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It is not just foreign governments using paid trolls. Apparently Hilary Clinton used paid trolls against Bernie Sanders in 2016. https://www.latimes.com/politi

It is not just foreign governments using paid trolls. Apparently Hilary Clinton used paid trolls against Bernie Sanders in 2016. https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-digital-trolling-20160506-snap-htmlstory.html https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-digital-troll... >Hillary Clinton's well-heeled backers have opened a new frontier in digital campaigning, one that seems to have been inspired by some of the Internet's worst instincts. Correct the Record, a super PAC coordinating with Clinton's campaign, is spending some $1 million to find and confront social media users who post unflattering messages about the Democratic front-runner. > “It is meant to appear to be coming organically from people and their social media networks in a groundswell of activism, when in fact it is highly paid and highly tactical,” said Brian Donahue, chief executive of the consulting firm Craft Media/Digital.

kop316 7y ago
Yep. That was really bad on Reddit during the election. If you even broached certain topics about Hillary, it was downvoted/flagged right away. Then the day after the election, Those topics actually came up.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  The week after the election was interesting because the trolls didn't have new marching orders. So it was suddenly just random people.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    Exactly. It was weird, a stark contrast to the months up before it. All of a sudden the political subs were... reasonable. I’d love to see a little more research into pre/post event stats.
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      > All of a sudden the political subs were... reasonable. Yeah... no. It went full "Not My President" overnight. Hell, not even overnight. It went full "Not My President" that very night. And if you think that's bad, had to deal with brass at work (fintech) proclaiming that we needed to spend an insane amount of capital in preparation for the record trade volume we would need to process because the markets were going to collapse.
- whamlastxmas 7y ago
  Also funny because one of the /r/politics rules was that you were not allowed to accuse someone of shilling. I just checked now and it's still one of the top rules. Given how pro-Hillary and anti-Sanders that sub became overnight, it seems that they were wanting to subdue the commentary on the proven paid influence HRC had.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    > Given how pro-Hillary and anti-Sanders that sub became overnight I was there for that too. It literally was flip of a switch speed. One of the big turning points I saw regarding the election.
    - bduerst 7y ago
      I'm not sure when you're referencing, but Russian troll farms used Sanders to divide the left on social media websites.
      - kop316 7y ago
        He was referring to just how pro-Sanders/Anti-Hillary Reddit was up until the electron primaries. Right after Hillary got the nomination in 2016, it turned to Pro-Hillary. /r/politics was particularly bad on all of that. The first day after the election was the first time any news about the private email server was even allowed on /r/politics.
        iron0013 7y ago
        "Right after Hillary got the nomination in 2016, it turned to Pro-Hillary." Isn't that exactly what you'd expect to happen if a lot of the commenters where Democratic voters acting as rational agents in good faith? If I were a Bernie supporter in 2016 who wanted the Democratic candidate (whoever that might end up being) to win, why would I shit on Clinton after she won the nomination? It'd make more sense to support her, and I think that's what a lot of people did. That's certainly exactly what I did.
- EasyTiger_ 7y ago
  I mean it’s actually worse now since 2016.
ineedasername 7y ago
US campaigns doing it is, while still bad, is vastly different. One is an issue of sleazy election campaigns. The other is a matter of foreign interference with a country's fundamental sovereignty.
- atmosx 7y ago
  > US campaigns doing it is, while still bad, is vastly different. How so?
- lucideer 7y ago
  Not sure I see the effective difference between bad faith domestic interference in democratic process and foreign interference in democratic process. Both have the same end result.
  - darth_skywalker 7y ago
    On the other hand, politicians have been trying to manipulate voters for centuries - it seems like a new danger that foreign governments are now trying to manipulate voters.
    - wuliwong 7y ago
      I would argue the foreign govt angle also is not new. The US at least has interfered with foreign elections before the internet era.
      - ineedasername 7y ago
        Sure but just because the US are hypocrites on the issue doesn't mean we should tolerate it.
        wuliwong 7y ago
        I certainly am not arguing against that. My point was that it isn't new not that we should tolerate it.
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criley2 7y ago
This is a classic example of whataboutism. 1. Governments using trolls is different than campaigns hiring people to discuss politics. Campaigns get volunteers all the time to affect public discourse by going door to door, sending mailers, and doing all kinds of things. 2. Trolls specifically have an antisocial goal. The trolls employed by Russian military intelligence engaged in a psy-ops campaign against America to raise domestic tensions along racial and social lines. They specifically targeted races and ideologies and used aggressive, violence-promoting tactics. By contrast, Hillary hired Americans to talk about politics online. 3. It's not illegal for campaigns to hire citizens to promote their politics online. It is illegal for foreign governments to engage in military intelligence psy-ops campaigns against our citizens, and for campaigns to coordinate with those campaigns and request them. I think the worst part about seeing you bring up "Correct the Record" is that they spent $9 million dollars in a $1.6 billion dollar campaign. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00578997&cycle=2016 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00578997... The conspiracy theories and propaganda that were created about this program are some of the most ridiculous lies of the 2016 cycle, and I think really go to show how little research people are willing to do before they repeat propaganda. "Correct the Record" exposes a classic propaganda pipeline for the right, because it was a tiny program that did very little, but the right managed to turn it into a massive huge conspiracy where every pro-Hillary comment must be a troll. Which was a response, of course, to the validated and legitimate left criticism that pro-Trump actors were actually foreign psy-op campaigns. There needed to be a "Both-sides-ism" to excuse the fact that a foreign government conducted a military intelligence operation against our elections. Even today this conspiracy boogeyman gets play all over the internet, a remnant of disinformation used to justify an attack on our elections.
- hos234 7y ago
  I don't agree. All this activity whether its legitimate volunteers OR trolls has not generated any real sustainable outcomes. Both are just mindlessly trying to hit metrics(like/views/clicks/upvotes etc). And everyone is very satisfied hitting them. But nobody has yet proved in any country, in any part of the world all this mindless metric hitting activity (amplified robotically by the news media) is actually producing a sustainable outcome. Doesn't matter what problem domain you pick where are the outcomes that justify all this activity? One guy gets the likes today, another gets the likes tomorrow. It's a trap. You see the same dynamics play out in Poland, Brexit, Modi's India, Duterte etc. That only goes away once the Like/View/Click based ecosystem is dismantled.
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kop316 7y ago

