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As most nations today, China has its own troll farms to foster positive sentiment. Sadly, I am sure that affects HN as well. Come to think of it, US government

As most nations today, China has its own troll farms to foster positive sentiment. Sadly, I am sure that affects HN as well. Come to think of it, US government does not appear to officially use them. Thus far I only saw allegations of various companies using them ( and I am sure they are ). I did hear various LEOs troll forums ( but that is for reasons other than saying government is awesome ). https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/leaked-docs-reveal-how-chinas-army-paid-internet-trolls-helped-censor-covid-19 https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/leaked-docs-reveal-how-ch...

simonh 6y ago
There have definitely been cases of astroturfing and vote bombing in the west, but it seems to be much less common these days because it almost always seems to get found out. If you think about it, the employees doing it aren't zombies, as soon as they leave the company they've got no reason stay loyal. News organisations are all over stories like that. The resulting bad press can be catastrophic for a company, far worse than any conceivable benefit from the behaviour itself. For governments in democracies it's even worse, this is why most government conspiracy theories don't make sense. Why would government employees or even soldiers criminalise themselves to benefit a political party or president they might not even personally support? Once particular president is out of office, there's no reason to stay personally loyal to them so leaders can only rely on people's loyalty to the nation as a whole. Conversely the CCP simply suppresses all discussion about the suppression, and disappears anyone who becomes too problematic. There are no divided political loyalties and no other political faction or press to go to. What's anyone going to do?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > There have definitely been cases of astroturfing and vote bombing in the west, but it seems to be much less common these days because it almost always seems to get found out. Or, it seems less common because those doing it have improved over time so that it almost never gets found out when done by the real pros, only when done by relative incompetents whose visible failures shield the competent astroturfers from suspicion. The only thing that would make it seem common is getting found out frequently, after all.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Oh sure, it’s a matter of balancing probabilities. We can never be certain, since it’s not possible to prove a negative. Still, if we know there are balancing factors such as risks from press investigation, whistle blowers, accidental leaks, etc and still we see extremely low or no cases hitting the press, then it seems the balance of probability is that it’s relatively rare. Compared to the extremely obvious, blatant, continuous Astro turfing, comment suppression, vote bombing and harassment we see by the authorities in China. Let’s not make any false equivalences.
goblin89 6y ago
You say “most nations”, but I find it hard to believe that any democratic country would teach its citizens, say, simplified Chinese, and order them to infiltrate Chinese forums and advocate against CCP. Only a regime that doesn’t have to worry about taxpayer’s opinion could afford something like that. Speaking of COVID censorship, any English-speaking report on COVID on YouTube (especially from BBC, where comments tend to somewhat lack energy compared to reports by American media) tends to heavily feature commenters that ignore basic logic and argue that there should be an international investigation of the US for starting the pandemic. I would consider it hilarious but it’s actually scary, a sporadic uncoordinated voluntary expression of approval characteristic to a democratic country can hardly compete with methodical systematic social media and forum warfare.

simonh 6y ago

There have definitely been cases of astroturfing and vote bombing in the west, but it seems to be much less common these days because it almost always seems to get found out. If you think about it, the employees doing it aren't zombies, as soon as they leave the company they've got no reason stay loyal. News organisations are all over stories like that. The resulting bad press can be catastrophic for a company, far worse than any conceivable benefit from the behaviour itself. For governments in democracies it's even worse, this is why most government conspiracy theories don't make sense. Why would government employees or even soldiers criminalise themselves to benefit a political party or president they might not even personally support? Once particular president is out of office, there's no reason to stay personally loyal to them so leaders can only rely on people's loyalty to the nation as a whole. Conversely the CCP simply suppresses all discussion about the suppression, and disappears anyone who becomes too problematic. There are no divided political loyalties and no other political faction or press to go to. What's anyone going to do?

dragonwriter 6y ago
> There have definitely been cases of astroturfing and vote bombing in the west, but it seems to be much less common these days because it almost always seems to get found out. Or, it seems less common because those doing it have improved over time so that it almost never gets found out when done by the real pros, only when done by relative incompetents whose visible failures shield the competent astroturfers from suspicion. The only thing that would make it seem common is getting found out frequently, after all.
- simonh 6y ago
  Oh sure, it’s a matter of balancing probabilities. We can never be certain, since it’s not possible to prove a negative. Still, if we know there are balancing factors such as risks from press investigation, whistle blowers, accidental leaks, etc and still we see extremely low or no cases hitting the press, then it seems the balance of probability is that it’s relatively rare. Compared to the extremely obvious, blatant, continuous Astro turfing, comment suppression, vote bombing and harassment we see by the authorities in China. Let’s not make any false equivalences.

goblin89 6y ago

You say “most nations”, but I find it hard to believe that any democratic country would teach its citizens, say, simplified Chinese, and order them to infiltrate Chinese forums and advocate against CCP. Only a regime that doesn’t have to worry about taxpayer’s opinion could afford something like that. Speaking of COVID censorship, any English-speaking report on COVID on YouTube (especially from BBC, where comments tend to somewhat lack energy compared to reports by American media) tends to heavily feature commenters that ignore basic logic and argue that there should be an international investigation of the US for starting the pandemic. I would consider it hilarious but it’s actually scary, a sporadic uncoordinated voluntary expression of approval characteristic to a democratic country can hardly compete with methodical systematic social media and forum warfare.