The Disinformation Age

Mike Hind & conspiracy theory chronicler Mike Rothschild discuss the many facets of a Trump-era classic - the 'grand unifying' theory of QAnon

Something about the structures of online social discourse is changing us. Thi Nguyen sees similarities with the gaming world. Plus the 'expert finding' problem and more.

#Moggmentum & #FreeTommy are two hash tags designed to promote and gain support for right wing talking points. But they are anything but organic in their spread.

Mike and John discuss the similarities in the tenor, tone and approaches of the pro-European #FBPE Twitter community with those of the earlier pro-Brexit campaign.

Mike and John discuss the use of fake social profiles by non-political influencers - and the wider risks that come with this kind of gaming of social platforms. The reputational damage to real people caused by account hijacking, the increased risk of sharing malware infections, when links are shared by people apparently connected with the supposed great and the good and the risks to your own online reputation posed by automating your own follow back policies.

Mike and John discuss the 'rootless' nature of the internet and the difficulties that poses to reaching the sources of information pollution. The explosion of pro-'Remain' accounts on Twitter and the problem of low quality news aggregation sites is also covered.

In this episode Mike and John discuss how the conversation on Twitter unfolded around the appearances of Google, Facebook and Twitter at the so-called 'tech hearings' before representatives of Congress and the Senate in the United States.

They conclude that because so much focus was on 'Trump-Russia' rather than the role of the platforms themselves, the social media giants are getting a free pass on their position as aids to weaponised disinformation.

Fake news may have reached the mainstream, as a story, but experts in the

field of combating disinformation are now thinking far beyond that. In this

episode we catch up with delegates and presenters at the Misinfocon event,

held in London in October, to hear about some of the latest developments

aimed at fixing a 'post-truth' information environment.

Mike Hind and John Gray discuss the apparent astroturfing of anti-Uber sentiment by the London taxi industry and reveal a 'pornopolitical' Bot of the Week.