Journalists, journalism scholars and philosophers have long noted a dearth of engagement between journalism and philosophy, particularly in the Anglophone world. Yet, they have much to gain from each other as professional communities and as disciplines of thought and practice. This paper attempts to initiate the long-overdue conversation between journalism and philosophy by proposing that they are both forms of power in society. They arise from the same dimension of the human condition and they address complementary needs that arise from that dimension, which is why journalism and philosophy are so tantalizingly similar and yet frustratingly different.
This paper brings together machine learning and investigative journalism to examine sockpuppets accounts, a historical breed of fake accounts that are non-automated and human-controlled. Due to their flexible and human-centered nature, sockpuppets pose a complication for purely technological approaches to detecting and studying fake accounts. We find that as machine learning-based detection methods of bots slowly grow stronger, adversaries engaging in disinformation are turning to such sockpuppets accounts, and in particular a subset of sockpuppets that we call "infiltrators" — those that aim to integrate into a community in order spread disinformation. This represents a new stage in the evolution of the sockpuppet concept: where bots seek to simulate audiences and drown online social media platforms with a particular point of view, infiltrators seek to persuade and assimilate genuine audiences from within. In addition to these insights into infiltrator sockpuppets, combining machine learning and investigative journalism enables learning something more than detection and important patterns of activity: it can also gain a sense of the motivations and reasoning of adversaries who engage in disinformation.
It is often said that war creates a fog in which it becomes difficult to discern friend from foe on the battlefield. In the ongoing war on fake accounts, conscious development of taxonomies of the phenomenon has yet to occur, resulting in much confusion on the digital battlefield about what exactly a fake account is. This paper intends to address this problem, not by proposing a taxonomy of fake accounts, but by proposing a systematic way to think taxonomically about the phenomenon. Specifically, we examine fake accounts through both a combined philosophical and computer science-based perspective. Through these lenses, we deconstruct narrow binary thinking about fake accounts, both in the form of general false dichotomies and specifically in relation to the Facebook's conceptual framework Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB). We then address the false dichotomies by constructing a more complex way of thinking taxonomically about fake accounts.
The Genesis science canister is an aluminum cylinder (75 cm diameter and 35 cm tall) hinged at the mid-line for opening. This canister was cleaned and assembled in an ISO level 4 (Class 10) clean room at Johnson Space Center (JSC) prior to launch. The clean solar collectors were installed and the canister closed in the cleanroom to preserve collector cleanliness. The canister remained closed until opened on station at Earth-Sun L1 for solar wind collection. At the conclusion of collection, the canister was again closed to preserve collector cleanliness during Earth return and re-entry. Upon impacting the dry Utah lakebed at 300 kph the science canister integrity was breached. The canister was returned to JSC. The canister shell was briefly examined, imaged, gently cleaned of dust and packaged for storage in anticipation of future detailed examination. The condition of the science canister shell noted during this brief examination is presented here. The canister interior components were packaged and stored without imaging due to time constraints.
With the shift of public discourse to social media, we see simultaneously an expansion of civic engagement as the bar to enter the conversation is lowered, and the reaction by both state and non-state adversaries of free speech to silence these voices. Traditional forms of censorship struggle in this new situation to enforce the preferred narrative of those in power. Consequently, they have developed new methods for controlling the conversation that use the social media platform itself. Using the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan as a main case study, this talk explores how this new form of "subtle" censorship relies on pretence and imitation, and why interdisciplinary methods of research are needed to grapple with it. We examine how "fakeness" in the form of fake news and profiles is used as methods of subtle censorship.
Measurement of solar composition in the Genesis collectors requires not only high sensitivity but very low blanks; thus, very strict collector contamination minimization was required beginning with mission planning and continuing through hardware design, fabrication, assembly and testing. Genesis started with clean collectors and kept them clean inside of a canister. The mounting hardware and container for the clean collectors were designed to be cleanable, with access to all surfaces for cleaning. Major structural components were made of aluminum and cleaned with megasonically energized ultrapure water (UPW). The UPW purity was >18 M resistivity. Although aluminum is relatively difficult to clean, the Genesis protocol achieved level 25 and level 50 cleanliness on large structural parts; however, the experience suggests that surface treatments may be helpful on future missions. All cleaning was performed in an ISO Class 4 (Class 10) cleanroom immediately adjacent to an ISO Class 4 assembly room; thus, no plastic packaging was required for transport. Persons assembling the canister were totally enclosed in cleanroom suits with face shield and HEPA filter exhaust from suit. Interior canister materials, including fasteners, were installed, untouched by gloves, using tweezers and other stainless steel tools. Sealants/lubricants were not exposed inside the canister, but vented to the exterior and applied in extremely small amounts using special tools. The canister was closed in ISO Class 4, not to be opened until on station at Earth-Sun L1. Throughout the cleaning and assembly, coupons of reference materials that were cleaned at the same time as the flight hardware were archived for future reference and blanks. Likewise reference collectors were archived. Post-mission analysis of collectors has made use of these archived reference materials.
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