7 ms·

The Chinese government has the "50 cent army" which is a 300,000 strong persona ops set. Many are Chinese students in the US who are required to post pro-China

by bugsy 16y ago

The Chinese government has the "50 cent army" which is a 300,000 strong persona ops set. Many are Chinese students in the US who are required to post pro-China posts while in school and pretend to be a random western sympathizer. This is the largest and most organized, but there are tons of these and you see them on all the major boards. Can identify them when there is something really indefensible and they are in defending it with statements like "Well, as far as I know, none of the Wall Street companies broke any laws. So if you are concerned, maybe you should blame the government for deregulating." Their accounts are full of certain themes that enable you to identify them. At first I typed up here techniques on how to recognize them but on second thought I don't want to give them ideas on how to correct. Of interest to me right now is whether this propaganda war can be widely unveiled. It's hard since there are likely thousands of different PR ops posting stuff so there's no single pattern, and it's subtle to distinguish between this and zealous and sincere advocates of things. It would also be pretty easy to dismiss zealous advocates as PR ops as an attack strategy against advocates. Maybe that will eventually mean sincere advocates will end up having to blog more with their real name and photo to be taken seriously.

bugsy 16y ago
Thinking about this some more. Anonymity is required for democracy to work properly. Citizens of a society need to be able to speak candidly without fear of reprisal. That's just the way it is because power attracts the corrupt and the corrupt will use their power to silence dissent. Egypt could not figure out all of who was posting things against the government, so they just shut down the whole internet to try to stop anonymous speech. In the US there seems to be more control of networks and Palintir is a defense contractor that sells software to figure out who is talking to who and what their real identity is. I am sure Palintir will be making lots of sales to governments right now that don't want to see the middle east revolutions that are occurring right now happen in their own tyrannical dictatorships and corporatocracies. The HBGary scandal involves multiple companies, not just the token one (HBGary) which has been "thrown under the bus" as a sacrifice and distraction. This is going on right now in other companies as well, so punishing HBGary doesn't slay the dragon. Corporations and governments are gaming the anonymous free speech system by astroturfing, persona management, sock puppetry etc. There are armies of people posting fake opinions in an effort to manipulate public opinion and steer it towards agendas which are not sincerely held by the people posting them. They are posting only because it is their job and they are being paid. This activity is very destructive to democracy because it alters things from being the true will of the people. It is tantamount to election tampering. It is critical that the public develop a response to this in the form of tools for identifying this activity. One excellent tool is Anonymous's randomly discovering and the publishing incriminating emails. This activity is beneficial to democracy. However, its success is highly dependent on random chance and luck. It is also very illegal. Right now law enforcement is doing everything they can to track down the people who uncovered the wide spread and insidious wrongdoing. Punish the whistleblower is probably not going away. The public also needs tools which are legal to use. There are efforts right now to "build a new internet" that preserves anonymity and thus free speech. That is good but more is necessary. Another thing which is needed is for Palintir-like systems which can peek behind the scenes, uncover connections between posts, patterns of posting and patterns of speech, to be written and open sourced. These systems can be used to identify sock puppets. They can also be used as a weapon to unmask the anonymous and attack free speech, but they are already being done to do that. We need these tools on both sides now to level the playing field.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  Another thing which is needed is for Palintir-like systems which can peek behind the scenes, uncover connections between posts, patterns of posting and patterns of speech, to be written and open sourced. How about translation tools that convert writing by one person into the style of another? I suppose it would just be another escalation in the arms race...
- Supermighty 16y ago
  >Thinking about this some more. Anonymity is required for democracy to work properly. There was a thread on hacker news about this recently. I can't find it but here is the article it linked to. http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2011/02/12/using_real_names_has_real_consequences http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2011/02/12/using_real...
kgtm 16y ago
"Maybe that will eventually mean sincere advocates will end up having to blog more with their real name and photo to be taken seriously." Isn't this exactly what "they" are after? Once that happens, there won't be any need for such armies. The end of anonymity means the end of free speech.
- steauengeglase 16y ago
  We should probably ask Jeff Gannon how that turned out.
- ugh 16y ago
  I don’t think that’s true at all. Anonymity has something to do with free speech but far from everything. If you live in a nation with rule of law and wide ranging protections of freedom of speech like the US there is no need to be anonymous in the vast majority of cases. Anonymity should obviously still be possible but the decreased trustworthiness of anonymous statements is just something that inevitably comes with anonymity. (Who are “they”?)
  - kgtm 16y ago
    "If you live in a nation with rule of law and wide ranging protections of freedom of speech like the US there is no need to be anonymous in the vast majority of cases." Sorry, but my irony detector is broken apparently. Do you truly believe this? Care to expand? Not trolling FYI. As for "they", well, no one really knows who they are. But "they" are the pillars of every good conspiracy. (Slightly tongue-in-cheek).
    - ugh 16y ago
      You can’t be thrown into prison or fined for saying the wrong thing in the US. That’s what I mean. You might argue that this is not true for some things but it is true for the vast majority of things you could say. Being anonymous matters a great deal more when freedom of speech is not protected.
      - 16y ago
ghostDancer 16y ago
Prosionist groups have been making this in Europe, blogs and comenting in newspapers every time they think there are anti Israel news or comments. And it's the same as you say , it's easy to identify them when they try to defend some thing impossible to defend. And sometimes is sad because even when they have a point the things they say discredit what they are defending, they do more harm to Israel than help. That began if i can recall after the operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
stcredzero 16y ago
It would also be pretty easy to dismiss zealous advocates as PR ops as an attack strategy against advocates. Maybe that will eventually mean sincere advocates will end up having to blog more with their real name and photo to be taken seriously. Anonymous is basically a nebulously distributed, decentralized, persona ops group. They manage to be taken seriously without revealing real identities because they can successfully prosecute actions against high media value targets. EDIT: They also continually try to convince the Internet at large that they shouldn't be taken seriously.
jeff18 16y ago
Do you have any evidence of this? [not a suck puppet]
- bugsy 16y ago
  Just google the term I used.
  - jongraehl 16y ago
    It's hard to believe in any conspiracy theory that uses as evidence things that would be expected even if the theory were false (e.g. foreign nationals speaking out in favor of their native system when they feel it's unfairly represented). I do find your account credible. I just don't actually care enough about whether it's true to evaluate the evidence in depth.
Confusion 16y ago
However, as you imply, these sockpuppets are easy to recognize and are not taken seriously, because they don't make sense. Sheer volume can't make up for that. In other words: I don't believe they are capable of succesfully pulling it off. Responding sensibly in a conversation requires skills far above those of Watson, Deep Blue and the latest and greatest incarnation of Elisa.
- crux_ 16y ago
  You must not leave news.yc very often. ;) 99% of the time, there are few/no conversations on the internet, only shouting matches and circle-jerks.
  - epochwolf 16y ago
    Examples: YouTube, any random news site, most blogs, deviantArt Real life tends to be this way. I have avoided a number of political discussions lately because it's obvious the people around me have no clue what they are talking about but they completely sure that they are right and that anyone that disagrees is wrong.
    - crux_ 16y ago
      "[...] it's obvious the people around me have no clue what they are talking about [...]" Sounds to me like you're completely sure of your own correctness and of their wrongness. ;) Just saying.
      - epochwolf 16y ago
        > Sounds to me like you're completely sure of your own correctness and of their wrongness. Yeah, it's kind of heard to make claims like that without sounding like a hypocrite. I love logic and philosophy and a good debate or political discussion. This issue I have is a number of people I run across consistently refuse make more than emotional statements or parroting phrases from their selected media source. If you can't have a logical debate it's pointless to bother talking.

