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Weve become so familiar with the idea that during the 2016 election thousands of Russian trollswith very poor grammarpretended to be Republican voters in Tennessee, Black activists in Michigan, and Trump supporters in Palm Beach that we think of disinformation as a foreign problem. I have news for you: the majority of disinformation is domestic, most of it is made right here in the USA. Focusing on Vladimir Putins troll army is something of a distraction from the seeming endless supply of homegrown conspiracy theories, fake local news sites, alt-right message boards, clickbait, and Donald Trumps daily Twitter megaphone of rumor, misinformation and outright lies.

Yes, disinformation comes from both the right and the left, but research shows that highly partisan conservatives are far more likely to share disinformation than partisan liberals. A 2018 study by Oxford University researchers divided Twitter users into 10 different groups, including Democrats, progressives, traditional Republicans, and Trump supporters. The Trump supporters, they found, shared more junk news than all the other groups combined. As Steve Bannon so eloquently put it, Flood the zone with shit, and Trump supporters, alt-right groups, 4chan, Gab, and sites like Infowars and Breitbart do just that, putting out a tidal wave of junk news to overwhelm the traditional stuff. Then, in the disinformation ecosystem, it is picked up on Facebook, Instagram, Twitterand by your Uncle Milton who informs you that George Soros secretly hatched COVID-19. A Knight Foundation study revealed that 65% of junk news and conspiracy theories on Twitter traced back to the 10 largest disinformation websites, which included Infowars. The even darker side of Trumps attack on traditional media is that he empowers the 80% of Republicans who do not trust mass media outlets to become vectors of unchecked and unsourced information. Foreign disinformation is a distraction, New York University scholar Paul Barrett writes in his recent study, Tackling Domestic Disinformation. He urges the platform companies to take down provably false information, wherever it comes from

Ive been thinking and writing about disinformation for a while now, but the other day on Twitter, someone stumped me with the following question: Do you think the ratio of disinformation to true information is different now than at other times in human history? Our instinctive reaction is, Hell, yeah, of course it is, were overwhelmed with disinformation. But the answer is not so simple. First, disinformation has been around for as long as weve had information. Second, its awfully hard to measure the supply, scale, and scope of disinformation. Its also not always easy to spot. Plus, nobody that I know of really quantifies it.

Lets first answer the easier denominator question: has the supply of information increased? It has. In 2010, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, said we create as much information every two daysabout five exabytesas all the information created from the dawn of civilization until 2003. Various scholars have disputed this, but even if its every month rather than every two days, the scale is mind boggling. Just one individual example: more than 500 hours of video are loaded to YouTube every minute. So, even if the ratio of disinformation to true information has remained constant (thats the numerator), theres a heckuva lot more disinformation in absolute terms than ever before.

The scale of disinformation is mind-boggling. Facebook announced that it had removed more than three billion fake accounts in 2019yes, thats billion with a b. One study suggested that 15% of Twitters 330 million monthly users are bots. Bots have a massive multiplier effect on disinformation because they are far more prolific than humans, tweeting hundreds of times a day. Some studies estimate that more than 60% of Trumps 80+ million followers are bots.

But the reason it seems like theres a tsunami of disinformation is not because of how much there is, but how available it is. Whats new is the ease of access, which can make it seem more abundant. Once upon a time you had to work hard to discover conspiracy theoriesfind and check out obscure books from the library, look up old newspaper clips on microfiche. Today, conspiracy theories and disinformation are an instant Google search awayor, disinformation finds you, through microtargeting or recommendation engines or your third cousin on Facebook. And, of course, if you search for disinformation or conspiracy theories on Google or read them on Facebook, you can be sure you will get a lot more of them from those same platforms.

Disinformation is also opportunistic. Topics in the news are lightning rods for disinformation. Illness and disease are laboratories for conspiracy theories. The World Health Organization has declared there is a infodemic about COVID-19, thats an epidemic of disinformation. And when the president of the United States is a peddler of disinformation, it increases exponentially. And now new state actors are getting in on the act. China has now entered the disinformation game in a big way, aggressively seeking to fix blame for the epidemic on the U.S. and it has been regularly highlighting American missteps in coping with the virus. This has been complemented by domestic actors promoting quack cures, fake medicines, and COVID-related investments.

