4 ms·

Don't worry, you're either arguing with useful idiots or pathetic SOBs working in a propaganda unit in russia.

by bflesch 9mo ago

yetihehe 9mo ago
The problem is that if no one responds to such idiots, even more idiots might be swayed into their direction.
- LexiMax 9mo ago
  They are either being paid, or they are so lost in propaganda that they're willing to do it >for free. They have more time that they are willing to waste on propaganda than you, unless you decide to dedicate every waking moment to a rebuttable you are behind the eight ball. Even then, they're probably in dozens of communities and threads at the same time, repeating the same garbage. The only way this sort of rhetoric can be fought is at the level of moderation. This site has user-driven moderation, which in theory means that you can fight the tide this way, but in practice the authoritarians and fascists have access to these tools as well, and bad faith use is rarely punished, so these tools are less of a panacea and more of a race to who can down-vote who first. The only other alternative is for the paid moderation of this site to put their foot down and say "We are not okay with fascists and authoritarian apologists on our site" and ban them. The admins of Hacker News are another on a very long list of social media site hosts who have decided to wash their hands of the responsibility. They don't care. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If you decide you still want to engage, I recommend viewing the interaction through the lens of an attention economy; spend less time on a rebuttle than they did on their post, and only in places where you think it will actually be seen.
  - bflesch 9mo ago
    Correct, it's literally their main job to spew propaganda. As demonstrated repeatedly by power outages in st. petersburg, moscow and most recently iran. Unless one verifies every single user by ID, there needs to be at least a platform-level detection of user jurisdiction and the application of appropriate penalties and limits to their activity.
    - LexiMax 9mo ago
      You don't have to go that far, there's a lot easier solution - prefer socializing in spaces that actually vet their users to some degree and have humans who have an active hand in moderation. It's the old way that social spaces on the internet used to work, and you don't need ID verification for that, you just need spaces that are conducive to that style of community-building. Think Discord, not Instagram. Think (invite-only) Mastodon, not Twitter. Think lobsters, not HN. Think Tildes, not Reddit.
  - yetihehe 9mo ago
    > They have more time that they are willing to waste on propaganda than you Yes, that's why I need others to help. There are actually less of them (bots) than us. There is one pretty strange "tiktok-like" site, that has the worst kind of people and memes out there showing up regularly, something like 4chan but for images, but somehow most trolls (there are trolls from many different groups operating there) still can't hold on and every such trolling post is pretty fast met with a big wave of downvotes and counter-comments. > The only other alternative is for the paid moderation of this site to put their foot down and say "We are not okay with fascists and authoritarian apologists on our site" and ban them The owners of that site can't manage such a big firehose of hate and most users say that they are racist degenerates (and they say they don't care if you are black or white racist, if you are racist they like you). > The admins of Hacker News are another on a very long list of social media site hosts who have decided to wash their hands of the responsibility. They don't care. They DO care and a lot of users here also care. Every stupid comment that I've seen could be from troll was very quickly downvoted and counter-commented. We didn't see a lot of them, because they are deleted pretty fast and often and trolls just can't get easy foothold here.
- okanat 9mo ago
  You are not going to change somebody's opinion if they submit to Twitter discourse. Not even getting screwed personally would change their opinion. Hard right wingers at any time in history learn in only one way.
  - yetihehe 9mo ago
    Hard right wingers are a small minority. There also exist people that can change their opinion. If you don't engage with hard right wingers, a lot of people won't see ant counter-arguments and will be convinced that hard-right way is the majority view, is the right way, and will flock to that way of thinking. Engaging with right wingers on public forum is necessary, so that their voice is not the only one heard.
    - bflesch 9mo ago
      We're all underestimating the sheer number of people in russia who have a "career" in a while-collar job in some propaganda unit. It's a good way to work at the army but not having to actually fight at the front. They pose as citizens of European, African, Asian or American countries online and try to steer discussion to subvert the local society. The Twitter location reveal showcases that it has an immense scale. There are many examples such as Scottish independence movement going offline when iran goes offline. On websites like HN and reddit you cannot even see where someone is originating from. But you can ALWAYS detect them by the cognitive biases they're using to drive their propaganda: false equivalency biase, false choice dilemmas, and so on.
      - yetihehe 9mo ago
        > We're all underestimating the sheer number of people in russia who have a "career" in a while-collar job in some propaganda unit. Yes, and there are more Russians than Ukrainians, yet somehow they can't overcome a smaller country in 4 years. Trolls want you to give up in countering them. Their work is about pushing propaganda AND demoralising people so that they give up fighting. When you think "why bother", they won.

