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The Navy Says It's Not Recruiting on Twitch. This Handbook Shows It Is

51 points by tareqak 6y ago

notRobot 6y ago
How do we allow government entities in a democracy to flat out lie to the citizens like this? Aren't democracies supposed to be "for the people, by the people, of the people"?
- colinmhayes 6y ago
  The real question is how do we stop it?
  - patjenk 6y ago
    You vote.
    - loeg 6y ago
      I've voted in every election I've been eligible for, and that strategy hasn't exactly worked, so far. ("Voting" as a generic answer for "how do we effect change in government" is trite, oversimplistic, and doesn't actually answer the question.) I don't think I've ever seen a referendum on military spending, much less specific policy, on any ballot.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - anoonmoose 6y ago
        Unfortunately, I think that the best answer might be "vote for people who support your beliefs, even if/though they are guaranteed not to win, until one of the two major parties begins to adopt those people's positions in an attempt to attract your votes" Unsatisfying answer and I'm not sure it's guaranteed or even likely to produce results in your lifetime but until we get rid of FPTP voting it's the only real answer
      - macspoofing 6y ago
        You live in a country of 330 million, you didn't expect that you will be setting policy for all those people with your singular vote...did you?
        robrtsql 6y ago
        It's pretty clear to me that they don't think that. They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice because the majority of voters believe that radical change is unnecessary or impossible.
        krapp 6y ago
        >They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice because the majority of voters believe that radical change is unnecessary or impossible. And yet that's exactly what the "disenfranchised, angry white rural male" bloc accomplished by voting for Trump, while their opponents mostly sat on their hands because they couldn't have Bernie. There are numerous examples in American politics where popular sentiment has led to radical shifts in policy. It just happens that in recent history (probably since 9/11), the American public seems to want those shifts to move the country further and further right. Those people are getting what they voted for.
        macspoofing 6y ago
        >They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice That strikes me as naive and juvenile. It's not useless advice, it just need to be properly contextualized. You're a sharing a nation with hundreds of millions of people, so you cannot expect that your fellow citizens all want the same thing you want. Yes voting is a method of change, but the effect of a singular vote is very small, especially for influencing federal policies. At the local community or neighborhood level, a single dedicated person can actually make a big difference, but that also requires work, because changing minds takes time and effort. This is also why federalism should be embraced by everyone. Limit the federal government as much as you can and leave the consequential decisions to states and communities. But local issues aren't sexy enough for many.
      - pmoriarty 6y ago
        Voting is pretty much the bare minimum you can do to effect political change in a democracy. There are plenty of other, ever more effective and synergistic ways, of being politically active: - educating oneself about one's rights, politics and history, and opposing points of view - making connections with others at all levels of society, business, and government - raising awareness through talking to others, writing articles, or making videos - participating in protests or boycotts - encouraging others to vote - volunteer to be an election monitor, to make sure elections are conducted fairly and are free from interference - letter writing to elected officials - donating to and/or volunteering for the causes, campaigns, and organizations you believe in - organizing - running for local office People tend to get so laser-focused on voting that they forget that there are all sorts of other ways to get involved.
        bserge 6y ago
        - creating your own party - still getting nowhere I don't know why I'm even writing this, I'm just really tired of seeing the political class being untouchable (and that's not exclusive to the US). I remember a guy in my country doing all of what you wrote, getting as far as organizing a political party, which was promptly absorbed into one of the three biggest parties, never to be heard from again. This isn't democracy. It's der'mocracy (my favorite Russian portmanteau, means shitocracy).
        pmoriarty 6y ago
