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Yup, in the US and elsewhere. It's called "astroturfing". The US military has been doing it for a decade or more (Operation Earnest Voice, etc). The new techn

Yup, in the US and elsewhere. It's called "astroturfing". The US military has been doing it for a decade or more (Operation Earnest Voice, etc). The new technology is to augment bot behavior with "persona management" software. Basically contractors who sit around all day and impersonate simulated people online in communities where messages are targeting permeation. Militaries around the world participate in this, with the UK and US organized into information warfare brigades.

flukus 10y ago
Astroturfing has typically involved people. By far the biggest use of it I've seen has been in global warming discussions.
- xnull2guest 10y ago
  Right, "persona management" is a technique for keeping track of simulated people with simulated interests, simulated aging (so the accounts can exist for years and be reputable), simulated interests and consistent simulated schedules, and simulated vocabulary. "Persona management" software allows centers of contractors to maintain the identities of these people in a rotating fashion, with the software helping the contractor to choose the right accents and vocabulary, etc. The biggest use I've seen it in is in politics, specifically events of national security importance.
  - _mhr_ 10y ago
    That's wild. You have personal anecdata seeing this in action? How do you detect it? How do you know you aren't just being... paranoid? Can you give irrefutable evidence of an simulated persona? How would one even prove that?
    - flukus 10y ago
      Too drunk to look now but I've read about such companies in the past. They're even willing to pay for older accounts with good karma on big sites. Try googling "Koch brothers astroturfing" I remember some news about their climate change astroturfing recently. Maybe also "Tony Abbott fake twitter likes". The Australian PM was paying for twitter likes.
    - 75j 10y ago
      The Statfor hack showed that the USG has contracted out the development of "persona management software".
    - grkvlt 10y ago
      There is a wiki [1] dedicated to persona management topics that explains more. A company called Ntrepid [2] for example was contracted by the US Army to use persona management in the middle east. I'm sure that it would also work fine in domestic situations, although I couldn't find any instances of that happening... [1] http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Persona_Management http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Persona_Management [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntrepid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntrepid
    - jackmott 10y ago
      I have a feeling about half of the "Global warming isn't real/isn't bad/can't be sure/too late" posts here are by paid astroturfers.
    - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
      Here is a link to a research paper on the subject, based on an ethically questionable experiment: https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock_puppets_in_rnetsec_last_year_and_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock... tldr: it's extremely difficult to detect and mitigate, relatively easy to do (assuming you have some technical skills), and quite effective
  - spiderfarmer 10y ago
    Sounds like a paranoia fueled nightmare. But it's technically possible, so why not.
- hueving 10y ago
  How do you know it was astroturfing? Or is this just a lame inflammatory way to imply nobody could disagree with you?
  - flukus 10y ago
    There's a definite pattern, like people that post very little, or don't post in a particular subreddit at all but then swarm on Climate change posts in seconds. A lot also don't seem to be able to pass a Turing test but it's a very blurry line.
generic_user 10y ago
Well, David Brock and his Correct The Record army did exactly that for the past four or five months. Reddit and a bunch of other sites were crawling with copy paste Hillary spam twenty four seven. But the story was about bots and 'fake news'. There was no mention of what your talkin about "persona management". If you have some liks to that then post them. This flurry of stories about 'fake news' looks more like a coordinated media nariatve then anything else. Another angle to try and keep the political agitation going and keep people angry. As WikiLeaks has show the media is part of the party machine and they have an agenda in this.
- kartan 10y ago
  > This flurry of stories about 'fake news' looks more like a coordinated media nariatve then anything else. I have seen this fake news first hand. I live in Sweden and time to time my friends contact me to ask me how bad is here and how chaotic is the situation. I don't know what they are talking about until they point to some obscure news site that talks about "chaos in Sweden" because 1) Women equality 2) Refugees. It is annoying and has been going for a while. For sure just the fact that media talks about this instead , for example, of talking about the increasing wealth inequality is biased. And shows how much no one with resources wants to talk about the real issues. But that doesn't makes the fact that fake news are more widespread false.
  - berntb 10y ago
    Let me expand on that... Just two simple data points: 1. Malmö, with large immigrant population, have a population of around 300,000 -- and half the number of murders this year as the whole of Norway, with 15 times the population. (Norway is culturally very similar to Sweden. Well, unless you ask Norwegians. :-) ) 2. in the last 20 years there have been a negligible building of housing, for political reasons. At the same time, the Swedish population have increased with 10+% -- also for political reasons! This created a really high risk for a housing bubble in the next economic downturn. In short -- there are scary problems. Those problems are much larger than Germany's problems with immigration -- and are pushed under the carpet extensively by the Swedish media. Hence, you see two Swedes with totally different views of the Swedish situation. The internal Swedish discussion is insanely polarized. The largest newspaper have for years stamped people nazi and fascist for arguing to implement a migration policy used in most of the rest of the EU. Norway and Denmark have been attacked for being "brown" (as in SA), despite being a couple of the world's most liberal and tolerant countries. And so on. Finally, the point: The Swedish general media have been systematically misrepresenting facts to the public. (For instance, up until a year ago, it was a "fact" that immigration of largely uneducated people was a good business and gave a good economical result for the country, despite an expensive welfare state.) What is really the fake news in Sweden..? (You might argue that media lie and spin everywhere. Probably true. But in democracies, the news don't generally all use exactly the same spin...)

