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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

#261

Post by mlrtime »

ceejayoz wrote: post #87
agentifysh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so because it seems both sides were engaged with non-American IPs running hugely popular accounts and it makes sense, why wouldn't you play both sides when you are paid for attention? I'm thinking Nikita is falling out with Elon as they both seem to have diverging goals with the platform. Advertisement revenues on X isn't that great and neither are conversions on X so you can't really get consistent pay…

> I don't think so because it seems both sides were engaged… One side has largely left X.

Correct, and taken over reddit which has the same issue as X.

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

#262

Post by mlrtime »

Zak wrote: post #112
awesome_dude wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why IRC went from default showing IP information to cloaking

I think that's mostly to do with script kiddies trying to DoS anyone they disagreed with.

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Anyone remember WinNuke?

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

#263

Post by mlrtime »

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.

Anything to do with money being made will have manipulation, niche or not.

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

#264

Post by Meekro »

Worth noting that these foreign accounts are pretty small. The biggest foreign pro-MAGA account mentioned in the article is "MAGA NATION" with ~400k subs, with the others being in the 10k-100k subs range.

Contrast that with legit pro-rightwing accounts: @tuckercarlson (17M), @benshapiro (8M), @RealCandaceO (7.5M), @jordanbpeterson (6M), @catturd2 (4M), @libsoftiktok (4.5M), @seanhannity (7M).

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

#265

Post by mlrtime »

energy123 wrote: post #199
lurk2 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They ran about half of the largest US identity focused Facebook groups (Christian/Black/etc) during the 2020 US election. Can you provide any citation for this and the approximate date when this was revealed? I’ve been hearing about this since 2015 and the last report I looked at was entirely unconvincing. > it's also about stoking ethnic and religious tension to try to weaken the US and destroy its ability to be a…

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook...

This is not pointing to the Russia government trying to influence the election to gain favoritism.

"For the most part, the people who run troll farms have financial rather than political motives; they post whatever receives the most engagement, with little regard to the actual content"

BuzzFeed News investigation "didn't find concrete evidence of a connection" and "Facebook said its investigations hadn't turned up a connection between the IRA and Macedonian troll farms either"

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

#266

Post by api »

lazide wrote: post #141
api wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be willing to believe Musk was actually surprised. Like a lot of people into heavy political ideology he seems to vastly overestimate the number of people who think the same way about things. He seems to inhabit a serious echo chamber.

When you have that much money, it’s actually hard to find someone who will tell you something you don’t want to hear that is actually true and isn’t doing it just to ragebait you or the like. And I don’t think he’s been trying all that hard either.

Good point. The same thing happens to heads of state. Putin thought he could take Ukraine in a few weeks because he is surrounded by yes men.

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

#268

Post by intended »

FloorEgg wrote: post #215
intended wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are hoping for will not occur. Do hope. But hoping for a unicorn is magic thinking. For other people, they can either count this as a reason to despair, or figure out a way to get to the next best option. The world sucks, so what ? In the end all problems get solved if you can figure them out.

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…

I applaud your efforts! You stated:

> I really hope that AI business models don't fall into relying on getting and keeping attention. I also hope the creators of them exist in a win-win relationship with society as a whole.

The ratio of total hours of human attention available to total hours of content is essentially 0. We have infinite content, which creates unique pressures on our information gathering and consumption ability.

Information markets tend to consolidate, regulating speech is beyond fraught, and competition is on engagement, not factuality.

Competing on accuracy requires either Bloomberg Terminal levels of payment, or you being subsidized by a billionaire. Content competes with content, factual or otherwise.

My neck of the words is content moderation, misinformation, and related sundry horrors against thought, speech and human minds.

Based on my experience, I find this hope naive.

I do think it is in the right direction, and agree that measured interventions for the problems we face are the correct solution.

The answer to that, for me, is simply data and research on what actually works for online speech and information health.

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

#270

Post by array_key_first »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #233
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.

You’re talking about public school, right?

No I think he's talking about Twitter. You can tell because this post is about Twitter.
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