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Just run under the assumption that all information is subject to intentional and unintentional bias, and requires careful analysis. It's a safe assumption most

by M_Grey 10y ago

Just run under the assumption that all information is subject to intentional and unintentional bias, and requires careful analysis. It's a safe assumption most of the time, and you need to form that habit of thinking anyway. To be honest, those shills on Reddit tend to be pretty obvious, but then they have to be given their target audience. More importantly they only really exist on some parts of Reddit, and it's only really easy for them to get lost in the scrum on the big boards like politics and news. You get the occasional obvious bit of PR floating through ELI5 or AskScience, but it's quickly spotted and killed. When PR can be accomplished by random flaks, it's useful. When they require expertise on part with their targets to achieve their goals, it necessarily restricts their target pool, and increases their overhead.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
I don't think shills are obvious, and I think the knee-jerk reaction to them is harmful. I don't mind reading shill posts when they're informational (heck, I read RT), but there is a real danger of discussion manipulation. I routinely get accused of being a shill just for having a counter-group-think position on a topic Im read up on. It's meant to end discussion around a topic, like calling someine racist or sexist. At this point, I feel most of the people calling people shills are themselves shills trying to derail honest discussions. (There are definitely at least a few shills doing this on reddit.) I agree with your first point though: all media is the same, in that you need a diverse stream and critical thinking.
crdoconnor 10y ago
"To be honest, those shills on Reddit tend to be pretty obvious" It's often difficult to distinguish between people who are first-order shills and people who have just swallowed and regurgitated piece of PR from elsewhere.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  It can be insanely difficult, but at the same time, does it matter? If what someone has to offer is that pathetic, I don't honestly care who or what they are; life is too short for that.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    So, somewhere between "pretty obvious" and "insanely difficult?"
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Potentially, sure, and if you're in an underground group like Anonymous you might want to expect more of the "insanely difficult" types because you represent a high value target. As we've seen some recent elections though, you don't need to bother with people like you and me... just move the base with lies and promises. They'll catch you lying, and defend you for it! We'd catch you lying, and try to hold you to account. It's like marketing a frozen food... you want to move units, not make the next great thing to eat that will be well received by the critics. Sure, a bunch of people won't fall for the marketing, but more than enough will to fill your coffers.
glial 10y ago
> those shills on Reddit tend to be pretty obvious The ones you notice are obvious, by definition. It's the once that aren't obvious that concern me.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Shilling is not magic. There is an intersection between the following: Most people are average, read: thick. Shills inevitably target broad groups, because it's not cost-effective to do so in thousands of tiny communities. You can't get your point across to the average person and be subtle enough to not look like a shill to about 5% of the population. In turn that's the 5% you probably care least about anyway, because they're naturally suspicious anyway, better educated, maybe a bit brighter. Why fight over them, when you can run their lives by controlling the 50%?
- 69mlgsniperdad 10y ago
  I think you highly underestimate the effect they have on you. A small number of bots can completely disrupt discourse, eliminate stories that might make the top of all, and instead only get a couple dozen views. One of the tests they (point) ran, consisted of voting every story in new on a particular, decent sized sub, either up or down, as soon as it was posted. the stories they voted up, once, had several times more likelihood of making the first page of hot, and consequently all. The first few minutes can make or break a story with just a handful of votes with great consistency. The $ spent on such narrative control are absurd. For instance, David Brock's "correct the record" burned through 10's of millions of $ during the election, used new and purchased accounts, custom 3rd party anaylitics, offices of shills domestic and foreign; there are several different leaks which came out, showing the conversations in their slack groups, and how they go about effectively killing a story, or fabricating an entire narritive. It is VERY difficult to distinguish shills from 'legit' posters in some circumstances, often those who laid low and applied only mild pressure, weren't discovered until they posted images with correct the record filenames, or accidentally used the same verbiage from separate accounts. Currently, since the termination of correct the record, shareblue has taken over their 'mission' and does the same stuff in the same places. The FBI and CIA make enormous use of the same things, to discourage leaked Intel and damaging