by bugsy 16y ago

bugsy 16y ago

Thinking about this some more. Anonymity is required for democracy to work properly. Citizens of a society need to be able to speak candidly without fear of reprisal. That's just the way it is because power attracts the corrupt and the corrupt will use their power to silence dissent. Egypt could not figure out all of who was posting things against the government, so they just shut down the whole internet to try to stop anonymous speech. In the US there seems to be more control of networks and Palintir is a defense contractor that sells software to figure out who is talking to who and what their real identity is. I am sure Palintir will be making lots of sales to governments right now that don't want to see the middle east revolutions that are occurring right now happen in their own tyrannical dictatorships and corporatocracies. The HBGary scandal involves multiple companies, not just the token one (HBGary) which has been "thrown under the bus" as a sacrifice and distraction. This is going on right now in other companies as well, so punishing HBGary doesn't slay the dragon. Corporations and governments are gaming the anonymous free speech system by astroturfing, persona management, sock puppetry etc. There are armies of people posting fake opinions in an effort to manipulate public opinion and steer it towards agendas which are not sincerely held by the people posting them. They are posting only because it is their job and they are being paid. This activity is very destructive to democracy because it alters things from being the true will of the people. It is tantamount to election tampering. It is critical that the public develop a response to this in the form of tools for identifying this activity. One excellent tool is Anonymous's randomly discovering and the publishing incriminating emails. This activity is beneficial to democracy. However, its success is highly dependent on random chance and luck. It is also very illegal. Right now law enforcement is doing everything they can to track down the people who uncovered the wide spread and insidious wrongdoing. Punish the whistleblower is probably not going away. The public also needs tools which are legal to use. There are efforts right now to "build a new internet" that preserves anonymity and thus free speech. That is good but more is necessary. Another thing which is needed is for Palintir-like systems which can peek behind the scenes, uncover connections between posts, patterns of posting and patterns of speech, to be written and open sourced. These systems can be used to identify sock puppets. They can also be used as a weapon to unmask the anonymous and attack free speech, but they are already being done to do that. We need these tools on both sides now to level the playing field.

