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Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

marginalrevolution.com

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Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#31

Post by AnimalMuppet »

analyst74 wrote: post #7

This is really scary, because I do read comments critically, and have seen those sections being flooded with nonsense, or convincing arguments being pushed without evidence. Heck, this even happens on HackerNews, which users are thoughtful hackers and which are secretly trying to push an agenda? Or is there even a line between those? Now some food for thought, does online anonymity ultimately help the powerful more t…

I've noticed it, too. It looks like the public has gone mad. (Or perhaps like they're trying to gaslight us.)

But if the Chinese are doing this, and the Russians, and maybe the DNC and the RNC... that would explain why the public conversation has become so weird.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#32

Post by wuschel »

tristanj wrote: post #4

I'm not sure what's especially revealing about this story. A lot of the content we already knew, except now there's more evidence of it. The marginalrevolution author wrongly suggests that "it has long been assumed that propaganda posts would support the government with praise or criticize critics of the government" and says it's surprising this paper found it wasn't. This is no surprise, others have concluded this b…

Thank you for the link. The comments of the thought influencer do remind me the distorted discussions in the Economist's comment section I followed a couple of years ago. The topics that were heavily spammed were usually revolving about Chinese politics or economics.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#33

Post by AnimalMuppet »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #25
analyst74 wrote: post #7

This is really scary, because I do read comments critically, and have seen those sections being flooded with nonsense, or convincing arguments being pushed without evidence. Heck, this even happens on HackerNews, which users are thoughtful hackers and which are secretly trying to push an agenda? Or is there even a line between those? Now some food for thought, does online anonymity ultimately help the powerful more t…

> which users are thoughtful hackers and which are secretly trying to push an agenda? Or is there even a line between those? I don't think there is a line. Each of us pushes an agenda (our own). That's never going to change, and I wouldn't want it to. > does online anonymity ultimately help the powerful more than the general public? I don't do online anonymity :)

It's fine for you to push your own agenda. But push an agenda that is honestly yours, not one that you're being paid to push. And push it honestly, not pretending to be something you're not.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#34

Post by greesil »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #29
battlebot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they're not, it is highly effective--I saw it firsthand during the run up to the Gulf War in 2003. I was on a message board and suddenly there would be all these "pro war" type members showing up posting basically propaganda and giving people a hard time and mostly creating chaos. The latest time I saw this behavior was on Reddit during the just completed 2016 elections. And then my suspicions were validated when…

"I don't know how Nixon won, nobody I know voted for him". People live in bubbles. When you encounter a cultural clique with contrary ideas it can look like a villainous conspiracy simply because it's assumptions are so alien and yet so strongly held. Surely they must be shills, trolls, etc? No, generally not. People actually do have those beliefs and consider them worth grouping up and fighting for. Not the people y…

So paid-for propaganda in online comments didn't happen?

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#35

Post by notahacker »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #3

Pretty fascinating stuff. I'm not sure what Trump's arm of this kind of propaganda is, but Correct the Record was a very real thing, despite the bogeyman descriptions of it in some online communities. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00578997 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record Interestingly, the original website is now gone, but it used to say essentially that it advocated for Clinton…

As a general rule in democratic societies, if your cause has so little public support you have to actually pay people in online communities to get them to defend it, you tend to lose to the other side whose people are prepared to state their reason, argue or just troll for free (whether they've been encouraged to do it by a slick political campaign or aggressive media personality or not)

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#36

Post by ConfuciusSay02 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #31
analyst74 wrote: post #7

This is really scary, because I do read comments critically, and have seen those sections being flooded with nonsense, or convincing arguments being pushed without evidence. Heck, this even happens on HackerNews, which users are thoughtful hackers and which are secretly trying to push an agenda? Or is there even a line between those? Now some food for thought, does online anonymity ultimately help the powerful more t…

I've noticed it, too. It looks like the public has gone mad. (Or perhaps like they're trying to gaslight us.) But if the Chinese are doing this, and the Russians, and maybe the DNC and the RNC... that would explain why the public conversation has become so weird.

Maybe the DNC? They openly had whole organizations with budgets in the millions whose sole purpose was to influence opinion online.

We also know thanks to Snowden that the US government has long had operational programs to influence and subvert online discussion.

At this point I'd estimate a minimum of 30% of all posts online, including HN, are done by people with an agenda whether political or financial.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#37

Post by ConfuciusSay02 »

monocle wrote: post #10

In China the government hires people to sway public opinion. In the US, special interests and those with money do it. Is it worse that the Chinese government does it to "keep the peace", while those in the US do it to get your money? Super PACs, political activists, pharmaceutical companies, Reddit power users, brigades and pay-for-votes services... not sure if there's any real difference.

Ummm, in the US the government hires people to sway public opinion too.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#38

Post by JulianMorrison »

greesil wrote: post #34
JulianMorrison wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't know how Nixon won, nobody I know voted for him". People live in bubbles. When you encounter a cultural clique with contrary ideas it can look like a villainous conspiracy simply because it's assumptions are so alien and yet so strongly held. Surely they must be shills, trolls, etc? No, generally not. People actually do have those beliefs and consider them worth grouping up and fighting for. Not the people y…

So paid-for propaganda in online comments didn't happen?

Probably happened on a number of sides, as well as group organising on a voluntary basis to do propaganda, and individuals who were just that motivated, and so on.

My main point being though, black hat or white, pro Trump or pro Hillary, they were all spitting in the wind.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#39

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ConfuciusSay02 wrote: post #36
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed it, too. It looks like the public has gone mad. (Or perhaps like they're trying to gaslight us.) But if the Chinese are doing this, and the Russians, and maybe the DNC and the RNC... that would explain why the public conversation has become so weird.

Maybe the DNC? They openly had whole organizations with budgets in the millions whose sole purpose was to influence opinion online. We also know thanks to Snowden that the US government has long had operational programs to influence and subvert online discussion. At this point I'd estimate a minimum of 30% of all posts online, including HN, are done by people with an agenda whether political or financial.

But that's still the distraction. The question isn't, "How paranoid should I be?" or "Whose agenda is served?". The question is, what is the truth?

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#40

Post by notahacker »

greesil wrote: post #34
JulianMorrison wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't know how Nixon won, nobody I know voted for him". People live in bubbles. When you encounter a cultural clique with contrary ideas it can look like a villainous conspiracy simply because it's assumptions are so alien and yet so strongly held. Surely they must be shills, trolls, etc? No, generally not. People actually do have those beliefs and consider them worth grouping up and fighting for. Not the people y…

So paid-for propaganda in online comments didn't happen?

I think it's more than a little unlikely the US government was so obsessed with making the case for war it launched (and successfully concealed from the public) a massive campaign to troll online forums without even being able to do basic stuff like make the official case for war a bit more competently and "discover" some WMDs to vindicate themselves afterwards.

It's not like there's any reason to believe that the millions of US citizens who passionately believed in the necessity of bringing down the "Axis of Evil" or just enjoy trolling liberals would recuse themselves from online debate in the build up to the war

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