Conquer Club

So here's a question for my fellow squabblers.

Last night, two of the news programs I listen to, PRI's The World and BBC Monocle's The Briefing both led off with the same story. Yesterday was the day that Putin's new Sovereign Internet law came into effect, giving the Russian government sweeping powers to censor the internet and to prevent foreign news from entering the country.

The basics of the story were covered in essentially the same way, but then came the inevitable question about drawing comparisons between Russia's Sovereign Internet and China's Great Firewall, at which point there were very divergent attitudes. Analysts on both shows were asked to compare the impact of the two.

The analyst being interviewed on PRI said that the Sovereign Internet would have much less of an impact than the Great Firewall. He said basically, that while Russia might have some high-tech centres, in essence it's still a very low-tech nation. In China, the internet is now intertwined with every aspect of life, whereas in Russia the internet is still mostly a frill, the way it was in the West 20 years ago. Russian should therefore suffer much less impact than from the internet censorship than China does.

The analyst being interviewed on Monocle basically said the opposite. He said that the Chinese government is worried about economic growth first and political dominance second. He said that while the Chinese do censor things, they are careful not to be so heavy-handed that they would stifle economic growth. Putin, on the other hand, is an old-fashioned dictator who cares primarily about power and doesn't really give a shit which way the economy goes, so he's not above crushing the flow of information entirely if he feels it's necessary to preserve power.

I'm not really sure if I agree with either of those perspectives, but I'm curious what you think. What's more dangerous, RSI or GFW?

Any response would be a guess like those of the analysts you heard. Maybe their guesses are educated guesses, and our guesses are stupid guesses.

There are many aspects to consider. What are they exactly censoring? Just news? If so you keep people from contaminating their minds with the decadent ways of the west. Seriously though, isn't it what parents do when they take steps to prevent their kids from watching porn?

I just don't know where I was going and my coffee is over..

Maybe was just thinking that.. western ideas and culture are invading everywhere, soon there will be just cities like LA and NYC everywhere with 10 different stores and the same products. Everybody wearing gap and eating mcdonalds or subway, drinking starbucks, talking on their iphone or samsung and using the same meds and insured by geiko.

Maybe it's better than drinking vodka and eating dog, but it's the same. So boring. Stupid american TV everywhere.

Maybe let the Russians continue with their dictatorships and then maybe another communist state and maybe then tsars again.

It's good to have some diversity. Otherwise i get bored.


bye

All I know is that if China (and now Russia) has these ‘Firewalls’ then they essentially control the flow of data in and out of their country.

Therefore if we determine that cyber attacks originate from either country it is be default that these attacks are blessed by the country.

So essentially any cyber attack emanating from Russia or China is really ‘blessed’ by that country nd should be considered an act of war.

It’s no different than a Privateer.

You're ready to go to war with Russia or China? Seems pretty bold.

Dukasaur wrote:Russian should therefore suffer much less impact than from the internet censorship than China does.

What impact does internet censorship have in China? Pretty much all the blocked websites are foreign news or English-language sites that almost no one in China is trying to use anyway, so the only censorship of any note is that discussion around some sensitive topics gets censored and some terms/events turn up zero hits if you Baidu (Chinese Google) them.

I thought this thread was going to be about whether it's more dangerous to censor that sort of content or to let people post and share whatever they like (i.e. a 'free' internet). Given the amount of completely insane fake news and lies that companies like Facebook are happy to let circulate on their platforms, and the real world impacts that has in shaping elections or stoking unrest, it's hard to argue that a totally unconstrained internet is much healthier for a functioning society than a censored internet.

He said that while the Chinese do censor things, they are careful not to be so heavy-handed that they would stifle economic growth. Putin, on the other hand, is an old-fashioned dictator who cares primarily about power and doesn't really give a shit which way the economy goes, so he's not above crushing the flow of information entirely if he feels it's necessary to preserve power.

It's true that the Chinese government's first, second and third priorities are economic growth. The national government bases its political legitimacy on being a strong and stable base that enables continuous growth to take place. No one except the censors truly know why they censor the things they do but at the national level it is presumably mostly done with the rationale of protecting that stability. I doubt the second statement about Putin is true.

2dimes wrote:You're ready to go to war with Russia or China? Seems pretty bold.

Even better, he's prepared to go to war with China over his Dungeons and Dragons server getting hacked by some guy in Shanghai.

