5 ms·

What's shocking to me is the blatant manipulation of the mob. Maybe this has gone on forever, but seeing it happen in real time on sites like Reddit is trippin

What's shocking to me is the blatant manipulation of the mob. Maybe this has gone on forever, but seeing it happen in real time on sites like Reddit is tripping me out. While I think my BS filter is more sophisticated than most, on the morning it was released I sent the Shell party video to a colleague to ask if he was there not realizing it was a spoof. Turns out he happened to know there was no such party. I feel like the internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous place, and subtly so.

k3n 14y ago
I'd pity them save for the fact that big oil has been 'blatantly manipulating the mob' for decades now, at the detriment to our environment. The dangers of the mob are very real though, as many people's lives have been ruined (or nearly ruined) through some misinformation that goes viral.
- hcurtiss 14y ago
  I guess the interesting part to me is that, with the advent of news aggregators and social networks, the internet kind of removes the filter. A blatant lie can take off like wildfire and burn a lot of people before anyone can mobilize to put it out. Maybe I give journalists too much credit, but before the advent of the internet as we know it today, these organizations (whether big oil or Green Peace), had to filter the information through some sort of intermediary first. Now they have direct access to millions of people.
  - k3n 14y ago
    Yeah it's definitely a double-edged sword. Like the person whose house was posted to Craigslist with a "come and take what you want", which people did....and only too late did the owner find out -- and of course, he made no such offers. But the mob was quick to act and didn't ask many questions. On the brighter side, there's quite a few exposés that we now witness that would have never seen the light of day otherwise (or would have been relegated to B-theaters, flea markets, and mail-order catalogs).
    - chmike 14y ago
      Maybe free speach has something wrong in it when taken to the word.
- cluda01 14y ago
  "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." -Mark Twain
- progrock 14y ago
  Isn't it about time we embraced the semantic web? At least then we'd have an audit trail.
  - lmm 14y ago
    No. Those are pretty orthogonal notions (if you're talking about the idea that you excerpt existing pages that's not really what semantic web means nowadays), and the semantic web remains a terrible idea. What we need is a more efficient legal process for online statements that cross the line into defamation, and better collaborative filtering (the whole point of sites like reddit is that the truth should out).
rickmb 14y ago
If you are shocked by the "blatant manipulation of the mob", the advertising you see all around you every day, everywhere must put you in a permanent state of catatonia. How come the combination of internet and activism is suddenly "dangerous", and not the pervasive and misleading propaganda we've been subjected to for generations? Shell can no longer drown out the opposition with millions of dollars and now it's a problem?
- tdhs78 14y ago
  We have laws against false advertising. What specific false advertising is Shell currently bombarding us with?
  - cypherpunks01 14y ago
    Greenwashing is their primary mode of false advertising, here are two examples: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/13/corporatesocialresponsibility.fossilfuels http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/13/corporates... http://www.care2.com/causes/shell-tries-to-greenwash-fracking-in-south-africa.html http://www.care2.com/causes/shell-tries-to-greenwash-frackin...
    - tdhs78 14y ago
      From your 4-year-old article: Shell had responded to the challenge that the accepted definition of the phrase "sustainable development" was "development which meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Is that definition highly controversial now? In any event, that certainly does not constitute a massive propaganda campaign against the public.
      - analog 14y ago
        In any event, that certainly does not constitute a massive propaganda campaign against the public. Well it depends how much they spent on it no? I'd guess that Shell spends vastly more on putting it's point of view across than Greenpeace is able to.
Mvandenbergh 14y ago
Reddit is almost comically credulous, show them something they want to believe and they'll be all over it.
- Tobu 14y ago
  Please, no. Don't try to make us feel superior by disparaging the other aggregator. Even if there was a competition, blanket statements on a community would not impress.
Rhino55 14y ago
"What's shocking to me is the blatant manipulation of the mob." Wait. What? You're "shocked"? Um. This is 2012, you know. Mobs are made to be manipulated. That's pretty much the whole point of a mob. Mobs do not win Nobel Prizes in physics. They do not negotiate peace treaties. And, by the way, journalism is essentially the precursor to 4chan (trolls trolling trolls trolling...) Case it point: a well-known quote about journalistic trolling turns out to be a troll. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=2429 http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=2429 tl;dr get over yourself
Angostura 14y ago
And yet it was the Reddit comments that pointed out that the "Shell" Twitter account cited in the article is also (probably) fake.
kahawe 14y ago
> blatant manipulation of the mob I am sorry but a LOT of the big, influential NGOs are very guilty of that and of abusing polemic and demagogy. They seem to think their generally just causes/ideals justify almost all means. Sometimes they are more clever to play their cards right like in this case, sometimes they do a really terrible job and it backfires like when they attacked Apple over the completely made-up energy consumption of a shared hosting facility. But either way they are and always have been consciously using rhetoric means to manipulate people or to at least be heard. This is nothing new - haven't you ever been stopped by them in the streets when they are trying to sign you up for monthly donations? The tactics they are using there are nothing short of slimy car salesmen and ripe with psychological mind-frakks. This is nothing the internet allowed to happen, it has always been there. But the "good old days" when mostly techs were using the web and when the general signal-to-noise-ratio was better are over.
- sophacles 14y ago
  But advertising in the traditional way isn't blatant manipulation of the mob? Sorry, this doesn't pass the laugh test.

