How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#51

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 6:52 PM UTC

throwaway420 wrote: post #29

pjc50 wrote: post #5

It's good to see this analysed; conspiracy theory of this kind has long been a plague on US politics and now it seems to be spreading to Europe. It takes a remarkably small number of people to put it in front of the meme-susceptible, who will then themselves spread it. (What I don't really understand is why US conspiracyism limits itself only to things that don't exist - you don't hear so much about Watergate, Iran-C…

> It's good to see this analysed This article is just a great description of the network of people discussing the idea, not an an actual analysis of this theory in light of Merkel's actions. We can't know what the intentions in her heart are, but if she's not deliberately trying to destroy Europe she's certainly running it into the ground.

It doesn't deserve analysis any more than the theory that the sky is green.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#52

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

TorKlingberg wrote: post #14

I feel that internet discussions have turned for the worse over the last decade or so. There has always been plenty of trolls and weird conspiracy theories, but there used to be a sense that the truth wins out in the end. It was difficult to keep defending an obvious falsehood when faced with rational arguments. Some tried anyway, but they failed to convince others. Online discussions were never perfect of course, ev…

> In their eyes it was a very successful social media campaign.

Unfortunately the internet is now a theatre for propaganda war, in addition to regular electioneering and marketing.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#53

Post by ta_donk_gt » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 6:57 PM UTC

chillingeffect wrote: post #50

ta_donk_gt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Violence against Trump supporters is justified because he is literally Hitler", "Even though everyone knew the rules of the game up front, Trump is not actually the legitimate president because his popular vote tally was lower", "Trump is not a legitimate president because the Russians may have been involved in releasing some 'routine, not interesting' emails", "Even though the U.S. has interfered in over 80 electio…

>people in general will say and believe a lot of stupid stuff if it helps their team It's all about "Motivated Reasoning," a term I learned from Jonathan Haidt. For things we want to do, we ask ourselves, "how can I?" For things we don't want to do, we ask, "must I?" Since I've learned this, about 95% of discussion has been reduced for me. It doesn't make things easier though. It's hard for me to take that so many pe…

Interesting take. Thanks for that.

I think what also contributes is the idea that the brain will twist and contort reality to protect foundational beliefs (beyond my own observation of human behavior, there are a number of studies backing this up). We make decisions based on what we believe to be true, and the more decisions based on and built on a belief, the more foundational that belief is to our life. The more foundational a belief, the harder the brain will work to protect you from facing something that contradicts the belief head on (because directly facing the fact, without being prepared for it, that a significant number of decisions in your life have been based on false information could cause real system damage). Changing foundational beliefs must occur in steps, as you can only move so far from the current belief at once. And in the other direction, we much more readily accept anything that reinforces our foundational beliefs, even more so when being bombarded with ideas that may challenge those beliefs at the same time.

Religion and politics are extremely foundational things for most people, thus people are much more likely to overlook facts contradicting their beliefs and accept irrational ideas that happen to reinforce the belief.

> Since I've learned this...It doesn't make things easier though...

Same.

EDIT: Another complex/interesting idea to think through is that Us vs. Them is baked into human nature. You can change who "us" and "them" are, but I don't think you can change that there is always an Us vs. Them, and that "us" is always the good guys and "them" is always the bad guys.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#54

Post by iak8god » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

ta_donk_gt wrote: post #35

dibujante wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all shitty arguments, but they're not conspiracies. They're just shitty arguments. A conspiracy would be more like "Bush did 9/11", which the left was guilty of for a while. Eugh.

Initially, the point was that it is only Trump supporters that are uninterested in actual facts, but sure, plenty of conspiracy theories on the left as well (was just trying to keep it clean): "Trump has had or wants to have sex with his daughter..see, here is this picture of her sitting on his lap when she was 12" "Trump stayed in a Russian hotel room, found out the Obamas had previously stayed in that room so hired…

Only the last of those three things is a conspiracy theory. I would be very happy to see evidence disproving it, but for now it seems implausible, but worth discussing.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#55

Post by ta_donk_gt » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 7:16 PM UTC

iak8god wrote: post #54

ta_donk_gt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Initially, the point was that it is only Trump supporters that are uninterested in actual facts, but sure, plenty of conspiracy theories on the left as well (was just trying to keep it clean): "Trump has had or wants to have sex with his daughter..see, here is this picture of her sitting on his lap when she was 12" "Trump stayed in a Russian hotel room, found out the Obamas had previously stayed in that room so hired…

Only the last of those three things is a conspiracy theory. I would be very happy to see evidence disproving it, but for now it seems implausible, but worth discussing.

Agreed, in a true definition of a conspiracy theory only the last one meets the criteria, though I was trying to match ideas on the other side generally lumped into the conspiracy theory category such as the Podesta brothers are pedofiles (though I know this is a smaller component of a larger actual conspiracy theory).

And agree also on discussion, plenty of conspiracy theories on all sides that are actually probably worth discussing.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#56

Post by tmuir » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

throwaway420 wrote: post #48

tmuir wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't know for certain if there has been an investigation, but you will notice that some people are desperate to declare that this has not been investigated by the relevant authorities.

Supposedly, somebody filed a FOIA request to get info on the DC police's investigation into these allegations and despite previously saying that their investigation hasn't yielded any proof of a crime, it turns out that the police never even investigated it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omlQHWrgmd4 Nothing conclusive here, but again, there are so many voices here who are so hysterically adamant about something tha…

Perhaps the DC police are part of the pedophile ring? I haven't heard anyone disprove that yet, and it would make the conspiracy even more evil. I'm stunned that you haven't made this obvious leap of logic.