nitrogen 16y ago
Another thing which is needed is for Palintir-like systems which can peek behind the scenes, uncover connections between posts, patterns of posting and patterns of speech, to be written and open sourced. How about translation tools that convert writing by one person into the style of another? I suppose it would just be another escalation in the arms race...
Supermighty 16y ago
>Thinking about this some more. Anonymity is required for democracy to work properly. There was a thread on hacker news about this recently. I can't find it but here is the article it linked to. http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2011/02/12/using_real_names_has_real_consequences http://open.salon.com/blog/kent_pitman/2011/02/12/using_real...

kgtm 16y ago

"Maybe that will eventually mean sincere advocates will end up having to blog more with their real name and photo to be taken seriously." Isn't this exactly what "they" are after? Once that happens, there won't be any need for such armies. The end of anonymity means the end of free speech.

steauengeglase 16y ago
We should probably ask Jeff Gannon how that turned out.
ugh 16y ago
I don’t think that’s true at all. Anonymity has something to do with free speech but far from everything. If you live in a nation with rule of law and wide ranging protections of freedom of speech like the US there is no need to be anonymous in the vast majority of cases. Anonymity should obviously still be possible but the decreased trustworthiness of anonymous statements is just something that inevitably comes with anonymity. (Who are “they”?)
- kgtm 16y ago
  "If you live in a nation with rule of law and wide ranging protections of freedom of speech like the US there is no need to be anonymous in the vast majority of cases." Sorry, but my irony detector is broken apparently. Do you truly believe this? Care to expand? Not trolling FYI. As for "they", well, no one really knows who they are. But "they" are the pillars of every good conspiracy. (Slightly tongue-in-cheek).
  - ugh 16y ago
    You can’t be thrown into prison or fined for saying the wrong thing in the US. That’s what I mean. You might argue that this is not true for some things but it is true for the vast majority of things you could say. Being anonymous matters a great deal more when freedom of speech is not protected.
    - 16y ago

ghostDancer 16y ago

Prosionist groups have been making this in Europe, blogs and comenting in newspapers every time they think there are anti Israel news or comments. And it's the same as you say , it's easy to identify them when they try to defend some thing impossible to defend. And sometimes is sad because even when they have a point the things they say discredit what they are defending, they do more harm to Israel than help. That began if i can recall after the operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

stcredzero 16y ago

It would also be pretty easy to dismiss zealous advocates as PR ops as an attack strategy against advocates. Maybe that will eventually mean sincere advocates will end up having to blog more with their real name and photo to be taken seriously. Anonymous is basically a nebulously distributed, decentralized, persona ops group. They manage to be taken seriously without revealing real identities because they can successfully prosecute actions against high media value targets. EDIT: They also continually try to convince the Internet at large that they shouldn't be taken seriously.

jeff18 16y ago

Do you have any evidence of this? [not a suck puppet]

bugsy 16y ago
Just google the term I used.
- jongraehl 16y ago
  It's hard to believe in any conspiracy theory that uses as evidence things that would be expected even if the theory were false (e.g. foreign nationals speaking out in favor of their native system when they feel it's unfairly represented). I do find your account credible. I just don't actually care enough about whether it's true to evaluate the evidence in depth.

Confusion 16y ago

However, as you imply, these sockpuppets are easy to recognize and are not taken seriously, because they don't make sense. Sheer volume can't make up for that. In other words: I don't believe they are capable of succesfully pulling it off. Responding sensibly in a conversation requires skills far above those of Watson, Deep Blue and the latest and greatest incarnation of Elisa.

crux_ 16y ago
You must not leave news.yc very often. ;) 99% of the time, there are few/no conversations on the internet, only shouting matches and circle-jerks.
- epochwolf 16y ago
  Examples: YouTube, any random news site, most blogs, deviantArt Real life tends to be this way. I have avoided a number of political discussions lately because it's obvious the people around me have no clue what they are talking about but they completely sure that they are right and that anyone that disagrees is wrong.
  - crux_ 16y ago
    "[...] it's obvious the people around me have no clue what they are talking about [...]" Sounds to me like you're completely sure of your own correctness and of their wrongness. ;) Just saying.
    - epochwolf 16y ago
      > Sounds to me like you're completely sure of your own correctness and of their wrongness. Yeah, it's kind of heard to make claims like that without sounding like a hypocrite. I love logic and philosophy and a good debate or political discussion. This issue I have is a number of people I run across consistently refuse make more than emotional statements or parroting phrases from their selected media source. If you can't have a logical debate it's pointless to bother talking.