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Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

arstechnica.com

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Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#41

Post by BlueGh0st »

fastball wrote: post #38
fastball wrote: post #28

I found it interesting that they actually published the list of accounts: https://www.reddit.com/wiki/suspiciousaccounts

Looking through some of them, I would be interested to see a bit more detail into how they identified these accounts. Because, for example, this account[1] never seemed to post anything political at all, but is included in the list. 1: https://www.reddit.com/user/reggaebull

There are some political posts in its history but I agree with your sentiment. I posed a similar question in the announcement thread (not asking for specifics because they'd never share that) but received no answer.

Elsewhere in the thread however I did see that they worked with some other companies like Twitter to share data of suspected Russian trolls and issued bans based off of that.

Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#42

Post by txsh »

> In comments, Huffman also noted that these troubling accounts were most active in /r/funny, /r/uncen, /r/Bad_Cop_No_Donut, /r/gifs, /r/PoliticalHumor, and /r/The_Donald, a notorious pro-Donald Trump subreddit.

Russian trolls are active in many other subreddits such as /r/politics. But Huffman only lists the rightwing subreddits he personally disagrees with. He's using Russian propaganda to create his own propaganda.

Reddit needs a CEO who doesn't engage in amateur stuff like this.

Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#43

Post by SiempreViernes »

frockington wrote: post #32
SiempreViernes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are actually more than two options you know, at one point there were 17 nominees on the republican side. Out of all those 17, the biggest idiot won, and now you want to take away the best excuse for this fracas that the elites have come up with? I think the fact that the orange one is an idiot is pretty dangerous in and of itself, completely independent of however easy he is to be manipulated.

This is the logical step I've never been to follow and I am open to understanding. If Trump, the GOP. and all of his supporters are idiots, how did they win? If the liberals and liberal candidates were so smart, why did they lose so badly? It seems it would be easy to control a mass of idiots. I'm not trying to flame, I've never been able to follow this logic and am interested in how others view it

While the question of how they won despite being idiots is interesting and important, I find it much more alarming that the fact they won an election somehow make the almost daily idiotic escapades of the administration unimportant evidence.

Note that I am not making a claim about the supporters, just the orange and his staff. Why people voted as they did in the numbers they did is of course a much bigger question. But I mean, the obvious answer is that the election process itself is very flawed as it can elect an administration this bad, that's just empirical fact now.

Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#44

Post by justherefortart »

monochromatic wrote: post #37
justherefortart wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wasn't, it was pro Sanders and still is.

During the primaries, yes. Once Sanders was out, r/politics just looked like the internet wing of the Democratic Party.

Hardly, butthurt sanders fans (and lots of shills) everywhere. Hell, they're still all over reddit.

Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#45

Post by Namidairo »

fastball wrote: post #38
fastball wrote: post #28

I found it interesting that they actually published the list of accounts: https://www.reddit.com/wiki/suspiciousaccounts

Looking through some of them, I would be interested to see a bit more detail into how they identified these accounts. Because, for example, this account[1] never seemed to post anything political at all, but is included in the list. 1: https://www.reddit.com/user/reggaebull

Perhaps it's one of many accounts identified sharing the same IP address, but this particular one was still in the process of farming karma. (In order to make a later post look more legitimate)

Then again, quite a few on the list have little to no karma points anyway.

Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#46

Post by slabity »

aristocles wrote: post #36

This is propaganda from intelligence agencies. The "RUSSIAN TROLLING" is an organic movement of right-wring nationalism that is building in America. Russians may have tried to stoke the flames of the divide in America, but its real, and its here.

> This is propaganda from intelligence agencies.

What is? This article? The source? Or the arguments in general?

Claims like this require hard evidence provided in the same context, or they will be dismissed outright.

Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#47

Post by jjjsz »

galieos_ghost wrote: post #13

Why does nobody talk about the fact that Clinton and Democrats spent 10s of millions astroturfing various online communities? You could see r/politics go from fairly balanced to rabid pro-clinton when CTR got fresh funding infusions. You can check Alexa rankings and see the massive traffic surges at the same time. You could see sentiment shift on weekends when the shills were off. Hell, the CIA had an entire "Meme wa…

> Why does nobody talk about the fact that Clinton and Democrats spent 10s of millions astroturfing various online communities?

Because that's a conspiracy theory, based on one pet interpretation of one press release and ignoring all the times Correct the Record denied it (such as the instance in this article you posted: "Barrier Breakers accounts are always identified as Correct the Record").

The article you posted describes what they actually did ("Much of the effort appears to be fairly anodyne so far. An official-looking Twitter account, Facebook page, and Instagram and Pinterest accounts have been set up. The social media accounts seem to consist mainly of graphics and videos that deliver inspirational pro-Clinton messages, content that appears to have been designed in the hopes that it might go viral.")

I have little doubt that the CTR conspiracy theory was largely spread by the very real Russian astroturfers. It was super effective at effortlessly shutting down Clinton supporters online.

Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#48

Post by codezero »

fastball wrote: post #38
fastball wrote: post #28

I found it interesting that they actually published the list of accounts: https://www.reddit.com/wiki/suspiciousaccounts

Looking through some of them, I would be interested to see a bit more detail into how they identified these accounts. Because, for example, this account[1] never seemed to post anything political at all, but is included in the list. 1: https://www.reddit.com/user/reggaebull

Could be part of a voting ring.

Re: Russian trolls hit Reddit, too

#49

Post by pixl97 »

Arubis wrote: post #29
galieos_ghost wrote: post #13

Why does nobody talk about the fact that Clinton and Democrats spent 10s of millions astroturfing various online communities? You could see r/politics go from fairly balanced to rabid pro-clinton when CTR got fresh funding infusions. You can check Alexa rankings and see the massive traffic surges at the same time. You could see sentiment shift on weekends when the shills were off. Hell, the CIA had an entire "Meme wa…

[flagged]

Whataboutism, the new keyword to shutdown any discussion about how shitty the entire US political system is.

"US lobbying rules allow any company to manipulate people online that would be illegal in a rational democracy" --It's the American way!

"Russia does the same thing as US companies" --End of democracy as we know it

Now, what Russia did is wrong and illegal, but the discussion of saying that the solution to the problem is going after Russia and everything will be ok after that seems like manipulated talking points. All political ads and manipulation needs to be labeled or made illegal. Russia is just a little piece in a huge problem.

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