[kictanet] Talk to NCIC Day 1: Users and Fake News

Thu Aug 24 10:29:05 EAT 2017

Warm greetings!
We have a balance to arrive at hopefully. Who has greater rights? The sender - freedom of speech or the receiver - right to receive (credible) information (is it also considered a human right?).
Whereas it may also be attributed that there is choice of information, is information "Information" when it is credible. Also it is choose "Platform A" or "in reality no other", choose.Which platform did we say is Kenyan?? or from Africa? or "buy Kenya, buy Africa" evokes a natural digital silence.
If the platform was mainstream media with "false news", " fake news", "hate speech", "defamation", " propaganda", would it be immune? - Or would a barrage of sanctions be upon the media house. What makes the Internet platforms (and the players including content generators, distributors) immune?- Would the National Agencies be handling it as they are now? We might be breeding a future "clash" driven by deep pocketed business interests versus the meek and humble masses of consumers and a few more engaged digital citizens.
Not forgetting that there is humanity in the midst of all this. This is recipe for lack of peace and ingredient for instability. Perhaps even between nations, especially in fragile moments. Wars are known to have been started with false information reiterated - until it became "the only known truth". The Nazi, the oppression of the Jews should not be too far from our thoughts, minds and hearts.
The next war (s) is not on land with horses and chariots, neither with man-made guns, or control freak robots, but in the knowledge world, in the cyber spaces. The next business relations, diplomatic relations is feeding the cyber hungry - perhaps the smarter ones now.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/23/silicon-valley-big-data-extraction-amazon-whole-foods-facebook
"Personal data is to the tech world what oil is to the fossil fuel industry. That’s why companies like Amazon and Facebook plan to dig deeper than we ever imagined...."
"... A hundred years ago, you could dig a hole in Texas and strike oil. Today, fossil fuel companies have to build drilling platforms many miles offshore. The tech industry faces a similar fate. Its wildcat days are over: most of the data that lies closest to the surface is already claimed...".
We get to appreciate that "false fake news" feeds the cyber hunger with what is craves for most - data.
For National agencies based on this topic, such as NCIC, CA , the game is already cut out and it is time not just to look inwards into the Kenyan(s) sideshows but the global playfield. This may feed what would be the glaring future defining the work today.
Thanks to NCIC for stepping into this engaging discourse. 

Blessed day
---
Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".

    On Wednesday, 23 August 2017, 18:45, Joash Moitui via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

 Thanks Merci for steering this debate! My two cents!
Why is there an increase in the prevalence of Fake News recently?Bending the truth for political gain is certainly nothing new - it’s propaganda, and the record of its uses stretch back to ancient times. 
Octavian famously used a campaign of disinformation to aid his victory over Marc Anthony in the final war of the Roman Republic. In its aftermath, he changed his name to Augustus, and dispatched a flattering and youthful image of himself throughout the Empire, maintaining its use in his old age. 
The rising trend of fake news during 2016 was very different to largely state controlled analogue modes of 20th-century propaganda. What we saw often here were small groups of people taking advantage of social media interaction and algorithms through creating hyperbolic articles around a major political event: the US Presidential election.

Propaganda and Internet fake news do, however, hold similarities: both are methods of distorting the truth for emotional persuasion, seeking to drive action. Although this action appears to be political, the motivation in the 2016 US election was not necessarily. Many creators of it were moreover looking for a path to quick dollars by distributing content and gaining an audience that would view advertising.

Before the Internet, publishing fake news and gaining an audience that could be monetized was nearly impossible for three reasons:

Distribution and cost: Distributing information on any kind of scale needed a prohibitively expensive logistics operation. 
Audiences and trust: Building a large audience took much longer, and because it was expensive to acquire and built on trust of information, publishing fake news would be damaging to reputation and thus have economic consequences. 
Law and regulation: Because it was expensive to distribute information, there were far fewer players. These abided by media law and could be regulated. Publishing fake news would likely end up with the publisher being sued.
But this gate of information exchange was unlocked around 2007, with the beginnings of the social media revolution. The creation of social networks like Facebook and Twitter allowed people to exchange information on a much greater scale than ever before, while publishing platforms like WordPress allowed anyone to create a dynamic website with ease.
What is the role of different categories of users in combating Fake News?
Governments, as one of the largest users of the internet,  have a role to play. They can compel providers of social media to take action of fake news, illegal and misinformation shared in their platforms. In 2016, The German authorities are targeted Internet giants like Facebook, and plan to require them to take action against fake news posted on their sites failing which fines of up to 500,000 euros can be imposed.

In Britain, there is a parliamentary committee looking into the issue. The Singapore Government announced last month it is studying the matter and looks likely to introduce new laws. Why are governments stepping in, and will they succeed?