Yep. That was really bad on Reddit during the election. If you even broached certain topics about Hillary, it was downvoted/flagged right away. Then the day after the election, Those topics actually came up.

Gibbon1 7y ago
The week after the election was interesting because the trolls didn't have new marching orders. So it was suddenly just random people.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Exactly. It was weird, a stark contrast to the months up before it. All of a sudden the political subs were... reasonable. I’d love to see a little more research into pre/post event stats.
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    > All of a sudden the political subs were... reasonable. Yeah... no. It went full "Not My President" overnight. Hell, not even overnight. It went full "Not My President" that very night. And if you think that's bad, had to deal with brass at work (fintech) proclaiming that we needed to spend an insane amount of capital in preparation for the record trade volume we would need to process because the markets were going to collapse.
whamlastxmas 7y ago
Also funny because one of the /r/politics rules was that you were not allowed to accuse someone of shilling. I just checked now and it's still one of the top rules. Given how pro-Hillary and anti-Sanders that sub became overnight, it seems that they were wanting to subdue the commentary on the proven paid influence HRC had.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  > Given how pro-Hillary and anti-Sanders that sub became overnight I was there for that too. It literally was flip of a switch speed. One of the big turning points I saw regarding the election.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    I'm not sure when you're referencing, but Russian troll farms used Sanders to divide the left on social media websites.
    - kop316 7y ago
      He was referring to just how pro-Sanders/Anti-Hillary Reddit was up until the electron primaries. Right after Hillary got the nomination in 2016, it turned to Pro-Hillary. /r/politics was particularly bad on all of that. The first day after the election was the first time any news about the private email server was even allowed on /r/politics.
      - iron0013 7y ago
        "Right after Hillary got the nomination in 2016, it turned to Pro-Hillary." Isn't that exactly what you'd expect to happen if a lot of the commenters where Democratic voters acting as rational agents in good faith? If I were a Bernie supporter in 2016 who wanted the Democratic candidate (whoever that might end up being) to win, why would I shit on Clinton after she won the nomination? It'd make more sense to support her, and I think that's what a lot of people did. That's certainly exactly what I did.
EasyTiger_ 7y ago
I mean it’s actually worse now since 2016.

