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remember that 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit. wouldn't be surprised if a few leaked to this site. especially w

remember that 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit. wouldn't be surprised if a few leaked to this site. especially with green accounts.

doktrin 10y ago
HN is by now a well known forum, and exerting influence over its participants would be valuable for many parties; including but not necessarily limited to state actors. Hence, it's fair to assume that there are comments made in bad faith - particularly in highly visible political threads like this one. Identifying specific malicious actors (and their origin) is tricky from a reader's POV, so the best I can personally do is not let ridiculous statements go unanswered. Ignorance is more common than malice, but I'm sure there's a bit of both in here today.
throwaway71960 10y ago
| 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit you mean, using the weapon of free speech? you know, like Voice of America? And still the election went off, on schedule, with no interruptions.
- oculusthrift 10y ago
  two green accounts with username number that is 2 away from each other. -__-
throwaway71958 10y ago
Whether there are Russian trolls on those forums, I have seen no proof of that. But there definitely are "Correct the Record" trolls all over social media, copy&pasting the liberal talking points, up/downvoting posts, and reporting anything that goes against the narrative as "hate speech", and there's a solid money trail in evidence of that as well.
coldtea 10y ago
>remember that 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit. Or so a 2017 version of the "red scare" goes, so that the military industrial complex can sell more weapons and more "safety", and the fingers can keep being pointed at some enemy or another. That way their budgets get approved, some poor countries pay the toll (who cares anyway), and they might even be able to plunder them afterwards. Worked wonders the last 30+ years. Not to mention that the US sponsors tons of NGOs, magazines, organizations, events, political parties, etc, with favorable views to its interest all over the world, and has done that none stop since at least WWII, meddling with elections, paying journalists, etc -- and when nothing else works.
- oculusthrift 10y ago
  ahhh..... whataboutism[0]. classic russian tactic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Confirmation bias: classical lalala-hands-in-the-ears-denial tactic. Also, not a Russian. Tinfoil much? Besides I'm not the one who opened an account here a mere few months ago. I'm a regular on HN for 5+ years. Now, regarding the accusation of "whataboutism", I found that it's the stupidest of knee-jerk responses. It makes looking at all sides look like some kind of error. "Yeah, my side can kill, invade, meddle with others, bully, strong-arm, etc as it sees fit. But if your side does 1/10th of those things even when its justified, or even if I just accuse you falsely of doing them and you dare to point out that it's actually my side doing those things and worse, then I call out your whataboutism". Instead of putting things into perspective, examining their history, the causes, the role of different players, people point the finger to a single direction (seldom to their own side's and rarely to the biggest offender), and when called out on it and get reminded of the greater state of affairs they go "oh, that's whataboutism".
    - oculusthrift 10y ago
      you're not a willing russian shill. you seem much more in the vein of noam chomsky or glenn freenwald criticizing america every chance you have. and doing so on RT nonetheless.
sctb 10y ago
If you suspect organized behavior like this on Hacker News, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com and flag such comments that violate the guidelines. We take this seriously and we're happy to investigate. But do that instead of comment about it here, because the kinds of discussions we're trying to have always come more easily when we assume good faith. We've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069328 and marked it off-topic.

remember that 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit. wouldn't be surprised if a few leaked to this site. especially with green accounts.

doktrin 10y ago

HN is by now a well known forum, and exerting influence over its participants would be valuable for many parties; including but not necessarily limited to state actors. Hence, it's fair to assume that there are comments made in bad faith - particularly in highly visible political threads like this one. Identifying specific malicious actors (and their origin) is tricky from a reader's POV, so the best I can personally do is not let ridiculous statements go unanswered. Ignorance is more common than malice, but I'm sure there's a bit of both in here today.

throwaway71960 10y ago

| 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit you mean, using the weapon of free speech? you know, like Voice of America? And still the election went off, on schedule, with no interruptions.

oculusthrift 10y ago
two green accounts with username number that is 2 away from each other. -__-

throwaway71958 10y ago

Whether there are Russian trolls on those forums, I have seen no proof of that. But there definitely are "Correct the Record" trolls all over social media, copy&pasting the liberal talking points, up/downvoting posts, and reporting anything that goes against the narrative as "hate speech", and there's a solid money trail in evidence of that as well.

coldtea 10y ago

>remember that 1000s of paid russians were used to interrupt our election on sites like reddit. Or so a 2017 version of the "red scare" goes, so that the military industrial complex can sell more weapons and more "safety", and the fingers can keep being pointed at some enemy or another. That way their budgets get approved, some poor countries pay the toll (who cares anyway), and they might even be able to plunder them afterwards. Worked wonders the last 30+ years. Not to mention that the US sponsors tons of NGOs, magazines, organizations, events, political parties, etc, with favorable views to its interest all over the world, and has done that none stop since at least WWII, meddling with elections, paying journalists, etc -- and when nothing else works.

oculusthrift 10y ago
ahhh..... whataboutism[0]. classic russian tactic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- coldtea 10y ago
  Confirmation bias: classical lalala-hands-in-the-ears-denial tactic. Also, not a Russian. Tinfoil much? Besides I'm not the one who opened an account here a mere few months ago. I'm a regular on HN for 5+ years. Now, regarding the accusation of "whataboutism", I found that it's the stupidest of knee-jerk responses. It makes looking at all sides look like some kind of error. "Yeah, my side can kill, invade, meddle with others, bully, strong-arm, etc as it sees fit. But if your side does 1/10th of those things even when its justified, or even if I just accuse you falsely of doing them and you dare to point out that it's actually my side doing those things and worse, then I call out your whataboutism". Instead of putting things into perspective, examining their history, the causes, the role of different players, people point the finger to a single direction (seldom to their own side's and rarely to the biggest offender), and when called out on it and get reminded of the greater state of affairs they go "oh, that's whataboutism".
  - oculusthrift 10y ago
    you're not a willing russian shill. you seem much more in the vein of noam chomsky or glenn freenwald criticizing america every chance you have. and doing so on RT nonetheless.

sctb 10y ago

If you suspect organized behavior like this on Hacker News, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com and flag such comments that violate the guidelines. We take this seriously and we're happy to investigate. But do that instead of comment about it here, because the kinds of discussions we're trying to have always come more easily when we assume good faith. We've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14069328 and marked it off-topic.