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The scale was massive, yet no one noticed this astroturfing campaign until the election... and this astroturfing campaign dwarfed all other competing astroturfi

The scale was massive, yet no one noticed this astroturfing campaign until the election... and this astroturfing campaign dwarfed all other competing astroturfing campaigns by other states/NGO factions? All this talk of Russia astroturfing without any additional context, as if they're the only party astroturfing (Democrat-affiliated ShareBlue, for example, was kicked out of a large subreddit due to astroturfing)...

orf 8y ago
It was covered extensively during the election. However as time goes on more evidence emerges. That's natural.
robterrell 8y ago
Remember when the term "fake news" was coined, before Trump embraced it for his own use? It was originally referring to inexplicable growth in stories from invented news outlets. This is from 2 days before the election: https://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/05/there-is-no-such-thing-as-the-denver-guardian/ https://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/05/there-is-no-such-thing...
mlb_hn 8y ago
One substantial difference worth noting between the Russian astroturfing and astroturfing from other countries is that Russian crime have been refining their ability to automate human-like behavior for ad-fraud purposes. For those not familiar with ad fraud, there's been an arms race between criminal organizations to emulate human behavior clicking on ads and the advertising companies trying to detect it. The resulting algorithms have dual use properties that can be applied to astroturfing (e.g. https://www.trustwave.com/Resources/SpiderLabs-Blog/Bedep-trojan-malware-spread-by-the-Angler-exploit-kit-gets-political/ https://www.trustwave.com/Resources/SpiderLabs-Blog/Bedep-tr...).
dragonwriter 8y ago
> The scale was massive, yet no one noticed this astroturfing campaign until the election It was being discussed in major US and even major foreign media outlets several months before the election. > All this talk of Russia astroturfing Astroturfing was not the whole of the Russian influence campaign.

orf 8y ago

It was covered extensively during the election. However as time goes on more evidence emerges. That's natural.

robterrell 8y ago

Remember when the term "fake news" was coined, before Trump embraced it for his own use? It was originally referring to inexplicable growth in stories from invented news outlets. This is from 2 days before the election: https://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/05/there-is-no-such-thing-as-the-denver-guardian/ https://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/05/there-is-no-such-thing...

mlb_hn 8y ago

One substantial difference worth noting between the Russian astroturfing and astroturfing from other countries is that Russian crime have been refining their ability to automate human-like behavior for ad-fraud purposes. For those not familiar with ad fraud, there's been an arms race between criminal organizations to emulate human behavior clicking on ads and the advertising companies trying to detect it. The resulting algorithms have dual use properties that can be applied to astroturfing (e.g. https://www.trustwave.com/Resources/SpiderLabs-Blog/Bedep-trojan-malware-spread-by-the-Angler-exploit-kit-gets-political/ https://www.trustwave.com/Resources/SpiderLabs-Blog/Bedep-tr...).

dragonwriter 8y ago

> The scale was massive, yet no one noticed this astroturfing campaign until the election It was being discussed in major US and even major foreign media outlets several months before the election. > All this talk of Russia astroturfing Astroturfing was not the whole of the Russian influence campaign.