Donald Trump’s administration is planning to spend $4 million to bolster right-wing media in Europe, part of a package of at least $25 million for civil society groups working on conservative causes in the region, according to four people familiar with the funding.
The grants risk deepening tensions between the Trump administration and European governments, some of which have already accused Washington of interfering in their domestic politics.
The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) says the funding is meant to strengthen transatlantic ties and promote free speech. It comes as European countries prepare for elections over the next couple of years, and as the Trump administration openly backs Europe’s populist right-wing and far-right parties.
Agreed, but I prefer his position. What can we do? We have strength in our numbers, but we have to fight the misinformation. How can we steal from them the control of information? How can we fight the bots they control? Federated networks help to some degree, but it’s clear they are within us. Could we build an AI network to fight this? We can’t throw the towel, we have to fight them!
The problem isn’t information; it’s actual things happening in real life. The far-right is as strong as it is because its lies contain a grain of truth: It offers (cruel and ineffective) solutions to people’s very real problems. This means the only realistic solution here is to deny them that grain of truth by offering effective solutions to those problems. Now some effort is being made here—it’s no coincidence that the left is rising as if in response to the far-right—but more of that needs to happen and fast. The focus on misinformation misses the fundamental reasons that misinformation works as well as it does (after all it’s not like lying was invented in 2016).
There’s a reason why some very bright people in tech with decades of experience aren’t dismissing AI whole cloth.
The dangers are vast. The social harm is a real effect. The brain atrophy is an actual pitfall to be avoided, even at the cost of tying yourself to the metaphorical ship mast.
But the possibilities are also real, else they wouldn’t be using them against us.
The hatred is fine and all, but I really really wish the kind of people who frequent the Fediverse and spouted all of the encouraging anti-establishment stances…also minded their basic Sun Tzu: