Come on guys, Monsanto isn’t that bad. They single handedly saved my entire family from a burning building.
Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
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Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#12Send those responsible to court or slap a fine on it but that's not the problem. The problem is that everyone believes what Joe or Jane Doe posts on the internet, no matter who pays them. Have reporters query (non corporate) scientists skilled in the subject, let the mad blabbermouth era be over and live the life of information again.
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Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#13It does not surprise me. They've been extremely active on reddit and HN for years. You cannot say anything bad about Monsanto without at least a dozen of people coming at you with bullshit studies defending Monsanto products/ techs. This is a confirmation that indeed, Monsanto paid shills to systematically answer comments on internet forums to counter any criticism of that company. This is obviously not the only comp…
On the flip side, Monsanto gets some incredibly ridiculous comments directed towards it. Things that even those who have the most hatred for Monsanto would realize doesn't add up.
People on Reddit in particular love to point out when someone is wrong. For free. Discussions about Monsanto are low hanging fruit and easily searched out. The fact that you received 30-50 comments suggests to me that most were just regular Reddit users doing what Reddit users do.
What if the paid trolls were the ones who posted the ridiculous comments so that the 'right fighters' come out of the woodwork in droves to defend the company? Once they get used to defending the company for things that are clearly false, they become skeptical of the real grievances. That's kind of brilliant when you think about it.
Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#14Send those responsible to court or slap a fine on it but that's not the problem. The problem is that everyone believes what Joe or Jane Doe posts on the internet, no matter who pays them. Have reporters query (non corporate) scientists skilled in the subject, let the mad blabbermouth era be over and live the life of information again.
It really boggles my mind that a decade ago I would've been told not to believe what I read on wikipedia and now folks don't question anything they read on the internet.
Is it because we've been fed this illusion of social networks?
Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#15Strange, the original article's title doesn't have the ending question mark
Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#16Are there any companies who don't use paid shills these days? As soon as I find out some company is shilling MY Internet, I quit doing business with them. Google and Microsoft are especially egregious, I've heard that every Google employee is expected to post ten times a day to forums and social media promoting their brand.
Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#17It does not surprise me. They've been extremely active on reddit and HN for years. You cannot say anything bad about Monsanto without at least a dozen of people coming at you with bullshit studies defending Monsanto products/ techs. This is a confirmation that indeed, Monsanto paid shills to systematically answer comments on internet forums to counter any criticism of that company. This is obviously not the only comp…
On the flip side, Monsanto gets some incredibly ridiculous comments directed towards it. Things that even those who have the most hatred for Monsanto would realize doesn't add up. People on Reddit in particular love to point out when someone is wrong. For free. Discussions about Monsanto are low hanging fruit and easily searched out. The fact that you received 30-50 comments suggests to me that most were just regular…
A Shill Defence Force® that lures them into never ending flamewars, so the rest of us can post in peace. I like it. Someone needs to start a fundraiser and get the mechanical turk going.
Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#18It does not surprise me. They've been extremely active on reddit and HN for years. You cannot say anything bad about Monsanto without at least a dozen of people coming at you with bullshit studies defending Monsanto products/ techs. This is a confirmation that indeed, Monsanto paid shills to systematically answer comments on internet forums to counter any criticism of that company. This is obviously not the only comp…
This is what people have tended to say any time I defended Monsanto here --- not because I particularly like Monsanto, but because people seem to make a bunch of stuff up about them, and as a card-carrying nerd, I have a problem watching people be proudly wrong on HN. It should probably be obvious that I've never taken a dime from Monsanto (though: people in Mountain View used to think our office was a Monsanto office, due to the related spelling).
There's a reason that there's a rule in the HN guidelines about not implying shillage here. It's an easy rhetorical out, and people take it far too often. If you think a comment here is paid for or otherwise abusive, tell hn@ycombinator.com; don't post about it here.
Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#19It does not surprise me. They've been extremely active on reddit and HN for years. You cannot say anything bad about Monsanto without at least a dozen of people coming at you with bullshit studies defending Monsanto products/ techs. This is a confirmation that indeed, Monsanto paid shills to systematically answer comments on internet forums to counter any criticism of that company. This is obviously not the only comp…
Using the "shill argument" basically shuts down any possibility for an actual discussion or discourse. If you truly believe that a commentator is doing something like that, you should honestly just flag the comment and move on.
The entire point of HN, or at least in its attempt, is to be able to have meaningful conversations, and it will be to great detriment for the community if we allow rhetorical criticism like this to become more prevalent.
Re: Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls
#20Send those responsible to court or slap a fine on it but that's not the problem. The problem is that everyone believes what Joe or Jane Doe posts on the internet, no matter who pays them. Have reporters query (non corporate) scientists skilled in the subject, let the mad blabbermouth era be over and live the life of information again.
It really boggles my mind that a decade ago I would've been told not to believe what I read on wikipedia and now folks don't question anything they read on the internet. Is it because we've been fed this illusion of social networks?
>folks don't question anything they read on the internet
(summary: Even if people were to quit believing what they read, claims against Monsanto would be among those claims disbelieved, so Monsanto still wins.)
Because you quickly run in to the "poisoned wine" problem. You can't pick the wine in front of you because the King might have poisoned it, but you can't pick the wine in front of him because he might be expecting you to pick it, but he might have thought that you would have expected him to pick it and then put it in front of you... So at the end the knowledge that one cup is poisoned doesn't help you pick which one to drink.
In the same way, if everything you read could have been written by a troll, and if you can't de-troll it by identifying which cause they are subtly going after, the sentence becomes non-information. If everything you read could be trolling, then every sentence becomes non-information. You're left alone in a crowd of millions, because whether or not the person talking to you is a shill, useful idiot, or enlightened freedom fighter, you're not going to trust them.
In other words, Monsanto can halt all communication about Monsanto, without having to prevent anyone from talking. They just have to bring the average correctness of any statement about Monsanto low enough, and then there will be no point in reading.
So, faced with the option of completely disregarding everything they read on the internet (thereby, essentially, ending their use of it), most people just shoulder the risk and assume good faith, hoping that the benefits of the true information that they end up believing will not be outweighed by the false information they end up believing. As long as the false information is kept to a low enough level this is an acceptable bargain.