Another traditional vector of disinformation is division and protest. The George Floyd demonstrations have occasioned another epidemic of disinformation. White extremist groups are creating disinformation around the protests, and what they are calling professional protesters and antifa terrorists. This disinformation is once again aided and abetted by the president of the United States, who is the biggest promoter of the idea of antifa terrorists. Another nefarious actor, QAnon has tweeted that the protests are the work of George Soros. In many ways, this wave of disinformation around the protests is a continuation of what the Russians did in 2016 when, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Internet Research Agency created a number of false sites that pretended to be related to Black Lives MatterBlack Matters, Blactivist and Black Guns Matter. Their goal was to increase division and decrease African-American voter turnout.

Over the last few years, according to McKay Coppins in the Atlantic, right-wing activists have been trying to hijack the credibility of local news outlets. They have created dozens of websites with credible-sounding names like The Kalamazoo Times and the Arizona Monitor to make people think they are genuine local news organizations. But they have no editors or reporters or even an address, and are organs of Republican lobbying efforts and conservative extremists. This was a technique used by the Russians in 2016 which has now become a Made-in-the-USA phenomenon.

The Super Bowl of disinformation will undoubtedly be the 2020 election. All of the malign actors, the Russians, white extremists, China and Iran will get in on the game. Whats new this time are the potential use of deep fakes; the use or renting of actual American identities; coordinated bot attacks; phony local-news sites; anonymous mass texting; the professionalization of disinformation, with firms selling such services. The Trump campaign is likely to use many of these techniques, including the weaponization of micro-targeting, as pioneered by Cambridge Analytica in 2016. They gave some of it a trial run during impeachment, where the Trump campaign ran more than 10,000 different ads about impeachment on Facebook and on the web. The tactics can be used all across the ideological spectrum: Twitter suspended 70 bot-like accounts created by Michael Bloombergs short-lived campaign.

Disinformation created by American fringe groupswhite nationalists, hate groups, antigovernment movements, left-wing extremistsis growing. These groups have a big advantage over foreign groupsthey have built-in domestic audiences of their fellow travelers, plus a better understanding of colloquial English and American pop culture. Disinformationists supporting presidential candidates are hard at work. We tend to under-estimate the supply of domestic disinformation because it has always been part of our information ecosystem. Its hidden in plain sight.

So, yes, the supply of disinformation is growing, but thats in part because the demand is also growing. The tendency to see conspiracy theories is in our genes. The ontological problem of disinformation is that it gets in the way of us seeing reality for what it is. Of course, no human being sees reality exactly the way it iswe all have prejudices and biases. But disinformation exaggerates those prejudices and biases and accentuates our divides. The truth is, disinformation doesnt create divides between people, it widens them. One reason its easy to amplify division is that we have so much of it. Thats the ultimate goal of the disinformationistsnot so much that we believe them, but that we question those things that are demonstrably true.

Adapted from a new preface to the paperback edition of Richard Stengels Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation & What We Can Do About It

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Domestic Disinformation is a Greater Menace than Foreign Disinformation - TIME

Two hours later, Cafferty got a call from his supervisor, who told him that somebody had seen Cafferty making a white-supremacist hand gesture, and had posted photographic evidence on Twitter. (Likely unbeknownst to most Americans, the alt-right has appropriated a version of the okay symbol for their own purposes because it looks like the initials for white power; this is the symbol the man accused Cafferty of making when his hand was dangling out of his truck.) Dozens of people were now calling the company to demand Caffertys dismissal.

By the end of the call, Cafferty had been suspended without pay. By the end of the day, his colleagues had come by his house to pick up the company truck. By the following Monday, he was out of a job.

Cafferty is a big, calm, muscular man in his 40s who was born and raised in a diverse working-class community on the south side of San Diego. On his fathers side, he has both Irish and Mexican ancestors. His mother is Latina. If I was a white supremacist, he told me, I would literally have to hate 75 percent of myself.

After finishing high school, Cafferty bounced from one physically demanding and poorly paid job to another. For most of his life, he had trouble making ends meet. But his new job was set to change all that. I was very proud of my position, Cafferty told me. It was the first time in my life where I wasnt living check to check.

Read: Brands have nothing real to say about racism

When Cafferty was wrongly accused of being a white supremacist, he fought hard to keep his job. He said he explained to the people carrying out the investigationall of them were whitethat he had no earthly idea some racists had tried to appropriate the okay sign for their sinister purposes. He told them he simply wasnt interested in politics; as far as he remembered, he had not voted in a single election. Eventually, he told me, I got so desperate, I was showing them the color of my skin. I was saying, Look at me. Look at the color of my skin.

It was all to no avail. SDG&E, Cafferty told me, never presented him with any evidence that he held racist beliefs or knew about the meaning of his gesture. Yet he was terminated.