The hysteria stems from the concept that your algorithm for detecting conspiracy is to grant credence to theories in direct proportion to their nefariousness. Your hypotheses are not falsifiable.

This guarantees that you will reject reasonable and logical explanations which are discordant with the conspiracy.

Your last sentence is a perfect example of this. The most villainous explanation for what you see as hysterical adamance is that every commenter here is covering up a pedophile ring.

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#57

Post by geofft » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 7:28 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #36

ticviking wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes both sides have their conspiracy theories. The issue is is that the scale of conspiracies imagined by the left just doesn't compare to what is imagined on the right. Imagining that "a group largely ruled by the same people we have been playing spy-games with for a century might be playing spy-games with us" is distinctly different from, "A large part of the US ruling class is part of a satanic cult with food base…

That certainly could be an issue, if that's what seems important to somebody. The main issue to me is that the one group of conspiratorial goofballs is invisible to me (silly Pizzagate dude was arrested before I even heard of "Pizzagate"), while the other group of conspiratorial goofballs is everywhere : on the TV, on NPR, in Congress, on social media. I can't escape them. I voted for neither of the Status Quo Party…

> the primary complaint about the election results was that the voters knew more about one of the candidates and her organization than she wanted them to know.

But that's not the complaint!

The complaint was that, based on the leaks of private emails, it was possible to construct innuendo that was untrue. Take the entire Spirit Cooking thing, for instance. It would be one thing if Podesta had participated in a Satanist ritual and didn't want people to know. But he didn't actually participate in one. People just insinuated he did, based on a vaguely-plausible interpretation of a private email between family members.

I don't think anyone really found the way the Hillary campaign treated the Bernie campaign to be "dirty deeds", just politics, and I certainly don't think that's what swung the election. (Maybe I'm wrong.)

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#58

Post by geofft » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #7

geofft wrote: post #2

This is interesting as a work of network analysis, but I'm not sure how to connect this back to politics. It seems pretty clear to me whenever I browse /r/The_Donald that they're actively uninterested in fact-checking. There are posts hating on the new Netflix TV series "Dear White People" where people ask questions like "Do I even want to know what it's about?". There was a highly-upvoted image about Pizzagate with…

I'm curious about Pizzagate. Some of those emails are clearly trying to hide something. The language in them is obviously "code" for something or other. Has there been any other plausible/implausible theories apart from the Pizzagate one? Edit: Getting downvoted for asking a question. To be clear I have no idea what the emails are about and zero agenda here. The emails came across as very weird to me which is why I a…

I don't think the language is code for anything. Is it really so implausible that Podesta had a handkerchief with a map that seems pizza-related, and isn't worried about getting it back?

And if it is code, why is it code for a massive child prostitution ring? Because 4chan or UrbanDictionary once used "pizza" in this way? Why do we think Podesta documents his work on 4chan or UrbanDictionary? Like, yes, the handkerchief code is a thing, but is everyone who owns a white handkerchief a pedophile?

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#59

Post by geofft » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 7:37 PM UTC

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #25

mizzack wrote: post #21

Ok, now take a look at the same overlap for reddit powermods. /u/qgyh2 , for example, mods a ton of default subs in addition to the following country subs: canada, australia, greece, israel, malaysia, pakistan, england, srilanka. How are we so sure that this is isolated to only shaping a far right narrative?

Do we know who qgyh2 is? Because unless they're a shared account or a bot, I don't see how one person could possibly moderate so many highly active subreddits, let alone do so in a way to promote whatever agenda you think is being promoted.

qgyh2 was an early Reddit user and does not actively moderate those subreddits. They've addressed this directly:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/4xhyyh/okay_adm...

Re: How a fake story about Angela Merkel led to a far-right cluster on Reddit

#60

Post by throwaway420 » Fri, Feb 10, 2017, 7:42 PM UTC

tmuir wrote: post #56

throwaway420 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposedly, somebody filed a FOIA request to get info on the DC police's investigation into these allegations and despite previously saying that their investigation hasn't yielded any proof of a crime, it turns out that the police never even investigated it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omlQHWrgmd4 Nothing conclusive here, but again, there are so many voices here who are so hysterically adamant about something tha…

Perhaps the DC police are part of the pedophile ring? I haven't heard anyone disprove that yet, and it would make the conspiracy even more evil. I'm stunned that you haven't made this obvious leap of logic. The hysteria stems from the concept that your algorithm for detecting conspiracy is to grant credence to theories in direct proportion to their nefariousness. Your hypotheses are not falsifiable. This guarantees t…

That last sentence wasn't too precisely worded so I can understand your response...but when I said "so many voices here" I was more thinking about the media entities who were so adamant that there's nothing to see here than the genuine posters on this site. Many of the posters here are well-intentioned, I'm sure, but misled by the media.

Pedophile rings have been uncovered in many walks of life: religion, sports, hollywood and media, business, foreign governments, even Dennis Hastert and many others. Yet somehow the current US political establishment is immune to this?

Look, I'm not saying to lock up anybody without a trial or anything. We admittedly don't know if there's even a crime here yet. I just think the pile of circumstantial evidence is enough to at least warrant some kind of investigation. The media declared this "fake news" and brushed much of the weirdest facts under the rug.