Bots and Fake News

Bots and Fake News

Itamar Hoshen

Our chances of identifying fabricated news items or fake profiles on social media are extremely slim. It wouldn’t hurt if those in charge of the public’s safe-keeping before the elections, address the situation truthfully and show some humility.

Last week Israeli reporter Amnon Abramowitz of the Israel Television News Company, reported on the stern warnings of Shin Beit director, Nadav Argaman, alerting of another country’s expected attempt to influence the country’s general elections to be held April 9. In other words, the drama surrounding the 2016 US elections is likely to repeat itself in Israel’s future elections. Those surprised by this (un)shattering news are invited to raise their hand.

Less than 24 hours later, Israel’s Central Elections Committee announced that there is no reason for concern. Everything is going to be just fine. The fate of Israeli voters will be nothing like that of their American peers, who elected a Democrat woman and ended up with a Republican president. Here in the Holy Land everything will be different. Fat chance!

The Central Election Committee, responsible for protecting the integrity of the election, boasted and said: “The committee takes action in cooperation with the relevant professional bodies in Israel, including the National Cybersecurity Authority”. The committee added that the “studied examples of interventions in other countries in recent years and is working on an outline that includes ensuring greater awareness in the different bodies taking part in the election”.

Wait, wait, wait… Is there or isn’t there a devised plan? If all the committee’s rigorous studies of other countries’ elections, as it proclaims, led it to a scheme that is based on promoting awareness and alertness – i.e. a PR campaign – we might not be so safe after all? What the Central Election Committee is actually telling us is the following: We will increase awareness, and the average Joe will determine whether the Facebook post appearing on his screen, the advertisement he’s reading online, or the SMS he received – are written by politicians such as Avi Gabbay, Benny Gantz, or Yair Lapid, or are crafted by an evil programmer operating from a safe house, in the service of a foreign entity.

Ultimately, as far as the Central Election Committee is concerned, the responsibility lies on us - the public. The Israeli government doesn’t really have the tools – and dare I say, the interest – for dealing with the threat of obstructing the election results.

The author is no cyber expert but is not naïve either. Our chances of discerning highly personalized advertising aimed to manipulate how we vote – are slim. Armed only with the naked eye, who will suspect an online post shared by a friend (but is actually a clone fake account of that friend)?; Who wouldn’t believe an innocent looking tweet by a familiar credible entity (but the entity’s name is actually spelled a bit off)?; Who would doubt the intentions of a journalist publishing an article critical of a politician (but is actually an article modified by a malicious software from afar)?

It is quite clear. We are more easily fooled than any of us would like to think. Whoever thinks he is immune is fooling himself. Israel’s Central Elections Committee, just like those any other country, doesn’t have effective tools of dealing with clever cyber-attacks that might affect not only the servers of Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, but also the computers and servers of news companies worldwide. Evidence to this can be found in the fact, that only last week, fabricated news from financial newspaper site Globes, were discovered to be “fake news” after being widely circulated; Also, news that were allegedly published by radio station 103FM, were revealed to be nothing more than an online scam. Democracy’s guard dog turned out to be an evil clown in disguise.  

Now what do we do? First and foremost, on the media front – don’t make bold statements, don’t promise what you can’t keep, don’t try to calm the average Joe to the point of thinking he is safe as long he is “aware”. Nothing is “just fine” when it is unclear to us, as news consumers, who we can trust, and who we can, or should, believe.

Generally, and principally, any organization – private or public – affronting a challenging issue in the media – in this case, the possibility of an obscure cyber-attack (not knowing who the attacker is, when will he attack, by which means, etc.) – is better-off not making general empty statements, especially statements which are not entirely true. Such empty promises are likely to come back with a vengeance towards those who made them. We predict this will be the case for the Central Election Committee. The internet does not forget. It will remind us that the Central Election Committee promised to protect us all, but at the end of the day, just like the allegedly all-mighty America, it failed at the attempt.  


The writer is co-founder of OH! Orenstein Hoshen, a media and crisis management firm, specializing in media consultancy and strategy.      

