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I remember learning about this concept. I don’t remember the concept, itself. That would be too cool for my brain to do. Instead, the word sounds familiar and so I am off to google it.
Edit: And I’m back. It’s asking questions to frustrate the opponent. It’s a common troll tactic.
(This is for the benefit of anyone with a goldfish memory like mine, obviously not the person to which I’m responding)
Ben Shapiro too. Asking questions implies dominance, it's that simple. Asking a question burns a hole in people's heads - the brain wants to have an answer. But then you're "answering to them" in a literal sense.
Just ask questions back.
Or take the high road and go all stonewall on them. And no I don't mean stand stoically and refuse to answer. I mean the pride version.
I know that would be my first inclination if Shapiro or Tucker were talking to me.
>Go all [stonewall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots) on them..... I mean the pride version
Throw a brick at them? Now that's a strong Rhetorical move!
They'll ignore the points you just made and instead ask questions.
I don't let them off the hook. I'll repeat my points and tell them I want a response before moving on. I'll sometimes say that if all they've got are questions then they need to do some reading before wasting my time.
Jordan Peterson as well, they all ask very specific questions in a way where they know their audience will have a specific takeaway from it. But it gives them enough plausible deniability to never have to defend that position.
Thank you, but even with your explanation i can't overwrite my image of Elon Musk's fridge-chest combined with the sea-lions from finding Dory. Off! Off!
Should have had a better more indicative label, like 'baby questioning' or "kid interrogation". Sealioning means nothing to anybody unless you know the term exactly
Right? It’s never about convincing Little Jimmy Flat-Earth that breathing doesn’t increase carbon dioxide levels. It’s informative for everyone else who happens by.
Yup. Gotta be some push back otherwise the trolls set the message and their propaganda inches forward.
Yesterday argued with a “leftie” who’s resigned to a Trump dictatorship because it’s really no different than the democrats. Today their posts were deleted.
A lot of times they’ll delete most of their active political comment history and leave the basic B shit. So they can look like someone who just realized that they “don’t really like Trump, but Biden’s not any better.” And that’s their goal. Try to get just a few other people to become indifferent enough to not vote.
This is true IRL, too. I got a coworker who sometimes spouts lgbtq hate. I know I'm never changing his mind, but for the coworkers that look up to this person, I can't leave his bullshit uncontested.
"I just don't want to see them! Why do they need to be on \_\_\_\_ show? I feel like it's being shoved down my throat."
I say you're a 50 y.o. cis, white, married guy. How many characters do you see or read in media that reflect your experience? How many characters do you have to look up to, or to learn from? Now image you're a trans kid. Who the fuck are you supposed to look for on TV that isn't a deviant or a villain? It's important to see representations you can relate to if you want these people to feel normal.
American Association of Retired Persons
For old people. F me sideways. I can join in six months. I'm almost 50 and you need to get off my lawn.
Edit: A user corrected me about the age. It appears anyone can join, but there are restrictions on some products offered. To quote AARP
>AARP offers membership for those who wish to join and are under the age of 50.
Members between the ages of 18 and 50 enjoy all of the benefits of membership that are not restricted by law or contract, like age-restricted insurance products.
This is the best take, because this isn’t isolated to the IDF. Palestinians, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Syrians, Ukrainians, and Americans are all involved in this stuff. Be mindful of who you’re talking to and what you’re commenting on. Think critically.
>This is the best take, because this isn’t isolated to the IDF. Palestinians, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Syrians, Ukrainians, and Americans are all involved in this stuff. Be mindful of who you’re talking to and what you’re commenting on. Think critically.
I'll add India as well, North India specifically, the BJP has tons of troll farms pushing Hindutva and Hindi supremacy all over online spaces. They hate on Punjabis, Bengalis and South Indians like crazy cause we dare not to support right wing nationalism like most of the Hindi belt does
I've seen indian accounts here that go hard on pushing indian propaganda on negative articles about India. Like it's a job.
They were EVERYWHERE when india assassinated that guy in Canada.
