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X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

hindustantimes.com

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Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#221

Post by mdhb »

pabs3 wrote: post #205
ro_bit wrote: post #72

Reminds me of when Reddit posted their year end roundup https://web.archive.org/web/20140409152507/http://www.reddit... and revealed their “most addicted city” to be the home of Eglin Air Force Base, host of a lot of military cyber operations. They edited the article shortly afterward to remove this inconvenient statistic

> military cyber operations You would think such people would be competent enough to proxy their operations through at least a layers of compromised devices, or Tor, or VPNs, or at least something other than their own IP addresses.

OP has just completely pulled this analysis out of their ass. They aren’t all constantly running g cyber operations on Reddit, that bears zero resemblance to what cyber operations look like in real life including the point that you raised.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#222

Post by mdhb »

spprashant wrote: post #106
duxup wrote: post #19

I never quite "got" twitter, it was never fun for me to participate on. It's telling / disturbing that folks had such trust in random accounts ...

For a long time, I did not get twitter either. But it seems to be the only popular platform where the academics and intellectual class want to hangout. Economists, researchers, policy wonks prefer posting on twitter over any other social platform.

That hasn’t been true now for sometime. That crowd is all on Bluesky now.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#223

Post by mdhb »

8note wrote: post #163
agentifysh wrote: post #7

X obviously isn't the only platform where this is taking place and it is curious as to why they rolled it back. how open are you to a US citizen verified town square online? You'd have to scan your passport or driver license to post memes and stuff.

if a guy in india can make great MAGA posts, is that really a problem? its got the followers because the followers want to read and reshare it. id maybe like to see the location of origin as a pie chart on the followers list, as well as on what theyre following, but if the idea is good(for whatever definition if good) is being american even particularly relevant? i dont think the random guy in indiana's opinions on M…

With the exception of evangelical Christian’s where there’s obviously a huge amount of overlap I’ve never seen a group so eager to be lied to and so lacking in critical thinking as MAGA folks.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#224

Post by FloorEgg »

defrost wrote: post #217
FloorEgg wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For decades I have continuously studied physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, history, management science, market research, economics, religion, finance, and computer science among many other things. I study for 4-5 hours on average every day, and the rest of my working hours are spent practicing my craft. The reason I say this is that blind hope and informed hope are two different things. Media has always relied…

Speaking as someone who has also spent decades both studying and applying STEM and social sciences my commentary is this: > The thing about tools is that if they don't work people won't use them. People will and do use tools that don't work. Over time fewer people use bad tools as word spreads. Often "new" bad tools have a halo uptake of popularity. > And the thing about lies is that they don't work. History tells us…

> The thing about tools is that if they don't work people won't use them.

My bad. I meant won't keep using them.

> History tells us that lies work in the short term, and that is sufficient to force bad decisions that have long shadows.

What do you mean by "work"?

It sounds like you are implying that a lie "works" by convincing people to believe it?

I meant a lie doesn't work in that if you follow the lie you will make incorrect predictions about the future.

If someone acts on a lie which results in a bad decision with a "long shadow" then wouldn't that mean acting out the lie didn't work?

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#225

Post by defrost »

FloorEgg wrote: post #224
defrost wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who has also spent decades both studying and applying STEM and social sciences my commentary is this: > The thing about tools is that if they don't work people won't use them. People will and do use tools that don't work. Over time fewer people use bad tools as word spreads. Often "new" bad tools have a halo uptake of popularity. > And the thing about lies is that they don't work. History tells us…

> The thing about tools is that if they don't work people won't use them. My bad. I meant won't keep using them. > History tells us that lies work in the short term, and that is sufficient to force bad decisions that have long shadows. What do you mean by "work"? It sounds like you are implying that a lie "works" by convincing people to believe it? I meant a lie doesn't work in that if you follow the lie you will mak…

Lies work in the sense that they can persuade large groups of people to take courses of action based on their beleif in those lies.

