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60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

theprint.in

81–90 of 309 posts

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#81
post #35

i've stopped following this war/conflict because the amount of bs stemming from both sides is unparalleled from other stuff i've seen historically. i legitimately can't tell what is made up/staged/propaganda from actual facts, and i am guessing i will never know. some of it is very blatant. twitter is filled with bots, and deceit is everywhere. not surprised at all reading this fyi -- i was born in ukraine and i can…

The other side is pure evil, not even human, they shouldn't be allowed anything, in fact, the world would be better without them! Business, politics, relationships gone south. Everyone seems to think this is an acceptable way to frame the other side. I know rage drives clicks, but man is it killing our future. The news really is destroying the world.

[deleted]

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#82

Reddit is weirdly overflowing with pro Ukraine propaganda and people don't seem to notice. Any even neutral story about Russia brings out vitriol about how obvious Russia's propaganda is. But somehow they miss the same effect when the story is pro-Ukraine, no matter who the sources are, how unlikely the content is to be true, etc. This was to be expected in the first months of the war, but after so many months of a s…

I hate Putin and his regime in Russia right now but Ukraine (atleast from the pictures I’m seeing) seems to be overrun with explicitly neo nazi groups. In my ideal scenario they both take each out without effecting the actual EU.

Where are you seeing this? Genuinely asking because I always thought that the whole ukraine neo-nazi thing was entirely made up

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has gotten...weird. It's at the point where I almost consider that most of the people I'm talking to there on the mainstream subs actually are bots.

Interesting. I’ve only ever used Reddit for like diy, maker type subreddits and those are pretty hard to fake. Between Reddit and twitter, it sounds like we are being manipulated to the moon and back.

Can someone create a Reddit where posts are videos instead of text? The community could downvote people hiding their faces if those chose. In the age of deepfakes would that even solve the problem?

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#84

Reddit is weirdly overflowing with pro Ukraine propaganda and people don't seem to notice. Any even neutral story about Russia brings out vitriol about how obvious Russia's propaganda is. But somehow they miss the same effect when the story is pro-Ukraine, no matter who the sources are, how unlikely the content is to be true, etc. This was to be expected in the first months of the war, but after so many months of a s…

I hate Putin and his regime in Russia right now but Ukraine (atleast from the pictures I’m seeing) seems to be overrun with explicitly neo nazi groups. In my ideal scenario they both take each out without effecting the actual EU.

"At least from the pictures I'm seeing". There you have it folks, pictures. Ukraine with their centrist democratically elected leader and lowest amount of neo-nazism in the region compared to all their neighbors according to Pew polling is actually a fascist country justifiably being taken out by Putin's Russia, a mafia dictatorship who promotes known Nazis to high positions (such as the founder of Wagner who has SS tattoos on his neck).

It's so ironic that this thread about purported Ukrainian propaganda is so thick with Kremlin propaganda.

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#85
I don't understand this idealism, I see it as naive and dangerous. It's a freaking war! I want my side to win. Propaganda is a powerful weapon. I would be really pissed off if my side would not use it. Having more western propaganda in western media is how I would hope things are. Otherwise it would mean we are in deep shit indeed.

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#86
post #35

i've stopped following this war/conflict because the amount of bs stemming from both sides is unparalleled from other stuff i've seen historically. i legitimately can't tell what is made up/staged/propaganda from actual facts, and i am guessing i will never know. some of it is very blatant. twitter is filled with bots, and deceit is everywhere. not surprised at all reading this fyi -- i was born in ukraine and i can…

The other side is pure evil, not even human, they shouldn't be allowed anything, in fact, the world would be better without them! Business, politics, relationships gone south. Everyone seems to think this is an acceptable way to frame the other side. I know rage drives clicks, but man is it killing our future. The news really is destroying the world.

Umm, Putin literally gave a "blood & soil" speech before invading. Do you think the mass graves found are also fake?

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alleged Russian bot here, I was torn apart in a thread about the European energy crisis for attempting a balanced perspective. It's sad to see, but not really worth the time trying to fight against it. The vast majority of folk seem actively happy to be misinformed, so long as that misinformation is consensus among their social circles. Better to use the information as some kind of indicator of the demographic you ar…

Don't let it get you down. I was recently banned from a subreddit after one (neutral) comment for being a white supremacist. If I'm a white supremacist, I'd hate to find out what actual white supremacists are. I messaged the mods asking which rule I'd broken (because I hadn't broken one). They responded by muting me for 28 days. Forget it Jake, it's Reddit-town.

It’s not just Reddit, either. This same story has played out for me on Anime News Network’s forums, some gaming forums, etc.

Ultimately I just take my toys and go home - they don’t want me there, and it’s their legal right to say so.

But it results in a forum of views that appear to show unanimous consensus that {x} is good or {y} is bad, which is potentially dangerous for society at large and certainly bad for an open society of debate and knowledge sharing.

Even worse, I’ve seen instances where a blatantly bigoted, racist, or violent extreme view is allowed to stay (down voted to hell, of course) while my and others’ more nuanced or intelligent takes are scrubbed and banned.

I can only presume this is intentional with the effect of demonstrating that “only violent extremists are anti-{x} or pro-{y}, and you wouldn’t want to be associated with those people, now, would you?”

I only wish I had an example handy to share, because it’s been pretty blatant at times.

Ultimately the moral judgements associated with every political argument is getting ridiculous and (intentionally?) stifling debate while stirring unrest, and most of it feels artificial.

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#89
That does not surprise me. I am on Ukraine's side in this conflict because I hate both the Russian and Chines governments with a passion. However, Ukrainians hack just as much as Russians do. In fact, last Spring some Ukrainian guy posted a web dev freelance job to Upwork, and when I applied the poster messaged me saying it was actually a Ukrainian who wants access to the US only jobs, and wanted to buy my account. I told them to screw off. Them making bots to sway public opinion is not surprising in the least.

Re: 60-80% of Tweeters posting on Russia-Ukraine war are bots, 90% pro Ukraine

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a social media marketing service; we stream all reddit content (~110 posts/comments per second). We run text analysis on comments and bot detection on popular posts. Most people don’t understand how many bots are influencing public discourse on reddit. It’s really concerning, particular that the “real” users on reddit tend to be young and impressionable.

> We run text analysis on comments and bot detection on popular posts Can you give an overview of how your bot detection works? I assume you don't have any proprietary information? Are you solely using the text features of the comment to tell if it was posted by a bot? Thanks.

Would interest me as well. Out of sheer curiosity.
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