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I've encountered specific situations on reddit where there was a clear government organized campaign influencing public opinion using bought accounts. This was

I've encountered specific situations on reddit where there was a clear government organized campaign influencing public opinion using bought accounts. This was in 2017 before GPT like AI generated content was a thing. It included comments, links to news articles and clear coordinated upvoting. It seems that you wouldn't even need AI generated comments. Just an AI with sentiment analysis that upvotes organic comments that support your views and downvotes organic comments that oppose your views.

pydry 3y ago
You can also do the opposite. E.g. if somebody posts yet another coke/mentos meme or video you can link those threads to research showing how damaging the packaging is or how they once supported the assassination of unionizers. They dont like that sort of thing at all. I caused amazon to nuke an associate IAmA thread once because links about what it was really like to work in a warehouse kept popping up and interfering with the corporate approved story.
- gosub100 3y ago
  I do this in youtube comments whenever I see a chain of "I invested in ____ and made 1700% in 4 months!". I'll reply with "my friend tried that and lost $8000, nobody will return her messages". I'm surprised code+mentos is used as product placement. it seems like it's damn close to being a bomb (if you were clever enough to screw the lid on before triggering the reaction) and thus a liability.
- zoogeny 3y ago
  I think that is fine with corporate accounts. But I would not do that for government organized campaigns. I know this is a controversial opinion on HN and it borders on paranoia. But I consider a few ideas. First, to a determined government there is no such thing as an anonymous account. I act as if my reddit, HN, Instagram, etc. is just a column in a database that is linked to my ip address, email, phone number, physical address, government id / passport. Second, I act as if every post I make is being analyzed for sentiment against a set of categories of content. If I trigger enough of those sentiment categories then I end up on a list. I'm sure I am on some lists already - I would prefer to minimize the number of lists that I am on. It seems to me that purposefully trying to subvert a government organized information campaign would get a person on the kind of list that I would prefer not to be on.
throwaway3090 3y ago
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pydry 3y ago

You can also do the opposite. E.g. if somebody posts yet another coke/mentos meme or video you can link those threads to research showing how damaging the packaging is or how they once supported the assassination of unionizers. They dont like that sort of thing at all. I caused amazon to nuke an associate IAmA thread once because links about what it was really like to work in a warehouse kept popping up and interfering with the corporate approved story.

gosub100 3y ago
I do this in youtube comments whenever I see a chain of "I invested in ____ and made 1700% in 4 months!". I'll reply with "my friend tried that and lost $8000, nobody will return her messages". I'm surprised code+mentos is used as product placement. it seems like it's damn close to being a bomb (if you were clever enough to screw the lid on before triggering the reaction) and thus a liability.
zoogeny 3y ago
I think that is fine with corporate accounts. But I would not do that for government organized campaigns. I know this is a controversial opinion on HN and it borders on paranoia. But I consider a few ideas. First, to a determined government there is no such thing as an anonymous account. I act as if my reddit, HN, Instagram, etc. is just a column in a database that is linked to my ip address, email, phone number, physical address, government id / passport. Second, I act as if every post I make is being analyzed for sentiment against a set of categories of content. If I trigger enough of those sentiment categories then I end up on a list. I'm sure I am on some lists already - I would prefer to minimize the number of lists that I am on. It seems to me that purposefully trying to subvert a government organized information campaign would get a person on the kind of list that I would prefer not to be on.

throwaway3090 3y ago

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