4 ms·

This is a classic example of whataboutism. 1. Governments using trolls is different than campaigns hiring people to discuss politics. Campaigns get volunteers

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.
- criley2 7y ago
  And I view this as false equivalence. Americans clicking like for American content is fundamentally different than an influence campaign by military intelligence to engage in psyops against us. It's sad and shocking that folks treat a massive attack on the US homeland as "equivalent to Hillary fans posting comments on Reddit". It really goes to show you how America is failing here: if no one will defend the homeland against attack, there won't be a homeland to defend. You're welcome to cry about "clicks" and "likes" but we were attacked and are continuing to be attacked by sophisticated, and trained intelligence officers whose goal is to increase tension, increase terrorism, increase violence: and guess what -- they are succeeding. Terrorism is up. Violence is up. Tension is up. Feels like a huge "wake up" moment, but of course the fake "both sides" propaganda paralyzes folks into such cynicism that they watch one-sided terroristic violence roil our communities and they shrug and complain about "views"
  - hos234 7y ago
    The main point is likes/views/clicks don't have to be shown or displaying them can be delayed. It's that simple to reduce random group behavior. If you don't understand what role they play, or even worse, misunderstand what role they play please read some Social Psychology specifically Conformism and how it is triggered. The problem is most people who designed the platforms are only now learning about these things and are trying to undo the effects pretending they don't need to make changes to the original design.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    It is sorta interesting though, your “it’s different, it’s ok if Americans do it” line is actually kinda anti-liberal. I mean, no borders, no one is illegal, Russian troll farmers get their vote too?
deleted 7y ago
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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.

criley2 7y ago
And I view this as false equivalence. Americans clicking like for American content is fundamentally different than an influence campaign by military intelligence to engage in psyops against us. It's sad and shocking that folks treat a massive attack on the US homeland as "equivalent to Hillary fans posting comments on Reddit". It really goes to show you how America is failing here: if no one will defend the homeland against attack, there won't be a homeland to defend. You're welcome to cry about "clicks" and "likes" but we were attacked and are continuing to be attacked by sophisticated, and trained intelligence officers whose goal is to increase tension, increase terrorism, increase violence: and guess what -- they are succeeding. Terrorism is up. Violence is up. Tension is up. Feels like a huge "wake up" moment, but of course the fake "both sides" propaganda paralyzes folks into such cynicism that they watch one-sided terroristic violence roil our communities and they shrug and complain about "views"
- hos234 7y ago
  The main point is likes/views/clicks don't have to be shown or displaying them can be delayed. It's that simple to reduce random group behavior. If you don't understand what role they play, or even worse, misunderstand what role they play please read some Social Psychology specifically Conformism and how it is triggered. The problem is most people who designed the platforms are only now learning about these things and are trying to undo the effects pretending they don't need to make changes to the original design.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  It is sorta interesting though, your “it’s different, it’s ok if Americans do it” line is actually kinda anti-liberal. I mean, no borders, no one is illegal, Russian troll farmers get their vote too?

deleted 7y ago

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