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Without pointing a finger, I will say I would be really surprised if this discussion - and HN in general - was not subject to a discourse control by paid state

Without pointing a finger, I will say I would be really surprised if this discussion - and HN in general - was not subject to a discourse control by paid state agents (sophisticated trolls) from China and elsewhere. Assuming that it is, what can we learn or do to miting such influences? Asking for independent source to all claims is obviously the first step.

fdsak 9y ago
That is the real problem with the liberty now. And I think liberty is dead under the pile of fake news generated by various parties interested in any issue. From war on terror to democracy and nuclear weapons the "agents" as you called, generates such a perception that we cannot escape, let alone our psychological biases and national, political and religious affiliations -- Welcome to the age of disinformation
- stareatgoats 9y ago
  Whoa, that was a depressing stance. Whereas you point to several serious problems I would hope the absolutism is there for rhetoric reasons! Personally I think it may still be argued that the information age holds the potential for greater knowledge than ever before, and factual liberty (as opposed to seeming) is very much a part of that. It just may not come quite as easy and automatically as perhaps once perceived.
  - fdsak 9y ago
    Yes its depressing to see lot of dead people under the rug of so-called liberal journalism and we are siting on that rug and talking about democracy and how to remove a dictator because we dont like him etc etc. I do like the "literary" ideas (don't know if that right word) which does not work practically. I am more concerned about the livelihood of people (alive), democracy is not for dead people. I don't deny the benefits of information age, that is huge blessings for everyone. Probably it will take some time to reap the real benefits but I am afraid the cost is getting higher, as too much information/disinformation to filter out facts from fictions. And in most of the cases states and media agencies are part of that fiction and friction created in the society, take it China or US.
- dandare 9y ago
  This problem is greatly compounded by Democracy - trolls don't have to confuse YOU - the educated rational thinking programmer - if they can confuse the lower 50% of the electorate.
test1235 9y ago
I don't know about HN - I'm not sure its users are good targets for manipulation, but I'm starting to see lots of what I suspect is political activity in Reddit and BBC (the comments are trash, but the user activity comes across as very organised)
westiseast 9y ago
So I've been in trouble on HN (probably rightly so) once before for pointing the finger. With that in mind... The problem is that 'their' only objective is to undermine 'our' goal of having a balanced, honest discussion that arrives at some kind of valid, valuable truth. If a troll or discourse control agent can undermine that process, then they've 'won'. And it's pretty easy to do. Actually, demanding sources is a great tool for undermining absolutely any discussion you like. Someone claims something you don't like? Demand evidence/sources. If they can't produce them, you've won. If they can produce them, call into question the bias or veracity of the sources. You win again. The basic tools of the troll trade are well known - derail, distract, discuss to death. Question motives and bias, use whataboutism, sling mud, lead a discussion into the long grass, debate every single point to death, ad hominem attacks, play the victim... I think communities perhaps need to become more aware of those discussion patterns and vote according to whether something is using troll tools, rather than whether you agree/disagree.
- dandare 9y ago
  I myself am not aware of all such patterns. Where can I learn more? Now that I think of it, an anonymous discussion is probably not protectable from well sponsored discourse control attempts.
- jonathanstrange 9y ago
  I believe that the only way to counter concerted trolling/discourse control is by heavy human moderation in combination with IP banning and eventually even shadow-banning. As Slashdot is in my opinion illustrating, merely having a decent moderation and meta-moderation system might not be enough. You need to permban IPs of identified trolls, and in the end it doesn't matter whether these are part of a concerted effort or just individuals who post toxic content. Hobby researchers on Reddit have found out that they were able to push a story to the frontpage by spending a very low amount of money (about 200 USD if I remember correctly) for some puppet accounts and making sure that the very early moderation upvotes their story and downvotes critique. That gives us an idea how hard it is to counter concerted efforts of influencing discussions.
- akvadrako 9y ago

fdsak 9y ago

That is the real problem with the liberty now. And I think liberty is dead under the pile of fake news generated by various parties interested in any issue. From war on terror to democracy and nuclear weapons the "agents" as you called, generates such a perception that we cannot escape, let alone our psychological biases and national, political and religious affiliations -- Welcome to the age of disinformation

stareatgoats 9y ago
Whoa, that was a depressing stance. Whereas you point to several serious problems I would hope the absolutism is there for rhetoric reasons! Personally I think it may still be argued that the information age holds the potential for greater knowledge than ever before, and factual liberty (as opposed to seeming) is very much a part of that. It just may not come quite as easy and automatically as perhaps once perceived.
- fdsak 9y ago
  Yes its depressing to see lot of dead people under the rug of so-called liberal journalism and we are siting on that rug and talking about democracy and how to remove a dictator because we dont like him etc etc. I do like the "literary" ideas (don't know if that right word) which does not work practically. I am more concerned about the livelihood of people (alive), democracy is not for dead people. I don't deny the benefits of information age, that is huge blessings for everyone. Probably it will take some time to reap the real benefits but I am afraid the cost is getting higher, as too much information/disinformation to filter out facts from fictions. And in most of the cases states and media agencies are part of that fiction and friction created in the society, take it China or US.
dandare 9y ago
This problem is greatly compounded by Democracy - trolls don't have to confuse YOU - the educated rational thinking programmer - if they can confuse the lower 50% of the electorate.

test1235 9y ago

I don't know about HN - I'm not sure its users are good targets for manipulation, but I'm starting to see lots of what I suspect is political activity in Reddit and BBC (the comments are trash, but the user activity comes across as very organised)

westiseast 9y ago

So I've been in trouble on HN (probably rightly so) once before for pointing the finger. With that in mind... The problem is that 'their' only objective is to undermine 'our' goal of having a balanced, honest discussion that arrives at some kind of valid, valuable truth. If a troll or discourse control agent can undermine that process, then they've 'won'. And it's pretty easy to do. Actually, demanding sources is a great tool for undermining absolutely any discussion you like. Someone claims something you don't like? Demand evidence/sources. If they can't produce them, you've won. If they can produce them, call into question the bias or veracity of the sources. You win again. The basic tools of the troll trade are well known - derail, distract, discuss to death. Question motives and bias, use whataboutism, sling mud, lead a discussion into the long grass, debate every single point to death, ad hominem attacks, play the victim... I think communities perhaps need to become more aware of those discussion patterns and vote according to whether something is using troll tools, rather than whether you agree/disagree.

dandare 9y ago
I myself am not aware of all such patterns. Where can I learn more? Now that I think of it, an anonymous discussion is probably not protectable from well sponsored discourse control attempts.
jonathanstrange 9y ago
I believe that the only way to counter concerted trolling/discourse control is by heavy human moderation in combination with IP banning and eventually even shadow-banning. As Slashdot is in my opinion illustrating, merely having a decent moderation and meta-moderation system might not be enough. You need to permban IPs of identified trolls, and in the end it doesn't matter whether these are part of a concerted effort or just individuals who post toxic content. Hobby researchers on Reddit have found out that they were able to push a story to the frontpage by spending a very low amount of money (about 200 USD if I remember correctly) for some puppet accounts and making sure that the very early moderation upvotes their story and downvotes critique. That gives us an idea how hard it is to counter concerted efforts of influencing discussions.
akvadrako 9y ago