 

Read the article as published on ICE: https://bit.ly/2MivQWE

Our chances of identifying fabricated news items or fake profiles on social media are extremely slim. It wouldn’t hurt if those in charge of the public’s safe-keeping before the elections, address the situation truthfully and show some humility.

Last week Israeli reporter Amnon Abramowitz of the Israel Television News Company, reported on the stern warnings of Shin Beit director, Nadav Argaman, alerting of another country’s expected attempt to influence the country’s general elections to be held April 9. In other words, the drama surrounding the 2016 US elections is likely to repeat itself in Israel’s future elections. Those surprised by this (un)shattering news are invited to raise their hand.

Less than 24 hours later, Israel’s Central Elections Committee announced that there is no reason for concern. Everything is going to be just fine. The fate of Israeli voters will be nothing like that of their American peers, who elected a Democrat woman and ended up with a Republican president. Here in the Holy Land everything will be different. Fat chance!

The Central Election Committee, responsible for protecting the integrity of the election, boasted and said: “The committee takes action in cooperation with the relevant professional bodies in Israel, including the National Cybersecurity Authority”. The committee added that the “studied examples of interventions in other countries in recent years and is working on an outline that includes ensuring greater awareness in the different bodies taking part in the election”.

Wait, wait, wait… Is there or isn’t there a devised plan? If all the committee’s rigorous studies of other countries’ elections, as it proclaims, led it to a scheme that is based on promoting awareness and alertness – i.e. a PR campaign – we might not be so safe after all? What the Central Election Committee is actually telling us is the following: We will increase awareness, and the average Joe will determine whether the Facebook post appearing on his screen, the advertisement he’s reading online, or the SMS he received – are written by politicians such as Avi Gabbay, Benny Gantz, or Yair Lapid, or are crafted by an evil programmer operating from a safe house, in the service of a foreign entity.

Ultimately, as far as the Central Election Committee is concerned, the responsibility lies on us - the public. The Israeli government doesn’t really have the tools – and dare I say, the interest – for dealing with the threat of obstructing the election results.

The author is no cyber expert but is not naïve either. Our chances of discerning highly personalized advertising aimed to manipulate how we vote – are slim. Armed only with the naked eye, who will suspect an online post shared by a friend (but is actually a clone fake account of that friend)?; Who wouldn’t believe an innocent looking tweet by a familiar credible entity (but the entity’s name is actually spelled a bit off)?; Who would doubt the intentions of a journalist publishing an article critical of a politician (but is actually an article modified by a malicious software from afar)?

It is quite clear. We are more easily fooled than any of us would like to think. Whoever thinks he is immune is fooling himself. Israel’s Central Elections Committee, just like those any other country, doesn’t have effective tools of dealing with clever cyber-attacks that might affect not only the servers of Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, but also the computers and servers of news companies worldwide. Evidence to this can be found in the fact, that only last week, fabricated news from financial newspaper site Globes, were discovered to be “fake news” after being widely circulated; Also, news that were allegedly published by radio station 103FM, were revealed to be nothing more than an online scam. Democracy’s guard dog turned out to be an evil clown in disguise.  

Now what do we do? First and foremost, on the media front – don’t make bold statements, don’t promise what you can’t keep, don’t try to calm the average Joe to the point of thinking he is safe as long he is “aware”. Nothing is “just fine” when it is unclear to us, as news consumers, who we can trust, and who we can, or should, believe.

Generally, and principally, any organization – private or public – affronting a challenging issue in the media – in this case, the possibility of an obscure cyber-attack (not knowing who the attacker is, when will he attack, by which means, etc.) – is better-off not making general empty statements, especially statements which are not entirely true. Such empty promises are likely to come back with a vengeance towards those who made them. We predict this will be the case for the Central Election Committee. The internet does not forget. It will remind us that the Central Election Committee promised to protect us all, but at the end of the day, just like the allegedly all-mighty America, it failed at the attempt.  


The writer is co-founder of OH! Orenstein Hoshen, a media and crisis management firm, specializing in media consultancy and strategy.      

 

Read the article as published on ICE: https://bit.ly/2MivQWE

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