21–30 of 97 posts
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9570202
What's the right way for a community to permit free and welcoming discourse and simultaneously blunt the ability of malicious actors intent on spreading disinformation? It's a hard problem.
I am sure this is not only happening in Russia.
Astroturf happens everywhere... news at 11... it's easy to laugh at the paid Russians and their broken English but it wasn't too long ago you had stories of British intelligence rigging online polls and the US government contracting out software to manage mass amounts of social media personas to target jihadists(and I'm sure the same tactics are being used against Russia too).
I think some kind of web of trust, except this time for comments or social media artifacts, is probably the way to go.
Poorly titled and therefore hard to share on Hacker News, but lengthy and worth reading investigative reporting into a bizarre 'Internet Research Agency' that mainly produces pro-Putin propaganda, in both English and Russian. I'm surprised, frankly, that they don't have better English-language proficiency.
> that mainly produces pro-Putin propaganda, in both English and Russian. And also seems to be testing disinformation campaigns in the US, such as spreading panic about (fake) disasters.
Of course statements like that evoke Godwin's law and a hard to swallow. However, my dad grew up in Soviet Russia and trained troops on the use of artillery equipment during the Soviet Afghanistan conflict. He's been around the block and has seen firsthand the Soviet propaganda in multiple Soviet republics.
If you think about the insidiousness of troll-style, FUD propaganda, it's way way more psychologically insidious than the overt Soviet propaganda. You can't cut off access to facts and appear "fair"--instead you make people question the truth.
Russia just raised a whole young generation that's a socially-backwards by a generation. Homophobic, racist, blame-the-west feelings are rampant.
During the early days of the Ukranian conflict, I was surprised to hear a close relative in Russia tell me how she has seen videos on Youtube of "blacks from Africa" killing innocent Russian youths ("gouging their eyes out" she said) in Eastern Ukraine.
This shit is real.
My dad claims that the level of brainwashing in Russia far far exceeds that of the Soviet regime, and the propaganda is by far worse (and worse than WWII Germany he says). Of course statements like that evoke Godwin's law and a hard to swallow. However, my dad grew up in Soviet Russia and trained troops on the use of artillery equipment during the Soviet Afghanistan conflict. He's been around the block and has seen f…
EX: Reefer madness vs. modern anti-smoking campaigns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/24/cdc-smo...
I find it deeply concerning how easily a modern state can alter how its population thinks. Outright lies are a lot easier to counter than selective truths.
I doubt about "well-paid" part. From the article you can deduct they're pair around 25k RUR/month, $500 in today exchange rate.
This sort of thing has happened recently on HN, where trolls derailed the conversation so badly that it was flagged into oblivion. (dang brought it back to life after an email appeal). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9570202 What's the right way for a community to permit free and welcoming discourse and simultaneously blunt the ability of malicious actors intent on spreading disinformation? It's a hard problem.
It could just as well be one person stating his opinions. His opinions are controversal, and therefore they generate lots of responses (derailing) and he is downvoted because they go against what most people here believe. Doesn't quite seem like an army of professional "trolls" manipulating the discussion (If he is a troll, he would probably have presented his statements more effectively or subtly. The way he did almost guaranteed being downvoted).
Those "troll groups" are surely not a good thing, and you can never be certain this person wasn't one of them, but I also wouldn't label everyone I don't agree with a troll, just because they dare to write down their opinion, and my point of view is the one of the majority.