natsec information on Reddit and the Chan's from spreading, and he FBI has gone as far as planting child pornography to scare people off and even threaten prosecution of those who are influential/damaging. Correct the record has lists and ratings of Reddit users, one which leaked recently, which you can download right now and import into RES. The same thing occurs in the movie/TV industry, and we are starting to see the evidence come out now, of the massive operation mansanto was running out of large corporate offices, as well as partnering/contracting researches and those of larger social significance to discredit and dismantle the compilation of evidence and investigation into their wrongdoings. Judging by your comment, I'd guess you are among the highest tier of impressionability among those partaking in this discussion. Ignorant comment.
ramy_d 10y ago
More importantly they only really exist on some parts of Reddit One thing I noticed in my time on reddit is that subreddits aren't insular silos. Values, opinions and views-du-jour often bleed over into other subreddits in ways that are hard to predict. Reddit is a really unique culture in that it is constantly, subtly, and rapidly, fluctuating. Just because a fraction of subreddits are being exploited through shilling doesn't mean that redditors in your favourite subreddit don't go there and that they themselves are (consciously or otherwise) not being affected. Even if they don't read the articles, then they saw those highly voted headlines. There's no escape! This involves all subreddits!
- M_Grey 10y ago
  It probably depends on what your subreddits are. For me, it's Science, Space, Askscience, ELI5, and Aww.
  - ramy_d 10y ago
    No, I'm saying it doesn't. Your subreddits are much more focused, especially AskScience but not so much for ELI5 and Aww, and that's good. But they are still comprised of comments sections with opinions, questions and discussions that are put forward by other redditors that frequent other subreddits. They are part of that reddit culture where subreddits are not impenetrable silos. Even if your only subreddit was AskScience with its heavily moderated comments section, you would only be less affected - not completely immune. That is the nature of culture.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      I'd be interested if you could find some posts in AskScience that were remotely successful, which you could reasonably argue were made by shills.
      - nl 10y ago
        I think that the point was that even if specific posts aren't made by shills the world-view of commentators is shaped by them. I think there is some truth to this. I don't frequent Reddit much, but I'd note that for a period a while back there were people here on HN who believed that the Pizzagate conspiracy theory was true. These were long lived accounts here who had commented on a range of issues, so they didn't appear to be shills themself. But it is hard to argue that their world-view isn't influenced by shills on Reddit.
koolba 10y ago
"ELI5: Why is product XYZ the bees knees?" Ok maybe not that obvious but yes it's pretty easy to spot. The harder one is negative mod shilling. Where mods go out of their way to remove posts or comments that don't align with the shill message. The remainder is still "normally distributed" so it's a different animal to spot.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  In theory that would work, but in practice that kind of thing dies within 1 minute because, "It's not seeking an objective explanation" or is a "Loaded question". More often than not, in subreddits like that, you get over-moderation. As for "shill mods"... ok, yes, but then I'd ask you to point out the pattern you'd expect to see as a result. It's not shilling, because there's no dishonesty about it, but this website actively prunes items they don't want to see form the nucleus for a discussion. The pattern is obvious, and would be frankly impossible to hide. So... do you see that pattern in ELI5? I don't. Climate change questions come up from all sides of the debate, likewise with a lot of other issues. I'm sure people try to inject questions that lead to certain discussions, but does it work?
  - koolba 10y ago
    > In theory that would work, but in practice that kind of thing dies within 1 minute because, "It's not seeking an objective explanation" or is a "Loaded question". More often than not, in subreddits like that, you get over-moderation. My ELI5 example wasn't meant to call out shilling in that subreddit. It was meant to be an overtly obvious example of shilling and I used ELI5 in jest. > As for "shill mods"... ok, yes, but then I'd ask you to point out the pattern you'd expect to see as a result. It's not shilling, because there's no dishonesty about it, but this website actively prunes items they don't want to see form the nucleus for a discussion. The pattern is obvious, and would be frankly impossible to hide. It's inherently dishonest if the subreddit itself purports to be impartial. The classic example of this is /r/politics with content that is pro-conservative, or, more generally, content that's isn't pro-liberal or explicitly anti-conservative. > So... do you see that pattern in ELI5? I don't. Climate change questions come up from all sides of the debate, likewise with a lot of other issues. I'm sure people try to inject questions that lead to certain discussions, but does it work? Again, I didn't mean to call out anything specific to /r/ELI5.