flukus 10y ago

Astroturfing has typically involved people. By far the biggest use of it I've seen has been in global warming discussions.

xnull2guest 10y ago
Right, "persona management" is a technique for keeping track of simulated people with simulated interests, simulated aging (so the accounts can exist for years and be reputable), simulated interests and consistent simulated schedules, and simulated vocabulary. "Persona management" software allows centers of contractors to maintain the identities of these people in a rotating fashion, with the software helping the contractor to choose the right accents and vocabulary, etc. The biggest use I've seen it in is in politics, specifically events of national security importance.
- _mhr_ 10y ago
  That's wild. You have personal anecdata seeing this in action? How do you detect it? How do you know you aren't just being... paranoid? Can you give irrefutable evidence of an simulated persona? How would one even prove that?
  - flukus 10y ago
    Too drunk to look now but I've read about such companies in the past. They're even willing to pay for older accounts with good karma on big sites. Try googling "Koch brothers astroturfing" I remember some news about their climate change astroturfing recently. Maybe also "Tony Abbott fake twitter likes". The Australian PM was paying for twitter likes.
  - 75j 10y ago
    The Statfor hack showed that the USG has contracted out the development of "persona management software".
  - grkvlt 10y ago
    There is a wiki [1] dedicated to persona management topics that explains more. A company called Ntrepid [2] for example was contracted by the US Army to use persona management in the middle east. I'm sure that it would also work fine in domestic situations, although I couldn't find any instances of that happening... [1] http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Persona_Management http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Persona_Management [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntrepid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntrepid
  - jackmott 10y ago
    I have a feeling about half of the "Global warming isn't real/isn't bad/can't be sure/too late" posts here are by paid astroturfers.
  - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
    Here is a link to a research paper on the subject, based on an ethically questionable experiment: https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock_puppets_in_rnetsec_last_year_and_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/38wl43/we_used_sock... tldr: it's extremely difficult to detect and mitigate, relatively easy to do (assuming you have some technical skills), and quite effective
- spiderfarmer 10y ago
  Sounds like a paranoia fueled nightmare. But it's technically possible, so why not.
hueving 10y ago
How do you know it was astroturfing? Or is this just a lame inflammatory way to imply nobody could disagree with you?
- flukus 10y ago
  There's a definite pattern, like people that post very little, or don't post in a particular subreddit at all but then swarm on Climate change posts in seconds. A lot also don't seem to be able to pass a Turing test but it's a very blurry line.

generic_user 10y ago

Well, David Brock and his Correct The Record army did exactly that for the past four or five months. Reddit and a bunch of other sites were crawling with copy paste Hillary spam twenty four seven. But the story was about bots and 'fake news'. There was no mention of what your talkin about "persona management". If you have some liks to that then post them. This flurry of stories about 'fake news' looks more like a coordinated media nariatve then anything else. Another angle to try and keep the political agitation going and keep people angry. As WikiLeaks has show the media is part of the party machine and they have an agenda in this.

kartan 10y ago
> This flurry of stories about 'fake news' looks more like a coordinated media nariatve then anything else. I have seen this fake news first hand. I live in Sweden and time to time my friends contact me to ask me how bad is here and how chaotic is the situation. I don't know what they are talking about until they point to some obscure news site that talks about "chaos in Sweden" because 1) Women equality 2) Refugees. It is annoying and has been going for a while. For sure just the fact that media talks about this instead , for example, of talking about the increasing wealth inequality is biased. And shows how much no one with resources wants to talk about the real issues. But that doesn't makes the fact that fake news are more widespread false.
- berntb 10y ago
  Let me expand on that... Just two simple data points: 1. Malmö, with large immigrant population, have a population of around 300,000 -- and half the number of murders this year as the whole of Norway, with 15 times the population. (Norway is culturally very similar to Sweden. Well, unless you ask Norwegians. :-) ) 2. in the last 20 years there have been a negligible building of housing, for political reasons. At the same time, the Swedish population have increased with 10+% -- also for political reasons! This created a really high risk for a housing bubble in the next economic downturn. In short -- there are scary problems. Those problems are much larger than Germany's problems with immigration -- and are pushed under the carpet extensively by the Swedish media. Hence, you see two Swedes with totally different views of the Swedish situation. The internal Swedish discussion is insanely polarized. The largest newspaper have for years stamped people nazi and fascist for arguing to implement a migration policy used in most of the rest of the EU. Norway and Denmark have been attacked for being "brown" (as in SA), despite being a couple of the world's most liberal and tolerant countries. And so on. Finally, the point: The Swedish general media have been systematically misrepresenting facts to the public. (For instance, up until a year ago, it was a "fact" that immigration of largely uneducated people was a good business and gave a good economical result for the country, despite an expensive welfare state.) What is really the fake news in Sweden..? (You might argue that media lie and spin everywhere. Probably true. But in democracies, the news don't generally all use exactly the same spin...)