They are used by bad actors to, say, win elections and then destroy systemic safeguards and monitoring mechanisms that work to spotlight bad actions and limit damage.

There are also lies, such as a common belief in Wagyl, that draw people to together and act in unison as a community to help the less fortunate, preserve the environment and common resources, and other things not generally perceived as destructive.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#226

Post by FloorEgg »

defrost wrote: post #225
FloorEgg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing about tools is that if they don't work people won't use them. My bad. I meant won't keep using them. > History tells us that lies work in the short term, and that is sufficient to force bad decisions that have long shadows. What do you mean by "work"? It sounds like you are implying that a lie "works" by convincing people to believe it? I meant a lie doesn't work in that if you follow the lie you will mak…

Lies work in the sense that they can persuade large groups of people to take courses of action based on their beleif in those lies. They are used by bad actors to, say, win elections and then destroy systemic safeguards and monitoring mechanisms that work to spotlight bad actions and limit damage. There are also lies, such as a common belief in Wagyl, that draw people to together and act in unison as a community to h…

> Lies work in the sense that they can persuade large groups of people to take courses of action based on their beleif in those lies.

I don't disagree with this. It's reasonable to assume I was talking about that type of "work", but I wasn't.

> There are also lies, such as a common belief in Wagyl, that draw people to together and act in unison as a community to help the less fortunate, preserve the environment and common resources, and other things not generally perceived as destructive.

I am not familiar with this specific culture but I totally get your point. Most religion works like this. I would just consider that the virtues and principles embedded within the stories and traditions are the actual truths that work, and that Wagyl and the specifics of the stories are just along for the ride. The reason I believe this is because other religions with similar virtues and values will have similar outcomes even though the lie they believe in is completely different.

I said that lies destroy, and that wasn't right. Sometimes they do, but as you have pointed out, often they don't.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#227

Post by NaomiLehman »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #101
ch2026 wrote: post #69

every conversation of note here on HN is heavily manipulated too. any discussion platform where accounts can promote or demote other messages are all subject to rampant manipulation and propaganda.

Niche subjects are much nicer because there's often no incentive to manipulate.

there is a big incentive to manipulate HN though. it's not so niche either. lobste.rs is niche

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#228

Post by dialup_sounds »

ffsm8 wrote: post #209
dialup_sounds wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The boring but more likely explanation is that "most addicted" is just a weird statistic that produced weird results. Eglin has something like 50,000 people but it's actual population as a census designated area is more like 5000. Oak Brook, IL was also "most addicted" but people didn't run with the idea that McDonalds HQ was running psyops.

Urm. They almost certainly are though? It was generally being called astroturfing when it got more apparent on Reddit in the early 2010s, and definitely didn't get less after.

The point is that a vaguely defined throwaway line on Reddit's blog is not great evidence for either.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#229

Post by rightbyte »

awesome_dude wrote: post #160
macintux wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I effectively landed my favorite job by engaging with the Erlang community on Twitter. I miss it, but it just got to be too toxic during the 2016 election cycle (in fairness, everything was too toxic then, and it hasn’t gotten better since).

I think that ALL communities become toxic as they grow I often hear that one community, or another, is "really good, not toxic at all, which is true when it starts (for tech, whilst it's "new" and everyone is still interested in figuring out how it works, sharing their learnings, and actively working to encourage people to also take interest) Then idealism works it way in - this community is the greatest that every e…

> Then idealism works it way in

Uhm I would rather say it is when the idealists are pushed out by grifters is when things get bad for a community.

Re: X's new country-of-origin feature reveals many 'US' accounts to be foreign-run

#230

Post by mock-possum »

protocolture wrote: post #3

Walk willingly into platos cave, pay for platos cave verification, sit down, enjoy all the discourse on the wall. Spit your drink out when you figure out that the shadows on the wall are all fake.

This is my sentiment exactly, and you put it a lot more succinctly than I was thinking.
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