by M_Grey 10y ago

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago

I don't think shills are obvious, and I think the knee-jerk reaction to them is harmful. I don't mind reading shill posts when they're informational (heck, I read RT), but there is a real danger of discussion manipulation. I routinely get accused of being a shill just for having a counter-group-think position on a topic Im read up on. It's meant to end discussion around a topic, like calling someine racist or sexist. At this point, I feel most of the people calling people shills are themselves shills trying to derail honest discussions. (There are definitely at least a few shills doing this on reddit.) I agree with your first point though: all media is the same, in that you need a diverse stream and critical thinking.

crdoconnor 10y ago

"To be honest, those shills on Reddit tend to be pretty obvious" It's often difficult to distinguish between people who are first-order shills and people who have just swallowed and regurgitated piece of PR from elsewhere.

M_Grey 10y ago
It can be insanely difficult, but at the same time, does it matter? If what someone has to offer is that pathetic, I don't honestly care who or what they are; life is too short for that.
- rhizome 10y ago
  So, somewhere between "pretty obvious" and "insanely difficult?"
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Potentially, sure, and if you're in an underground group like Anonymous you might want to expect more of the "insanely difficult" types because you represent a high value target. As we've seen some recent elections though, you don't need to bother with people like you and me... just move the base with lies and promises. They'll catch you lying, and defend you for it! We'd catch you lying, and try to hold you to account. It's like marketing a frozen food... you want to move units, not make the next great thing to eat that will be well received by the critics. Sure, a bunch of people won't fall for the marketing, but more than enough will to fill your coffers.

glial 10y ago

> those shills on Reddit tend to be pretty obvious The ones you notice are obvious, by definition. It's the once that aren't obvious that concern me.

M_Grey 10y ago
Shilling is not magic. There is an intersection between the following: Most people are average, read: thick. Shills inevitably target broad groups, because it's not cost-effective to do so in thousands of tiny communities. You can't get your point across to the average person and be subtle enough to not look like a shill to about 5% of the population. In turn that's the 5% you probably care least about anyway, because they're naturally suspicious anyway, better educated, maybe a bit brighter. Why fight over them, when you can run their lives by controlling the 50%?
69mlgsniperdad 10y ago
I think you highly underestimate the effect they have on you. A small number of bots can completely disrupt discourse, eliminate stories that might make the top of all, and instead only get a couple dozen views. One of the tests they (point) ran, consisted of voting every story in new on a particular, decent sized sub, either up or down, as soon as it was posted. the stories they voted up, once, had several times more likelihood of making the first page of hot, and consequently all. The first few minutes can make or break a story with just a handful of votes with great consistency. The $ spent on such narrative control are absurd. For instance, David Brock's "correct the record" burned through 10's of millions of $ during the election, used new and purchased accounts, custom 3rd party anaylitics, offices of shills domestic and foreign; there are several different leaks which came out, showing the conversations in their slack groups, and how they go about effectively killing a story, or fabricating an entire narritive. It is VERY difficult to distinguish shills from 'legit' posters in some circumstances, often those who laid low and applied only mild pressure, weren't discovered until they posted images with correct the record filenames, or accidentally used the same verbiage from separate accounts. Currently, since the termination of correct the record, shareblue has taken over their 'mission' and does the same stuff in the same places. The FBI and CIA make enormous use of the same things, to discourage leaked Intel and damaging natsec information on Reddit and the Chan's from spreading, and he FBI has gone as far as planting child pornography to scare people off and even threaten prosecution of those who are influential/damaging. Correct the record has lists and ratings of Reddit users, one which leaked recently, which you can download right now and import into RES. The same thing occurs in the movie/TV industry, and we are starting to see the evidence come out now, of the massive operation mansanto was running out of large corporate offices, as well as partnering/contracting researches and those of larger social significance to discredit and dismantle the compilation of evidence and investigation into their wrongdoings. Judging by your comment, I'd guess you are among the highest tier of impressionability among those partaking in this discussion. Ignorant comment.