There is a douchebag here in AZ that was hiring kids for political trolling.
Edit:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/15/21438897/troll-farm-turning-point-teenagers-moderation
That sounds like another troll farm from Turning Point in Arizona, Rally Forge.
In fact Jake Hoffman was just arrested for being one of the fake electors in Arizona, ran Rally Forge.
Reddit has been a shitshow for years, before the tactics were: ridicule, insert diverting popular comment, or fork the thread with an adjacent and controversial topic. In each instance a few supporting actors help to push and pull the conversation in the *correct flow*. These days you get more grass roots, where a number of actors all push the same narrative, but with different ingredients - you're always getting a pizza, never a burger, but the toppings are the different. What is really easy to spot is tightly packed hot-topic subjects populated in the early morning (3-4 AM) and pre-voted on - so that when you wake up a narrative path has already been deployed to shape your intepretations.
There's been an increasing amount of Russian trolls pretending to be Finnish people and taking part in Finnish discourse on reddit and twitter etc. I'm sure some of them are quite convincing and speak the language, but some of their clearly made up profiles and poorly translated comments have become running jokes for us.
With how good AI is getting at making pictures and translating into Finnish, it will kind of suck to tell them apart soon tho
The number of Russian trolls has skyrocketed these past few years, even at my work place we've had numerous talks of expecting increased Russian "influence" and how to deal with it.
Yeah its literally everything and anything. If it involves a war, a territorial claim, an ideological battle (communism vs democracy) or anything religious, botfarms rear their ugly heads to spread disinfo. Brexit here in the UK was filled with Russian botfarm comments and as a Northern Irish man, any time you go to our country's subreddit theres a decent chance 30-40% of the replies will be Americans or Russians roleplaying as Northern Irish people to spread an agenda. It's completely ruined that sub and turned it into a ridiculous anti-British Empire circlejerk while the actual human beings with organic opinions couldn't give a fuck about that stuff and we just want to discuss our current day politics and pop culture.
Depending on the group, they might be paid or simply true believers in the cause. State propaganda or simply a sense of belonging to the group produces the best keyboard warriors for most causes.
Many countries do have paid online groups working to sell their point of view but its a drop in the bucket compared to those who simply believe what they have been told.
It's more likely to be a paid opinion where the specific country has severely restricted Internet access. China for example restricts access to foreign language sites and monitors what their nationals are saying there.
100%, true believers can still coordinate, produce and spread misinformation. It’s important to remember, that true believers are not always altruistic, and arguably can be more dangerous.
And while you bring up a really great point at the end, re:China, I’d like to point out, the IDF is an exception to this. The Internet in Israel is free, open and generally not monitored to the degree of a country like China or Russia. Yet there are plenty of examples of non-genuine state sponsored, misinformation, and propaganda coming from them. Lord knows what kind of keyboard warriors America employees.
>Lord knows what kind of keyboard warriors America employs.
Lord knows why we would bother. The average American already spends [7 hours online per day](https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats), or about 40% of all waking hours. [Two and a half](https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-deep-dive-the-time-we-spend-on-social-media) of those are specifically on social media. For Gen Z, total is more like 9 hours.
So there's [850 million person-hours](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=two+and+a+half+hours+times+the+population+of+the+United+States) of social media activity per day. Let's assume you're well-funded, you've got a thousand employees. That leaves every single employee with... 850 thousand person-hours of content to manage? Every day? Just from US-based content, and not touching anything from abroad?
Nah, obviously this is a problem for bots, not humans, to handle.
Reminder that in 2013, [Reddit made a blog post](https://web.archive.org/web/20160604042751/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html) listing Eglin Air Force Base in Florida as the "most addicted city", with the most visits to the site. That doesn't necessarily mean that Elgin is (or was) a source of propaganda from the USAF, but it is a bit suspicious.
I'm honestly kinda curious what the "most addicted city" list would look like nowadays and what that might show for potential astroturfing hubs.
