruining Politics – The Atlantic

In other words, college-educated people, especially college-educated white people, do politics as hobbyists because they can. On the political left, they may say they fear President Donald Trump. They may lament polarization. But they are pretty comfortable with the status quo. They don’t have the same concrete needs as Matias’s community in Haverhill. Nor do they feel a sense of obligation, of “linked fate,” to people who have concrete needs such that they are willing to be their allies. They might front as allies on social media, but very few white liberals are actively engaging in face-to-face political organizations, committing their time to fighting for racial equality or any other issue they say they care about.

How A New Breed Of PR Firms Is Selling Lies Online

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Disinformation For Hire: How A New Breed Of PR Firms Is Selling Lies Online

Peng Kuan Chin pulled out his phone, eager to show the future of online manipulation.

Unseen servers began crawling the web for Chinese articles and posts. The system quickly reorganized the words and sentences into new text. His screen displayed a rapidly increasing tally of the articles generated by his product, which he dubs the “Content Farm Automatic Collection System." ADVERTISEMENT

With the articles in hand, a set of websites that Peng controlled published them, and his thousands of fake social media accounts spread them across the internet, instantly sending manipulated content into news feeds, messaging app inboxes, and search results.

"I developed this for manipulating public opinion,” Peng told the Reporter, an investigative news site in Taipei, which partnered with BuzzFeed News for this article. He added that automation and artificial intelligence “can quickly generate traffic and publicity much faster than people.”

The Two Myths of the Internet | WIRED

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The Two Myths of the Internet | WIRED

On January 21, 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed a crowd at the Newseum in Washington, DC. She was there to proclaim the power and importance of “internet freedom.” In the previous few years, she said, online tools had enabled people all around the world to organize blood drives, plan demonstrations, and even mobilize in mass demonstrations for democracy. “A connection to global information networks is like an on-ramp to modernity,” she declared, and the US would do its part to help promote “a planet with one internet, one global community, and a common body of knowledge that benefits us all.”

Clinton’s speech acknowledged that the internet could also be a darker instrument—that its power might be hacked to evil ends, used for spewing hatred or the crushing of dissent. But her thesis rested on the clear beliefs of techno-fundamentalism: that digital technologies necessarily tend toward freedom of association and speech, and that the US-based companies behind the platforms would promote American values. Democracy would spread. Borders would open. Minds would open.

Wouldn’t that have been nice? Ten years later, Clinton is a private citizen, denied the highest office she would seek by a political amateur who leveraged Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to drive enthusiasm for his nativist, protectionist, and racist agenda. Oh, and the Newseum is closing down as well. Back in 2010, Clinton had called that institution “a monument to some of our most precious freedoms.” Now it too appears to be a relic of a bygone optimism.

How millennials became a generation of homebodies — Quartzy

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How millennials became a generation of homebodies — Quartzy

Nobody wants to leave their apartment anymore. That’s the prevailing sentiment on the internet, anyway. Mean Girls memes and Viola Davis gifs celebrate the joy of canceling plans. Essays offer neuroscience-backed explanations of the relief that comes with bailing on drinks, while listicles and trend pieces promote the homebody lifestyle. Advice columns enumerate tips for backing out of social plans without losing your friends. The weekly newsletter Girls Night In features “recommendations for a cozy night in” alone or with girlfriends, including books, recipes, gratitude exercises, and candles. And at last count, Etsy offered 11,490 introvert-branded items celebrating a life of blissful solitude, from enamel pins emblazoned with the motto “Anti-Social Butterfly” to t-shirts declaring, “It’s way too people-y outside.”

You know, I really like not having at Internet at home except for my smartphone. Walking down to the public library is healthy and it's a good way to meet people. Plus, with the smartphone, how much do you really need internet on your computer? I just go to the library every once and while to download videos to watch at home, upload large files and get the latest podcasts.

The most hacked band password is ‘Blink-182’

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The most hacked band password is ‘Blink-182’

The world is awash in '90s nostalgia — and it's even showing up in our passwords.

A new study from the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has revealed the world's most easily hacked passwords, CNN reports. The top no-brainer passwords overall are impersonal number combinations, like 12345. But in the category of "bands," the most breached password is the name of the popular '90s pop-punk outfit, Blink-182.