The loss of his job has left Cafferty shaken. A few days ago, he spoke with a mental-health counselor for the first time in his life. A man can learn from making a mistake, he told me. But what am I supposed to learn from this? Its like I was struck by lightning.

After Cafferty told his side of the story, the initial social-media vilification he had experienced gave way to a kind of embarrassed silence. The man who had posted a picture of the encounter on Twitter deleted his account and admitted to Priya Sridhar, a local news reporter, that he may have gotten spun up about the interaction and misinterpreted it. Repeatedly asked whether they had any evidence that Cafferty was a white supremacist, had known the meaning of the inverted okay symbol, or had previously been reprimanded for his performance, SDG&E refused to answer. Nor did the company respond to my request for confirmation that the team that had investigated Cafferty was all white.

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Stop Firing the Innocent - The Atlantic

Wikimedia DC Training

The internet has produced some of the worst garbage of the 21st century. (See: 4chan, the alt-right, the Slender Man stabbing, and, of course, LinkedIn, the undisputed worst website.) But its had some wins, too! Though its easy to take Wikipedia for granted at this point, the online encyclopedia is a genuinely incredible resource. Take a minute to really appreciate it: a crowdsourced catalogue of knowledge on nearly everything ever, presented to all for free. As a repository of human learning, it might rival the historical libraries of Baghdad and Alexandria, but its significantly less vulnerable to getting torched. A hive-mind of volunteers across the globe collaborates with more than 300 staff and contractors to make Wikipedia possible. If youve ever wanted to be a part of the Wiki project, but didnt know where to start, nows your chance to learn the basics courtesy of Wikimedia, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia. Wikimedias D.C. chapter is hosting a free lesson on the fundamentals of editing Wikipedia via Zoom. After the training, you'll be ready to apply your expertise and become a small part of one of the best parts of the internet. The event begins June 30 at 10 a.m. Registration is available at eventbrite.com. Free. Will Lennon

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City Lights: Learn to Edit Wikipedia - Washington City Paper

In a 25-minute-long documentary titled, War, Lies, and hashtags: Pakistans Twitter Battles, Al Jazeera documents the life of a Pakistani man, Farhan Virk, who has earned a name for himself in the Twitter community. Despite being a doctor, he identifies himself as a Twitter influencer who peddles anti-India propaganda on the platform. Farhan holds the potential to make any hashtag trending on Twitter.

Even though he claims to have received no patronage from the propaganda machinery of the Pakistani government, many suspect otherwise. Unlike others, he takes pride in calling himself a troll. Farhan runs a group, named, Team Imran Khan, and boasts of a whopping 1000 followers. They work in tandem to make anti-India hashtags viral on Twitter. He calls himself alt-right and seeks inspiration from the likes of Alex Jones and Steve Bannon, far-right political personalities in the US.

Despite being abused by Indians for his anti-India rhetoric, Farhan is firm in his resolve. Amidst escalated tensions between the two countries, the propaganda machinery of Farhan comes handy. In one instance, when he was about to lose a Twitter poll, Farhan received a call from the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He spent 10,000 PKR to change the Twitter poll results in his favour by hiring bots from foreign firms.

His wife, Iram, runs a group called Team Green and has about 100-150 active volunteers. They hatch plans to infiltrate Indian Twitter trends so that their tweets stay at the top of the trend. If someone calls me a troll of the army, then, it is a matter of pride, the wife of Farhan conceded. Following the Balakot airstrike that destroyed Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror camps and neutralised 300 terrorists, a desperate Pakistan claimed that only a few trees fell during the aerial bombardment. As such, Farhan, in line with the State narrative, ran the hashtag #IndiaAgainstTreePlantation. And interestingly, the Pakistani news media picked up the trends and reported as if it was actual news.

The Al Jazeera documentary also highlights how Twitter warriors can create the mirage of a war, far-fetched from the reality on the ground. Even though there were no ceasefire violations at the Sialkot border, as testified by people living close to the border, netizens from both the countries talked about happy firing along the Line of Control (LoC). Apparently, Pakistan has occupied 25 Indian check posts, Farhan was quoted as saying.

Following the Balakot strike, Farhan got slammed by fellow Pakistanis after he tried to downplay the befitting reply of India through surgical strike 2.0. My ideology is of national interest. To protect your national interest, even if you say something thats not true, but it influences the people in a positive way, then, I do not consider it propaganda, the Twitter influencer conceded. During the dogfight that ensued between the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and Indian Air Force (IAF), Farhan and his Team Imran Khan participated in a Twitter trend, #PakistanStrikesBack, and was able to rank it as high as number two in global trends.

