10 ms·

Looking at the comments in support of the NSA here makes me suspect an astroturfing campaign is happening. Edit: I should add that my suspicion came from notic

by pa7ch 12y ago

Looking at the comments in support of the NSA here makes me suspect an astroturfing campaign is happening. Edit: I should add that my suspicion came from noticing that the vast majority of the comments when this was first posted seemed aligned in favor of the NSA's mission. It wasn't the presence of pro-NSA comments that was interesting but rather that these opinions were the overwhelming majority. This is, of course, how astroturfing becomes effective, it is not the rhetoric that is important but the cognitive bias imparted by the facade of so many people falling to one side of an issue. This is of course, only a suspicion, but it seemed worth noting.

sroerick 12y ago
Hacker News is quite astroturfed. Every web forum is.
- omphalos 12y ago
  One approach to countering sock-puppetry as a general problem is with increased transparency. Personally, I think lobste.rs' notion of a user tree is a step in the right direction: https://lobste.rs/u https://lobste.rs/u
  - sroerick 12y ago
    Very interesting. I like that a lot. However I'm not sure it would ever work with an open forum. Invite only is awesome, but open forums are important too.
  - mikegioia 12y ago
    Do you have an account there? I would love to get an invite if so, that site looks really cool.
    - alecco 12y ago
      The introduction tree is a great idea. But lobsters community is junk. If you dare have an opinion against their hivemind you get donwvoted to oblivion. It's like a clique took over. Reddit had a similar problem with truthers taking over discourse at the beginning, luckily it went away. Perhaps because there was a popular parody account mocking them all the time (something like 9_11_was_an_inside_job), and that account retired in time when it's job was done.
      - mikegioia 12y ago
        Dang, that's frustrating. That's exactly what I was hoping against, having any for of hivemind or clique.
  - dreamfactory2 12y ago
    What about the opposite approach - enforced anonymity so that arguments have to stand on their own merits?
    - rhizome 12y ago
      An appearance of merit can be engineered/manufactured, which is one of the foundational concepts of classical trolling, not to mention thread-poisoning.
krapp 12y ago
You're probably right. No need to consider the arguments made by people who don't agree entirely with a particular point of view, or even discuss it at all. They're obviously just shills. Edit: Much of the 'pro NSA' comments I see here seem merely to suggest that not everything the NSA does is evil, and not every disclosure is necessarily useful. As often happens in threads like these, any such comments are dismissed as the work of astroturfing or shills. To imply that disagreement with any narrative presented by the Guardian and Spiegel Online must make one an agent with ulterior motives, is precisely the kind of propagandist trolling any forum which cares about truth should avoid. Yes, the NSA has a covert program to attempt to influence online messageboard and social media accounts. No, this program does not account for every even remotely 'pro-NSA' opinion one might find online. And even if it did, judge them on their own merits and move on, because you really can't tell. It's all just text in a box. Seeing spooks everywhere doesn't make you free, it just makes you paranoid.
- pa7ch 12y ago
  In the interest of facilitating a open and fair discussion on the larger issue of state surveillance, I highly recommend checking out the 2014 Munk debates: http://www.munkdebates.com/debates/state-surveillance http://www.munkdebates.com/debates/state-surveillance General Hayden and Glenn Greenwald are given fair time to discuss the issue and to give rebuttals to each other. Its much more informative then trying to parse HN comments to form an opinion about state surveillance. It also forces you to consider the views of people who don't agree with you.
  - csandreasen 12y ago
    For those who aren't Munk members, it's also available on C-SPAN[1]. I thought it was an entertaining debate, but not as good as I hoped it would be (I watched it live when it was first broadcasted). My memory is a little foggy, but as I recall, Glenn Greenwald went off on his usual 'the NSA is the epitome of evil and exists solely to invade your privacy' rants; Michael Hayden spent most of his time backtracking and focusing on where Greenwald was factually wrong rather than making his own argument; I didn't think Alan Dershowitz made a particularly convincing argument; and Alexis Ohanian made some greats points but was completely ignored by everyone else. I personally enjoyed watching Jameel Jaffer (ACLU) square off against Chris Inglis (former NSA Deputy Director) at the Brookings Institute last year[2] - both sides had good arguments. For that matter, Benjamin Wittes (the guy moderating the debate) has had some good interviews on his blog[3] and podcast[4] as well - you don't see many outlets that will have James Comey (FBI director) one week followed by Chris Soghoian (ACLU) the next week. [1] http://www.c-span.org/video/?319161-1/munk-debate-state-surveillance http://www.c-span.org/video/?319161-1/munk-debate-state-surv... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3KKEh2AS6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3KKEh2AS6E [3] http://www.lawfareblog.com/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/ [4] http://www.lawfareblog.com/category/podcasts/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/category/podcasts/
deleted 12y ago
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Cakez0r 12y ago
Was thinking the same thing. Comments asking unbiased and valid questions are being downvoted...
diminoten 12y ago
There is absolutely no reason for the NSA to give a flying fuck about what you or I think. There just isn't, and it'd be a waste of resources to even attempt something like this. People do exist (I am one of them) who think the NSA is doing a nasty job that isn't very appealing, but is absolutely necessary for me to be able to sleep in my bed at night safely. They may not have the best guidance from the government, but there are people who do believe they're doing the best they can. Why must there be a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place? Why can't there just be people who actually agree with some/most of what the NSA has done, based on the laws that govern it?
- task_queue 12y ago
  I agree that it's best to assume earnestness in opinions, I disagree with your opening. There absolutely is a reason for the NSA to give a fuck what you or I think. They are an intelligence and security agency, operating covertly with plausible deniability is what they do. More importantly, there are laws trying to be passed that can strengthen or weaken their funding and power. Making people at home feel that the agency needs to keep up the good work is not a waste of funds to that end. They just got caught with their pants down spying on the American people. If they don't try to take hold of the narrative they might see themselves at the shit end of the political stick.
  - diminoten 12y ago
    There is no political stick for them to be on, because every decision-maker in the US government knows how important the NSA is.
    - srj 12y ago
      Where's your evidence for that? The hearings in congress I think have shown that there are doubts from decision-makers.
      - diminoten 12y ago
        The lack of traction any of those movements get, and the general disconnect that every. single. congressperson. has when it comes to cyber security.
deleted 12y ago
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patcon 12y ago
Assume that since there is something to be gained by the more powerful on one side, that a certain portion of the comments siding with the more empowered source are owned. It's not worth calling out individual commenters, because you can't know. But assume that some portion is shilling. The hard part is guessing what portion. 10 percent? 30 percent? What's the time-graph? Is it 50% of initial comments, tapering off to just us Real Folk to dither around with the wondering phase of the conversation? The important thing is to assume that you're often witnessing a deceit in some capacity, in most any important conversation. Needless to say, all this is pretty fucked up. EDIT: Changed percentages, because I honestly don't know what's reasonable :/
Rapzid 12y ago
I've been reading the comments and it looks like typical political bickering. People have been made so polarized on these issues by propaganda, astroturfing, the two party system, mainstream media, and etc. that they can't have a conversation about these topics without going for the throat. Shockingly, or not so shockingly, even on Hacker News we can not seem to have constructive conversations about this stuff.
- dreamfactory2 12y ago
  Job done I guess
foxhedgehog 12y ago
wait so if somebody disagrees with you, even on principle, it's evidence of astroturfing?
deleted 12y ago
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aurelius 12y ago
What comments in support of the NSA? Any comments in support of the NSA here are IMMEDIATELY flag-killed by the HN Nazis who love to suppress any kind of free speech they don't agree with.
jeangenie 12y ago
It's interesting to note that it's not just comments that can be manipulated but also the stories that are upvoted.

