A Russian disinformation network called Pravda (“Truth”) has influenced leading AI chatbots’ output by publishing numerous articles that made their way into the bots’ training data, a new report from the analysis group NewsGuard reveals. According to researchers, this wasn’t just a side effect of Moscow flooding the web with false narratives — it was the initiative’s main goal. Here’s how the scheme worked.
  • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    28 days ago

    In other news, Five Eyes & Western corporate media disinformation network flooded training data to manipulate Western AI chatbots.

    A “well-funded” online Russian disinformation network called Pravda put out 3.6 million articles last year, many of which were processed by popular chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o, Claude (Anthropic), Meta AI, Gemini (Google), and Copilot (Microsoft), according to a new report from the watchdog group NewsGuard.

    This is ridiculous framing. Just as no one forced OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, or Microsoft to scrape Western propaganda sites like those of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, no one forced them to scrape Russian propaganda sites like Pravda.

    • Five@slrpnk.netOP
      0·
      28 days ago

      That’s some really low-effort whataboutism.

      The tactic is an old favorite of the Soviet Union, and Marxists/the far left in general; the strategy was originally used in the form of “And at your place, they hang black people.” The term ‘whataboutery’ itself, however, only dates back to 1974 with its use in The Troubles in Northern Ireland, whereas the term ‘whataboutism’ dates back to 1978 with reference to the Soviet Union.

      In recent years, whataboutism made a comeback in Russia under Vladimir Putin’s regime (since they seemingly learned all the wrong lessons from the Cold War), and has also seen a rise in usage by Donald Trump, his support base, and the rest of the far-right.

      • davel@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        28 days ago

        Citations Needed podcast: Episode 66: Whataboutism - The Media’s Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy

        Since the beginning of what’s generally called ‘RussiaGate’ three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of “whataboutism” – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers’ hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, “you, also” - fallacy, but with a unique Slavic flavor of nihilism, used by Trump and leftists alike in an effort to change the subject and focus on the faults of the United States rather than the crimes of Official State Enemies.

        But what if “whataboutism” isn’t describing a propaganda technique, but in fact is one itself: a zombie phrase that’s seeped into everyday liberal discourse that – while perhaps useful in the abstract - has manifestly turned any appeal to moral consistency into a cunning Russian psyop. From its origins in the Cold War as a means of deflecting and apologizing for Jim Crow to its braindead contemporary usage as a way of not engaging any criticism of the United States as the supposed arbiter of human rights, the term “whataboutism” has become a term that - 100 percent of the time - is simply used to defend and legitimizing American empire’s moral narratives.

        We are joined by Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept.

        Not that it matters, because I didn’t make a whataboutist argument in the first place.

          • Five@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
            01·
            28 days ago

            Where a ‘liberal’ is anyone a totalitarian disagrees with, and a ‘source’ is a half-hearted general link to a Wikipedia article.

            Edit: Davel has now expanded his low-effort response to be more than a Wikipedia link to Five Eyes.

        • Five@slrpnk.netOP
          01·
          28 days ago

          Not that it matters, because I didn’t make a whataboutist argument in the first place.

          I agree that you didn’t make an argument.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
            1·
            28 days ago

            Well… yeah? They just clarified with some context and then you started crying whataboutism. It’s not whataboutism to simply point out something that is done by the West.