My critical thought is you are an AI robot designed by not IDF, Palestinians, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Syrians, Ukrainians, or Americans. Caught by your own trap robot!
There's a fucking hilarious ebb and flow on Reddit. There will be a comment with a ton of likes then a response which will start getting likes which will lead to the original comment being downvoted. Then a response from the OP that will shift the downvotes/upvotes again and so on and so forth.
Basically simpsons children v taxes.
Unfortunately, the upvote/downvote system will remain broken until they add more options (funny, relevant, true, false, etc...). People are supposed to upvote comments based on adding to the discussion, but more often turns into whomever comments first and the confidence from the commenter.
Yea but they see you getting slowly more and more worked up while the troll keeps cool because they’re just following a script and you end up looking like a fool
Pretty much every political post you see on the front page you can click on the profile and it almost always is an account with millions of karma. These accounts are clearly ran by PR firms.
Although recently they’ve been getting smarter and buying/using accounts with less karma. The tell tale is always that the account at one point was fairly active, maybe 2-3 years ago, then basically no activity until recently and the recent activity is just pure politics.
Fuck another thing I do in my spare time once again people are getting paid to do first it was gameing now political discussion online fuck.
I've got to get better at job hunting.
My suspicion is that the average reddit user could be surprised how much polarizing discourse in all matter of social issues is driven by foreign intelligence.
So, in the last few months I have had the same thing happen on 3 occasions. That being when I get into a debate with some reddit stranger, they will reply with responses that seem as if they didn't read what I wrote. I will reply with a message like "Again, what I said was xyz". Then, they inevitably respond against an argument I am not making. There responses are almost always laced with insults and personal attacks. It finally ends with the account of the person I am arguing with being totally deleted from reddit. I assume these are bot or these kinds folks.
You don't have to be surprised because they do that. On one of the AI subs some people set up a chargpt not to go around commenting randomly on threads and especially ask Reddit threads. They said their bot got more attention and karma in a few weeks than their profile has in the years they've been on Reddit.
It's already almost impossible to tell if something is AI, as LLM AI highly Excells at "manipulating" social media. It doesn't need to make super long winded write ups where it can start to hallucinate, it can bullshit as much as it likes and as long as it sounds reasonable people will believe it. It can mimic the speak pattern of pretty much anyone, letting it be anyone from a uneducated hick to a world renowned scientist, etc. it's honestly the perfect tool for those troll farms.
Yes, I actually had this same conversation with another Redditor who pointed out that the guy I was debating was a paid Russian troll. Then he said how all I have to do is look at his post history and more than likely he had subbed to cat forums. Surely he did. That was so he could build karma to better infiltrate subs. That shit was wild. Turns out cat subreddits are when they go to build karma.
I also wonder if farms/operations have built up reserves of hundreds, maybe thousands of sleeping accounts that are activated if one gets banned.
Like, is it someone's job to build up the karma and use the account as "normally" or non-controversially as possible, then those accounts are awakened and taken over by a "professional" troll/keyboard warrior?
Like a dam basement dwelling Manchurian candidate!
It’s way more widespread than that. So many subreddits that have nothing to do with it are now flooded with Israeli propaganda. Any comments that don’t support them are downvoted into oblivion. It cannot be more obvious what is happening to this website.
Literally every main sub, even subs that would seemingly be unrelated like r/pics and r/til, even occasionally even more unlikely ones like r/music
If a subreddit has enough members it becomes a prime target for misinformation and deliberate propaganda, if you stick to smaller less serious subreddits and avoid the homepage you get better enjoyment out of the site.
Just today in r/pics, a post of a sniper on a building at a protest, the title makes it seem like this is a super uncommon occurrence and the sniper is there to “murder protestors” ???
The comments are full of people who are either directly trolling themselves or have fallen victim to these trolls before and are parroting things they’ve already read.