by pa7ch 12y ago

sroerick 12y ago

Hacker News is quite astroturfed. Every web forum is.

omphalos 12y ago
One approach to countering sock-puppetry as a general problem is with increased transparency. Personally, I think lobste.rs' notion of a user tree is a step in the right direction: https://lobste.rs/u https://lobste.rs/u
- sroerick 12y ago
  Very interesting. I like that a lot. However I'm not sure it would ever work with an open forum. Invite only is awesome, but open forums are important too.
- mikegioia 12y ago
  Do you have an account there? I would love to get an invite if so, that site looks really cool.
  - alecco 12y ago
    The introduction tree is a great idea. But lobsters community is junk. If you dare have an opinion against their hivemind you get donwvoted to oblivion. It's like a clique took over. Reddit had a similar problem with truthers taking over discourse at the beginning, luckily it went away. Perhaps because there was a popular parody account mocking them all the time (something like 9_11_was_an_inside_job), and that account retired in time when it's job was done.
    - mikegioia 12y ago
      Dang, that's frustrating. That's exactly what I was hoping against, having any for of hivemind or clique.
- dreamfactory2 12y ago
  What about the opposite approach - enforced anonymity so that arguments have to stand on their own merits?
  - rhizome 12y ago
    An appearance of merit can be engineered/manufactured, which is one of the foundational concepts of classical trolling, not to mention thread-poisoning.

krapp 12y ago

You're probably right. No need to consider the arguments made by people who don't agree entirely with a particular point of view, or even discuss it at all. They're obviously just shills. Edit: Much of the 'pro NSA' comments I see here seem merely to suggest that not everything the NSA does is evil, and not every disclosure is necessarily useful. As often happens in threads like these, any such comments are dismissed as the work of astroturfing or shills. To imply that disagreement with any narrative presented by the Guardian and Spiegel Online must make one an agent with ulterior motives, is precisely the kind of propagandist trolling any forum which cares about truth should avoid. Yes, the NSA has a covert program to attempt to influence online messageboard and social media accounts. No, this program does not account for every even remotely 'pro-NSA' opinion one might find online. And even if it did, judge them on their own merits and move on, because you really can't tell. It's all just text in a box. Seeing spooks everywhere doesn't make you free, it just makes you paranoid.

