4 ms·

Reddit AMA by FB whistleblower Sophie Zhang who found troll farms

92 points by mleonhard 5y ago

theknocker 5y ago
Cool, now do the western intelligence community. Let's analyze what kinds of "troll farms" they might be setting up, e.g. comments here and on reddit (by which I mean the entire website). Let's see if we can figure out which super PACs might qualify as "troll farms," while we're at it.
neatze 5y ago
This was fascinating read, my take away from it was; there need for social media regulation by an 3rd party organization(s), e.g. mass social media needs regulation similar to relations between financial industry and organizations such as FINRA, CFTC, and SEC with reporting/access standards.
- machinehermiter 5y ago
  That is a great analogy that I had not thought of before and finance is everything to me. I think in the same way we need to accept all regulation in this area will have flaws but flawed regulation is far better than zero regulation.
- stef25 5y ago
  > This was fascinating read A few comments down from the top post it's all about about Milo and Nazi Occultism. People posting walls of links to 5 year old tweets and pasted paragraphs about "evidence of republican tactics". Surely this is one of the worst posts in one of the worst subreddits ever.
  - mleonhard 5y ago
    Reddit has a low signal to noise ratio. The signal does exist and is often interesting and valuable, even when the noise is excessive.
rediguanayum 5y ago
How do we find out about her Reddit AMA in advance so one could attend?
- peach 5y ago
  By subscribing to the subreddit?
- karlding 5y ago
  The /r/IAmA subreddit has a Google calendar [0] linked in the sidebar which contains a schedule of all the upcoming AMAs. [0] https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=amaverify@gmail.com https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=amaverify@gma...
forgotmypw17 5y ago
https://www.teddit.net/r/IAmA/comments/oll01o/i_am_sophie_zhang_at_fb_i_worked_in_my_spare_time/ https://www.teddit.net/r/IAmA/comments/oll01o/i_am_sophie_zh...
miltondts 5y ago
Are there people in HN dedicated to identify and stop this type of activity?
- sydthrowaway 5y ago
  Yeah, one guy

92 points by mleonhard 5y ago

Cool, now do the western intelligence community. Let's analyze what kinds of "troll farms" they might be setting up, e.g. comments here and on reddit (by which I mean the entire website). Let's see if we can figure out which super PACs might qualify as "troll farms," while we're at it.

neatze 5y ago

This was fascinating read, my take away from it was; there need for social media regulation by an 3rd party organization(s), e.g. mass social media needs regulation similar to relations between financial industry and organizations such as FINRA, CFTC, and SEC with reporting/access standards.

machinehermiter 5y ago
That is a great analogy that I had not thought of before and finance is everything to me. I think in the same way we need to accept all regulation in this area will have flaws but flawed regulation is far better than zero regulation.
stef25 5y ago
> This was fascinating read A few comments down from the top post it's all about about Milo and Nazi Occultism. People posting walls of links to 5 year old tweets and pasted paragraphs about "evidence of republican tactics". Surely this is one of the worst posts in one of the worst subreddits ever.
- mleonhard 5y ago
  Reddit has a low signal to noise ratio. The signal does exist and is often interesting and valuable, even when the noise is excessive.

rediguanayum 5y ago

How do we find out about her Reddit AMA in advance so one could attend?

peach 5y ago
By subscribing to the subreddit?
karlding 5y ago
The /r/IAmA subreddit has a Google calendar [0] linked in the sidebar which contains a schedule of all the upcoming AMAs. [0] https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=amaverify@gmail.com https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=amaverify@gma...

forgotmypw17 5y ago

https://www.teddit.net/r/IAmA/comments/oll01o/i_am_sophie_zhang_at_fb_i_worked_in_my_spare_time/ https://www.teddit.net/r/IAmA/comments/oll01o/i_am_sophie_zh...

miltondts 5y ago

Are there people in HN dedicated to identify and stop this type of activity?

sydthrowaway 5y ago
Yeah, one guy