ramy_d 10y ago

More importantly they only really exist on some parts of Reddit One thing I noticed in my time on reddit is that subreddits aren't insular silos. Values, opinions and views-du-jour often bleed over into other subreddits in ways that are hard to predict. Reddit is a really unique culture in that it is constantly, subtly, and rapidly, fluctuating. Just because a fraction of subreddits are being exploited through shilling doesn't mean that redditors in your favourite subreddit don't go there and that they themselves are (consciously or otherwise) not being affected. Even if they don't read the articles, then they saw those highly voted headlines. There's no escape! This involves all subreddits!

M_Grey 10y ago
It probably depends on what your subreddits are. For me, it's Science, Space, Askscience, ELI5, and Aww.
- ramy_d 10y ago
  No, I'm saying it doesn't. Your subreddits are much more focused, especially AskScience but not so much for ELI5 and Aww, and that's good. But they are still comprised of comments sections with opinions, questions and discussions that are put forward by other redditors that frequent other subreddits. They are part of that reddit culture where subreddits are not impenetrable silos. Even if your only subreddit was AskScience with its heavily moderated comments section, you would only be less affected - not completely immune. That is the nature of culture.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I'd be interested if you could find some posts in AskScience that were remotely successful, which you could reasonably argue were made by shills.
    - nl 10y ago
      I think that the point was that even if specific posts aren't made by shills the world-view of commentators is shaped by them. I think there is some truth to this. I don't frequent Reddit much, but I'd note that for a period a while back there were people here on HN who believed that the Pizzagate conspiracy theory was true. These were long lived accounts here who had commented on a range of issues, so they didn't appear to be shills themself. But it is hard to argue that their world-view isn't influenced by shills on Reddit.

koolba 10y ago

"ELI5: Why is product XYZ the bees knees?" Ok maybe not that obvious but yes it's pretty easy to spot. The harder one is negative mod shilling. Where mods go out of their way to remove posts or comments that don't align with the shill message. The remainder is still "normally distributed" so it's a different animal to spot.

M_Grey 10y ago
In theory that would work, but in practice that kind of thing dies within 1 minute because, "It's not seeking an objective explanation" or is a "Loaded question". More often than not, in subreddits like that, you get over-moderation. As for "shill mods"... ok, yes, but then I'd ask you to point out the pattern you'd expect to see as a result. It's not shilling, because there's no dishonesty about it, but this website actively prunes items they don't want to see form the nucleus for a discussion. The pattern is obvious, and would be frankly impossible to hide. So... do you see that pattern in ELI5? I don't. Climate change questions come up from all sides of the debate, likewise with a lot of other issues. I'm sure people try to inject questions that lead to certain discussions, but does it work?
- koolba 10y ago
  > In theory that would work, but in practice that kind of thing dies within 1 minute because, "It's not seeking an objective explanation" or is a "Loaded question". More often than not, in subreddits like that, you get over-moderation. My ELI5 example wasn't meant to call out shilling in that subreddit. It was meant to be an overtly obvious example of shilling and I used ELI5 in jest. > As for "shill mods"... ok, yes, but then I'd ask you to point out the pattern you'd expect to see as a result. It's not shilling, because there's no dishonesty about it, but this website actively prunes items they don't want to see form the nucleus for a discussion. The pattern is obvious, and would be frankly impossible to hide. It's inherently dishonest if the subreddit itself purports to be impartial. The classic example of this is /r/politics with content that is pro-conservative, or, more generally, content that's isn't pro-liberal or explicitly anti-conservative. > So... do you see that pattern in ELI5? I don't. Climate change questions come up from all sides of the debate, likewise with a lot of other issues. I'm sure people try to inject questions that lead to certain discussions, but does it work? Again, I didn't mean to call out anything specific to /r/ELI5.