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

Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

buzzfeednews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 95 posts

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#51

Post by [deleted] »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #43
coldcode wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pathetic when people from any country equate what a country's politicians do with what their people want. I am not the US government. The US government may love the idea of foreign influence and hacking but a big chunk of its people do not. Please do not confuse these two things.

> I am not the US government. Yes, sadly, you are. "We the people" is the foundation of the US government. Our failure to prevent the government from pursuing these actions makes us tacitly responsible for them, even though there is virtually no path available to prevent them.

[deleted]

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#52

Post by [deleted] »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #43
coldcode wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pathetic when people from any country equate what a country's politicians do with what their people want. I am not the US government. The US government may love the idea of foreign influence and hacking but a big chunk of its people do not. Please do not confuse these two things.

> I am not the US government. Yes, sadly, you are. "We the people" is the foundation of the US government. Our failure to prevent the government from pursuing these actions makes us tacitly responsible for them, even though there is virtually no path available to prevent them.

[deleted]

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#53

Post by nroets »

d--b wrote: post #3

The story is that citizen have nothing to gain from anti net neutrality laws. So basically, all comments against net neutrality are either faked or by someone who has skin in the game. People ought to go to jail for this kind of crap.

Some citizens will argue that net neutrality will kill internet services that's subsidized by advertising. For example free access to Facebook. Or the social network bundles in South Africa[1][2]

Furthermore, I've met poor, conservative Americans who hate any form of government regulation. Even if it's patently obvious that they will personally benefit from some proposed regulation, they believe it will be bad for in the long run for their country. Their comments are not fake.

1: https://www.mtn.co.za/Pages/MTN-Social-Bundles.aspx

2: https://www.cellc.co.za/cellc/get-whatsappbundles

(Edited to give these examples)

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#54

Post by [deleted] »

mwyah wrote: post #49
300bps wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh? I very much enjoy my zero-rated services. It is fantastically ironic that this anti net neutrality comment was posted with a 17 hour old throw-away account.

dang can attest that I've been here for years. :-) Anyway, I'm pretty sure that customers like zero-rating services. Just think of it: for many people Facebook is the Internet. How is an exemption from the data cap for Facebook a bad thing for the end consumer? Yeah I know, maybe not a good idea in the long term regarding competition, but I don't think customers care too much about that.

[deleted]

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#55

Post by kaibee »

nroets wrote: post #53
d--b wrote: post #3

The story is that citizen have nothing to gain from anti net neutrality laws. So basically, all comments against net neutrality are either faked or by someone who has skin in the game. People ought to go to jail for this kind of crap.

Some citizens will argue that net neutrality will kill internet services that's subsidized by advertising. For example free access to Facebook. Or the social network bundles in South Africa[1][2] Furthermore, I've met poor, conservative Americans who hate any form of government regulation. Even if it's patently obvious that they will personally benefit from some proposed regulation, they believe it will be bad for in…

> Some citizens will argue that net neutrality will kill internet services that's subsidized by advertising. For example free access to Facebook.

But NN has absolutely nothing to do with that.

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#56

Post by cat199 »

ThalesX wrote: post #16

I try to shy away from politics on this website but I can't shake this nagging feeling that this says something important about the current state of the US and the world. I am not a US citizen nor a resident, nor am I a Russian citizen or resident, so my opinions are absolutely subjective. I feel like whenever an external agent such as Russia opens up the troll farms, the US gets all up in arms about the threat to de…

> I am not a US citizen nor a resident, nor am I a Russian citizen or resident, so my opinions are absolutely subjective.

believe me, this doesn't make your opinions objective ;)

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#57

Post by michaelt »

kaibee wrote: post #55
nroets wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some citizens will argue that net neutrality will kill internet services that's subsidized by advertising. For example free access to Facebook. Or the social network bundles in South Africa[1][2] Furthermore, I've met poor, conservative Americans who hate any form of government regulation. Even if it's patently obvious that they will personally benefit from some proposed regulation, they believe it will be bad for in…

> Some citizens will argue that net neutrality will kill internet services that's subsidized by advertising. For example free access to Facebook. But NN has absolutely nothing to do with that.

nroets refers to schemes like "Facebook Free Basics" [1] where mobile users in developing countries would get universal, free basic internet service.

This meant they could access Wikipedia, Facebook and Bing [2] but couldn't access EdX or Khan Academy or Google.

Although perhaps well-meaning, the scheme was widely opposed by net neutrality advocates [3].

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/8/10939594/mark-zuckerberg-i... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org#Available_website... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/08/india-fac...

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#58

Post by shmerl »

ThalesX wrote: post #16

I try to shy away from politics on this website but I can't shake this nagging feeling that this says something important about the current state of the US and the world. I am not a US citizen nor a resident, nor am I a Russian citizen or resident, so my opinions are absolutely subjective. I feel like whenever an external agent such as Russia opens up the troll farms, the US gets all up in arms about the threat to de…

What's so "geopolitically pragmatic" in the discussion coming from the mafia that gained access to nuclear weapons and now dreams that it should be accepted as a world power? Unless you view mob tactics as pragmatic in general.

Also, don't mix up the mafia that's in power there now with Russia itself. They don't represent the country and its people, they are usurpers.

Re: Political Operatives Faked Millions of Comments Against Net Nuetrality

#60

Post by zyxzevn »

ThalesX wrote: post #16

I try to shy away from politics on this website but I can't shake this nagging feeling that this says something important about the current state of the US and the world. I am not a US citizen nor a resident, nor am I a Russian citizen or resident, so my opinions are absolutely subjective. I feel like whenever an external agent such as Russia opens up the troll farms, the US gets all up in arms about the threat to de…

All media in the US is controlled by just a few companies. Both companies and military units are working on forums to control the discussions. Sometimes pretending to be on both sides to make a discussion deviate from the actual issues.

Some US "friend"-states also have a huge influence in the online discussions, and in the media. They have their own military units and action groups.

And this is just the beginning of the manipulation that is going on online by actors.

The foreign influence is just minor and is exaggerated by the internal influencers as a distraction. That way the internal influencers can pretend that they are doing good work.

And this is just the beginning.

A good solution is to detect logical fallacies in the stories. How much are they used to push a certain idea? Is there actual evidence? And/or is there possible manipulation by an involved party.

Post reply on HN