Daily Translation #13

虚假信息的战争

哈马斯于10月7日对以色列进行攻击，以色列军方随后对加沙地带进行了报复性打击。像这种重大事件发生时，人们的第一反应不再是打开电视看新闻，而是去社交媒体平台获取最新信息。但电视上的新闻受到播出制度的要求，其报道大多都是真实可信的，而社交媒体则是一个弥漫着真相，谎言和尔虞我诈的战场。舆论的战场上，政府，记者，执法部门和一些民间活跃分子你方唱罢我登场，各方实力也参差不齐。

用“战争迷雾”来描述社交媒体上对巴以争端的讨论未免有些保守，实际情况则是一股裹挟着恐慌，暴力，悲痛和虚假信息的狂潮。一些人利用这一事件来激怒俄罗斯，另一些人通过发布游戏片段或旧的战争照片来获取流量。以色列的情报机构没能预见来自哈马斯的袭击，这使包括美国在内的许多国家都很诧异。以色列以其网络防御和间谍软件闻名于世，同时也饱受争议，他们利用这些软件对记者和敌对势力的网络进行监听。所以以色列为什么没有回避袭击呢？

我们每天都在参与社交媒体平台的信息战争，这可能会令一些人感到惊讶。但是了解虚假信息是一回事，积极（或不知情）参与到信息战争中则又是一回事。

与个人不同，国家按照DIME模式执行战争行动，即“外交（Diplomacy），信息（Information），军事（Military），经济（Economy）”。大多数国家在派遣军队前都会尽可能地给对手造成痛苦与混乱。事实上，信息方面的攻击是作战的常用伎俩，并且在作战开始后通常首当其冲。电信数据和通信网络被政府监听是常事，这也是为什么倡导隐私和人权的人对网络数据公开政策如此关注的原因。

随着社交媒体在世界范围内的普及，更多的国家通过网络部队参与到了低等级的信息战中。根据牛津互联网研究所2020年的研究，网络部队是“负责操纵网络舆论的政府或政党行为者”。牛津研究组识别出有81个国家拥有活跃的网络部队，他们通过各种策略执行行动，散播虚假信息，包括花费重金进行网上宣传。重点是，他们的行为与那些直接攻击对手或其基础设施的黑客行为或其他形式的网络战争大有不同。网络部队通常不加改变地利用社交媒体和互联网，并运用社会工程学技巧，比如模仿扮演，聊天机器人和增长黑客。

由于研究者严重依赖于拆解分析社交媒体公司的报告，关于网络部队的数据仍较为有限。但牛津的研究者们已经分析出在2020年，巴勒斯坦是伊朗在Facebook上的信息行动目标，以色列是伊朗在Twitter上的目标。这表明虚假信息活动没有国界。研究者同样发现以色列在国内实施网络部队行动，运用僵尸网络或人工账户等手段传播亲政府信息，打击反对派和反以色列言论。以色列网络部队实施或参与的行动包括虚假信息宣传，发布钓鱼信息，传播有利于政府的言论，还通过数据驱动策略来操纵社交媒体上的公众意见。

当然，在借助网络部队抹黑政治对手，外国政府和其他碍事者这一方面，美国政府及其附属企业遥遥领先于其他国家。甚至一些企业，比如Facebook，也会雇公关公司在社交媒体上诋毁竞争对手。这是一场公开的战争，你我也会参与其中。

至于在网上开展影响力行动的主体，研究者发现有证据表明，或是政府特工，或是签约执行网络媒体操纵的私营企业。这一状况表明当代的网络行动是第四代战争的突出特点，其模糊了平民与参战者的界限。

这也对社交平台对信息真伪审查的有效性提出了质疑。比如，唐纳德·特朗普上传了一段详细的战争视频，声称视频来自于“以色列内部”，但被X的事实核查工具——社区笔记（Community Notes）标明为虚假消息。但是问题在于那段视频是真实的。这并不是我们第一次见到事实核查散播虚假消息，一些亲俄账户在2022年就做过类似的事。

一次又一次，社交媒体被用来引导舆论，诋毁对手，泄露政府文件，其欺诈手段包括但不限于编造虚假参与，搜索引擎优化，伪装和冒名顶替账户，还有通过模因战进行文化干预。相比以往，我们更加需要政客们实事求是，用事实说话。甚至美国总统拜登都声称自己看过斩首婴儿的照片，但实际上他只是看过新闻报道。

如今巴以交战日趋激烈，政客，商人，运动员，名人，记者，甚至普通民众，这些具有影响力的人以网络信息为武器在第四代战争中严阵以待。社交网络是这场战争中的关键因素，因为交战会把信息（流行视频，话题标签，meme等）传播到世界各地。

如果我们被牵扯到这场战争中，我和信息科学家兼教授阿米莉亚·阿克（Amelia Acker）总结出了一些方法来辨别网络帖子的真伪。问你自己：这是推广帖子还是广告？这个方法对大多数网友比较方便，也很容易推广。这个帖子是否有真正的参与或者其回复都是奇怪或不相关的？如果你怀疑账户有人冒名顶替，可以对账户的头像图片和账户横幅广告进行反向图片搜索，从时间轴上查看该账户是否有几个月前或几年前的截图。最后，识别垃圾信息，查看附件媒体（图片，视频，链接）调查其重复性，查看该账户是否参与了垃圾信息的发布，比如对大量的帖子进行无关紧要的评论。

尽管我呼吁和平，但我们必须见证这些暴行。战争年代，真相需要被拥护。

 

词汇：

A modicum of：少量的，些许的

Tap into：挖掘，利用

Well-worn：老生常谈的

Be tasked with：被委派任务

Growth hacking：增长黑客：一种创新性的市场营销策略，通过低成本、高效的手段来实现产品或服务的快速增长。

Botnet：僵尸网络

Original Article:

Misinformation Is Warfare

Rather than flip on the TV when major news-worthy events happen, like Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the subsequent retaliation by Israeli forces in Gaza, we open up social media to get up-to-the-minute information. However, while television is still bound to regulations that require a modicum of truthful content, social media is a battleground of facts, lies, and deception, where governments, journalists, law enforcement, and activists are on an uneven playing field.    