2dimes wrote:You're ready to go to war with Russia or China? Seems pretty bold.

Countries wouldn’t go to war over a few attacks by Privateers with Letters of Marque from a rival country.

So one attack on a shipping vessel might be today’s equivalent of some Chinese hacker knocking down CC for a few days.

They would however aggressively pursue these Privateers... and if the level of attacks rose to a significant level they may declare war.
Usually diplomats would put rival countries on notice and the Privateers would be instructed to take plunder elsewhere.

The analogy is not perfect... because the small attacks and probes of today that are ‘not worthy’ of action may be practice and testing of infrastructure/means... and allowing these probed and tests to continue gives our opponents an advantage.

My point is... if these countries control their internet’s... then they must by default be complicit in these attacks at least on some level by allowing them to occur.

Cyber Security is an area of concern to me... it’s probably our country’s (USA’s) second biggest threat in the coming decades.

(The first being Global Warming/Climate Change and the food/water crisis these could produce.)

I think I am loosely following.

If Google can not get in cyber attacks should not be able to get out.

However if they block Google yet allow the attack to occur, you would like to punish them to encourage them to execute those responsible for the attacks, which would probably reduce the amount of attacks. Close?

I kind of agree until you compare shutting down conquer club with shooting a ship. I personally might be more upset about conquer club, but it is still much less significant than physically attacking something.

Fair enough you want something that they will respond to since they don't seem to care enough to prevent the problem to begin with.

2dimes wrote:I think I am loosely following.

If Google can not get in cyber attacks should not be able to get out.

However if they block Google yet allow the attack to occur, you would like to punish them to encourage them to execute those responsible for the attacks, which would probably reduce the amount of attacks. Close?

I kind of agree until you compare shutting down conquer club with shooting a ship. I personally might be more upset about conquer club, but it is still much less significant than physically attacking something.

Fair enough you want something that they will respond to since they don't seem to care enough to prevent the problem to begin with.

Is it?

I mean, Conquer Club as an example is pretty whimsical, but cyberwar is very real.

When the Americans hacked those Iranian nuclear plants in 2009, they did real and permanent damage. Furthermore, the spinoff damage (unintended targets that were collateral damage) ripped through eight countries. In terms of total economic damage (including the unintended targets) there was probably more total damage done with the Stutnet worm than if they had just bombed those Iranian plants with an old-fashioned air strike.

The 2007 Russian cyberattacks on Estonia paralyzed many businesses in that country. Europe is a lot more cashless than we are; some business couldn't function at all. The total cost of those attacks have never been calculated, but just one bank in Estonia reported losses of $1 million directly attributable to the attacks. Real data is hard to find so you can just take a wild guess, but if a single bank lost a million, I'd be very surprised if the country's businesses in aggregate lost less than a billion. Not chicken feed, and again, an actual airstrike might have done less damage.

Cyberwar is real and dangerous.

mrswdk wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:Russian should therefore suffer much less impact than from the internet censorship than China does.

What impact does internet censorship have in China? Pretty much all the blocked websites are foreign news or English-language sites that almost no one in China is trying to use anyway, so the only censorship of any note is that discussion around some sensitive topics gets censored and some terms/events turn up zero hits if you Baidu (Chinese Google) them.

I'm thinking mainly of the impact on human rights activists being unable to to fight government misinformation. Generally in dictatorships one relies on access to data that is safely held in democratic countries, but if that data is inaccessible it's essentially useless.

mrswdk wrote:I thought this thread was going to be about whether it's more dangerous to censor that sort of content or to let people post and share whatever they like (i.e. a 'free' internet). Given the amount of completely insane fake news and lies that companies like Facebook are happy to let circulate on their platforms, and the real world impacts that has in shaping elections or stoking unrest, it's hard to argue that a totally unconstrained internet is much healthier for a functioning society than a censored internet.

I was raised to believe that the truth will win in the end, and I like to think that's still true.

Yes, if you look at Facebook or YouTube right now, it's easy to get pessimistic. There's explosive growth in falsehood and relatively slow growth of truth. The pessimistic view is that this trend will only continue. The optimistic view is that this too shall pass. Right now the pendulum is swinging towards falsehood, but the pendulum will swing back again before long. These types of websites are pretty new -- FB and YT are both only 15 years old and have really impacted society for 10 or less -- and mankind is just learning how to deal with them. Soon enough people will develop new tools for separating truth from fiction and the pendulum will swing back again.

