On the heals of a previous idea about putting body cameras on entertainment agents, I feel compelled to suggest another fix -- although this one is more of a social fix for a social problem, thus providing a much needed "balance". Yeah, that's supposed to be funny to those who know me all too well...

What To Do About Russian Election Meddling Using Fake News?

There's a lot of hand-wringing about this subject. In my opinion, part of the solution here is really simple.

Here's a proposed solution, using Facebook as a hypothetical example. The idea centers around reversing the flow of social influence that the peddlers of this propaganda intended.

Facebook and the US Intelligence community, acting on data that is by the day becoming clearer, have the fake news ads and memes. Specifically, they know what ads and fake news stories that were shipped with the intention of swaying opinions in the election. They have also got another treasure trove -- a whole bank of real US citizens that still have the lingering "shares" in the history of their feed.

So what's to stop Facebook from hijacking a user's feed, and putting up an un-deletable, Facebook-driven "post"? One that says, in effect: "NOTE: User John Doe shared the following Fake News ad on their feed on September of 2016. This Post has been traced to a hostile foreign entity." It should appear for at least 2-3 days and after that until they delete the actual post off of their feed. There should be tools visible to the user, such that they can easily delete the fake news post. Again, in either case, this post will appear to all of the users friends for at least 2-3 days. And yes, commenting on the post should be allowed. It should be group commenting, such that all users that were exposed across multiple people will see the commentary.

They should appear in serial fashion in my opinion. Once the user has had the blow of 2-3 days of one fake ad NOTE, the next NOTE will appear. It should happen over and over, in other words, for the special type of repeat offender that got away with sharing propaganda in our last election.

No doubt, this will lead to some people deleting their accounts. In that case, Facebook should continue to leave up the NOTEs for that user, with the added caption "John Doe has since deleted his account.", leaving off the unsaid portion "in shame". No doubt, facebook itself will face a serious backwash of unpopularity. To those that would wring their hands about this hit on facebook's popularity, the simple point that our democracy is being hijacked by a foreign entity should be provided as balance.

In the case of Twitter -- the same thing. The account will "tweet" out an apology text indicating what was linked to their feed.

Reddit is a bit more complex. There are users and there are sub-reddits. For Reddit, whole sub-reddits that were hijacked will do penance, and the user accounts that posted them will be called out in the text. The moderators will not have control -- any post traced to a foreign government will get exposure. It will appear on the feed for that sub, and no moderation tools will be able to remove it.

No doubt, this will make sites like Facebook, reddit and twitter a bit more somber. No doubt, some idiots will cry foul of "free speech" -- no one is not saying you can't share fake news. We're just saying that when that news has been traced to a hostile government, you might end up with egg on your face.

It would be a form of digital penance for the sites that helped Russia sway the election. I'm saying it would be extremely easy to implement. I'm thinking sooner rather than later, as the Russians are all to willing to have another go at this.

-=FeriCyde=-