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Odd that an academic paper would fail to mention the work of the UK company Bell Pottinger that conducted a deliberate, paid Twitter campaign with thousands of
by throwaway210222 5y ago
Odd that an academic paper would fail to mention the work of the UK company Bell Pottinger that conducted a deliberate, paid Twitter campaign with thousands of false account in 2018 with the intent to stoke a racial war (nevermind overturn democracy) in South Africa on behalf of the former president's faction and a family of Indian criminals.
From what I understand it bloody nearly succeeded. Perhaps the Chinese learnt from the great job the British did?
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/business/bell-pottinger-guptas-zuma-south-africa.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/business/bell-pottinger-g...
- kindle-dev 5y agoClassic whatabout-ism. A single, private British firm did something terrible, so the Chinese government can do whatever it wants now?
- throwaway210222 5y agoWhere (and please be specific) did I say that Chinese can do what they want? The worst I possible alluded to was that once you show how effective an evil social media campaign can be, the laws of unintended consequences mean others can - sadly - use the same techniques. Please for the love of god, try go a week without using the w-word.
- vlaxx100 5y agoYes, let's confine any discussion, academic or otherwise, to exactly what a paper/submitter/party wants to discuss. Never mention any parallels that could broaden one's horizon. This is how "discussions" in the Soviet Union looked like.
- kindle-dev 5y agoIt would be ok to discuss another topic, but this particular case was using the behavior of a private British firm to somehow make the researchers look hypocritical (or having an agenda) because they are also based in the UK
- qsort 5y agoDiscussions are like soccer: if you go out of bounds you lose possession. We can't be talking about everything at the same time, that's exactly how you stifle discussion.
- NgCTQagzf 5y ago"Odd that an academic paper would fail to mention ..." is a perfectly valid criticism/observation that has its place in any academic discussion. The only people derailing the discussion, as usual, are the sheep bleating "whataboutism". "whataboutism" is the dumbest term that has invaded the Internet in the past decade. And the sheep have now flagged a totally harmless comment.
- DaedPsyker 5y agoThat's not what the above comment said. It asked why didn't the academic paper discuss it in a manner that is attempting to cast suspicion on the findings. You discuss your own findings, quite frankly I'm not entirely sure their point. That Oxford shares the same country as this company? Is it somehow obligated based on this?
- tokai 5y agoThat is some reviewer 3 tier criticism. That is not what they are investigating, and they are not doing a review of twitter disinformation campaigns.
- qsort 5y agoWhataboutism? Why is it odd that an academic paper wouldn't mention it? Is every academic paper required to replay the entire history of the universe from the big bang onwards?
- VLM 5y agoIts kind of like writing a paper about sorting algorithms while somehow forgetting to mention or reference Hoare's QuickSort from 1961.