Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations • Hacker News Board

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#11

Post by penprog » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 4:49 PM UTC

The first thing this article reminded me of was ghost in the shell season 2. In the show the Intelligence Agency of the government used this sort of info manipulation to increase animosity towards refugees to the point where the public was in support of basically slaughtering them.

In the show this agency also analyzed public opinion using info obtained from discussion forums to gauge the public's acceptance of government policy and they would use the information manipulation with sock puppets to change public opinion in their favor.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#12

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 4:49 PM UTC

gburt wrote: post #8

legutierr wrote: post #4

Are the sock puppets that frequent HN simply much harder to detect? It often surprises me that HN is not a target for these kinds of people; I like to think that I have a good sense of when this kind of thing is going on, but probably I'm less sophisticated than I think I am.

It is widely claimed (in comment threads) that many tech. companies directly or indirectly operate this sort of targeting here. I'm not certain there's any evidence of this though.

There is plenty of evidence, including some very high level interventions to put a stop to some of the worst of it. No need to name names but it happened in the past it is happening in the present and it will most likely continue as long as HN has any sizeable (or perceived as influential) audience.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#13

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 4:52 PM UTC

higherpurpose wrote: post #5

That's a pretty scary concept when we have the rise of the unstoppable, unaccountable and highly secretive spy agencies. Things will probably get even worse when Strong AI exists.

When -> if.

And if strong AI comes in to play the world will change in ways that any kind of speculation as to whether 'things will get worse or better' is totally moot.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#14

Post by legutierr » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 4:57 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #10

legutierr wrote: post #4

Are the sock puppets that frequent HN simply much harder to detect? It often surprises me that HN is not a target for these kinds of people; I like to think that I have a good sense of when this kind of thing is going on, but probably I'm less sophisticated than I think I am.

HN is definitely a target for these kind of people. It has gone so far as high level contacts between the bosses of these kind of people and the stewards to sort things out. That doesn't mean that it has stopped nor does it mean there won't be repetitions. Astroturfing, burying, and derailing all happen. The scariest aspect to me is not those that are paid to do this sort of thing, because I can see their motivation…

> The scariest aspect to me...are their little helpers in the form of the gullible public

Well, given my rather naive comment above, I have to assume that I fall into this category to some extent. What would you suggest people do differently?

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#15

Post by jacquesm » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

legutierr wrote: post #14

jacquesm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is definitely a target for these kind of people. It has gone so far as high level contacts between the bosses of these kind of people and the stewards to sort things out. That doesn't mean that it has stopped nor does it mean there won't be repetitions. Astroturfing, burying, and derailing all happen. The scariest aspect to me is not those that are paid to do this sort of thing, because I can see their motivation…

> The scariest aspect to me...are their little helpers in the form of the gullible public Well, given my rather naive comment above, I have to assume that I fall into this category to some extent. What would you suggest people do differently?

Be skeptical about everything you read online and offline (but moreso online), check up on sources rather than to use citations helpfully provided to underpin some bit of information and in general read until the cows come home to make sure you have a solid foundation from which to make your own judgment, especially when it comes to history and any attempts to re-write it.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#16

Post by lizzard » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

I've been talking about this for years; we have to at the least be aware that there is wide scale sockpuppetry and astroturfing for political as well as corporate ends. Better tools for disinformation detection may help. One person running many personas is much easier to detect than the more sophisticated model we have now.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#17

Post by waterlesscloud » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 5:03 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #7

Of course, this place isn't immune to it. That includes all the usual suspect discussions (NSA, Palestine, China, Russia etc.) but more visibly with the employees of certain companies. One of the more curious things you can do on HN to distract from a story is to start a tangential flamewar in the comments on it, but my single favourite way I see to bury things around here is to ask for detailed citations to data for…

There should be a word for requests for data citations that are really just disguised admissions of having no meaningful response to a point.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#18

Post by rakoo » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 5:06 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #7

Of course, this place isn't immune to it. That includes all the usual suspect discussions (NSA, Palestine, China, Russia etc.) but more visibly with the employees of certain companies. One of the more curious things you can do on HN to distract from a story is to start a tangential flamewar in the comments on it, but my single favourite way I see to bury things around here is to ask for detailed citations to data for…

AFAIU flamewars increase the discussion on a topic, so this makes a story much more likely to stay on frontpage.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#19

Post by grecy » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 5:16 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #7

Of course, this place isn't immune to it. That includes all the usual suspect discussions (NSA, Palestine, China, Russia etc.) but more visibly with the employees of certain companies. One of the more curious things you can do on HN to distract from a story is to start a tangential flamewar in the comments on it, but my single favourite way I see to bury things around here is to ask for detailed citations to data for…

> but more visibly with the employees of certain companies.

I'm amazed how obvious this is on Reddit now, and always laugh when I bring it up and get down voted to oblivion :)

I'm no expert, but it's clear NetFlix has a few thousand users in /r/movies for example.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#20

Post by hluska » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 5:20 PM UTC

rakoo wrote: post #18

fidotron wrote: post #7

Of course, this place isn't immune to it. That includes all the usual suspect discussions (NSA, Palestine, China, Russia etc.) but more visibly with the employees of certain companies. One of the more curious things you can do on HN to distract from a story is to start a tangential flamewar in the comments on it, but my single favourite way I see to bury things around here is to ask for detailed citations to data for…

AFAIU flamewars increase the discussion on a topic, so this makes a story much more likely to stay on frontpage.

The danger of flamewars is that they rapidly devolve to personal attacks. When threads devolve this far, it keeps intelligent people from joining the conversation and actually elevating it. 10,000 monkeys with 10,000 typewriters may create a best seller, but 10,000 raving lunatics with Internet connections destroy any chance of an intellectual conversation....:)