California Law Bans Bots From Pretending to Be Human. Mark Zuckerberg on suicide watch

[Syntaxvgm]

Quote

Effective July 1, it will be illegal for bots interacting with California consumers to pretend they're human if they're trying to sell goods, services, or to 'influence a vote in an election.'

https://www.pcmag.com/news/364132/california-law-bans-bots-from-pretending-to-be-human

From the politicians that literally don't know the difference between a troll and a shill when screaming about a "Russian troll" comes a law that's probably a good idea but will for sure have unintended consequences. 

I actually like the base idea here, but I'd approach this cautiously and it's a good thing that the US's top legislative dumpster fire will test this out first. 

One of the problem I see with this is, if it is standards US law and/or law elsewhere is people knowing this is illegal, and not being as vigilant against the ever looming threat of "perfect bots" using "machine learning" (gpu accelerated nested IF statements). This also means scammers may have an even easier time with people being exposed to bots claiming to be human less. 

I actually work for a company that is testing a product that literally uses such tech for customer support, which is common, but ours and some competitor products based ont he same stuff are on a new fucking level and I expect to see the same rolled out in the next 5 year everywhere. 

All this said, the legislation is limited to platforms with more than 10 million users, so I don't see that affecting things like the above products I mentioned, rather it's targeted to social media shills and political bots. That said, I expect that to roll out in a less limited fashion soon, with all the fears of Alt-Right-Russian-Troll-Bot-Frogs

[Arika]

Holy Click bait title Batman! this must be that villain Linus infecting the city with crazy gas

[Car712]

Is that even legal under 'freedom of speech', I mean, I know bots arent people, but *someone* programmed them.

[Syntaxvgm]

Just now, Arika S said:

Holy Click bait title Batman! this must be that villain Linus infecting the city with crazy gas

My goal was to sound like a T_D bot kinda. 

[Syntaxvgm]

Just now, bobbyd52 said:

Is that even legal under 'freedom of speech', I mean, I know bots arent people, but *someone* programmed them.

lol that's an interesting concept, I would qualify this as lying which is protected mostly, but in certain things like businesses practices this is not allowed. But for "influencing a vote"? That's iffy. 

[Orangeator]

What does the content of this article have anything to do with the title saying "Mark Zuckerberg on suicide watch!" ?

[Syntaxvgm]

2 minutes ago, Orangeator said:

What does the content of this article have anything to do with the title saying "Mark Zuckerberg on suicide watch!" ?

1. He is a bot, clearly but says he's not 

2. There goes half of facebook  and twitter users. 

3. "On suicide watch" is one of my favorite frequent things from T_D around election time, and there be many bots there. 

[Trik'Stari]

The irony being that there are and were leftist bots during the last election as well.

 

I guess we need a new "law". "If a democracy can be subverted through freedom of speech or freedom of action, it will be"

[Andreas Lilja]

Whole thing is like the Pierre Poutine nothingburger.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_federal_election_voter_suppression_scandal

 

 

[Syntaxvgm]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

The irony being that there are and were leftist bots during the last election as well.

 

I guess we need a new "law". "If a democracy can be subverted through freedom of speech or freedom of action, it will be"

I found that, but I mostly ran into paid shills and paid voting services on platforms like reddit. I also remember a lot of news aggregation services being literally bought, as well as things like the onion being bought by a top Hillary donar 

So more shills not bots

[PlayStation 2]

ShareBlue on suicide watch

[Syntaxvgm]

3 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

ShareBlue on suicide watch

1. shills != bots
2. They would never be prosecuted anyways. 

[PlayStation 2]

Just now, Syntaxvgm said:

1. shills != bots
2. They would never be prosecuted anyways. 

ah don't worry ik shills don't mean bots, but from what I remember they run bots too

[Delicieuxz]

The US government won't like this (which is often a good sign). The Pentagon has been requesting white papers for developing advanced social media bots:

 

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=f393b9220232ea7a1be97a47f0afc429&tab=core&_cview=0

 

Maybe to serve as an additional component to the already gargantuan-sized social media troll farm program that the US government has been operating since 2010.