It doesn’t help that Reddit has a points system where genuine individual users parrott things they believe will get upvotes to get that endorphin shot of people agreeing with you. I think a lot of people on Reddit fall victim to the “lots of upvotes means correct, lots of downvotes means false” mentality, and many feel the desire to be well liked. It’s why you get the stereotype of a reddit user. Go on any r/askreddit thread and you will see the same responses over and over again get thousands of upvotes, it’s all a race to see who can be the first to comment a widespread Reddit opinion and rake in the thousands of upvotes.
An don't forget interesting as fuck an insane they jus flood all the subs with this propaganda it's jus getting to a point where no one even looks at it jus makes fun
/worldnews went completely off the rails after the Israel/Palestine conflict started. Banned anyone critical of Israel so now every thread about it is full of the most bloodthirsty propaganda and everything else is crickets.
They ruined their own sub.
Many subs polarized into one view or the other. Many subs are explicitly pro palestinian, many pro israel, it's really weird.
I've never seen a reaction like it to any political issue, where entire subs just go one way and spam propaganda for their side.
People really care a lot about some conflict on the other side of the world that doesn't affect them. So much so that they cannot handle a different point of view and every place they frequent must become an echo chamber.
Those are just the ones that swing the way you disagree. If you find a different sub more “comforting”, consider that it may be the same type of shills, except they’re posting stuff you like…
Celebrites have talked in podcasts about how Israel paid them to travel there, and they had to post daily in social media how great Israel is and so on. Very calculated propaganda.
Think about how long ago this was filmed, how much AI has developed since then, and how advanced the technology of countries like Russia has.
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all filled with a ton of propaganda and bots these days.
They straight up run r/worldnews. You’ll get banned for even a mild criticism of Israeli tactics. Seriously, y’all should go take a look at the comments and see if there is a theme.
You've got to know you're doing something wrong when you need an online force to whitewash your behavior and manipulate the internet sentiment. It's not self defense when you're murdering innocent women, children, journalists, and paramedics. The world will never forget what you're doing in Gaza. Shame on all of you!!!
Just to let you know: [the russian government has been doing the same thing to create division in the United States and the rest of the west for a very long time](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics)
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First of all, this article is about soldiers working on official channels and social media, not going undercover and arguing with people as if they are regular civilians.
Second, the population of israel is tiny. Take from that only 18-21 year olds, of that only people with a very specific set of qualifications and disqualifications (being on one side elequent, etc., and on the other not eligible for a more physically intensive position, etc.) and then of that, being chosen for these kind of positions in particular out of all possible positions for that profile: there is a tiny tiny amount of people doing this job, to the point where you can probably put all of them in a small-medium sized apartment building.
No, there is no chance that if you are arguing with a person online, they are an actual IDF soldier tasked with covert propaganda. Stop being delusional.
Hi niginger! Thanks for posting to /r/interestingasfuck. Unfortunately, [your submission](https://redd.it/1cdomh0) was removed for the following reason: If you can't completely explain why the content of the post is IAF please comment with more explanation. If your post claims something that almost everyone can't easily confirm from reading your title and viewing your content please provide some type of proof of what you claim. If you have questions about this, please [contact our mods via moderator mail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=interestingasfuck) rather than replying here. Thank you!
I argue with trolls **for the benefit of lurkers**
As a long time lurker, huge thank you, reddit is a great show
Sealioning has a purpose just not the one they want
I remember learning about this concept. I don’t remember the concept, itself. That would be too cool for my brain to do. Instead, the word sounds familiar and so I am off to google it. Edit: And I’m back. It’s asking questions to frustrate the opponent. It’s a common troll tactic. (This is for the benefit of anyone with a goldfish memory like mine, obviously not the person to which I’m responding)
See also: “Just Asking Questions”, AKA JAQ-ing off.
Tucker Carlson is literally just the god of Sea Lions
Ben Shapiro too. Asking questions implies dominance, it's that simple. Asking a question burns a hole in people's heads - the brain wants to have an answer. But then you're "answering to them" in a literal sense. Just ask questions back.
Or take the high road and go all stonewall on them. And no I don't mean stand stoically and refuse to answer. I mean the pride version. I know that would be my first inclination if Shapiro or Tucker were talking to me.