The first chain letters were wildly popular, but today most people toss them in the trash almost by reflex. It took a couple generations for people to develop immunity -- the first chain letter started in 1935 and in the 1970s they were still fairly popular -- but it happened eventually. I think the same thing will happen with flat earth and Hillary-lizard theories on YouTube.

In the long run, I think unrestricted access to data is a good thing, even if there are some short-term disasters.

jimboston wrote:All I know is that if China (and now Russia) has these ‘Firewalls’ then they essentially control the flow of data in and out of their country.

Therefore if we determine that cyber attacks originate from either country it is be default that these attacks are blessed by the country.

So essentially any cyber attack emanating from Russia or China is really ‘blessed’ by that country nd should be considered an act of war.

It’s no different than a Privateer.

I'm going to try to not be aggressive jimboston.

You cannot really control the flow of internet data out of a country. The information travels encrypted, if you were to try to decrypt every single data package to analyse it you would need more cpu-time that what already exists, and possibly more man-time than the entire population of the world. What you can control is destination/source. Or do you think internet packets travel with a little flag that says either "safe" or "hacking" ? Hackers in China, Russia, America and even Timbuktu are even better at this, they can hide information in normal stuff, then encrypt it, and then use the standard mainstream encryption. Not only that, they use compromised systems for their hacking. For instance, hackers in China (or Russia, or America or even Timbuktu) can compromise a corporate system, then use that system in a vpn to go out to America (or China, or Russia, or even Timbuktu) into another compromised system from which they do an attack. That is just a basic example.


What these countries are trying to do is basically prevent the common person from accessing Fox news or NPR or FB news or whatever source of information they consider dangerous to their purposes. They can do some other stuff, depending on their interests, but that's it.


Now, I said i was going to try not to be aggressive, but I'm already here. Consider this first: I'm only responding to you because you always try to be reasonable, you try to read others responses and really try to give reasonable answers, as unbiased as you can, if you were any other idiot, I wouldn't respond, or I would simply mock you.


This is the second or third time you make the same mistake, which simply suggests that there's a will to see the world with America as the good guy, and the Chinese and Russians as the bad guys. With cyber attacks, I'd bet both my nuts that the first cyber attack was done by Americans. Of course, it can't be proven. And I bet that as I type, there are hundreds of people employed by the American government working out ways to attack international targets, but they label it as preemtive something and they guy who directs is wearing a clean white shirt with a tie and a nice suit, and he looks a lot like the guy you would find very interesting if you happened to coincide at a restaurant and strike a small conversation with him. Unlike the stinky chinese that prepares your chow mein or the rude Russian that [don't know what the stereotype for Russian is].

If you're going to be reasonable and try to pass your posts as those of a person who really thinks about it, I think you need to do a zoom out and see the mistake you keep making. If you're gonna root blindly for the US you're just going to start looking like NP or Hitred or someone like that. If you continue to find reasonable excuses for what America does, you're just doing mental masturbation, but hey, if that's what you enjoy..

Again, I only answer to you in this way because you always try to be reasonable.

Taken in isolation the two are, more or less, the same. It is only when other factors are taken into consideration that the problem with China becomes more acute. Let’s face it, the notion of a truly free internet is a myth. The internet is filtered, either directly or indirectly. Whether this is some tin pot dictatorship or the designers of Google’s algorithms, the result is the same. It is, however, the development of the “social credit” score, and the use of the internet, especially the future 5G network system to provide a 24/7 spying network on the people in China that will have a bigger impact than the simple systems that just make determined people work harder to get the unfiltered news. The later will highly discourage people from making the attempt in the first place.

Let’s fact it, most people in Russia probably don’t trust their news. In the United States, the land of the “free” most people don’t trust their news either. In the end, however, the “Sovereign Internet” will not stop the eventual advance of China into Russian newspace.

tzor wrote:especially the future 5G network system to provide a 24/7 spying network on the people in China

keep repeating it.

that's not what it's designed for, the security concerns are based mainly in that the suppliers are Chinese companies, and that it depends more on software now, making it more susceptible to bugs. But everything is moving in that direction, you anus has software now.