pa7ch 12y ago
In the interest of facilitating a open and fair discussion on the larger issue of state surveillance, I highly recommend checking out the 2014 Munk debates: http://www.munkdebates.com/debates/state-surveillance http://www.munkdebates.com/debates/state-surveillance General Hayden and Glenn Greenwald are given fair time to discuss the issue and to give rebuttals to each other. Its much more informative then trying to parse HN comments to form an opinion about state surveillance. It also forces you to consider the views of people who don't agree with you.
- csandreasen 12y ago
  For those who aren't Munk members, it's also available on C-SPAN[1]. I thought it was an entertaining debate, but not as good as I hoped it would be (I watched it live when it was first broadcasted). My memory is a little foggy, but as I recall, Glenn Greenwald went off on his usual 'the NSA is the epitome of evil and exists solely to invade your privacy' rants; Michael Hayden spent most of his time backtracking and focusing on where Greenwald was factually wrong rather than making his own argument; I didn't think Alan Dershowitz made a particularly convincing argument; and Alexis Ohanian made some greats points but was completely ignored by everyone else. I personally enjoyed watching Jameel Jaffer (ACLU) square off against Chris Inglis (former NSA Deputy Director) at the Brookings Institute last year[2] - both sides had good arguments. For that matter, Benjamin Wittes (the guy moderating the debate) has had some good interviews on his blog[3] and podcast[4] as well - you don't see many outlets that will have James Comey (FBI director) one week followed by Chris Soghoian (ACLU) the next week. [1] http://www.c-span.org/video/?319161-1/munk-debate-state-surveillance http://www.c-span.org/video/?319161-1/munk-debate-state-surv... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3KKEh2AS6E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3KKEh2AS6E [3] http://www.lawfareblog.com/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/ [4] http://www.lawfareblog.com/category/podcasts/ http://www.lawfareblog.com/category/podcasts/

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Cakez0r 12y ago

Was thinking the same thing. Comments asking unbiased and valid questions are being downvoted...

diminoten 12y ago

There is absolutely no reason for the NSA to give a flying fuck about what you or I think. There just isn't, and it'd be a waste of resources to even attempt something like this. People do exist (I am one of them) who think the NSA is doing a nasty job that isn't very appealing, but is absolutely necessary for me to be able to sleep in my bed at night safely. They may not have the best guidance from the government, but there are people who do believe they're doing the best they can. Why must there be a conspiratorial astroturfing campaign taking place? Why can't there just be people who actually agree with some/most of what the NSA has done, based on the laws that govern it?

task_queue 12y ago
I agree that it's best to assume earnestness in opinions, I disagree with your opening. There absolutely is a reason for the NSA to give a fuck what you or I think. They are an intelligence and security agency, operating covertly with plausible deniability is what they do. More importantly, there are laws trying to be passed that can strengthen or weaken their funding and power. Making people at home feel that the agency needs to keep up the good work is not a waste of funds to that end. They just got caught with their pants down spying on the American people. If they don't try to take hold of the narrative they might see themselves at the shit end of the political stick.
- diminoten 12y ago
  There is no political stick for them to be on, because every decision-maker in the US government knows how important the NSA is.
  - srj 12y ago
    Where's your evidence for that? The hearings in congress I think have shown that there are doubts from decision-makers.
    - diminoten 12y ago
      The lack of traction any of those movements get, and the general disconnect that every. single. congressperson. has when it comes to cyber security.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

patcon 12y ago

Assume that since there is something to be gained by the more powerful on one side, that a certain portion of the comments siding with the more empowered source are owned. It's not worth calling out individual commenters, because you can't know. But assume that some portion is shilling. The hard part is guessing what portion. 10 percent? 30 percent? What's the time-graph? Is it 50% of initial comments, tapering off to just us Real Folk to dither around with the wondering phase of the conversation? The important thing is to assume that you're often witnessing a deceit in some capacity, in most any important conversation. Needless to say, all this is pretty fucked up. EDIT: Changed percentages, because I honestly don't know what's reasonable :/

Rapzid 12y ago

I've been reading the comments and it looks like typical political bickering. People have been made so polarized on these issues by propaganda, astroturfing, the two party system, mainstream media, and etc. that they can't have a conversation about these topics without going for the throat. Shockingly, or not so shockingly, even on Hacker News we can not seem to have constructive conversations about this stuff.

dreamfactory2 12y ago
Job done I guess

foxhedgehog 12y ago

wait so if somebody disagrees with you, even on principle, it's evidence of astroturfing?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

aurelius 12y ago

What comments in support of the NSA? Any comments in support of the NSA here are IMMEDIATELY flag-killed by the HN Nazis who love to suppress any kind of free speech they don't agree with.

jeangenie 12y ago

It's interesting to note that it's not just comments that can be manipulated but also the stories that are upvoted.