The 2016 presedential election was synoyms with fake news. A vast amount of news articles, posting and reports on social media timelines may have been distributed from computer bots programmed with a political agenda. The FBI counter intelligence division has been investigating whether news sites like BrightBart benefited from or took part with Russian opertives during the 2016 election. The issue arises from how sophisticated and quickly the bots can push out content and news article that would help Donald Trump and would hurt Hilary Clinton in the process according the report from McClatchy reporters Peter Stone and Greg Gordon. The investigation is determining whether the bots simulating genuine political activity such as publishing news articles on social media in order to generate interest in both the election and for a particular candidate had an effect on the election's outcome. An example of this case is on October 17, 2016 which was the homestretch of the election, Hilary Clinton had hit her highest poll position by 49% and Donald Trump holding on to his lowest poll number at 41.9% as he has suffered from his Hollywood leak regarding sexist comments about women. The polls would drastically change when a leak involving Hilary Clinton and her email controversary was published. Donald Trump's poll numbers would then skyrocket.There is nothing wrong with voters hearing new information and perhaps changing their minds but the investigation is looking at how Russia may have distorted that informaton as the bots pushed links to stories about Clinton's on email and defamatory false information such as the PizzaGate scandal that involved a story about Clinton overseeing a criminal enterpirse at a Pizza parlor in Washington.The bots targeted millions of Twitter posts that caried links to conservative sites such as BrightBart which was being run by Donald Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon up until August before the investigation began in July. BrightBart has now reported high traffic numbers which may have influenced form the bots. It is one thing to believe the worst about your political opponents its worse to believe the worst about them to only find out you were fooled as part of a foreign campaign in order to distort the election.
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This past weekend, I watched the 2016 thriller movie, The Thinning. The movie's plot revolves around in the year 2039 when the Earth's resources have been depleted due to overpopulation. This leads the government to create a test known as 10-241 to cut the population by 5% each year. Students who pass the exam, are allowed to live while those who fail are "decontaminated". I won't go deep into the plot for any of those who wish to see this movie, and I highly recommend you do but it brought great questions into my head. Out of all the films I have seen that attempt to depict the future of the world, this one I felt impacted with me the most. I could literally relate to how nervous each student felt while they were taking the test. The feeling of dread while awaiting the test results was all too relatable. If the government could create such an exam to this magnitude would this be ethical? We are already discussing how a GPA does not accurately represent the intelligence of a student so why should one state wide exam determine if a student is fit to live? Can the government even decide to pass a law such as this? Why should it be a test, why cannot it be another form of exam with multiple tries? Overpopulation is ongoing topic, with different solutions that need to be executed yet a passing exam score should not be one of them.
About two weeks ago, we were informed on the death of a CSUMB faculty member. After hearing several details about the given person, as a class we were instructed to discuss if it was ethical to disclose the name, and specfic details about a person's death online. Before discussing this topic with my group, I flashed back to the day I read a KSBW news report stating that a 21 year old man was killed by an incoming train in Soledad. That "21 year old man" was a long time friend of mine, and at the time I was in utter shock to hear about the devastating news. I would like to point out that the news report was very short and to the point with no name and only a time estimate for specific details. No follow up report was ever issued after both the parents and other family members verified the death of the person. I do not know the exact process of reporting a death from a community but I can see both the benefits and the negative aspects of it. For one, many people were questioning, including myself if it was our longtime friend who had passed. This worried and troubled many people as they were very close to him while others were out of the loop by not even knowing that he has possibly passed away. Reporting ONLY the name, would allow many other the friends of the given person to attend the funeral and possibly assist the family expenses along with emotional support. Despite of this, I can also imagine the parents not wishing for their son's name to be on the report and only the news to travel through word of mouth. This would ensure that only the closest family members and friends attend the funeral.Personally, I feel that both the death details and name will be at some point disclosed as an event like that never tends to remain a secret. The only control one may have is at the beginning in how much information should be disclosed but oever time, everyone might eventually know the details and name of the person.
Does the title of my pot sound familiar or fake? Perhaps you saw the news posting on either your Facebook or Twitter timeline? On Sunday, December 4, 2016 28 year old Eddie Maddison Welch was arrested for walking in the front door of a popular PIzzeria(Comet Ping Pong) in Northwest Washington. What was this man's motive for shooting a simple pizza restaraunt? When asked by police Welch replied by saying he was self investigating a news report he read online that involved Hilary Clinton and her campaign manager were running a child sex ring from the restraunt's backrooms. With all fake news reports, there are users who can see right through the fake news post but there is others who take it very seriously and just like Welch did, believe it far enough to walk down to the restraunt and point his weapon at employee and fire his weapon in order to "presumably look for alleged tunnels where the children were hidden and tortured. Comet Ping Pong was a victim of fake news and outrageous conspiracy theories that were highly spread during the presedential election. As James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong, states, "What happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences. I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away." This is a perfect example of possibly one of the worst case examples of what fake news can cause. Up until this point, all I thought was possible through fake news was spreading false information online but now I see what is possible with fake information such as even purchasing a fake product from an fake source. The fake news did not end with Comet Ping Ping as other restaraunts around the area were also victims to fake news. Matt Carr, the owner of a coffee shops reported that he began recieving a large amount of crank calls due to fake news. He even begins to state his fears, "“This was our worst fear,” he said, “that someone would read all this and come to the block with a gun. And today it happened.”I found it very interesting to read about this particular report because it was fake news circulated on social media not on television. It is now even more important to not quickly "Share" a click bait news report, read it and verify the claims within it. No one should be harmed with fake news stories.
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AuthorFirst generation computer scientist that loves football. Archives
May 2017
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