The EU cited the reliance on suppliers, particularly a limited number of them, as a definite point of vulnerability: "The risk profile of individual suppliers will become particularly important, including the likelihood of the supplier being subject to interference from a non-EU country," it said. The U.S. is facing the lack of robust U.S. competition to Chinese telecom tech suppliers.

what does that sound to you? but, stop thinking like an american idiot, think as a reasonable human. What are really their concerns? Yes, that the stinky Chinese eating dog and the rude Russian drinking vodka may come to you possesed by the spirit of Mao, Stalin and Hitler.


and you're in IT. nice.


i'm done. this is a waste of time.

I like how otherwise reasonable people suddenly think it's okay to be totally rude assholes when it comes to talking to tzor.

What he do to deserve this kind of trashy attitude? Fucked your sister?

I expect better than this, nietz.

Again, I was only concerned with going to war over Jim's example which seemed to be lighter. He even mentioned CC at one point..

If someone is using some network access the launch missiles like that Matthew Broderick movie, then they are basically ramping things up to physically attacking something. I would fully expect massive retaliation.

Further Duke's Iran example is where I disagree with the way too many things are done now. If I build a nuclear power plant I don't hook it up to the Internet. Same with anything important like a public water system. Door locks, banking...

Sure I might have internet available to help the operators run things, but I wouldn't set it up so anyone, including authorized personnel can access computerized controls remotely via any open network. Who knows? Maybe that's why I never get asked to build those things.

I do recall from touring the first operational nuclear electrical generator in Idaho, the guide told us, the United States does not allow a nuclear power plant to use a certain brand of software because it lacked security and could get a virus.

you're wrong Duk, I for a long time really really tried hard not to snap at tzor, because other than his views he's a nice guy.

but this is his area of expertise, he speaking about 5G networks should be an informed opinion and yet he just drops a line there that is totally with the attempt of misinforming others. Tell me if that's not evil, even if done by neglect.


I think I've only snapped at him 2.5 times, even though I disagree with almost all his post on stuff like this.

And why are you defending him anyway? He acapella'd to your ear after YOU SUCKED HIS DICK?

2dimes wrote:I think I am loosely following.

If Google can not get in cyber attacks should not be able to get out.

However if they block Google yet allow the attack to occur, you would like to punish them to encourage them to execute those responsible for the attacks, which would probably reduce the amount of attacks. Close?

I kind of agree until you compare shutting down conquer club with shooting a ship. I personally might be more upset about conquer club, but it is still much less significant than physically attacking something.

Fair enough you want something that they will respond to since they don't seem to care enough to prevent the problem to begin with.

Yes, you are following.

Regarding the ship/CC analogy. I admitted the analogy was not perfect. I used CC because mrswdk said I wanted to start a war because mys and Dragons server was hacked.

... but the economic impact of a Privateer (in the 17th/18th century) taking over a merchant vessel, and a hacker taking down some website may be equivalent. Many Pirate/Privateer attacks did not result in loss of life. Often the merchant vessels would recognize they were outgunned and they would surrender. They crew would get ransomed and no one was hurt. So the real impact was the economic loss.

Well, yeah, I'm with you on protecting important things.

I'm still a bit reluctant to declare war but, obviously Duke's hypothetical examples might end up causing such action.

Apart from occasional powerful garlic breath I was unaware of the "Stinky" Chinese people prejudice. I know sometimes we smell like sour milk from dairy consumption to them but that seems to be opposite of the strange example proposed by Nietzsche.

His explanation about how those national firewalls are only blocking data from entering the country from certain sites makes sense. It sounds more like they are not terribly effective even at that for someone that really wants to receive things.

I'm guessing in China something gets flagged if someone starts going back and forth with Google though.

nietzsche wrote:

jimboston wrote:All I know is that if China (and now Russia) has these ‘Firewalls’ then they essentially control the flow of data in and out of their country.

Therefore if we determine that cyber attacks originate from either country it is be default that these attacks are blessed by the country.

So essentially any cyber attack emanating from Russia or China is really ‘blessed’ by that country nd should be considered an act of war.

It’s no different than a Privateer.

I'm going to try to not be aggressive jimboston.

