What's the Limit of Trust Hacking?

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There were groups dedicated to consuming this form of bleach called m m s, miracle mineral solution, as a treatment for autism. It was the theory that autism is caused by gut parasites and you could use this bleach to solve your child's autism. For a long time, the platforms didn't know what to do about it. One of the grifters who sells the stuff, reorganized himself as a church. So now it's on par with like using any other sort of altering substance for religious experience. And if you take it down, you're violating somebody's religious beliefs.

How does disinformation spread in the age of COVID-19? It takes an expert like Renée DiResta to trace conspiracy theories back to their source. She’s already exposed how Russian state actors manipulated the 2016 election, but that was just a prelude to what she’s seeing online today: a convergence of state actors and lone individuals, anti-vaxxers and NRA supporters, scam artists and preachers and the occasional fan of cuddly pandas. What ties all of these disparate actors together is an information ecosystem that’s breaking down before our eyes. We explore what’s going wrong and what we must do to fix it in this interview with Renée DiResta, Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.