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Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#41

Post by DeathArrow »

echelon wrote: post #36
DeathArrow wrote: post #32

I see how manipulating opinion on social networks can yield a gain. But how would entity X profit from manipulating opinion on a small community of tech enthusiasts? Or maybe the recent resurgence of Javascript frameworks in Web, desktop and mobiles is a plot of Russians to slow the computing and software engineering for the westerners by manipulating online tech communities?

> I see how manipulating opinion on social networks can yield a gain. But how would entity X profit from manipulating opinion on a small community of tech enthusiasts? Having your posts yelled at and downvoted can reduce your willingness to participate in discussion or debate. Especially when there's a stupid "karma" score that subconsciously gamifies our participation here. I'd be willing to bet that having one's op…

If your opinion is going against the mainstream and against the heard mentality you will be silenced without someone having to pay a dime for it.

You can care about it and avoid posting things that irks the herd or you can not care about it and voice it anyway.

You can either derive reward by being socially accepted or by promoting your own views and opinions.

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#42

Post by ampgt »

echelon wrote: post #36
DeathArrow wrote: post #32

I see how manipulating opinion on social networks can yield a gain. But how would entity X profit from manipulating opinion on a small community of tech enthusiasts? Or maybe the recent resurgence of Javascript frameworks in Web, desktop and mobiles is a plot of Russians to slow the computing and software engineering for the westerners by manipulating online tech communities?

> I see how manipulating opinion on social networks can yield a gain. But how would entity X profit from manipulating opinion on a small community of tech enthusiasts? Having your posts yelled at and downvoted can reduce your willingness to participate in discussion or debate. Especially when there's a stupid "karma" score that subconsciously gamifies our participation here. I'd be willing to bet that having one's op…

One of the reasons I tend to lurk more than post. It’s disappointing to throw out an opinion and get attacked for it. I’m fine if you disagree (and I look forward to it) but it seems like some are conditioned to be offended by others opinions… or maybe paid? :)

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#43

Post by gary_0 »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #12
jdhendrickson wrote: post #7

There has been an obvious influx of paid accounts in my opinion. The quality of discourse has dropped. I often check an account and notice it was not active for a substantial period of time before a sudden change in tone is noticed. Seeing the same anti-vax talking points (for instance) spread from Reddit to here has been upsetting. The main difference I have noticed is the responses here are more sound technically,…

Out of curiosity, who would pay people for pushing anti-vax talking points?

I'm pretty curious about the possible motives as well, but there is some evidence it was happening even before 2020:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anti-vax-movement-russian-troll... (May 2019)

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#44

Post by ampgt »

1_player wrote: post #11

Paid by whom? There are companies and employees on HN posting, commenting and promoting their business and services, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Is someone paying to get upvoted? Almost certainly, but I doubt it's worth a lot here where the sorting algorithm is much more opaque than Reddit. On Reddit getting to the top is just a numbers game. Also, even though there's far too much political posts…

The political posts on here are amazing though. You get well thought out arguments from both sides. The only downside is the down voting/silencing of people’s opinions when the masses at HN don’t agree. The down vote feature should be disabled, let the responses/post chain do the judging.

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#45

Post by Genego »

I'm fairly convinced there are. Often comment discussions for newer technical books pop up here on HN that get shilled for weeks like it's some legendary book that has been in print for decades. Then those discussions just die out until the next book makes the shill cycle (I guess?).

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#46

Post by Cryptonic »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #12
jdhendrickson wrote: post #7

There has been an obvious influx of paid accounts in my opinion. The quality of discourse has dropped. I often check an account and notice it was not active for a substantial period of time before a sudden change in tone is noticed. Seeing the same anti-vax talking points (for instance) spread from Reddit to here has been upsetting. The main difference I have noticed is the responses here are more sound technically,…

Out of curiosity, who would pay people for pushing anti-vax talking points?

I think these are mostly political interests like "weakening the western economic" or "divide western liberal societies" and maybe a few richer people who had a bad experience with vaccs and think they do something good.

Actually comment trolls cost near nothing when hired in India or russia. And they scale by infecting some other people with the same thought, who themselfes comment then in similar ways.

Often "they" buy some celebrities that run out of money. In Germany for example this is near ridiculous. Just look at Michael Wendler.

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#47

Post by mandmandam »

How susceptible? Very.

For gov examples, try starting a discussion about America's torture program, war crimes, or independent anti-war media. Your post will be flagged, and it won't get back up because such discussion 'goes against the guidelines which are actually rules'. The moderation will be praised by high karma accounts, who are quite happy with the status quo thank you very much.

Check out any thread ever concerning Assange. Those comment sections are masterclasses in the derailment of productive conversation. Since pointing out obvious shills is against site rules, you're more like to be banned for pointing out meddling than for spreading outrageous smears.

For "Big xyz", try writing a comment about GMOs, or agricultural pollution, monopolies, enviromental destruction, the not too distant horrors perpetrated by pharma co's, or any of a number of other third rail topics like unions or healthcare costs. 'Totally normal accounts' will slither out of the bushes and sealion your thread to death.

Yes, it matters - a lot. "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." - Noam C

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#48

Post by Guffton »

minimaxir wrote: post #38
gary_0 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most obvious ones are where meme t-shirts are posted to medium-sized niche subreddits and get mysteriously upvoted into the low hundreds, and then a sockpuppet asks OP for a link to buy it. Goodness knows what the more subtle bot accounts are up to. Eggs, bacon, and spam.

That's not astroturfing/ideological manipulation, and it's not strictly evidence of voting manipulation either: people do legit like meme T-shirts and want to buy them (no, I am not in that category). Regardless, voting is just one check on bad behavior. The other one is moderation, and at least on the subreddits I visit, moderators are strict on financial self promotion, but it can still vary. Even on Hacker News co…

Without anyone watching the Watchmen it's very easy for mods to be financially rewarded for protecting blatant adverts in posts even if it goes against a sub's guidelines.

Anyone that starts pointing this out gets shadowbanned or downvoted by the herd.

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#49

Post by speedgoose »

minimaxir wrote: post #14
speedgoose wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, Reddit has a lot of artrosurf. You can buy up votes and down votes very easily and you regularly see suspicious votes on some content.

Reddit posts can have very counterintuitive voting patterns, but that alone not evidence of astroturfing (coordinated brigading is a different issue). Which content did you have in mind?

The most obvious ones I have seen are submissions that get silently deleted in minutes by the moderators, and that goes to hundreds of upvotes later on. That's usually brigading but also spam and dog whistle topics.

Also some early vote manipulation on the new submission can have a lot of impact using very few accounts.

Re: Ask HN: Are there paid commenters on HN?

#50

Post by Clubber »

minimaxir wrote: post #13
l8rlump wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the voting system not susceptible to meddling?

Susceptible in theory, infeasible in practice for forums of a large enough size, as there are enough organic votes to counteract shenanigans. In the case of more low-key manipulation, on Hacker News in particular there's flagging which shuts down shenanigans more effectively if needed.

It seems fairly easy to automate given the person automating has control of a domain, which is trivial: 001@somedomain.com, 002@somedomain.com, etc.
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