Thank you. I will reply in kind. I don’t think any of your reply is aggressive.

nietzsche wrote:You cannot really control the flow of internet data out of a country. The information travels encrypted, if you were to try to decrypt every single data package to analyse it you would need more cpu-time that what already exists, and possibly more man-time than the entire population of the world. What you can control is destination/source. Or do you think internet packets travel with a little flag that says either "safe" or "hacking" ? Hackers in China, Russia, America and even Timbuktu are even better at this, they can hide information in normal stuff, then encrypt it, and then use the standard mainstream encryption. Not only that, they use compromised systems for their hacking. For instance, hackers in China (or Russia, or America or even Timbuktu) can compromise a corporate system, then use that system in a vpn to go out to America (or China, or Russia, or even Timbuktu) into another compromised system from which they do an attack. That is just a basic example.[/end]

I’m not saying it’s easy, and I’m sure there’s more to it than I realize. I’m fairly technically literate, but It, by not means an expert.

That said, if you are controlling the flow of data part of what you watch is the volume of data. Using the right algorithms you can see patterns in the volume of data that hackers generate that would be suspicious. You investigate these more closely and you find that hackers. Do I think it’s foolproof and you will catch 100%.... no of course not. Do I think both Russia and China ‘turn a blind eye’ to cyber attacks on Western Nations and/or Western businesses. Yes.

nietzsche wrote:What these countries are trying to do is basically prevent the common person from accessing Fox news or NPR or FB news or whatever source of information they consider dangerous to their purposes. They can do some other stuff, depending on their interests, but that's it.

I think the key point here is bolded. They don’t feel it is in their interest to limit, control, prevent, etc. hackers. My point is that through diplomatic means, and yes... through the threat of retaliatory acts... we can help make it in the interests of China and Russia to limit/prevent cyber attacks.

nietzsche wrote:
This is the second or third time you make the same mistake, which simply suggests that there's a will to see the world with America as the good guy, and the Chinese and Russians as the bad guys. With cyber attacks, I'd bet both my nuts that the first cyber attack was done by Americans. Of course, it can't be proven.

I agree. I would bet the US ‘started’ it. I think one difference is our attacks are directed at gov’t agencies... and their attacks are directed at both gov’t agencies and private enterprises. I also think that these countries in some ways encourage it on a criminal scale because they see the value that these causes as a disruption to our economy and political system. It’s also kind of a ‘farm system’ for their technical talent.

I’m also mainly concerned with the US interests... because I am American and so yeah... I’m biased and if there is a cyber war I was the US to win.

nietzsche wrote:And I bet that as I type, there are hundreds of people employed by the American government working out ways to attack international targets, but they label it as preemtive something

Probably true.. I think there should more.

nietzsche wrote:and they guy who directs is wearing a clean white shirt with a tie and a nice suit, and he looks a lot like the guy you would find very interesting if you happened to coincide at a restaurant and strike a small conversation with him. Unlike the stinky chinese that prepares your chow mein or the rude Russian that [don't know what the stereotype for Russian is].

This isn’t fair. I strike conversations with all types of people... though it’s hard to have a conversation with someone who’s rude.

I also like chow mein.

nietzsche wrote:If you're going to be reasonable and try to pass your posts as those of a person who really thinks about it, I think you need to do a zoom out and see the mistake you keep making. If you're gonna root blindly for the US you're just going to start looking like NP or Hitred or someone like that. If you continue to find reasonable excuses for what America does, you're just doing mental masturbation, but hey, if that's what you enjoy..

I am not hiding my bias. I don’t think the USA is perfect, but I do honestly believe our system is better than most and I value the freedoms we have. The sad truth is that nations exist and compete... until that changes it’s only natural for me to root for my nation especially when I do think the root values are better.

Note... I’m not saying the PEOPLE are better... I’m saying the nation is better.

Also, I do think there is a difference between using cyber attacks to take out Iranian nuclear refining capabilities... and using cyber attacks to steal data from a private enterprise and then demand a ransom for releasing that data. I assume. you see a difference too. I don’t think the US directs or supports the type of criminal hacking that I believe is directed and/or supported by China and Russia.

nietzsche wrote:Again, I only answer to you in this way because you always try to be reasonable.

Thanks. You too.

nietzsche wrote:

tzor wrote:especially the future 5G network system to provide a 24/7 spying network on the people in China

keep repeating it.

I will ... How China Is Using “Social Credit Scores” to Reward and Punish Its Citizens

And some elements are indeed worthy of dystopian fiction. In certain areas of China, call a blacklisted person on the phone and you will hear a siren and recorded message saying: “Warning, this person is on the blacklist. Be careful and urge them to repay their debts.” When a blacklisted person crosses certain intersections in Beijing, facial-recognition technology projects their face and ID number on massive electronic billboards. Beijing-based lawyer Li Xiaolin was blacklisted after a court apology he gave was deemed “insincere.” Unable to buy tickets, he was stranded 1,200 miles from home.