Don't worry, you're either arguing with useful idiots or pathetic SOBs working in a propaganda unit in russia.

by bflesch 9mo ago

Don't worry, you're either arguing with useful idiots or pathetic SOBs working in a propaganda unit in russia.

yetihehe 9mo ago

The problem is that if no one responds to such idiots, even more idiots might be swayed into their direction.

LexiMax 9mo ago
They are either being paid, or they are so lost in propaganda that they're willing to do it >for free. They have more time that they are willing to waste on propaganda than you, unless you decide to dedicate every waking moment to a rebuttable you are behind the eight ball. Even then, they're probably in dozens of communities and threads at the same time, repeating the same garbage. The only way this sort of rhetoric can be fought is at the level of moderation. This site has user-driven moderation, which in theory means that you can fight the tide this way, but in practice the authoritarians and fascists have access to these tools as well, and bad faith use is rarely punished, so these tools are less of a panacea and more of a race to who can down-vote who first. The only other alternative is for the paid moderation of this site to put their foot down and say "We are not okay with fascists and authoritarian apologists on our site" and ban them. The admins of Hacker News are another on a very long list of social media site hosts who have decided to wash their hands of the responsibility. They don't care. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If you decide you still want to engage, I recommend viewing the interaction through the lens of an attention economy; spend less time on a rebuttle than they did on their post, and only in places where you think it will actually be seen.
- bflesch 9mo ago
  Correct, it's literally their main job to spew propaganda. As demonstrated repeatedly by power outages in st. petersburg, moscow and most recently iran. Unless one verifies every single user by ID, there needs to be at least a platform-level detection of user jurisdiction and the application of appropriate penalties and limits to their activity.
  - LexiMax 9mo ago
    You don't have to go that far, there's a lot easier solution - prefer socializing in spaces that actually vet their users to some degree and have humans who have an active hand in moderation. It's the old way that social spaces on the internet used to work, and you don't need ID verification for that, you just need spaces that are conducive to that style of community-building. Think Discord, not Instagram. Think (invite-only) Mastodon, not Twitter. Think lobsters, not HN. Think Tildes, not Reddit.
- yetihehe 9mo ago
  > They have more time that they are willing to waste on propaganda than you Yes, that's why I need others to help. There are actually less of them (bots) than us. There is one pretty strange "tiktok-like" site, that has the worst kind of people and memes out there showing up regularly, something like 4chan but for images, but somehow most trolls (there are trolls from many different groups operating there) still can't hold on and every such trolling post is pretty fast met with a big wave of downvotes and counter-comments. > The only other alternative is for the paid moderation of this site to put their foot down and say "We are not okay with fascists and authoritarian apologists on our site" and ban them The owners of that site can't manage such a big firehose of hate and most users say that they are racist degenerates (and they say they don't care if you are black or white racist, if you are racist they like you). > The admins of Hacker News are another on a very long list of social media site hosts who have decided to wash their hands of the responsibility. They don't care. They DO care and a lot of users here also care. Every stupid comment that I've seen could be from troll was very quickly downvoted and counter-commented. We didn't see a lot of them, because they are deleted pretty fast and often and trolls just can't get easy foothold here.
okanat 9mo ago
You are not going to change somebody's opinion if they submit to Twitter discourse. Not even getting screwed personally would change their opinion. Hard right wingers at any time in history learn in only one way.
- yetihehe 9mo ago
  Hard right wingers are a small minority. There also exist people that can change their opinion. If you don't engage with hard right wingers, a lot of people won't see ant counter-arguments and will be convinced that hard-right way is the majority view, is the right way, and will flock to that way of thinking. Engaging with right wingers on public forum is necessary, so that their voice is not the only one heard.
  - bflesch 9mo ago
    We're all underestimating the sheer number of people in russia who have a "career" in a while-collar job in some propaganda unit. It's a good way to work at the army but not having to actually fight at the front. They pose as citizens of European, African, Asian or American countries online and try to steer discussion to subvert the local society. The Twitter location reveal showcases that it has an immense scale. There are many examples such as Scottish independence movement going offline when iran goes offline. On websites like HN and reddit you cannot even see where someone is originating from. But you can ALWAYS detect them by the cognitive biases they're using to drive their propaganda: false equivalency biase, false choice dilemmas, and so on.
    - yetihehe 9mo ago
      > We're all underestimating the sheer number of people in russia who have a "career" in a while-collar job in some propaganda unit. Yes, and there are more Russians than Ukrainians, yet somehow they can't overcome a smaller country in 4 years. Trolls want you to give up in countering them. Their work is about pushing propaganda AND demoralising people so that they give up fighting. When you think "why bother", they won.