        There are no guarantees in life. I don't know what this one guy stood for, what he did right, or what he did wrong. He might have been completely incompetent, or maybe his ideas were so far out of the mainstream that he really stood no chance no matter how competent he was. How many allies did he manage to get? How many people did he manage to reach? How long was he active for? Also, we need to keep in mind that just because your party doesn't get elected that doesn't mean you've failed. Sometime showing the public that there's an alternative or moving the conversation to include your issue can effect change in the mainstream, which can be a victory in itself, even if your party does not achieve power. But even if this one guy failed, that does not mean that becoming politically active in a democracy is useless for everyone and that everyone is doomed to fail. The point is to get lots of people involved. You can't do it all by yourself (or it wouldn't be a democracy). That said, I agree that there are many faults in American democracy, and in other democracies all over the world. That doesn't mean we have to give up on democracy. They could be reformed to be more democratic, through democratic means. But people have to become more educated and more politically active. Simply casting a vote once every 4 years and digging our heads in the sand the rest of the time is not nearly enough.
      - briandear 6y ago
        > I don't think I've ever seen a referendum on military spending, much less specific policy, on any ballot. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic
      - bserge 6y ago
        Tyranny of the stupefied majority. The media is now a tool for the select few to get the majority to vote the way they need them to. (Wow, that's a badly worded sentence)
    - greenshackle2 6y ago
      “It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."
- refurb 6y ago
  Easy, just get rid of all humans in the government. I’ll leave how to do that up to you.
dvtrn 6y ago
I just want to thank Vice for actually bothering to include and embed the full document they've sourced for this story, when so many outlets publish articles about stories adjacent (memos, court opinions, rulings, etc.) and blockquote snippets and excerpts surrounded by the authors own interpretation and speculation, it's easy to suspect contextomy[0] absent the original source. I wish more outlets would include the originating artifact of what's being reported on, where allowable, as was done here. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443705053974 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016344370505397...
bitcurious 6y ago
As far as I can tell this is a non-story about semantics. The Navy doesn't recruit on Twitch, it advertises on Twitch.
- JoeSmithson 6y ago
  Exactly. Vice are trying to frame this like some massive gotcha, but the Navy lays out their strategy openly; > “While we do not actively recruit on Twitch or through such streaming platforms, the esports team members are there to answer questions about their experiences in the Navy. If a user specifically asks an esports team member about joining the Navy, that team member will move that conversation to a private message to first find out if the interested user is over 17, and if that user is over 17 then the recruiter will thank them for their interest and refer them to Navy.com where they can talk to a recruiter.” Vice prepends this quote with "In an email to Motherboard, the Navy insisted it wasn’t using Twitch to recruit." which seems like a bizarre mischaracterisation to me
- refurb 6y ago
  That’s my take as well. It’s just marketing speak. They are raising “awareness” not “recruiting”. Similar to a CPG company saying we’re raising “awareness” of our product on Twitch, not “selling” our product. For your average person, that may seem like meaningless splitting of hairs, but that’s how it’s discussed in the marketing world. Amazing a whole article was written about this.
  - mercurysmessage 6y ago
    OK, "raising awareness" of what, and for what reason? It's clearly for recruiting purposes.
    - refurb 6y ago
      When you see an ad for shampoo on Youtube, do would you say the company is "selling" the product on Youtube? Like I said, it's splitting hairs with words, but it's not some grand conspiracy as per the Vox article.
DevX101 6y ago
The day is soon coming when your skill level at videogames will get you fast tracked for command in a real military. If there were a sufficiently open ended and realistic war game simulation (I can't think of one), DoD could give free scholarships for the top 0.1% to Westpoint.
- dvtrn 6y ago
  Check this out: https://www.army.mil/standto/archive_2014-05-19/ https://www.army.mil/standto/archive_2014-05-19/ Allegedly it's made by the same developers as the ARMA series, which if you want to talk about open-ended military simulators... whistles mightily
- briandear 6y ago
  West Point is already free.
- vanattab 6y ago
  The top command positions in the military mostly require the same skills as other top positions in large organizations and that's interpersonal and leadership skills not on the ground tactical skills.
- throwaway889900 6y ago
  Ender's Game will come soon enough I suppose.
trynumber9 6y ago
Is the issue that the Navy denies using Twitch as a recruitment avenue or using Twitch as a recruitment avenue? They advertise on Twitch esports and they advertised on TV during sports.
- dx87 6y ago
  There is no issue, it's just more "the government is lying to you" outrage bait from Vice. There's a big difference between actively trying to recruit people, and just having a sailor stream on twitch and answer questions about life in the Navy.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dang 6y ago
Related recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23880855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23880855

