3 ms·

Why take out ads when you can just infiltrate /r/the_donald and influence them directly and personally? Like you said, way better ROI.

nopriorarrests 9y ago
I would say that ROI on influencing /r/the_donald subscribers with any amount of propaganda is precisely zero. They are Trump voters, period. It's like trying to influence NRA members trying to make them think that guns are cool.
- tdb7893 9y ago
  If your goal is more than just to convince them to vote trump but to radicalize and spread ideas r/the_Donald is the perfect place to do it. If you look at how a lot of conspiracy theories spread from there I can see it being very enticing
acdha 9y ago
It reaches different groups of people. /r/the_donald is a self-selected group of extremists and there aren’t enough of them to win an election alone.
- learc83 9y ago
  Throughout the election they gamed reddit to get their stories to the front page. It went far beyond /r/the_donald.
  - acdha 9y ago
    No doubt: my point was simply that they were doing the same thing people do with things like A/B testing ads – try a bunch of things and measure the results.
- naravara 9y ago
  It's a good laboratory to test out memes and narrative framings for distribution more broadly. It basically winds up working like a big genetic algorithm for developing viral content. Also, while the extremists might not be able to vote in numbers to turn an election, they can definitely make the internet a sufficiently unpleasant place for discussion that they have a chilling effect on support for everyone else. Many Clinton enthusiasts were hounded into "secret" or private subreddits and Facebook groups because of the intensity of abuse they received. Most of the more leftist and Bernie Sanders supporting spaces were, likewise, spammed with so much FUD content that it was impossible to have a productive conversation about anything else. They were a seriously disruptive influence on the capacity for anyone else to organize.
- puppetmaster400 9y ago
  Except in the election we just had. Where Donald won. (ignoring the obvious rallies, where Donald filled the stands, and H did not - even after she spent $1.2B )
  - acdha 9y ago
    I'm not sure what you're arguing. Nobody is claiming that he didn't win the election. My point was just that /r/the_donald has substantially less than 62MB members so his message had to reach other groups of people. Similarly, arguing about rally sizes may be a fun political argument but ultimately it comes down to 62M votes for Trump and 65M for Clinton, so it's hard to say there was a huge difference in the number of people who supported each candidate.
    - puppetmaster400 9y ago
      It is even worse: He will get reelected. :-)

nopriorarrests 9y ago

I would say that ROI on influencing /r/the_donald subscribers with any amount of propaganda is precisely zero. They are Trump voters, period. It's like trying to influence NRA members trying to make them think that guns are cool.

tdb7893 9y ago
If your goal is more than just to convince them to vote trump but to radicalize and spread ideas r/the_Donald is the perfect place to do it. If you look at how a lot of conspiracy theories spread from there I can see it being very enticing

acdha 9y ago

It reaches different groups of people. /r/the_donald is a self-selected group of extremists and there aren’t enough of them to win an election alone.

learc83 9y ago
Throughout the election they gamed reddit to get their stories to the front page. It went far beyond /r/the_donald.
- acdha 9y ago
  No doubt: my point was simply that they were doing the same thing people do with things like A/B testing ads – try a bunch of things and measure the results.
naravara 9y ago
It's a good laboratory to test out memes and narrative framings for distribution more broadly. It basically winds up working like a big genetic algorithm for developing viral content. Also, while the extremists might not be able to vote in numbers to turn an election, they can definitely make the internet a sufficiently unpleasant place for discussion that they have a chilling effect on support for everyone else. Many Clinton enthusiasts were hounded into "secret" or private subreddits and Facebook groups because of the intensity of abuse they received. Most of the more leftist and Bernie Sanders supporting spaces were, likewise, spammed with so much FUD content that it was impossible to have a productive conversation about anything else. They were a seriously disruptive influence on the capacity for anyone else to organize.
puppetmaster400 9y ago
Except in the election we just had. Where Donald won. (ignoring the obvious rallies, where Donald filled the stands, and H did not - even after she spent $1.2B )
- acdha 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you're arguing. Nobody is claiming that he didn't win the election. My point was just that /r/the_donald has substantially less than 62MB members so his message had to reach other groups of people. Similarly, arguing about rally sizes may be a fun political argument but ultimately it comes down to 62M votes for Trump and 65M for Clinton, so it's hard to say there was a huge difference in the number of people who supported each candidate.
  - puppetmaster400 9y ago
    It is even worse: He will get reelected. :-)