The propaganda material loosely revolves around altered images of politicians, doctored videos, and unverified and even defamatory news items. Reportedly, who has run over 4,500 propaganda hashtags through Team Imran Khan and is an asset for the current political dispensation in Pakistan to ward off political rivals or change narratives as per convenience, in case of international conflicts. He is a thought leader to his followers but remains a proud troll in the eyes of many.

While tweets cannot be monetised, Farhan has pinned his hopes on his youtube earnings. In one scene, he and his wife could be seen in a cafe and celebrating over a meagre earnings of $24. This is my hard-earned money. Hard work is the key to success, Farhan emphasised. Despite having a medical degree, he has chosen the profession of an unpaid propagandist as he is under the impression that the work of twisting narratives on social media is more important than being a doctor.

This is the age of social media warfare. Nowadays, the army needs to play a significant role on social media, Farhan highlighted. He revealed how the party leadership of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) come to him seeking for solutions to their problems but forget when the issues are resolved. Six months from the surgical strike, Irams account was suspended along with that of the volunteers of Team Green over their contentious tweets on Kashmir. With surmounting bills, Iram has moved on to mainstream media and remains hopeful to appeal to a wide range of audiences and become a successful news anchor.

As for Farhan whose life centered around social media, his Twitter account was eventually banned, for multiple violations, in December 2019. He now hopes to restart his medical career, earn money, and fight for elections. Despite his pro-government tweets, the IT cell of PTI has distanced itself from him. Farhan is a true representation of how the Pakistani government uses ambitious individuals, brainwashed by pseudo nationalism, into devoting their life for a cause that will remain unfulfilled forever.

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Popular Pakistani troll reveals how he makes sure PM Modi doesnt win any Twitter polls, how anti-India propaganda is organised and furthered - OpIndia

Watching stand-up in 2020 very quickly went from a pretty fun and normal activity to an escape from our terrifying, oppressive reality.

Luckily, there has been some truly fantastic comedy so far this year, giving us an excuse to laugh and smile at stories and observations from some of the industry's most talented performers. It is a bit odd, though, to view these specials which were filmed before the COVID-19 lockdown began in the U.S. in March knowing everything that has followed this year (so far).

We're living in a time when jokes can become dated very quickly, and that feeling only seems to have ramped up after March. In her special, Leslie Jones jokes about how 20 year olds shouldn't be out marching for anything, they should be living their lives. That might have been a fine joke earlier in the year, but amid the civil upheaval happening across the world in response to police brutality and racism, it just doesn't land properly. Similarly, Jerry Seinfeld's already tired and banal musings about buffets and smartphones in his special 23 Hours to Kill feel especially unnecessary and trite.

On the plus side, the bright spots in comedy are so much brighter. The rest of Jones' special, in which she takes us through the decades of her life and what she's learned, is great. And the more nuanced jokes from the comedians on this list (who are much better than Seinfeld) float above the current of news our collective rafts are stuck in, transcending the day-to-day to bring us moments of happiness.

Here are the seven best stand-up specials of 2020 so far. Added bonus: They're all conveniently streaming on various platforms right now.

Leslie Jones adds a reflective tone to her usual energy with "Time Machine."

In Time Machine, her first Netflix special after decades of performing, Saturday Night Live alum Leslie Jones brings a slightly subdued version of her intoxicatingly voluminous energy to a walk through the stages of life, plotted out in decades from her exuberant 20s to her current dont give a fuck 50s. She relates tales of her past,including an ill-fated attempt to seduce Prince with a dance performance at a club. She calls out a woman in her 20s in the front row for wearing a Little House on the Prairie sweater when she should be showing more skin at that age. And she pleads for men to thoroughly wash their privates. Jones is clearly having so much fun on stage, and that enjoyment pours out addictively. By the end, when she finally gets off her feet and sits on a stool for the first time and talks about what she would say to her younger self if she had a time machine, she brings the audience in close for a more muted but shockingly funny hypothetical with a lesson: You cant fix the past, cant see the future. You might as well live in the present and have some faith.

Watch it on: Netflix

Fortune Feimster has the crowd at her fingertips in her special.

Image: Peter Taylor/Netflix

Seasoned comedian, actor, and writer Fortune Feimsters first hour-long special is a showcase of flow and comfort on stage. She weaves stories about growing up Methodist and eating at Chilis after church, her youthful experiences with the Girl Scouts and the school swim team, and discovering her sexuality while watching the movie The Truth About Jane. Feimster covers a lot of ground in Sweet and Salty, and she has the kind of commanding stage presence that allows every great joke to land with raucous laughter from the audience. She presents a life in juxtaposition, from an early birthday experience at Hooters to attending a debutante ball also known as a coming-out party, but absolutely not coming out in the modern sense to her current life with her partner and the sometimes unattractive comforts that come with love and familiarity. And then the moment she impersonates her fathers thick Southern accent in response to finding out shes eating gluten-free: Gluten-free? Pussy, I understand, but gluten-free?

