Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 190 posts

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#181

Post by Erlangolem »

Bartweiss wrote: post #180
unclebucknasty wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be great but you can't teach everyone to be awesome critical thinkers. There is a question of aptitude. That focus also overlooks the fact that much of the propaganda is emotionally-driven and appeals to certain instincts. For even the most rational of human beings, emotion can overwhelm critical thinking. So, while we can definitely do better in teaching critical thinking skills, we're just going to have a pe…

> There is a question of aptitude... the ability to affect even a small percentage of the population can have a huge impact on the direction of the country. At risk of poking a hornet's nest, isn't this basically just an argument against democracy itself? Sure, you can go around shutting down Twitter bots, but if the fundamental problem is "elections are swung by people who believe literally anything they read, and w…

Undermining any kind of trust in democratic institutions seems like a possible goal of these manipulations, especially if Russia is involved. It shores up the argument for “managed democracy” as Putin calls it, and gives autocrats something to point and laugh at when challenged on their autocracy. If rational people start to think in terms of historically failed and discredited notions of government, that’s a boon to any adversary of democratic nations.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#183

Post by aaachilless »

nikofeyn wrote: post #172
aaachilless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it for some reason not a viable solution to just stop following people who shitpost? Or does Twitter push random users' posts at you? I ask because I've been circling around Twitter for a month or so, but if you can't isolate yourself from public tweets, I'm definitely not going to jump in.

i find complaints against twitter to be somewhat alien because it is a fairly major source of good content for me. as an example, i just browsed my twitter for a minute or so on my phone and came across a discussion on programming languages, some cool generative artwork, an article on continuations, and i learned of david attenborough's new documentary on bioluminescence. and i recently went to a design conference wh…

This is the sort of experience I’m looking for. Specifically, there’s a number of writers/journalists who I’d like to follow and Twitter seems ideal for following them.

So what do you think the causal difference is between your experience and others? Are you just more diligent about curating the list of people you follow?

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#184

Post by [deleted] »

jonny_eh wrote: post #132
JonasJSchreiber wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to downvote the person you replied to and upvote your comment. HN apparently doesn't work like that so I'll stick with a single upvote :)

Once you get enough karma you can downvote comments.

[deleted]

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#185

Post by staticelf »

nasredin wrote: post #177
staticelf wrote: post #159

I tried to start a twitter account, a few minutes later I got blocked: https://imgur.com/suSH1Qn I didn't tweet anything, just followed some people I found interesting. I don't want to verify my phone number. Fuck you twitter.

I haven't been able to create a Twitter account for over a year now. Home IP. (Not giving Twitter my phone number) I think it's deliberate b/c bots seem to be exempt from this phone number requirement.

Yeah exactly, is registering an account really automated behavior? It's so obvious they just want my phone number and they are never getting it.

Twitter is dying anyway, at least that is the feeling I have about the website.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#186

Post by qu4z-2 »

jonny_eh wrote: post #132
JonasJSchreiber wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to downvote the person you replied to and upvote your comment. HN apparently doesn't work like that so I'll stick with a single upvote :)

Once you get enough karma you can downvote comments.

But the delay is specifically so you can internalise the fact that downvoting here is a stronger claim than on, say, reddit.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#187

Post by a_tractor »

Bartweiss wrote: post #180
unclebucknasty wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That'd be great but you can't teach everyone to be awesome critical thinkers. There is a question of aptitude. That focus also overlooks the fact that much of the propaganda is emotionally-driven and appeals to certain instincts. For even the most rational of human beings, emotion can overwhelm critical thinking. So, while we can definitely do better in teaching critical thinking skills, we're just going to have a pe…

> There is a question of aptitude... the ability to affect even a small percentage of the population can have a huge impact on the direction of the country. At risk of poking a hornet's nest, isn't this basically just an argument against democracy itself? Sure, you can go around shutting down Twitter bots, but if the fundamental problem is "elections are swung by people who believe literally anything they read, and w…

>expanding information access is actually harmful to democracy.

And if that is true, then democracy is a fraud, or at least a failure.

Anyway, representative democracy does address this problem to a pretty large extent. We can't expect, nor would we want, everybody in the voting population to hold the expert knowledge of law and government that we require of our elected representatives. Even if it were possible, it would be a monumentally inefficient waste of time.

A small and limited government with distributed powers ultimately reduces the risk of such failures, but we are well past that now.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#188

Post by beedogs »

Cyph0n wrote: post #58
beedogs wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be happy with that if we also got rid of Facebook and Reddit.

What's wrong with Reddit? If you're talking about the "default" config, then yes, it sucks. But if you curate the subreddits you follow, you can end up with a news aggregator that is superior to HN... Furthermore, the more specific the subreddit, the more in depth the discussions become.

The problem with Reddit is that it's full of white supremacists who migrated over from /pol/ in 2016 and took up residence.

The admins have been aware of the problem for two years but haven't cared enough to do anything about it.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#189

Post by a_tractor »

krylon wrote: post #163
IIAOPSW wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative solution (don't let people that stupid vote) is too impalpable for society right now. Even if just 10% of people are that dumb, 10% is more than enough to swing an election.

The basic idea underlying democracy is not that people are intelligent enough to make the right choices, but that they have the right to choose their government regardless of their intelligence. Even if that means you end up with people like George W. Bush junior or Donald Trump in the White House. I am still somewhat shocked that Donald Trump is really President of the USA[1], but I am deeply convinced that denying…

Actually, the basic idea underlying democracy is that people are not only intelligent enough to make the right choices in the benefit of their own interests and the interest of their nation, but that the people are also moral and virtuous enough to guide themselves without the need for outside intervention. That has all been corrupted. Democracy without intelligence, morality, and virtue is not desirable by anyone, that is chaos and will only result in tyranny.

Today we do everything in our power to be free of that responsibility. We shun traditional morals and think fraudulent virtue signalling is a replacement for honest hard-earned virtue. People now see government as a provider for freedom, not from outside meddling and tyranny, but from the negative consequences of their failures and poor decisions, and will vote for anybody that offers them the most shit out of their neighbor's pockets, and will gladly accept whatever tyrannical means needed to accomplish that.

Democracy was created for an intelligent, moral, and virtuous society seeking national independence, but which now considers those same qualities to be able-ist, oppressive, dangerous, and xenophobic. American nationalism has been subverted by marxism. McCarthy was right. It is impossible to deny without remaining willfully ignorant.

The corrupt and foolish idea that the right to choose your government comes without any cost or responsibility is one of the ways we got here. As soon as people were given the ability to vote for handouts, the morality required to keep democracy a just political system was corrupted. There should be no pretense to what it is today.

And really, if you still really think Trump is satire, or that the election of Trump is some kind of eye-opening unfathomable result to you, it is my opinion that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#190

Post by nikofeyn »

aaachilless wrote: post #183
nikofeyn wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i find complaints against twitter to be somewhat alien because it is a fairly major source of good content for me. as an example, i just browsed my twitter for a minute or so on my phone and came across a discussion on programming languages, some cool generative artwork, an article on continuations, and i learned of david attenborough's new documentary on bioluminescence. and i recently went to a design conference wh…

This is the sort of experience I’m looking for. Specifically, there’s a number of writers/journalists who I’d like to follow and Twitter seems ideal for following them. So what do you think the causal difference is between your experience and others? Are you just more diligent about curating the list of people you follow?

i suppose i have a higher bar for clicking follow. and yes, i will unfollow people who annoy me in any way. haha. so i end up having this collection of artists, designers, programmers, musicians, etc. who post interesting content. you can check out who i follow. same username as here.
Post reply on HN