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

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#61

Post by mrottenkolber » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 7:39 PM UTC

cjslep wrote: post #45

mrottenkolber wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best shows ever. The whole Stand Alone Complex concept is kind of unique to GitS, is it? Edit: Oh and btw, ghost in the lisp: http://medias.ircam.fr/x03b42f RPG talking about his work on the mass media manipulation machine of DARPA.

Yes and no[0]. For reference, the definition of a Stand Alone Complex from wikipedia [1]: Stand Alone Complex (スタンド・アローン・コンプレックス Sutando Arōn Konpurekkusu) eventually came to represent a phenomenon where unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals create a seemingly concerted effort. The ideology of radical Islam from the viewpoint of neoconservatives in the USA in the 00 decade was of "shadowy underground ter…

Ah ok maybe I overcomplicated the concept in my head. I had assumed the SaC to describes something more tech related, e.g.:

"Stand Alone Complex (スタンド・アローン・コンプレックス Sutando Arōn Konpurekkusu) eventually came to represent a phenomenon where unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals and/or software bugs, plus other coincidental events create a seemingly concerted effort and/or seem to mimic or behave like an intelligent actor."

E.g. as a software guy I imagined bugs so interdependent and complex that accidentally implement an AI. Yep i'm a programmer alright. ;)

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#62

Post by lukifer » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 7:48 PM UTC

r0s wrote: post #47

notacoward wrote: post #38

This is why I'm not particularly thrilled about programs passing the Turing test. As soon as we have programs that can write credibly human-sounding comments on sites like this, many conversations will be controlled by whoever can afford the largest sockpuppet farm. Also, for every post on the actual threads of interest, there will be dozens of comments on every thread designed to increase karma. Automated karma whor…

It seems like any kind of mass-comment system would be easy to detect. Simply limiting the post rate and comparing to other posts would work just like current anti-span filters now.

I read a fairly compelling Doctorow short (possibly I, Rowboat?) which posited that that origin of AIs was spam filtration. By creating an ongoing cat-and-mouse game between spambots and anti-spambots, a selective pressure was accidentally created from which intelligent language-using agents emerged.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#63

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 7:53 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #48

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for your constant defence of them of course

I'd like to register my objection to the currently fashionable, yet toxic idea that when a point of view is only 95% stomped out that that is still a sign of "sock puppetry" and that the remaining dissent, rather than being celebrated, must be stomped out even harder ... and then that this is treated as some sort of improvement of public discourse instead of an inevitable degradation of it. This is, admittedly, not 1…

Ok, I agree in general.

But the problem is that on the specifics, a few topics are indeed unanimous. You won't get diversity on those, and this is not a problem.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#64

Post by Natsu » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 7:54 PM UTC

waterlesscloud wrote: post #17

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.

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

I'd be careful about this one. People don't always have the same news sources, so what constitutes "common knowledge" for one person might be alien to another.

Personally, I expect myself to be able to provide a citation for anything reasonably controversial or not widely known and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with asking someone to show their work.

After all, there's the opposite side of this coin: someone who isn't giving evidence because they cannot. I mean, if I claim to have a unicorn in my garage, I can't reasonably expect everyone to accept it on my say-so. I know that's not at all the scenario you have in mind, but I think you'd hate to have someone engaged in such behavior justifying it with your logic when that's not what you meant at all.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#65

Post by lukifer » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 7:56 PM UTC

r0s wrote: post #55

Oblouk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is if all the comments came from the same IP and if the puppeteer was stupid enough to post all the comments at once. Additionally if the AI can beat the turing test then comparing the posts would not be practical. Passing the turing test signifies that it is not possible to distinguish the comments from human comments by looking at the comments alone.

You don't need to detect a machine, astroturfing now is mostly a manual process. Recognizing the same topics repeated is enough, even if it happens over time. The longer the time between posts, the less effective the campaign. The less cohesive the topic, the less effective the campaign. This already exists somewhat, machine or human is almost irrelevant.

