Bots and algorithms can distort public opinion

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 2:31:16

   You know, there's a way that they can promote things, especially now through bots and social media. Oh, my God. Social media is infested with nonsense. It's infested with bots. It's infested with completely fake stories. There's so many stories that I read, like national news stories, that are absolutely fake on X and that people just put up there. And I think they're trying to discourage that somehow.

2. 2:31:41

   I think, you know, like you don't get as much money from doing it because there's things like you get money from posting on X. I don't, but some people do. Like you sign up and it's people that make their living from engagement. I knew they had that on Facebook. Oh, yeah, they have it on X. Yeah. Okay. People make their living with engagement. But the bots are a real thing. I can speak personally to that.

3. 2:32:04

   Like I've pulled the string on the bot stuff, looking at how they get funded, where they're ran out of, the people that are behind them, why they do them, how they do them. And it's such a real thing to a degree that people just don't understand how they're being manipulated by these things. It's enormous. It's an enormous market, billions, and it's funded in ways that I think would surprise people and thank God for things like data leaks and things like it where we can get to this information or just the fact that there's campaign finance laws and that money has to be routed and accounted for and these types of things so that people can pull the string on it and understand how things are being manipulated in the public eye.

4. 2:32:45

   illegal it really should be i i am all for people being able to express their opinions but it should be an individual's opinions or the opinions of an individual that represents an organization if you're a spokesperson for an organization you want to tweet something okay no problem with that but i think that organized campaigns where you know let's say in particular like um there's some sort of big social issue some some some something that's going on in the world or some thing that involves our civilization, our culture. And then you have either a foreign country, or you have an intelligence agency, or you have a corporation that's funding this propaganda narrative, this fake viewpoint, and making it look like people are in lockstep with this. And then you've got a lot of people that if that, whatever that narrative is, is attached to the ideology they

5. 2:33:36

   identify with, whether it's left wing or right wing, then those people will start parroting those points and you'll see it you see this like sheep-like behavior with people and it has a tremendous effect on how we view things as a culture and i think it should be illegal i think you should have to be a person post for yourself yeah even if you post even if you not named, you should have to authenticate some way if you're going to enter the zeitgeist of public, any of these types of things. Because, I mean, the other thing about Facebook and social media and these other things that people don't realize is they can feed you the narrative and put it on the vector that helps you metabolize it in the best way. In other words, if a public person is running for office and you might only agree with 10% of what this public person thinks,

6. 2:34:24

   there are ways to manipulate the algorithm so you're only fed that 10 percent right so you only understand this you're only getting what you agree with with this particular politician and there might be 10 other things you don't agree with that you're not going to see unless you pull the thread yourself and unfortunately just a lot of people don't pull the thread themselves because they're busy they have to make money they have families and so they're only getting one side of the story and then it's being monetized which is also really gross it's just super dangerous it's super dangerous but it's so super dangerous super easy to manipulate us it's like there's never been a better time to use propaganda on a society than today yeah and i watch the ways i've been in the past how it's happened to me so it's like i'm not immune to this even though i understand a lot of

7. 2:35:07

   it how it's happening none of us are and you're certainly not immune to your algorithm your algorithm in the echo chamber that you exist in they just constantly bombard you with one-sided opinions. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a weird time in terms of truth and, you know, and everyone has