User:ApprehensiveAlpaca/Disinformation

Possible Draft ApprehensiveAlpaca
This is a planned submission to the Wikipedia article on Disinformation, with the edit composed within the section Strategies for spreading disinformation. My intention is to provide more information for the four methods of spreading disinformation online.

(Original Article) "Strategies for spreading disinformation[edit]
There are four main methods of spreading disinformation online recognised in academic literature: Selective censorship, manipulating search rankings, hacking and releasing, and directly sharing disinformation.

Selective censorship via government intervention cuts out certain information from news or media as an attempt to suppress it. In 2011, the Chinese government greatly reduced any social media traffic about the arrest of artist and activist Ai Weiwei, suppressing an estimated 80% of posts on April 8th following his April 3rd arrest. However, selective censorship is not a blanket ban on all media, but a direct subtraction of information that focuses on a topic while preserving other news as whole.

Manipulating search rankings boosts sources that may contain bias to the top of search engines. Because 85% of Google searches only look to the first page of results and 77% of said searches will only make that singular search, being able to place an article into the first page is crucial in spreading disinformation. To achieve this, the most common method used to influence change is by spamming, which undermines the original source by replacing it with unhelpful or untruthful substitutes. In 2016, Politifact found that approximately 30% of politicians had news that was considered fake or disputed.

Hacking and releasing is the hacking of information from private sources, then releasing it to the general public with the intention of damaging the victim. On March 19, 2016, John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, had his email account hacked by hacking group Fancy Bear, exposing thousands of private emails. Furthermore, hacking and releasing can spread disinformation with what is allegedly within the leaks, not necessarily what the true information holds.

Directly sharing disinformation is providing disinformation directly to others. This strategy is often seen on social media, where bots are able to disseminate disinformation quickly. During the 2016 presidential election, it was found 400,000 bots were producing 3.8 million tweets in September and October, which accounted for one-fifth of the political conversation.

ApprehensiveAlpaca (talk) 09:43, 9 May 2021 (UTC)ApprehensiveAlpaca (talk)

Disinformation attack on Ukrainian power grid.
Disinformation was utilized as a central weapon during the 2015 Ukrainian Power grid cyber attack. This attack consisted of compromised super user accounts sending out notifications to many different users informing them that they would have a discount on their electricity used during a certain time frame of the day. This time was actually the peak electricity usage time, and power grids are not built to support more than 10-20% extra energy consumption at peak hours. Due to the strain put on the power grid the grid failed and over 230000 residents were left without power for upwards of 6 hours. This highlights that disinformation attacks not only manipulate information, but can be extended to have significant physical world consequences.

Dqdolphin (talk) 20:00, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Possible Draft Gvkvmg
(most likely going under "Research")

Efforts to fight disinformation

In the 2020 book Mining Disinformation and Fake News: Concepts, Methods, and Recent Advancements, blockchain technology is explained on how to combat disinformation. Blockchain technology allows for proof of ownership to be verifiable, ensuring data remains intact. Any data that has been tampered with can be traceable.

There have been attempts to use blockchain technology on platforms. Truepic is a photo and video verification platform, and wants to restore trust in visual media. Truepic uses a technology called Controlled Capture, which verifies photo information. This includes pixel contents and metadata. When a photo is uploaded to the Truepic server, a digital fingerprint is created. This encrypted data is then uploaded onto the blockchain. From there, a verification page is created, allowing users to view the original content and all verification tests. These records are not controlled by Truepic. Gvkvmg (talk) 20:05, 3 May 2021 (UTC)