k3n 14y ago

I'd pity them save for the fact that big oil has been 'blatantly manipulating the mob' for decades now, at the detriment to our environment. The dangers of the mob are very real though, as many people's lives have been ruined (or nearly ruined) through some misinformation that goes viral.

hcurtiss 14y ago
I guess the interesting part to me is that, with the advent of news aggregators and social networks, the internet kind of removes the filter. A blatant lie can take off like wildfire and burn a lot of people before anyone can mobilize to put it out. Maybe I give journalists too much credit, but before the advent of the internet as we know it today, these organizations (whether big oil or Green Peace), had to filter the information through some sort of intermediary first. Now they have direct access to millions of people.
- k3n 14y ago
  Yeah it's definitely a double-edged sword. Like the person whose house was posted to Craigslist with a "come and take what you want", which people did....and only too late did the owner find out -- and of course, he made no such offers. But the mob was quick to act and didn't ask many questions. On the brighter side, there's quite a few exposés that we now witness that would have never seen the light of day otherwise (or would have been relegated to B-theaters, flea markets, and mail-order catalogs).
  - chmike 14y ago
    Maybe free speach has something wrong in it when taken to the word.
cluda01 14y ago
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." -Mark Twain
progrock 14y ago
Isn't it about time we embraced the semantic web? At least then we'd have an audit trail.
- lmm 14y ago
  No. Those are pretty orthogonal notions (if you're talking about the idea that you excerpt existing pages that's not really what semantic web means nowadays), and the semantic web remains a terrible idea. What we need is a more efficient legal process for online statements that cross the line into defamation, and better collaborative filtering (the whole point of sites like reddit is that the truth should out).

rickmb 14y ago

If you are shocked by the "blatant manipulation of the mob", the advertising you see all around you every day, everywhere must put you in a permanent state of catatonia. How come the combination of internet and activism is suddenly "dangerous", and not the pervasive and misleading propaganda we've been subjected to for generations? Shell can no longer drown out the opposition with millions of dollars and now it's a problem?

tdhs78 14y ago
We have laws against false advertising. What specific false advertising is Shell currently bombarding us with?
- cypherpunks01 14y ago
  Greenwashing is their primary mode of false advertising, here are two examples: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/13/corporatesocialresponsibility.fossilfuels http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/13/corporates... http://www.care2.com/causes/shell-tries-to-greenwash-fracking-in-south-africa.html http://www.care2.com/causes/shell-tries-to-greenwash-frackin...
  - tdhs78 14y ago
    From your 4-year-old article: Shell had responded to the challenge that the accepted definition of the phrase "sustainable development" was "development which meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Is that definition highly controversial now? In any event, that certainly does not constitute a massive propaganda campaign against the public.
    - analog 14y ago
      In any event, that certainly does not constitute a massive propaganda campaign against the public. Well it depends how much they spent on it no? I'd guess that Shell spends vastly more on putting it's point of view across than Greenpeace is able to.

Mvandenbergh 14y ago

Reddit is almost comically credulous, show them something they want to believe and they'll be all over it.

Tobu 14y ago
Please, no. Don't try to make us feel superior by disparaging the other aggregator. Even if there was a competition, blanket statements on a community would not impress.

Rhino55 14y ago

"What's shocking to me is the blatant manipulation of the mob." Wait. What? You're "shocked"? Um. This is 2012, you know. Mobs are made to be manipulated. That's pretty much the whole point of a mob. Mobs do not win Nobel Prizes in physics. They do not negotiate peace treaties. And, by the way, journalism is essentially the precursor to 4chan (trolls trolling trolls trolling...) Case it point: a well-known quote about journalistic trolling turns out to be a troll. http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=2429 http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=2429 tl;dr get over yourself

Angostura 14y ago

And yet it was the Reddit comments that pointed out that the "Shell" Twitter account cited in the article is also (probably) fake.

kahawe 14y ago

> blatant manipulation of the mob I am sorry but a LOT of the big, influential NGOs are very guilty of that and of abusing polemic and demagogy. They seem to think their generally just causes/ideals justify almost all means. Sometimes they are more clever to play their cards right like in this case, sometimes they do a really terrible job and it backfires like when they attacked Apple over the completely made-up energy consumption of a shared hosting facility. But either way they are and always have been consciously using rhetoric means to manipulate people or to at least be heard. This is nothing new - haven't you ever been stopped by them in the streets when they are trying to sign you up for monthly donations? The tactics they are using there are nothing short of slimy car salesmen and ripe with psychological mind-frakks. This is nothing the internet allowed to happen, it has always been there. But the "good old days" when mostly techs were using the web and when the general signal-to-noise-ratio was better are over.

sophacles 14y ago
But advertising in the traditional way isn't blatant manipulation of the mob? Sorry, this doesn't pass the laugh test.