4 ms·

Why does nobody talk about the fact that Clinton and Democrats spent 10s of millions astroturfing various online communities? You could see r/politics go from f

Why does nobody talk about the fact that Clinton and Democrats spent 10s of millions astroturfing various online communities? You could see r/politics go from fairly balanced to rabid pro-clinton when CTR got fresh funding infusions. You can check Alexa rankings and see the massive traffic surges at the same time. You could see sentiment shift on weekends when the shills were off. Hell, the CIA had an entire "Meme warfare division" according the vault7 leaks. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/correct-the-record-online-trolls/484847/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/correct... https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xyvwdk/meme-warfare https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xyvwdk/meme-warfa...

frockington 8y ago
Because a bunch of losers hiding in their parents basements upvoting comments for a penny doesn't inspire the same awe that a Russian "hacker" does
SippinLean 8y ago
Considering it was so easy for you to find two articles about it, it appears many people are talking about it, counter to your claim of "nobody." Maybe no one's discussing it in this thread because this article is about something specific.
- lesss365 8y ago
  It's hardly mentioned in many popular political forums, and when it is mentioned the user posting gets overran with claims of being a Russian agent, or that it's a conspiracy
Arubis 8y ago
I am literally copy-pasting my comment from above: > This is called "whataboutism", and is an (often deliberate) attempt to create an inflammatory side conversation that, while compelling and likely rooted in truth, distracts from the actual (and more important) topic at hand. I'm much less reluctant to downvote in this case.
- pixl97 8y ago
  Whataboutism, the new keyword to shutdown any discussion about how shitty the entire US political system is. "US lobbying rules allow any company to manipulate people online that would be illegal in a rational democracy" --It's the American way! "Russia does the same thing as US companies" --End of democracy as we know it Now, what Russia did is wrong and illegal, but the discussion of saying that the solution to the problem is going after Russia and everything will be ok after that seems like manipulated talking points. All political ads and manipulation needs to be labeled or made illegal. Russia is just a little piece in a huge problem.
  - lesss365 8y ago
    This.
- dang 8y ago
  Please don't copy-paste. HN threads are for conversation, and that makes bad conversation.
  - Arubis 8y ago
    My thoughts on this are complicated. I agree with the overall goal (namely, "HN threads are for conversation"), but disagree with the implication that this was anti-conversation--I find it disturbing that places that _should_ have conversation are so easily derailed. I want there to be a good solution for this, but don't think we as a society have figured out a way to address deliberate manipulation that isn't worse than the problem.
jjjsz 8y ago
> Why does nobody talk about the fact that Clinton and Democrats spent 10s of millions astroturfing various online communities? Because that's a conspiracy theory, based on one pet interpretation of one press release and ignoring all the times Correct the Record denied it (such as the instance in this article you posted: "Barrier Breakers accounts are always identified as Correct the Record"). The article you posted describes what they actually did ("Much of the effort appears to be fairly anodyne so far. An official-looking Twitter account, Facebook page, and Instagram and Pinterest accounts have been set up. The social media accounts seem to consist mainly of graphics and videos that deliver inspirational pro-Clinton messages, content that appears to have been designed in the hopes that it might go viral.") I have little doubt that the CTR conspiracy theory was largely spread by the very real Russian astroturfers. It was super effective at effortlessly shutting down Clinton supporters online.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  > I have little doubt that the CTR conspiracy theory was largely spread by the very real Russian astroturfers. Could you source/clarify this? I agree that the narrative around CTR as an astroturf source is either massively overstated and outright wrong, but that's a basically negative claim - there's no real evidence for it. The Russian astroturf part is a very specific positive claim, and across the identified Russian accounts (e.g. Reddit, Tumblr) I haven't seen any indication that they meaningfully drove the CTR rumors. It's not like Americans have any trouble starting political conspiracy theories without outside help; why are we laughing at claims of "this idea came from an astroturf campaign" and then making comparable claims without strong evidence?

frockington 8y ago

Because a bunch of losers hiding in their parents basements upvoting comments for a penny doesn't inspire the same awe that a Russian "hacker" does

SippinLean 8y ago

Considering it was so easy for you to find two articles about it, it appears many people are talking about it, counter to your claim of "nobody." Maybe no one's discussing it in this thread because this article is about something specific.

lesss365 8y ago
It's hardly mentioned in many popular political forums, and when it is mentioned the user posting gets overran with claims of being a Russian agent, or that it's a conspiracy

Arubis 8y ago

I am literally copy-pasting my comment from above: > This is called "whataboutism", and is an (often deliberate) attempt to create an inflammatory side conversation that, while compelling and likely rooted in truth, distracts from the actual (and more important) topic at hand. I'm much less reluctant to downvote in this case.

pixl97 8y ago
Whataboutism, the new keyword to shutdown any discussion about how shitty the entire US political system is. "US lobbying rules allow any company to manipulate people online that would be illegal in a rational democracy" --It's the American way! "Russia does the same thing as US companies" --End of democracy as we know it Now, what Russia did is wrong and illegal, but the discussion of saying that the solution to the problem is going after Russia and everything will be ok after that seems like manipulated talking points. All political ads and manipulation needs to be labeled or made illegal. Russia is just a little piece in a huge problem.
- lesss365 8y ago
  This.
dang 8y ago
Please don't copy-paste. HN threads are for conversation, and that makes bad conversation.
- Arubis 8y ago
  My thoughts on this are complicated. I agree with the overall goal (namely, "HN threads are for conversation"), but disagree with the implication that this was anti-conversation--I find it disturbing that places that _should_ have conversation are so easily derailed. I want there to be a good solution for this, but don't think we as a society have figured out a way to address deliberate manipulation that isn't worse than the problem.

jjjsz 8y ago

> Why does nobody talk about the fact that Clinton and Democrats spent 10s of millions astroturfing various online communities? Because that's a conspiracy theory, based on one pet interpretation of one press release and ignoring all the times Correct the Record denied it (such as the instance in this article you posted: "Barrier Breakers accounts are always identified as Correct the Record"). The article you posted describes what they actually did ("Much of the effort appears to be fairly anodyne so far. An official-looking Twitter account, Facebook page, and Instagram and Pinterest accounts have been set up. The social media accounts seem to consist mainly of graphics and videos that deliver inspirational pro-Clinton messages, content that appears to have been designed in the hopes that it might go viral.") I have little doubt that the CTR conspiracy theory was largely spread by the very real Russian astroturfers. It was super effective at effortlessly shutting down Clinton supporters online.

Bartweiss 8y ago
> I have little doubt that the CTR conspiracy theory was largely spread by the very real Russian astroturfers. Could you source/clarify this? I agree that the narrative around CTR as an astroturf source is either massively overstated and outright wrong, but that's a basically negative claim - there's no real evidence for it. The Russian astroturf part is a very specific positive claim, and across the identified Russian accounts (e.g. Reddit, Tumblr) I haven't seen any indication that they meaningfully drove the CTR rumors. It's not like Americans have any trouble starting political conspiracy theories without outside help; why are we laughing at claims of "this idea came from an astroturf campaign" and then making comparable claims without strong evidence?