Watch it on: Netflix

Whitmer Thomas uses a mix of deep sadness and wry humor for this emo special.

The Golden One is an emo special. Whitmer Thomas, a 30-year-old musician/comedian/sad guy, takes the stage at a bar in Alabama where his mother, who passed away several years ago, used to perform music with her twin sister. The special revolves around the ache Thomas feels for his mother, the impact her death has had on him and his family, and some of the driest, shortest, funniest little jokes that are consistently surprising. The special is punctuated by Thomas performing songs with relevant themes and lyrics at the bar and footage of conversations with various family members, including his dad, who left when he was young but later returned, his older brother, and his mothers twin sister. The Golden One is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious, a common duality in great comedy. But the emotion that drips through this feels entirely unique.

Watch it on: HBO

Yvonne Orji's special is steeped in her Nigerian roots.

If youre a vocal Insecure fan, shouting, Do you have HAYCH-bee-oh? at the unsuspecting, as Yvonne Orji, who plays Molly, claims her mother does, you already count yourself among Orjis fans. But Momma, I Made It! is a must-see supplement to that fandom, and to anyone looking to expand their comedy repertoire. Orji packs in a potent hour of observational humor, mostly about her family and Nigerian background. She's so open and charismatic that you feel immediately in on the joke (if you arent chiming in on the A whole me? joke by the end, did you even watch?). The jibes at and also from her parents will resonate with any child of immigrants, and the interludes of Orji visiting Nigeria offer an intimacy few artists can create without divulging deep, personal details. Proma Khosla, entertainment reporter

Watch it on: HBO

Marc Maron's version of the return of Jesus is incredible.

Image: Adam Rose / Netflix

End Times Fun dropped on Netflix on March 10, right at the cusp of Americas reckoning with COVID-19 and a few months before the latest surge of protests against our abusive police system and racism. It seems prescient, as seasoned comedian, podcaster, and actor Marc Maron waxes in his seventh special (directed by the late, great Lynn Shelton) about signs of the end times and jokes about how we need something to bring people together, something big and bad to snap everybody out of their trances. Amid clever and relatable observations about turmeric and collections of old cables we cant seem to let go of, Maron cant ignore the big-picture stuff in global warming, clockwork California fires, and disturbing right-wing politics. He ends with a narrative story about an imagined return of Jesus, with wild and raucous twists that puts a big, brash, unforgettable cap on this hour of comedy.

Watch it on: Netflix

Hannah Gadsby returns triumphantly with her second Netflix special.

Image: Ali Goldstein/ NETFLIX

Hannah Gadsby, the Australian comic whose first Netflix special Nanette made huge waves in 2018, opens up Douglas with an outline of whats to come. Her prelude to what will be more than an hour of comedy shows just how meticulous her performances are, which is doubly amazing given how completely surprising they are with each turn. Douglas is inextricably tied to Gadsbys previous special Nanette which was lauded as one of the best specials of the year, if not the last decade and while that is acknowledged here, its not used as a crutch but rather a launch pad from which she delivers an even more hilarious performance with jokes and revelations about her autism diagnosis, her issues with the principles of Wheres Waldo? (why does he need to be found?), and a short lecture about Renaissance art that is one of the funniest observational bits of the year.

Watch it on: Netflix

Maria Bamford delivers an incredible, engrossing performance.

Legendary comedian Maria Bamford has proven over the last decade-plus of specials and albums that she is the master of delivery. With jokes about alt-right trolls, suicide, sexual role-playing, and labor, Bamfords points in Weakness Is the Brand are mesmerizing. She frames them within her own experiences and delivers lines with her fantastic impressions and excellent presence, occasionally looking straight into cameras to draw those not in the room into the intimacy she creates. She recounts her time on Worst Cooks in America: Celebrity Edition and a self-induced Bible fight/Christianity competition with her "religious" mother, making poignant remarks about compensation, altruism, and the human condition punctuated by astounding humor that feels so effortless. Bamfords deft talent and weirdness just pulls the audience along. She flows through her set with imperceptible segues, mixing self-deprecation with self-affirmation and important takes with hilarious jokes in one of her best, most straight-forward specials of her career.

Watch it on: Amazon Prime Video

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The best stand-up comedy specials of 2020 so far - Mashable