5 ms·

Botnets with >500 karma per account on Hacker News? Seems unlikely.

drawkbox 9y ago
You might not be a bot, but it is definitely bot talking points, you just fell for them. You fell for the "whataboutism". People are dying in PR, but but what about ... debt and and .. kneeling.
- rory096 9y ago
  What?
  - drawkbox 9y ago
    Botnets are out in force on touchy subjects in force recently. You cannot see private upvotes/downvotes so you don't know the user that upvoted or downvotes a comment. I think eventually we will have to see this on reddit/hn etc as the botnets are en masse now and mostly just brigading when there is an important subject. I wasn't calling you a bot per se but I see lots of people puppeting botnet "whataboutisms" that is some hardcore propaganda and getting giddy when they are upvoted by these same fake users. Strangely the brigading is mostly when the news is political. Just based on what I have seen the last few weeks especially, they are ratcheting it up. It is making discussion of serious topics relegated to battling bot armies rather than individual opinions, a losing battle unless you have your own bot army.
    - rory096 9y ago
      Have you considered that they may be people with different opinions than you? Reddit is one thing, but Hacker News does not allow downvotes until a user earns 500 karma. That's a high bar to cross for a bot. I also don't see where I subscribed to any "whataboutisms." My point is that you shouldn't attribute to botnets what can be adequately explained by the existence of people who disagree with you.
forapurpose 9y ago
There are many possibilities, but I have no idea what happened here: Troll farms and astroturfing could have an effect, but I don't know who would be motivated to act on this thread. I doubt the Russians care, though simply creating dissension is part of their (and others') strategy. The white supremacist movement certainly would oppose white people supporting PR, and they are active on HN. Again, I have no idea. My point is, there is much more than bots out there. HN needs to find a solution; what it does now isn't working well enough and IMHO empowers the trolls. That's not a criticism; nobody has solved it yet but HN is the right place to take on the big problem and solve it.

You might not be a bot, but it is definitely bot talking points, you just fell for them. You fell for the "whataboutism". People are dying in PR, but but what about ... debt and and .. kneeling.

rory096 9y ago
What?
- drawkbox 9y ago
  Botnets are out in force on touchy subjects in force recently. You cannot see private upvotes/downvotes so you don't know the user that upvoted or downvotes a comment. I think eventually we will have to see this on reddit/hn etc as the botnets are en masse now and mostly just brigading when there is an important subject. I wasn't calling you a bot per se but I see lots of people puppeting botnet "whataboutisms" that is some hardcore propaganda and getting giddy when they are upvoted by these same fake users. Strangely the brigading is mostly when the news is political. Just based on what I have seen the last few weeks especially, they are ratcheting it up. It is making discussion of serious topics relegated to battling bot armies rather than individual opinions, a losing battle unless you have your own bot army.
  - rory096 9y ago
    Have you considered that they may be people with different opinions than you? Reddit is one thing, but Hacker News does not allow downvotes until a user earns 500 karma. That's a high bar to cross for a bot. I also don't see where I subscribed to any "whataboutisms." My point is that you shouldn't attribute to botnets what can be adequately explained by the existence of people who disagree with you.

forapurpose 9y ago

There are many possibilities, but I have no idea what happened here: Troll farms and astroturfing could have an effect, but I don't know who would be motivated to act on this thread. I doubt the Russians care, though simply creating dissension is part of their (and others') strategy. The white supremacist movement certainly would oppose white people supporting PR, and they are active on HN. Again, I have no idea. My point is, there is much more than bots out there. HN needs to find a solution; what it does now isn't working well enough and IMHO empowers the trolls. That's not a criticism; nobody has solved it yet but HN is the right place to take on the big problem and solve it.