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For years now, there have been seemingly crazy people on 4chan who insist that systems like this are already employed on 4chan to guide or simply disrupt conver

For years now, there have been seemingly crazy people on 4chan who insist that systems like this are already employed on 4chan to guide or simply disrupt conversations. Maybe they were crazy to think that a few years ago (or maybe not) but I expect they definitely feel vindicated now. Related: "Is The Government Spying On Schizophrenics Enough?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzoXQKumgCw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzoXQKumgCw

na85 4y ago
>For years now, there have been seemingly crazy people on 4chan who insist that systems like this are already employed on 4chan to guide or simply disrupt conversations. I'd say that probably from about 2009 and certainly from the onset of the Trump candidacy, it would be absurd to suggest there wasn't at least some degree of astroturfing occurring on /b/ and /pol/ (aka /new/ depending on what time frame we're talking about) at a minimum. It's important to remember that 4chan was a lot more influential in the past, and the anonymous nature of posting there would seem to me to make it an easy place for early astroturfing campaigns to manufacture their common ground.
- dendrite9 4y ago
  For whatever reason, looking back from now the Ron Paul stuff seems like a major shift. It seemed like natural support, different from the Obama enthusiasm for in some way. I haven't thought about it much before your post but it almost feels like it was a trial run for methods later used in the Trump campaign.
  - Melting_Harps 4y ago
- Terry_Roll 4y ago
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    >From my own experience I dont think its just 4chan, so I used to be able to copy and paste paragraphs from web forums and paste them into Google and Google would give me a list of every website where the exact same conversations were taking place. That sounds to me like there were spam sites that were making duplicates of real forums. I know I've found many results that are simply duplicates of Stack Overflow for example. If Google Search managed to filter out the spam sites from the results, that sounds like a good thing. Disclosure: Google employee
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      > sites that were making duplicates of real forums Horrible startup idea: silently syndicate groups of forums that use wildly different branding to achieve people with different viewpoints constantly engaging with each other in some potentially novel way to an outside observer.
      - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
        Shit, now I don't know if I'm an AI.
    - Terry_Roll 4y ago
      > That sounds to me like there were spam sites that were making duplicates of real forums. No, it was the security services.
      - Thorrez 4y ago
        Do you have evidence for that? Are the security services also the ones that make copies of Stack Overflow content?
        Terry_Roll 4y ago
        Cant say about the Stack Overflow content, I've had loads of webpages removed from from the Wayback Machine. The idea that everything that goes online stays online forever, forget that, they wipe what they like, so then it means that you get classed as mentally unwell, get locked up without trial and drugs forced down your neck. Rinse and Repeat. I understand why massacres occur now.
onetimeusename 4y ago
they may also agree with the bot. I am waiting for the bot to start claiming that anyone it disagrees with is actually a foreign intelligence shill who is subverting the board.
- marvin 4y ago
  I’d rather be surprised if russian disinformation doesn’t target 4chan. It’s frequented by Western society’s outcasts; there is no more fertile ground for subversion.
  - boppo1 4y ago
    It was interesting to see two generals about Ukraine, one pro Ukrainian, one Pro Russian, both adamant the other is absolutely run by [cia/mossad/shareblue/etc]
jtolmar 4y ago
I ran a simple Markov chain text generator bot on 4chan for a while back in 2008, because I wanted to see if it could pass the Turing test on /b/. It could, and also derailed conversations quite a lot, so the technology is certainly there. Modern political accusations of botting are more like a way to turn people with differing opinions into a non-person conspiracy, though. It's not as fun and silly as my old Markov bot.
Seanambers 4y ago
I check in on occasion to see what the underbelly of the internet is up to. More when i was younger so i have some sense of how it was back in the day. There is for sure from time to time massive coordinated and sustained efforts to undermine, change or break up discussions on there how much of it thats automatic is hard to say but i would bet a lot.

na85 4y ago

>For years now, there have been seemingly crazy people on 4chan who insist that systems like this are already employed on 4chan to guide or simply disrupt conversations. I'd say that probably from about 2009 and certainly from the onset of the Trump candidacy, it would be absurd to suggest there wasn't at least some degree of astroturfing occurring on /b/ and /pol/ (aka /new/ depending on what time frame we're talking about) at a minimum. It's important to remember that 4chan was a lot more influential in the past, and the anonymous nature of posting there would seem to me to make it an easy place for early astroturfing campaigns to manufacture their common ground.

dendrite9 4y ago
For whatever reason, looking back from now the Ron Paul stuff seems like a major shift. It seemed like natural support, different from the Obama enthusiasm for in some way. I haven't thought about it much before your post but it almost feels like it was a trial run for methods later used in the Trump campaign.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
Terry_Roll 4y ago
- Thorrez 4y ago
  >From my own experience I dont think its just 4chan, so I used to be able to copy and paste paragraphs from web forums and paste them into Google and Google would give me a list of every website where the exact same conversations were taking place. That sounds to me like there were spam sites that were making duplicates of real forums. I know I've found many results that are simply duplicates of Stack Overflow for example. If Google Search managed to filter out the spam sites from the results, that sounds like a good thing. Disclosure: Google employee
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    > sites that were making duplicates of real forums Horrible startup idea: silently syndicate groups of forums that use wildly different branding to achieve people with different viewpoints constantly engaging with each other in some potentially novel way to an outside observer.
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      Shit, now I don't know if I'm an AI.
  - Terry_Roll 4y ago
    > That sounds to me like there were spam sites that were making duplicates of real forums. No, it was the security services.
    - Thorrez 4y ago
      Do you have evidence for that? Are the security services also the ones that make copies of Stack Overflow content?
      - Terry_Roll 4y ago
        Cant say about the Stack Overflow content, I've had loads of webpages removed from from the Wayback Machine. The idea that everything that goes online stays online forever, forget that, they wipe what they like, so then it means that you get classed as mentally unwell, get locked up without trial and drugs forced down your neck. Rinse and Repeat. I understand why massacres occur now.

onetimeusename 4y ago

they may also agree with the bot. I am waiting for the bot to start claiming that anyone it disagrees with is actually a foreign intelligence shill who is subverting the board.

marvin 4y ago
I’d rather be surprised if russian disinformation doesn’t target 4chan. It’s frequented by Western society’s outcasts; there is no more fertile ground for subversion.
- boppo1 4y ago
  It was interesting to see two generals about Ukraine, one pro Ukrainian, one Pro Russian, both adamant the other is absolutely run by [cia/mossad/shareblue/etc]

jtolmar 4y ago

I ran a simple Markov chain text generator bot on 4chan for a while back in 2008, because I wanted to see if it could pass the Turing test on /b/. It could, and also derailed conversations quite a lot, so the technology is certainly there. Modern political accusations of botting are more like a way to turn people with differing opinions into a non-person conspiracy, though. It's not as fun and silly as my old Markov bot.

Seanambers 4y ago

I check in on occasion to see what the underbelly of the internet is up to. More when i was younger so i have some sense of how it was back in the day. There is for sure from time to time massive coordinated and sustained efforts to undermine, change or break up discussions on there how much of it thats automatic is hard to say but i would bet a lot.