Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate • Hacker News Board

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#41

Post by eli_gottlieb » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

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…

>Not the people you hang with, but elections in particular are great puncturers of bubbles; they count the real numbers.

An "election" that just "counts" which propaganda campaigns were more effective is worthless. You're really going to have to do better than just claiming that it's all bubbles and there are no propaganda campaigns.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#42

Post by ConfuciusSay02 » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

Chickenality wrote: post #11

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.

One major difference is how concentrated the special interests are. In the case of the Chinese government, public opinion is being swayed by a single entity. In the US, a large number of interest groups are all competing to try to sway public opinion. In the latter case, I think it's harder (at least in principle) for any one group to have a large effect on its own.

Totally disagree, in the US as in China there is a ruling wealthy elite. Both are roughly the same proportion of the population, and both are pushing their agendas.

The one meaningful difference is that in the US they still pay lip service to the idea of free speech.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#43

Post by bbctol » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

jtcond13 wrote: post #30

bbctol wrote: post #2

Title might want to be altered: this is a description of a specific research paper analyzing Chinese online propaganda campaigns, not as general an analysis as the title indicates. Interesting stuff!

It's a reference to the nonsense 'controversies' created by Donald Trump.

Yes, but the link isn't actually about that.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#44

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

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.

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

100% of all communication by humans is done by people with an agenda.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#45

Post by ConfuciusSay02 » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:45 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #6

bbctol wrote: post #2

Title might want to be altered: this is a description of a specific research paper analyzing Chinese online propaganda campaigns, not as general an analysis as the title indicates. Interesting stuff!

RAND has study says the same about Russia. The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It http://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

Remember that RAND was one of the big cheerleaders for the Iraq war.

If you want an impartial analysis, you're not going to find it from war-mongering "think tank" imbeciles.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#46

Post by JulianMorrison » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:48 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #41

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…

>Not the people you hang with, but elections in particular are great puncturers of bubbles; they count the real numbers. An "election" that just "counts" which propaganda campaigns were more effective is worthless. You're really going to have to do better than just claiming that it's all bubbles and there are no propaganda campaigns.

I'm saying that everyone's propaganda campaign was equally ineffective. Opinions weren't swayed.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#47

Post by notahacker » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #41

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…

>Not the people you hang with, but elections in particular are great puncturers of bubbles; they count the real numbers. An "election" that just "counts" which propaganda campaigns were more effective is worthless. You're really going to have to do better than just claiming that it's all bubbles and there are no propaganda campaigns.

I think the burden of proof lies on people making extraordinary claims like "people that disagreed with me in 2003 did so only because they were part of an enormous, undiscovered government conspiracy"

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#48

Post by ConfuciusSay02 » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:49 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #44

ConfuciusSay02 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> At this point I'd estimate a minimum of 30% of all posts online, including HN, are done by people with an agenda 100% of all communication by humans is done by people with an agenda.

Nice job taking the qualifying terms out of the quote.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#49

Post by gnaritas » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:51 PM UTC

JulianMorrison wrote: post #38

greesil wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your point is off the mark, propaganda works, it cost Hillary the election; that last minute FBI story swayed people and secured Trump as the winner despite the story being false.

Re: Authoritarians Distract Rather Than Debate

#50

Post by ConfuciusSay02 » Tue, Jan 17, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #40

greesil wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mi…

Influencing opinion online is many orders of magnitude easier to accomplish than faking WMD's in Iraq.