Is Fake News a manifestation of deeper societal issues and if so, are there ways of combating it other than resolving the societal issues?
Misinformation can be very difficult to correct and may have lasting effects even after it is discredited. One reason for this persistence is the manner in which people make causal inferences based on available information about a given event or outcome. As a result, false information may continue to influence beliefs and attitudes even after being debunked if it is not replaced by an alternate causal explanation. This hypothesis has been tested using an experimental paradigm adapted from the psychology literature on the continued influence effect and found that a causal explanation for an unexplained event is significantly more effective than a denial even when the denial is backed by unusually strong evidence. This result has significant implications for how to most effectively counter misinformation about controversial political events and outcomes. (Nyhan, Brendan; Reifler, Jason. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 2015. doi: 10.1017/XPS.2014.22) 
We have Bloggers who are seen as influencers. Do they have a higher duty when communicating?In the delivery of information, bloggers are required to be responsible morally and ethically. They can become agents of change and bring people to a better direction. With the ability to filter, search, and retransmit information with their own characteristics, bloggers have the ability to translate government language into a language that is easily understood by the public.
I believe that bloggers have an important role in fighting hoaxes because usually, the content written in blogs are personal and honest, based on personal experiences.
Before generating a content, bloggers need to analyze, read a lot of sources and include the news source. This will make the news traceable to the truth. Through their blogs, bloggers have a vast opportunity in offsetting the hoax news.
Best, 

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|  Joash Moitui  |
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about.me/jmoitui  |

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On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 12:40 AM, Toilem Godwin via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

Hi Mercy, thank you for keeping th discusions alive.
Kindly see my comments below:
(a) Why is there an increase in the prevalence of Fake News recently?"............................. .............................. .............................. .................."
I have been doing a research on why we have an increase in fake news for a few days now and what is suprisingly interesting is  the fact that most "upcoming"  journalist/bloggers/ sociologist if I may put it lightly are fighting for recognition./online space. The concept of social media and sharing has made people/bloggers/sociologist/ journalists be fast on clicking submit/sharing and ignore verifying the info they receive/share. These kinds of "joulalists" if i may put it lightly are very fast in to submitting unverified news/info for the sake of recognition and receiving receiving sociAl recognition as the "origin" fake and legit news. In short they do not really care the status of tehe news but to get more "likes/share""............................. .............................. .............................. .................."
(b) What is the role of different categories of users in combating Fake News?"............................. .............................. .............................. ....." IMHO I have three role of user categories.1. The platform admins: these are admins for different account and mostly guys who should control flow of information but due due to many issues arising from the restriction of flow of information ( whether verified or unverified news) the defaults tend to be " allow all".2. The posters: These are people who post the news. These are to me regarded the most dangerous users and in a way should be restricted or Managed by the admins.3. The consumers

(c) Have Kenyans given up or are there good practices in combating Fake News?
"............................. .............................. .............................. .............................. ........"

Not all Kenyans have. IMHO Most Kenyans are consumers of news compared to producers of news. Most Kenyans just react to feeds they receive as compared to generating the news. Most Kenyans ( just to be subjective based on different feeds) to tend to react but initiate most news.
(d) Is Fake News a manifestation of deeper societal issues and if so, are there ways of combating it other than resolving the societal issues?
"............................. .............................. .............................. .............."
IMHO I view most fake news are as a deeper societal issues like where one has no idea or prefers airing their views that are not verified but to gain a social media status. This is one of the main factors of fake and unverified news.Kenyans ar now competing to "summit" but rather verify news they are sharing.

(e) We have Bloggers who are seen as influencers. Do they have a higher duty when communicating?

On Wed, 16 Aug 2017 at 10:10 kanini mutemi via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke > wrote:

Good morning Listers, 

Let me start of by thanking NCIC for their willingness to engage on this issue. We look forward to a a great discussion and pragmatic proposals. 

We had a discussion on this during the PRE KIGF ONLINE DISCUSSION DAY 2- FAKE NEWS DURING ELECTIONEERING.
I will say at that time, the impact of Fake News was not apparent. Times have since changed as we have now witnessed numerous 'Fake News' posts which go viral within minutes. Following the election results, posts on alleged instances of violence and of government action in parts of the country have dominated social media platforms. On several occasions, government officials, media houses and diligent citizens have come forward to denounce these posts as 'Fake News'. Photos that were first presented as true accounts of the situation on the ground were later discovered to be old photos of past events. At the same time, there have been instances where posts were quickly dismissed as 'Fake News' even when there was evidence later on that they were indeed factual reports. There is therefore a need for us to navigate through this issue carefully. 

Just for the record, it was agreed previously that the definition we are working with is Fake News refers to disinformation which GG aptly put as: fabricated news that has no basis in fact, but is presented as being factually accurate. 

With this in mind, I invite you to engage on the questions below:  
(a) Why is there an increase in the prevalence of Fake News recently?

(b) What is the role of different categories of users in combating Fake News?

(c) Have Kenyans given up or are there good practices in combating Fake News?

(d) Is Fake News a manifestation of deeper societal issues and if so, are there ways of combating it other than resolving the societal issues?

(e) We have Bloggers who are seen as influencers. Do they have a higher duty when communicating?

-- 
Mercy Mutemi. 

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Kind Regards,Toilem Poriot Godwin

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