[Syntaxvgm]

5 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

The US government won't like this (which is often a good sign). The Pentagon has been requesting white papers for developing advanced social media bots:

 

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=f393b9220232ea7a1be97a47f0afc429&tab=core&_cview=0

 

Maybe to replace to serve as an additional component to the already gargantuan-sized social media troll farm program that the US government has been operating since 2010.

Great point, and remember at some point under the Obama administration they legalized propaganda. 

[Delicieuxz]

23 minutes ago, Syntaxvgm said:

Great point, and remember at some point under the Obama administration they legalized propaganda. 

 

Yup: The NDAA Legalizes The Use Of Propaganda On The US Public

 

 

The whole 'Russian bots' thing has always been a red herring to distract the public's attention from the fact that the USA was already doing all the things they've been accusing Russia of doing, and far more. USA Today reporters claimed that after they reported about US' social media disinformation activities in 2012, they came under various defamation attacks from the Pentagon.

 

The US government's next strategy to hide what they were doing in social media was obviously to start accusing Russia of doing all the stuff the US was, to pre-emptively get the public to associate those things with another country, and to rationalize to the public the need for budgets that would bolster US social media propaganda and disinformation programs - as that's exactly what the US has been doing:

 

Effort to combat foreign propaganda advances in Congress

US Prepares Lavishly Funded Anti-Russia Propaganda and Troll Army

US Officials Won’t Say if a New Anti–Russia Propaganda Project Is Targeting Americans

 

US Government Admits It’s Making Fake Social Media Accounts to Spread Propaganda in Cuba

 

But, the known chronology of social media troll farms goes as follows:

 

Israel - 2008

USA - 2010

Canada - 2011

Russia - 2013

UK - 2015

Ukraine - 2015

Poland - 2017

 

And many other countries also have troll farm programs. Russia's isn't large, though, and no countries' programs could come close to the size of the US', which was budgeted around $200 million per year already in 2010, and has only grown since then.

 

BTW, Hillary Clinton had a social media troll farm working for her during the 2016 US presidential election.

 

And the US' Democrats are publicly organizing troll farms to go to war for them in the US' 2020 mid-term election:

 

Democrats seek stronger social media presence to guard against potential Russian interference in midterms

[Speed Weed]

LOL U.S. is going to accuse Russian behind the hacking upcoming election. 

[poochyena]

2 hours ago, Syntaxvgm said:

if they're trying to sell goods, services, or to 'influence a vote in an election.'

With those stipulations, i'm ok with it. I'd be against a general ban against all bots pretending to be human

 

2 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

The irony being that there are and were leftist bots during the last election as well.

...the irony of what? Is someone implying otherwise?

[DrMacintosh]

3 hours ago, Raskolnikov said:

nothingburger.

Only David Pakman gets to say Nothingburger 

[dizmo]

Am I the only one that thinks Zuckerberg looks...less than human? He looks fucking cold. 

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, dizmo said:

Am I the only one that thinks Zuckerberg looks...less than human? He looks fucking cold. 

Well lizards are cold blooded after all

[DrMacintosh]

:wavescaliforniarepublicflag:

[dizmo]

16 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Well lizards are cold blooded after all

It all makes sense now.

[Sniperfox47]

3 hours ago, Syntaxvgm said:

and not being as vigilant against the ever looming threat of "perfect bots" using "machine learning" (gpu accelerated nested IF statements). 

To be clear, calling machine learning "GPU Accelerated Nested IF Statements" is not very accurate. "GPU Accelerated Nested Linear Algebra" may be more accurate but even that is a massive oversimplification.

[Syntaxvgm]

7 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

To be clear, calling machine learning "GPU Accelerated Nested IF Statements" is not very accurate. "GPU Accelerated Nested Linear Algebra" may be more accurate but even that is a massive oversimplification.

joke