ineedasername 7y ago

US campaigns doing it is, while still bad, is vastly different. One is an issue of sleazy election campaigns. The other is a matter of foreign interference with a country's fundamental sovereignty.

atmosx 7y ago
> US campaigns doing it is, while still bad, is vastly different. How so?
lucideer 7y ago
Not sure I see the effective difference between bad faith domestic interference in democratic process and foreign interference in democratic process. Both have the same end result.
- darth_skywalker 7y ago
  On the other hand, politicians have been trying to manipulate voters for centuries - it seems like a new danger that foreign governments are now trying to manipulate voters.
  - wuliwong 7y ago
    I would argue the foreign govt angle also is not new. The US at least has interfered with foreign elections before the internet era.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      Sure but just because the US are hypocrites on the issue doesn't mean we should tolerate it.
      - wuliwong 7y ago
        I certainly am not arguing against that. My point was that it isn't new not that we should tolerate it.

deleted 7y ago

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criley2 7y ago

This is a classic example of whataboutism. 1. Governments using trolls is different than campaigns hiring people to discuss politics. Campaigns get volunteers all the time to affect public discourse by going door to door, sending mailers, and doing all kinds of things. 2. Trolls specifically have an antisocial goal. The trolls employed by Russian military intelligence engaged in a psy-ops campaign against America to raise domestic tensions along racial and social lines. They specifically targeted races and ideologies and used aggressive, violence-promoting tactics. By contrast, Hillary hired Americans to talk about politics online. 3. It's not illegal for campaigns to hire citizens to promote their politics online. It is illegal for foreign governments to engage in military intelligence psy-ops campaigns against our citizens, and for campaigns to coordinate with those campaigns and request them. I think the worst part about seeing you bring up "Correct the Record" is that they spent $9 million dollars in a $1.6 billion dollar campaign. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00578997&cycle=2016 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00578997... The conspiracy theories and propaganda that were created about this program are some of the most ridiculous lies of the 2016 cycle, and I think really go to show how little research people are willing to do before they repeat propaganda. "Correct the Record" exposes a classic propaganda pipeline for the right, because it was a tiny program that did very little, but the right managed to turn it into a massive huge conspiracy where every pro-Hillary comment must be a troll. Which was a response, of course, to the validated and legitimate left criticism that pro-Trump actors were actually foreign psy-op campaigns. There needed to be a "Both-sides-ism" to excuse the fact that a foreign government conducted a military intelligence operation against our elections. Even today this conspiracy boogeyman gets play all over the internet, a remnant of disinformation used to justify an attack on our elections.

hos234 7y ago
I don't agree. All this activity whether its legitimate volunteers OR trolls has not generated any real sustainable outcomes. Both are just mindlessly trying to hit metrics(like/views/clicks/upvotes etc). And everyone is very satisfied hitting them. But nobody has yet proved in any country, in any part of the world all this mindless metric hitting activity (amplified robotically by the news media) is actually producing a sustainable outcome. Doesn't matter what problem domain you pick where are the outcomes that justify all this activity? One guy gets the likes today, another gets the likes tomorrow. It's a trap. You see the same dynamics play out in Poland, Brexit, Modi's India, Duterte etc. That only goes away once the Like/View/Click based ecosystem is dismantled.

deleted 7y ago

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