China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system "By 2020, everyone in China will be enrolled in a vast national database that compiles fiscal and government information, including minor traffic violations, and distils it into a single number ranking each citizen." EVERYONE

And finally check and mate ...

Why China’s Interest in Blockchain Will Ultimately Be Bad For Crypto

China also plans to introduce a social credit system in the future that assigns a score to citizens depending on their online and real life behaviors. The DCEP could be intertwined with the country’s social credit system, and internet censorship, and the country could theoretically penalize behaviors through their finances as a result.

This is why massive communication systems are necessary to move the real time big data that will basically control all citizens through the direct linking of "harmonious" behavior with the virtual wealth controlled by the government.

jimboston wrote:

2dimes wrote:You're ready to go to war with Russia or China? Seems pretty bold.

Countries wouldn’t go to war over a few attacks by Privateers with Letters of Marque from a rival country.

The US invaded Afghanistan because the militia who attacked the World Trade Center had a base there and were affiliated with (even though not part of) its government.

Also you did say that cyber attacks should be treated as an act of war.

jimboston wrote:
Countries wouldn’t go to war over a few attacks by Privateers with Letters of Marque from a rival country.

This was a historical reference to how countries interacted with each other during the the period when there were Privateers.

As previously referenced not all attacks resulted in loss of life. The attacks were primarily designed to rob a rival country of wealth.

In these cases it’s somewhat similar to cyber attacks that target businesses and individuals.

Please stop taking my historical references out of context.

mrswdk wrote:The US invaded Afghanistan because the militia who attacked the World Trade Center had a base there and were affiliated with (even though not part of) its government.

The militia were supported by elements of the gov’t. I have no problem with US invasion of the failed state of Afghanistan. If they can’t police their own gov’t and allow non-government entities that are based there to attack us then tough shit.

Furthermore the 9/11 attacks resulted in major loss of life. Nearly 3000 innocent lives were lost. Merchant ship size in the 17th/18th centuries varied greatly... some as low as 20 men, and other could be over 100. Additionally the men were not always killed, they were only killed when they resisted. So loss of live from a privateer attack would be significantly less than to total sailor compliment. So how many privateer attacks would have to occur to result in a loss of life equivalent to the 9/11 attacks? IDK... depends on the variables... but let’s say 100-200... more? I’m pretty sure that if Privateers authorized by one nation took out 100+ ships from another nation ON ONE MORNING that it would’ve lead to outright war.

I acknowledge my Privateer analogy isn’t perfect... but bring 9/11 into this is wrong. Not even close.

I may acknowledge that US arrogance and policies in the Middle East drove some extremists to think that Terrorism and 9/11 were/are there only options... but I disagree with that logic and regardless they couldn’t have expected the US to do anything but retaliate.

mrswdk wrote:Also you did say that cyber attacks should be treated as an act of war.

Yes. They should be put on notice. An act of war doesn’t mean we launch nukes. It means we retaliate in kind.

An act of war means we should retaliate in-kind but war is not an in-kind reaction to an act of war.

Mental gymnastics score: 9!

tzor wrote: especially the future 5G network system to provide a 24/7 spying network on the people in China.

Whereas of course 5G in America doesn’t enable the American government to spy on people in America, because of all the independent Cyber Patriot Eagles that patrol the inside of the network guarding people’s privacy.

Dukasaur wrote:These types of websites are pretty new -- FB and YT are both only 15 years old and have really impacted society for 10 or less -- and mankind is just learning how to deal with them. Soon enough people will develop new tools for separating truth from fiction and the pendulum will swing back again.

Print newspapers have existed in the UK for well over 100 years and in 2019 they are spreading as much disinformation and as many lies as ever. Not just the tabloids but even supposedly respectable sources like the Guardian and the Times.

Likewise, all platforms like Facebook or Whatsapp do is enable people to speak to other people. And the evidence is that there are plenty of people out there who choose to interact with other people by either deliberately and/or unwittingly spreading lies. Either you need to change the humans using these platforms or you need to change these platforms. As the news media have already proven quite comprehensively, self-regulation is a myth.