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Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation (2022)

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Re: Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation (2022)

#51

Post by iamnothere »

kubb wrote: post #6
dluan wrote: post #2

We have a massive poisoning of the commons catastrophe coming, driven by further authoritarian government overreach and control. I've seen no one working on this, and in fact most people on HN seem to be working on ways to further exacerbate this problem. I don't just mean half solutions like tor or social protocols that let you in and out of walled gardens. There's still a tiny window of opportunity for engineers to…

It feels like "Autonomous Coding Agents" are being astroturfed on the daily on HN. The same arguments and tropes are echoing through every thread. It's hard to distinguish who's a bot, who's a narrative pusher and who's an enthusiast. Which is exactly what you'd want from an astroturfing campaign. There's a clear benefit: people in the industry are reading this, and in doing so they're granting mindshare. There's one…

> There's one way that can prevent inauthentic support campaigns - personal key signature.

You would be surprised at how cheaply opinions can be purchased, especially globally.

Re: Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation (2022)

#52

Post by bpavuk »

jacquesm wrote: post #50
bpavuk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, I had one fly above my head in 2025, too. I know what compare against

Ugh, that sucks, I hope it was not a combat situation. I've got a couple of them here mostly smaller ones (3", 5") and one large one (9") and I'm super respectful of those props and the ones here obviously don't have any kind of payload. Even so I'd hate to see one come at me, I've seen what they can do to pieces of hardwood.

no, it was not, I'm too young to get drafted :) although I'd argue that nowadays, the line between a civilian and a combatant is blurred more than ever. at least in Ukraine it's like that

Re: Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation (2022)

#53

Post by jacquesm »

bpavuk wrote: post #52
jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, that sucks, I hope it was not a combat situation. I've got a couple of them here mostly smaller ones (3", 5") and one large one (9") and I'm super respectful of those props and the ones here obviously don't have any kind of payload. Even so I'd hate to see one come at me, I've seen what they can do to pieces of hardwood.

no, it was not, I'm too young to get drafted :) although I'd argue that nowadays, the line between a civilian and a combatant is blurred more than ever. at least in Ukraine it's like that

> no, it was not, I'm too young to get drafted :)

Good for you.

> although I'd argue that nowadays, the line between a civilian and a combatant is blurred more than ever. at least in Ukraine it's like that

This is very true and very few people outside of Ukraine realize this.

Re: Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation (2022)

#54

Post by calibas »

cwillu wrote: post #30
calibas wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen no one working on this, and in fact most people on HN seem to be working on ways to further exacerbate this problem. It's against the HN guidelines to insinuate that astroturfing happens on HN.

Discussion of astroturfing on a post that is specifically about astroturfing is such an obvious exception that I'm having a hard time taking your reply in good faith, but this is me trying to do so anyway instead of just downvoting and flagging like the guidelines suggest I do in such cases.

I'm confused, you think I'm saying he's breaking guidelines?

I should have been more clear, but I was trying to skirt the guidelines. I'm sure that astroturfing happens on HN, and I think that not allowing people to talk about it actually helps enable astroturfing.

Re: Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation (2022)

#55

Post by AlexeyBelov »

mannanj wrote: post #13
Mistletoe wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote The Cable Guy, there’s only one answer, someone has to kill the babysitter (tv, social media, Big Tech). It’s hard to kill the babysitter when everyone in Congress is invested balls deep in the babysitter. Eisenhower warned of the coming overreaching powers of the Military Industrial Complex, but no one is attacking the Government Stock Market Tech Complex (GSMTC).

It’s beyond that. It’s the CIA deeply embedded in all the scary uncomfortable ways you would have hoped never possible. Presidents win and turn their stance and run around in the other direction, they don’t what to be another assassinated Kennedy (and imo today they would have other fears worse than dying). Congressmen and women are definitely also aware of the deep presence and power of that agency and its perversio…

How were you experimented on?

Re: Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation (2022)

#56

Post by AlexeyBelov »

plun9 wrote: post #34
Bridged7756 wrote: post #23

This is notorious in platforms like reddit, with people jumping in to suggest no name products in response to questions. It doesn't help that reddit allows private profiles, thus allowing astroturfers to get away with it. Also, another case is LLM astroturfing, we're bombarded with doomerism and obituaries about programming, some of said opinions are subtler, short comments, the most dangerous ones, because little by…

Here is an example: https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/dty9nd/com... Here, PM_ME_UR_LIDAR uses the pronoun "their" referring to Ouster, the lidar company. But PM_ME_UR_LIDAR was working at Ouster, Inc. at the time the comment was written.

Recently I've been seeing this every day (yes, every).

See for example: https://arctic-shift.photon-reddit.com/search?fun=comments_s...

User plugs "PracHub" constantly, but their profile page doesn't show those comments. Sometimes they post lazily, just pasting a link. Other times though they post as if they've stumbled upon this service by accident.

Re: Online astroturfing: A problem beyond disinformation (2022)

#57

Post by mannanj »

AlexeyBelov wrote: post #55
mannanj wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s beyond that. It’s the CIA deeply embedded in all the scary uncomfortable ways you would have hoped never possible. Presidents win and turn their stance and run around in the other direction, they don’t what to be another assassinated Kennedy (and imo today they would have other fears worse than dying). Congressmen and women are definitely also aware of the deep presence and power of that agency and its perversio…

How were you experimented on?

They put things in my food and beverage - leading to symptoms I hadn’t experienced before. I didn’t expect nor placebo myself into it as only upon further reflection and scrutiny did their activity line up with the cause.

I would be experimented also with advanced psychological and confusion tactics. The theme where I would suddenly feel ill, reflect on it later and notice the presence of someone who was certainly matching agent vibes and tactics was frequent afterwards. One time it was the offering of a drink by a woman who had no business popping up there in that circumstance as Though she knew “I dropped my wallet” (rode on a motorcycle with her earlier) and was too high for coincidence ready to offer me something of practical value.

This lines with others accounts online of targeted individuals and CIA classified programs of experimentation.

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