This reminds me of the storyline from Newsroom where Neal tries to infiltrate the troll underground. The scary thing is how effective this kind of manipulation

This reminds me of the storyline from Newsroom where Neal tries to infiltrate the troll underground. The scary thing is how effective this kind of manipulation can be. I often check the comments on HN before reading the article to see if it's going to be worth my time. With sports or controversial news articles I love to jump to the comments to see what the debate is. I like to think of myself as a critical thinker, but I often find myself getting swept up in my own confirmation bias. Upvoting the comments I agree with and downvoting those I don't, almost mindlessly without really evaluating the arguments. It's the more modern version of the cable news network shows where they put a Republican on one side and a Democrat on the other and let them yell their talking points at each other while the host interjects every so often to stir the pot. I hate that it appeals to me, but something about my base nature is attracted to it like a moth to a flame.