It is a massive understatement to use the term “fog of war” to describe what is happening in discussions of Hamas and Israel on social media. It’s a torrent of true horror, violent pronunciations, sadness, and disinformation. Some have capitalized on this moment to inflame Russia or gain clout by posting video game clips or older images of war recontextualized. Many governments, including the U.S., were shocked that Israeli Intelligence failed to see the land, sea, and air attack. Israel is known for its controversial cyber defense and spyware used to tap into journalists’ and adversaries’ networks. How could this have happened?

It may come as a surprise to some that we are involved in an information war playing out across all social media platforms every day. But it’s one thing to see disinformation, and it’s another to be an active (or unwitting) participant in battle.

Different from individuals, states conduct warfare operations using the DIME model—"diplomacy, information, military, and economics.” Most states do everything they can to inflict pain and confusion on their enemies before deploying the military. In fact, attacks on vectors of information is a well-worn tactic of war and usually are the first target when the charge begins. It’s common for telecom data and communications networks to be routinely monitored by governments, which is why the open data policies of the web are so concerning to many advocates of privacy and human rights.

With the worldwide adoption of social media, more governments are getting involved in low-grade information warfare through the use of cyber troops. According to a study by the Oxford Internet Institute in 2020, cyber troops are “government or political party actors tasked with manipulating public opinion online.” The Oxford research group was able to identify 81 countries with active cyber troop operations utilizing many different strategies to spread false information, including spending millions on online advertising. Importantly, this situation is vastly different from utilizing hacking or other forms of cyber warfare to directly attack opponents or infrastructure. Cyber troops typically utilize social media and the internet as it is designed, while employing social engineering techniques like impersonation, bots, and growth hacking.

Data on cyber troops is still limited because researchers rely heavily on takedown reports by social media companies. But the Oxford researchers were able to identify that, in 2020, Palestine was a target of information operations from Iran on Facebook and Israel was a target of Iran on Twitter, which indicates that disinformation campaigns know no borders. Researchers also noted that Israel developed high-capacity cyber troop operations internally, using tactics like botnets and human accounts to spread pro-government, anti-opposition, and suppress anti-Israel narratives. The content Israel cyber troops produced or engaged with included disinformation campaigns, trolling, amplification of favored narratives, and data-driven strategies to manipulate public opinion on social media.

Of course, there is no match for the cyber troops deployed by the U.S. government and ancillary corporations hired to smear political opponents, foreign governments, and anyone that gets in the way. Even companies like Facebook have employed PR firms to use social media to trash the reputation of competing companies. It’s open warfare—and you’ve likely participated.

As for who runs influence operations online, researchers found evidence of a blurry boundary between government operatives and private firms contracted to conduct media manipulation campaigns online. This situation suggests that contemporary cyber operations are best characterized as fourth generation warfare, which blurs the lines between civilians and combatants.

It also has called into question the validity of the checks that platforms have built to separate fact from fiction. For instance, a graphic video of the war was posted by Donald Trump Jr.—images which Trump Jr. claimed came from a “source within Israel,”—was flagged as fake through X’s Community Notes fact-checking feature. The problem, though, was that the video was real. This would not be the first time we have seen fact-checkers spread disinformation, as pro-Russian accounts did something similar in 2022.

Time and time again, we have seen social media used to shape public opinion, defame opponents, and leak government documents using tactics that involve deception by creating fake engagement, using search engine optimization, cloaked and imposter accounts, as well as cultural interventions through meme wars. Now more than ever we need politicians to verify what they are saying and arm themselves with facts. Even President Biden was fact-checked on his claim to have seen images of beheaded babies, when he had only read news reports.

Today, as we witness more and more attacks across Israel and Palestine, influential people—politicians, business people, athletes, celebrities, journalists, and folks just like me and you—are embattled in fourth generation warfare using networks of information as a weapon. The networks are key factors here as engagement is what distributes some bytes of information—like viral videos, hashtags, or memes—across vast distances.

If we have all been drafted into this war, here are some things that information scientist and professor Amelia Acker and I developed to gauge if an online post might be disinformation. Ask yourself: Is it a promoted post or ad? This is a shortcut to massive audiences and can be very cheap to go viral. Is there authentic engagement on the post or do all of the replies seem strange or unrelated? If you suspect the account is an imposter, conduct a reverse image search of profile pics and account banners, and look to see if the way-back machine has screenshots of the account from prior months or years. Lastly, to spot spam, view attached media (pictures, videos, links) and look for duplicates and see if this account engages in spam posting, for example, replying to lots of posts with innocuous comments.

While my hope is for peace, we all must bear witness to these atrocities. In times of war, truth needs an advocate.

 

原网址

https://time.com/6323387/misinformation-israel-hamas-war-essay/