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Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

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Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#111

Post by RobertKerans »

selmnoo wrote: post #25
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 fascinating thing is, you can't stop the ads on HN from the big big players, because it's effectively accounted as being real news. Zuckerberg held the second public Q&A session the other day, that promised him some news. Then there was that article about a woman engineer at Facebook, the story appeals very appropriately to current events and the emotional zeitgeist of the tech industry, and there was that whole…

There's great chapter in Edward Bernays' Propaganda where he takes apart a stereotypical set of newspaper stories and categorises them according to the type of agenda they serve; surpirise surprise almost none are real news (if that's actually a thing? Depends how reductionist you want to go). Applies just as much now as then, and as much to HN as any other media outlet

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#112

Post by drcomputer »

arca_vorago wrote: post #105
drcomputer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the state we live in, the real question is "Are the people going to let this happen?" I am terrified of mental manipulation. My only inclination and direction is to train my mind to be an independent blank slate. There's also an odd web that forms, the direction of information flows, word choice, word frequency, like it ping pongs in between groups of people. The form of abstract ideas, the direction of tho…

>The form of abstract ideas, the direction of thought. These things can be studied. Indeed you are on to something there. I have long called for a return to our Enlightenment roots for just that reason. It encourages an independent and able mindset, which is precisely why education has been deliberately manipulated in to preventing any such thing. Education of the populace is not in the interest of the international…

I don't think anyone really does it on purpose. A truly independent mind can be a terrifying thing. It can make you feel disconnected, isolated, insane, or stupid.

I have observed the flow of information through people for a long time. I find myself incredibly tired of studying this. It shows nothing of an individual's depth, their character, their individual personality. It's the shadow on the cave.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#113

Post by teddyh »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #85
jordigh wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the gay agenda I'm not sure if you know about this, but this is typically a term of derision and a strawman by anti-gay and homophobic groups. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_agenda

+1; there are also lots of other marginalized groups of people who stand to lose something if aliases cannot be used. Edit: for example: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/29/faceboo...

Larger and more concise list: Who is harmed by a "Real Names" policy?

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Rea...

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#114

Post by grecy »

pekk wrote: post #26
grecy wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Netflix also has however many thousands of normal users there.

Sure, but do you honestly love any product you pay for enough to continuously post about it? Has consumerism really come to that?

And instead of saying "Go for a drive on Highway 1 because it's beautiful", have you ever said "Take your Ford on Highway 1, because a Ford is the best way to see it" ?

(Every second post on /r/movies is "check , on Netflix NOW!")

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#115

Post by jschwartzi »

tptacek wrote: post #76
mindslight wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 examp…

So, you should be able to provide an example of an NSA thread on HN where a sockpuppet diverted the conversation to infighting between people otherwise sharing common ground. I don't think standards groups need a lot of help concern-trolling complexity into standards. The exact same force is exerted on more benign standards; watch HTML for example. Here's a rebuttal framework: select a NIST crypto standard and show a…

I would actually really love to see this. Could you find the HTML working group thread or does it have to be a competition?

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#116

Post by jschwartzi »

WalterBright wrote: post #67
ddingus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's a third reason for silence.

I may remain silent if someone's reply makes me reconsider my earlier opinion. In that case, I'll upvote them so that they can get some visibility if they don't already have it.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#117

Post by patronagezero »

arca_vorago wrote: post #27

This is more insidious than I think even most HN readers realize. In the intelligence community, the big black sheep people don't really talk about is psychological operations, or psyops, units. They are the same breed that used research from MK ULTRA style programs to learn how to deprogram humans (some claims on how to reprogram them), and part of that is a scientific analysis of mass social community discourse. Pr…

My new online-conversation digestion involves reading the posts from the bottom up these days. I've found this yields interesting results, with what I consider the most interesting posts being towards the bottom, and the 'always-agreeable' generic karma-magnet posts at the top.

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#118

Post by Umn55 »

arca_vorago wrote: post #27

This is more insidious than I think even most HN readers realize. In the intelligence community, the big black sheep people don't really talk about is psychological operations, or psyops, units. They are the same breed that used research from MK ULTRA style programs to learn how to deprogram humans (some claims on how to reprogram them), and part of that is a scientific analysis of mass social community discourse. Pr…

“What is truth? For the multitude, that which it continually reads and hears.” ― Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. 2: Perspectives of World History

“The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play.” ― Oswald Spengler

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#119

Post by Umn55 »

arca_vorago wrote: post #27

This is more insidious than I think even most HN readers realize. In the intelligence community, the big black sheep people don't really talk about is psychological operations, or psyops, units. They are the same breed that used research from MK ULTRA style programs to learn how to deprogram humans (some claims on how to reprogram them), and part of that is a scientific analysis of mass social community discourse. Pr…

"Wonder why the fourth estate, aka journalism is in such a sad state of affairs? It's because the state has reached (quietly) so far into it that even the handful of real journalist are having a hard time."

I'm sorry to tell you but it's the very nature of capitalism to consume everything in it's path. Corporations are authoritarian institutions. The idea that there ever existed some balanced press or balanced capitalism is a consistent fantasy among the vast majority of people including intelligent ones like yourself. The more history you know, the more those people around you look uneducated.

The "balance" in capitalist societies is a myth that needs to be broken.

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/OpposingCopyrightExte...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#me...

Look at that chart, that means the powers that be have been crushing the public for 200+ years, every time getting there way and the "moderates" and "balancers" like yourself are totally clueless.

Also the bailout:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVjz1OyBJCc

Overthrowing governments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg_-NjjnvP4

http://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/...

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil intersts in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested." [p. 10]

"War is a racket. ...It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." [p. 23] "The general public shoulders the bill [for war]. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations." [p. 24]

The 9 trillion dollar bank bailout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVjz1OyBJCc

Libor scandal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libor_scandal

Rule of law is impossible under capitalism, since the kings of business (he who has the gold makes the rules) get to do whatever they want and the public gets fucked.

http://williamblum.org/

Regulating capitalism has totally failed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcA1v2n7WW4#t=2551

Re: Censorship 2.0: Shadowy forces controlling online conversations

#120

Post by aaron695 »

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…

> 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 something which really doesn't need it, as that results either in a flamewar or if left the post loses any momentum completely.

Being very meta do you have any links? HN being open it shouldn't be hard to do an analysis. I guess you aren't claiming it is being done but it could be done, but I don't see this as a problem.

Like, if this was happening, a blog with evidence would rank pretty well for karma points, but it hasn't been done.

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