51 points by tareqak 6y ago

How do we allow government entities in a democracy to flat out lie to the citizens like this? Aren't democracies supposed to be "for the people, by the people, of the people"?

colinmhayes 6y ago
The real question is how do we stop it?
- patjenk 6y ago
  You vote.
  - loeg 6y ago
    I've voted in every election I've been eligible for, and that strategy hasn't exactly worked, so far. ("Voting" as a generic answer for "how do we effect change in government" is trite, oversimplistic, and doesn't actually answer the question.) I don't think I've ever seen a referendum on military spending, much less specific policy, on any ballot.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - anoonmoose 6y ago
      Unfortunately, I think that the best answer might be "vote for people who support your beliefs, even if/though they are guaranteed not to win, until one of the two major parties begins to adopt those people's positions in an attempt to attract your votes" Unsatisfying answer and I'm not sure it's guaranteed or even likely to produce results in your lifetime but until we get rid of FPTP voting it's the only real answer
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      You live in a country of 330 million, you didn't expect that you will be setting policy for all those people with your singular vote...did you?
      - robrtsql 6y ago
        It's pretty clear to me that they don't think that. They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice because the majority of voters believe that radical change is unnecessary or impossible.
        krapp 6y ago
        >They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice because the majority of voters believe that radical change is unnecessary or impossible. And yet that's exactly what the "disenfranchised, angry white rural male" bloc accomplished by voting for Trump, while their opponents mostly sat on their hands because they couldn't have Bernie. There are numerous examples in American politics where popular sentiment has led to radical shifts in policy. It just happens that in recent history (probably since 9/11), the American public seems to want those shifts to move the country further and further right. Those people are getting what they voted for.
        macspoofing 6y ago
        >They are illustrating that "go out and vote if you want to make things better" is useless advice That strikes me as naive and juvenile. It's not useless advice, it just need to be properly contextualized. You're a sharing a nation with hundreds of millions of people, so you cannot expect that your fellow citizens all want the same thing you want. Yes voting is a method of change, but the effect of a singular vote is very small, especially for influencing federal policies. At the local community or neighborhood level, a single dedicated person can actually make a big difference, but that also requires work, because changing minds takes time and effort. This is also why federalism should be embraced by everyone. Limit the federal government as much as you can and leave the consequential decisions to states and communities. But local issues aren't sexy enough for many.
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      Voting is pretty much the bare minimum you can do to effect political change in a democracy. There are plenty of other, ever more effective and synergistic ways, of being politically active: - educating oneself about one's rights, politics and history, and opposing points of view - making connections with others at all levels of society, business, and government - raising awareness through talking to others, writing articles, or making videos - participating in protests or boycotts - encouraging others to vote - volunteer to be an election monitor, to make sure elections are conducted fairly and are free from interference - letter writing to elected officials - donating to and/or volunteering for the causes, campaigns, and organizations you believe in - organizing - running for local office People tend to get so laser-focused on voting that they forget that there are all sorts of other ways to get involved.
      - bserge 6y ago
        - creating your own party - still getting nowhere I don't know why I'm even writing this, I'm just really tired of seeing the political class being untouchable (and that's not exclusive to the US). I remember a guy in my country doing all of what you wrote, getting as far as organizing a political party, which was promptly absorbed into one of the three biggest parties, never to be heard from again. This isn't democracy. It's der'mocracy (my favorite Russian portmanteau, means shitocracy).
        pmoriarty 6y ago
        There are no guarantees in life. I don't know what this one guy stood for, what he did right, or what he did wrong. He might have been completely incompetent, or maybe his ideas were so far out of the mainstream that he really stood no chance no matter how competent he was. How many allies did he manage to get? How many people did he manage to reach? How long was he active for? Also, we need to keep in mind that just because your party doesn't get elected that doesn't mean you've failed. Sometime showing the public that there's an alternative or moving the conversation to include your issue can effect change in the mainstream, which can be a victory in itself, even if your party does not achieve power. But even if this one guy failed, that does not mean that becoming politically active in a democracy is useless for everyone and that everyone is doomed to fail. The point is to get lots of people involved. You can't do it all by yourself (or it wouldn't be a democracy). That said, I agree that there are many faults in American democracy, and in other democracies all over the world. That doesn't mean we have to give up on democracy. They could be reformed to be more democratic, through democratic means. But people have to become more educated and more politically active. Simply casting a vote once every 4 years and digging our heads in the sand the rest of the time is not nearly enough.
    - briandear 6y ago
      > I don't think I've ever seen a referendum on military spending, much less specific policy, on any ballot. https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_republic
    - bserge 6y ago
      Tyranny of the stupefied majority. The media is now a tool for the select few to get the majority to vote the way they need them to. (Wow, that's a badly worded sentence)
  - greenshackle2 6y ago
    “It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in."
refurb 6y ago
Easy, just get rid of all humans in the government. I’ll leave how to do that up to you.

