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My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

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Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#141

Post by crdoconnor »

nine_k wrote: post #101
crdoconnor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But here is what I find amazing: we have already seen this movie and we know what forces are at play and what the likely outcome is. Namely, it is very difficult to maintain legitimacy as a government through a propaganda campaign. It is a highly unstable equilibrium. America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years. You either need very sophisticated propaganda (America) or a very strict contr…

> Without Glasnost the Soviet Union would probably still be around. Not at all. The cause of USSR's demise was its failing economy. There was literally not enough food, due to very poor agricultural practices and very inefficient industry. Per Yegor Gaidar (who later became Russia's Prime Minister) there was barely enough food to feed the population of Moscow during the winter of 1985-85. This is what made the Soviet…

>Not at all. The cause of USSR's demise was its failing economy. There was literally not enough food

That basically describes North Korea in 1993. Except North Korea didn't have glasnost.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#142

Post by crdoconnor »

ysilver wrote: post #49
crdoconnor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But here is what I find amazing: we have already seen this movie and we know what forces are at play and what the likely outcome is. Namely, it is very difficult to maintain legitimacy as a government through a propaganda campaign. It is a highly unstable equilibrium. America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years. You either need very sophisticated propaganda (America) or a very strict contr…

> America and North Korea have both been doing it successfully for years. Much is lost in this comparison. The American media landscape is pluralistic. Take for example our most popular news network: Fox News. Do they kowtow to the federal government? Russia + NK however, rely repressing dissent internally to retain legitimacy.

>Much is lost in this comparison. The American media landscape is pluralistic.

No it isn't. It's all owned by about six companies.

>Fox News. Do they kowtow to the federal government?

Do they not put out propaganda?

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#143

Post by nine_k »

crdoconnor wrote: post #141
nine_k wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Without Glasnost the Soviet Union would probably still be around. Not at all. The cause of USSR's demise was its failing economy. There was literally not enough food, due to very poor agricultural practices and very inefficient industry. Per Yegor Gaidar (who later became Russia's Prime Minister) there was barely enough food to feed the population of Moscow during the winter of 1985-85. This is what made the Soviet…

>Not at all. The cause of USSR's demise was its failing economy. There was literally not enough food That basically describes North Korea in 1993. Except North Korea didn't have glasnost.

North Korea is indirectly fed by all its neighbors, because its demise will mean a huge influx of refugees, very poor and largely not adapted to life in a non-North-Korean society. It will also mean that South Korea would have to absorb and restore North Korean territories; even mighty West Germany had visible difficulties absorbing East Germany, which was pretty prosperous by the Soviet bloc measures.

I don't think the US or Europe would feed starving USSR to prevent it from collapsing.

Also, North Korea is pretty compact. Keeping a country the size of USSR in an iron fist would be somewhat harder (though this has been done in 1930-50s), and attempts to cut certain regions away from an ailing empire would probably be much more successful.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#144

Post by dang »

staticelf wrote: post #22
ousta wrote: post #11

every newspaper on earth is a propaganda newspaper. every journalist working for an editorial line that is dicted to him is a propaganda agent. I can't wait for this piece of our society to die thanks to the Web. She picked a one sided view of russian troll influencing people. why didnt she chose US trolls, or Arab trolls, or French trolls, ect. every nation on earth wants to control an manipulate information through…

I think your comment is the most retarded one I've read on HN.

> your comment is the most retarded

We ban accounts that do this on HN. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#145

Post by ptaipale »

tremon wrote: post #135
ysilver wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...our system has become increasingly hostile to "real" investigative journalism... The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court. This "lost paradise" argument may very well be right but it's far from evident to me. I would broadly characterize media quality as always having been low on average throughout history. We had a brief period of oligopoly a…

> The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court The USA fell 13 places in Reporters Without Borders' 2014 annual ranking of press freedom: "Countries that pride themselves on being democracies and respecting the rule of law have not set an example, far from it. Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation…

That's not really proof that "there has been a degradation of information quality". In a way, rather to the contrary - US ranking in this particular ranking fell because new information emerged; the administration then reacted against information leakers.

But if we look at that ranking, USA is still clearly in the top third of countries of world.

Russia is clearly in the bottom third of countries of world.

It is sort of funny that when we speak about the problems of the bottom third, and Russia in particular, it is somehow compulsory to see the comments "Look at USA, it also has problems!"