I had an anti-Obamacare Republican canvasser show up at my door during election season, and ended up debating for about an hour on the front porch. Though it was an enjoyable and intelligent discussion (far from the stereotype of the Tea Party), I couldn't help but realize that I effected a 1-to-1 "time attack" that drained his ability to canvass voters who actually had a snowball's chance of voting for his candidate.

For better or worse, that seems to be an attack vector in a free marketplace of ideas: finding ways to burn the time and energy of your opponent. (See also: "outrage fatigue".)

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#66

Post by dubfan » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 8:04 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.

I recall that the site has some flamewar detection algorithm that will penalize a story if it detects a flamewar. I don't have a source for this at the moment, though.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#67

Post by WalterBright » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 8:07 PM UTC

ddingus wrote: post #40

waterlesscloud wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I use the word "dodge" and that is one of a number of things people do to avoid having to deal with information they find difficult to process. A while back, I decided to compile a list of these behaviors seen on a smaller, guilty pleasure type of site I enjoy. Here are the major ones seen very frequently: 1. Subject change 2. False comparison 3. Claim of too many opponents 4. Silence 5. Claim to either be a member o…

> silence

Is it really fair to call this a dodge? Not responding hardly means one has difficulty dealing with a post's information. It usually means it is not worth dealing with the poster, as their post may be tiresome, repetitive, abusive, trollish, etc.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#68

Post by cpach » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 8:48 PM UTC

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #36

tptacek wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "usual suspect" discussions about NSA are something like 10:1 against NSA. If there's an NSA sockpuppet army trying to influence HN, it's a good one, because there's no evidence of it.

Except for your constant defence of them of course

    /\O
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  LOL LOL

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#69

Post by mindslight » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 8:50 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #28

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…

The "usual suspect" discussions about NSA are something like 10:1 against NSA. If there's an NSA sockpuppet army trying to influence HN, it's a good one, because there's no evidence of it.

Good influence won't simply be support for/against, but deflecting each viewpoint into a framework that upholds the status quo (making it impotent) and causing infighting between people who would otherwise find common ground.

The NSA doesn't influence standards by sockpuppeting "no crypto". They concern troll to add endless complexity, making implementations buggier and rarer.

In the HN NSA threads, the easiest example is encouraging argument between people who are in violent agreement that the NSA must be curtailed, but differ in approach. But instead of coding or grassroots activism, they're goaded into engaging each other on a message board!

Listen critically to "conservative" talk radio for a good general example - every segment starts off talking about problems that have grassroots concern (and that the "other side" would even sympathize with, just with lower priority). After the warm up to get listeners on board, the narrative switches to pigeonholing that anger away from systematic issues, and towards individual politicians and the "other side" that supports them.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#70

Post by notacoward » Sat, Dec 13, 2014, 8:53 PM UTC

r0s wrote: post #47

notacoward wrote: post #38

This is why I'm not particularly thrilled about programs passing the Turing test. As soon as we have programs that can write credibly human-sounding comments on sites like this, many conversations will be controlled by whoever can afford the largest sockpuppet farm. Also, for every post on the actual threads of interest, there will be dozens of comments on every thread designed to increase karma. Automated karma whor…

It seems like any kind of mass-comment system would be easy to detect. Simply limiting the post rate and comparing to other posts would work just like current anti-span filters now.

Limiting what post rate? If it's coming from a farm it could have the same distribution as real people. If you read the article, you'll see that it's not about spam. It's about astroturf, and not even the kind where you just get a people to repeat your talking points. There are more subtle ways of diverting attention toward a legitimate message you find favorable, or away from a message you'd rather have people forget. That's all much harder for an automated system to detect, and the karma-whoring part harder still.

Look at some of the other comments on this very thread. Not the top vote-getters, but the ones that must have gotten two or three upvotes apiece. Several of those could easily have been generated by an AI designed to rephrase an already-popular view, perhaps with a pop culture reference or two thrown in to make it seem more authentic. Voila, instant karma, which can then be used in the ways the original presentation suggested to influence who reads what.

It only seems easy until you spend five minutes thinking about it.