dvtrn 6y ago

I just want to thank Vice for actually bothering to include and embed the full document they've sourced for this story, when so many outlets publish articles about stories adjacent (memos, court opinions, rulings, etc.) and blockquote snippets and excerpts surrounded by the authors own interpretation and speculation, it's easy to suspect contextomy[0] absent the original source. I wish more outlets would include the originating artifact of what's being reported on, where allowable, as was done here. [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443705053974 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016344370505397...

bitcurious 6y ago

As far as I can tell this is a non-story about semantics. The Navy doesn't recruit on Twitch, it advertises on Twitch.

JoeSmithson 6y ago
Exactly. Vice are trying to frame this like some massive gotcha, but the Navy lays out their strategy openly; > “While we do not actively recruit on Twitch or through such streaming platforms, the esports team members are there to answer questions about their experiences in the Navy. If a user specifically asks an esports team member about joining the Navy, that team member will move that conversation to a private message to first find out if the interested user is over 17, and if that user is over 17 then the recruiter will thank them for their interest and refer them to Navy.com where they can talk to a recruiter.” Vice prepends this quote with "In an email to Motherboard, the Navy insisted it wasn’t using Twitch to recruit." which seems like a bizarre mischaracterisation to me
refurb 6y ago
That’s my take as well. It’s just marketing speak. They are raising “awareness” not “recruiting”. Similar to a CPG company saying we’re raising “awareness” of our product on Twitch, not “selling” our product. For your average person, that may seem like meaningless splitting of hairs, but that’s how it’s discussed in the marketing world. Amazing a whole article was written about this.
- mercurysmessage 6y ago
  OK, "raising awareness" of what, and for what reason? It's clearly for recruiting purposes.
  - refurb 6y ago
    When you see an ad for shampoo on Youtube, do would you say the company is "selling" the product on Youtube? Like I said, it's splitting hairs with words, but it's not some grand conspiracy as per the Vox article.

DevX101 6y ago

The day is soon coming when your skill level at videogames will get you fast tracked for command in a real military. If there were a sufficiently open ended and realistic war game simulation (I can't think of one), DoD could give free scholarships for the top 0.1% to Westpoint.

dvtrn 6y ago
Check this out: https://www.army.mil/standto/archive_2014-05-19/ https://www.army.mil/standto/archive_2014-05-19/ Allegedly it's made by the same developers as the ARMA series, which if you want to talk about open-ended military simulators... whistles mightily
briandear 6y ago
West Point is already free.
vanattab 6y ago
The top command positions in the military mostly require the same skills as other top positions in large organizations and that's interpersonal and leadership skills not on the ground tactical skills.
throwaway889900 6y ago
Ender's Game will come soon enough I suppose.

trynumber9 6y ago

Is the issue that the Navy denies using Twitch as a recruitment avenue or using Twitch as a recruitment avenue? They advertise on Twitch esports and they advertised on TV during sports.

dx87 6y ago
There is no issue, it's just more "the government is lying to you" outrage bait from Vice. There's a big difference between actively trying to recruit people, and just having a sailor stream on twitch and answer questions about life in the Navy.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dang 6y ago

Related recent thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23880855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23880855