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#146

Post by benten10 »

jkot wrote: post #121
benten10 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You overestimate people's ability not to be offended, and underestimate the diversity in people's actual beliefs. For example: When someone on HN said over the weekend "I don't see anything inherently wrong with colonialism. Remember that scene from Monty Python -- What have the Romans done for us? A lot of good has come out of colonialism", I was almost certain (almost) it was trolling. Once I saw others agreeing, I…

I was going to write long reply, but will keep it short. I stopped contributing to HN because of posts similar to yours. We do not need foreign army of trolls, to bring down discussion sites such as HN.

Which points, exactly? I realize I casted a wide net, not really sure where this is going.

I checked out your comment history, and you don't seem to have have posted anything I would disagree with outright

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#147

Post by ysilver »

Kristine1975 wrote: post #139
ysilver wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History may show that we are digesting something akin to McCarthyism right now.

If that's the case, it's much more subtle: No HUAC, no blacklisting, no "are you or have you ever been a member of...?"

That true. You could also make the argument that historically it hasn't been so easy to expose US government secrets to the world. So, maybe we're actually entering an era of greater (involuntary) transparency and we're actually witnessing a backlash to this as opposed to a renewed attempt at subduing dissidents.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#148

Post by tremon »

ptaipale wrote: post #145
tremon wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The burden of proof that there has been a degradation of information quality remains on your side of the court The USA fell 13 places in Reporters Without Borders' 2014 annual ranking of press freedom: "Countries that pride themselves on being democracies and respecting the rule of law have not set an example, far from it. Freedom of information is too often sacrificed to an overly broad and abusive interpretation…

That's not really proof that "there has been a degradation of information quality". In a way, rather to the contrary - US ranking in this particular ranking fell because new information emerged; the administration then reacted against information leakers. But if we look at that ranking, USA is still clearly in the top third of countries of world. Russia is clearly in the bottom third of countries of world. It is sort…

But "there has been a degradation of information quality" was not the phrase used by the initial poster. Maybe I should have quoted both the parent and grandparent together to make it clear what I was responding to, but I figured people would ignore the parent's attempt to rephrase the argument.

I also disagree that the US ranking fell because of the emergence of new information: it fell because of how it responded to that information. If you read the RSF quote, none of the reasons given are because of the contents of Snowden's or Manning's leaks. Instead, they mention the legal response to those and other cases, and they mention the lack of effective legal protection for "disclosing information in the public interest".

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#149

Post by tremon »

ysilver wrote: post #118
exelius wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about media quality like it's something that has just recently gotten bad. I don't think it's gotten worse; but the mass media is also no less important now than in the past. I realize it's always been an issue; I'm just saying we can't act high and mighty relative to Russia because it's a problem here too.

I think you're smart to try to test the validity of the converse of my claims. However, it's also important to acknowledge that there is enormous variation in the freedom of the media to operate across countries. There are highly repressive media domains where a single actor represses others and achieves a near monopoly. Could the US improve freedom of expression domestically? Yes. Do we systematically repress dissen…

> Do we systematically repress dissenters as is common Russia, Bangladesh, etc?

Yes, you do. Every time an American uses "communism" or "communist" in a discussion, he is exploiting the systemic oppression of non-capitalist movements in the US. Your propaganda machine is quite effective in deriding any political view that clashes with the extreme right-wing capitalist view that keeps your power structures in place.

Re: My Year as a Pro-Russia Troll Magnet

#150

Post by tremon »

talmand wrote: post #39
benten10 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You overestimate people's ability not to be offended, and underestimate the diversity in people's actual beliefs. For example: When someone on HN said over the weekend "I don't see anything inherently wrong with colonialism. Remember that scene from Monty Python -- What have the Romans done for us? A lot of good has come out of colonialism", I was almost certain (almost) it was trolling. Once I saw others agreeing, I…

>> What you may consider trolling, may be the other idiot's actual views. It seems to me this statement is quite unfair. Does it mean that if I think you're trolling it also means I can label you as an idiot? It's not just that you disagree with them, you get to label them with whatever derogatory term you want as well? >> such trolls (and people who actually believe what they say) are really really threatening to th…

>> What you may consider trolling, may be the other idiot's actual views.

>It seems to me this statement is quite unfair. Does it mean that if I think you're trolling it also means I can label you as an idiot?

That's not how I read it. I read it as "the /other/ idiot", i.e. emphasis on other. As in, he was referring to all online commenters as idiots. I thought it was a quite clever way to capture that we all are quick to judge in a faceless discussion.

Then again, I may have judged him too astute :)

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