181–190 of 333 posts
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> Well, one of them is illegal. I would argue that both of them are illegal.
Yeah. And the original statement was ”vastly different”... Definitely disagreeing on that first point
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You will see "we need nuclear power because it's the greenest/most renewable/etc... energy" type posts dispersed all through social media almost anywhere there's a discussion about climate change, renewable energy, etc... Even if the original topic was only tangentially related it will get changed. A post with puppy photos can turn into a climate change discussion because "nuclear power is so green". It's so common n…
Let's run with your idea and let's say that there are clandestine efforts to promote the idea of nuclear power generation in the public -- cui bono? Who benefits? Are there any major initiatives in the nuclear industry? Are any new plants starting to be built? All I've seen is a bunch of plants that have horrible cost overruns and no fixed time line for being finished. That doesn't sound like something that you'd wan…
Couldn't it be fossil fuel groups who benefit. They know there are groups who fight for green energy who are very strongly against nuclear and that by pushing for nuclear, it creates internal conflict which reduces the pressure being put on existing fossil fuels. It is also an easier target to focus on with propaganda. Nuclear has a certain level of fear in our social psyche that doesn't exist with other green energy which makes for easier propaganda.
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On the other hand, politicians have been trying to manipulate voters for centuries - it seems like a new danger that foreign governments are now trying to manipulate voters.
I would argue the foreign govt angle also is not new. The US at least has interfered with foreign elections before the internet era.
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I can't say it surprises me. But I think by now every government is using such farms. I find it difficult to believe otherwise based on recent FCC issues ( https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jsvine/net-neutrality-f... ). Yes, sadly, I am invoking everyone is doin' it.
At this point, it would be malpractice to not use them given their effectiveness. That doesn't mean we can't point out the origins and continued presence from bad actors.
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I can't say it surprises me. But I think by now every government is using such farms. I find it difficult to believe otherwise based on recent FCC issues ( https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jsvine/net-neutrality-f... ). Yes, sadly, I am invoking everyone is doin' it.
If a party did that in a country where voters respond appropriately to this kind of thing, that political party would be wiped out for a generation. If a party manages to dupe people into thinking their populist cause is important enough to see past the use of troll factories for message control, then that I think says a lot about the health of a democracy. I can imagine this happening in Poland, Hungary or perhaps e…
Many of them will be doing it through a PR firm to maintain deniability in the event of disclosure. But each and every party is doing it.
This really is a critical juncture for the internet; the moment wherein the democratization of information has empowered those with the resources to overwhelm the signal with noise. I wish I saw a way out.
Google has largely solved the spam problem for end users. What I can't figure out is why platforms like Facebook and Twitter couldn't mark these sort of posts as, essentially, spam, by the same sort of rules and heuristics as email spam. Why can't they look at the metadata of verified troll-farm-generated clickbait/junk/spam/fake news, and make their own filters, and demote that content? Simple. Because they're makin…
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Google has largely solved the spam problem for end users. What I can't figure out is why platforms like Facebook and Twitter couldn't mark these sort of posts as, essentially, spam, by the same sort of rules and heuristics as email spam. Why can't they look at the metadata of verified troll-farm-generated clickbait/junk/spam/fake news, and make their own filters, and demote that content? Simple. Because they're makin…
It’s easy to see when a new email account tries to send thousands of emails to people they don’t know. But how do you tell the difference between a political activist who just joined Twitter and a troll account? You seem to think this is a trivial problem so I am curious to see your answer.
> “For them it was just work and that’s it.” Is it? If someone's job is spewing cleverly provocative, disruptive, toxic, and intentionally negative messages all day ... does that edgy skill and behaviour not leak into their home or personal life? I understand, these workers need jobs and I'm sure some get quite proficient at trolling. But my gut says there will be personal side effects from reinforcing and working yo…
With the risk of pulling a Godwin, the “It’s just a job, so any ethics, morals or generally doing the right thing don’t apply” defense is getting kinda stale. It’s one step away from “I was just following orders”
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I can't say it surprises me. But I think by now every government is using such farms. I find it difficult to believe otherwise based on recent FCC issues ( https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jsvine/net-neutrality-f... ). Yes, sadly, I am invoking everyone is doin' it.
Based on these two examples, I wouldn’t say “everyone”. Every corrupt populist administration maybe?
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Climate change is an issue that people talk about a lot, and nuclear power is a carbon-neutral form of energy, so it might just be a relevant and popular argument around the circles you frequent. If I had to guess at any motivation other than a lot of people actually liking nuclear power, it would probably be that nuclear power is one of the few controversies where a reasonably intelligent person can easily grasp a s…
If a discussion is about halloween costumes and then another person asks a pointed question about [material/structure/use/etc...] and then devolves into nearly perfect corporate speak supporting [sponsored industry]. No big deal. But if this happens frequently on a wide range of topics, on a regular basis it gets to a point where a rational person has to question the validity of the information source. Edit: clarity
It's really hard not to point out when people start talking about better solar and battery storage that we could be solving this problem right now with tech we already have. Instead our solution to climate change keeps being pushed out into the nebulous future because people refuse to look at the obvious solution.