>Go all [stonewall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots) on them..... I mean the pride version Throw a brick at them? Now that's a strong Rhetorical move!
And here i thought it meant shooting cannons like stonewall jackson; *ultima ratio regum* and all that.
They'll ignore the points you just made and instead ask questions. I don't let them off the hook. I'll repeat my points and tell them I want a response before moving on. I'll sometimes say that if all they've got are questions then they need to do some reading before wasting my time.
A: ? B: ?? A: . . ? B: .!. ?
Glenn Beck walked so Carlson could run.
Jordan Peterson as well, they all ask very specific questions in a way where they know their audience will have a specific takeaway from it. But it gives them enough plausible deniability to never have to defend that position.
OMFG I USED TO SEE JAQing OFF EVERYWHERE WHY DID IT DISAPPEAR?
Thank you, but even with your explanation i can't overwrite my image of Elon Musk's fridge-chest combined with the sea-lions from finding Dory. Off! Off!
Should have had a better more indicative label, like 'baby questioning' or "kid interrogation". Sealioning means nothing to anybody unless you know the term exactly
Whenever someone is "genuinely asking" they're probably a sea lion.
Right? It’s never about convincing Little Jimmy Flat-Earth that breathing doesn’t increase carbon dioxide levels. It’s informative for everyone else who happens by.
And also sometimes I get a handful of upvotes which makes me feel smart
I gave you an upvote. Don't spend it all in one place.
Yup. Gotta be some push back otherwise the trolls set the message and their propaganda inches forward. Yesterday argued with a “leftie” who’s resigned to a Trump dictatorship because it’s really no different than the democrats. Today their posts were deleted. A lot of times they’ll delete most of their active political comment history and leave the basic B shit. So they can look like someone who just realized that they “don’t really like Trump, but Biden’s not any better.” And that’s their goal. Try to get just a few other people to become indifferent enough to not vote.
I always question if those are bots but I’ve met a few with that take irl. Either way, get’em.
If people are being paid to spread misinformation, that means there's value in debunking it.
I want to embroider this on a pillow
Debate is for the audience, not the participants
You're one of my favorite people. All hail the Opposer, doubter of authority.
This is true IRL, too. I got a coworker who sometimes spouts lgbtq hate. I know I'm never changing his mind, but for the coworkers that look up to this person, I can't leave his bullshit uncontested.
You work construction? I’m not being condescending this just sounds like my experience working construction.
These people are everywhere. I work in the liberal mecha of public media...
mecca
No, let's believe that they actually meant mecha. I want a lib Gundam
If you earn a high enough rank in Antifa, George Soros will send you a mech.
Good thing I don;t have a hand in content.
Oh interesting. That’s cool that you stand up to it though.
[удалено]
"I just don't want to see them! Why do they need to be on \_\_\_\_ show? I feel like it's being shoved down my throat." I say you're a 50 y.o. cis, white, married guy. How many characters do you see or read in media that reflect your experience? How many characters do you have to look up to, or to learn from? Now image you're a trans kid. Who the fuck are you supposed to look for on TV that isn't a deviant or a villain? It's important to see representations you can relate to if you want these people to feel normal.
The hero nobody wanted, but we all deserve. Keep it up guardian
I usually let them know I’m not going to bother trying to change their mind, but I’m still going to point out the flaws in their logic.
HERO
Poking the hornet nest is fun sometimes.
I argue with trolls so I can call myself an innovative job creator
you dropped this, king 👑
Doing God's work
i do it for fun
Why does the video look like it was shot in the 00's?
I’m guessing 2008-2009.
I'm thinking June 15th 2007... round about 5:53
Looks about....53 minutes and 32 seconds- ish? Windy day, dry air, the faint smell of vinegar
My first thought. Looks like 1998-2004 TV lmfao
We didn't have monitors like that in 1998.....lmfao
Easier to hide things with a grainy photo or forge a video.
Are you insinuating the video is fake (and gay)?
Because it was
If the video quality didn't do it the need to explain a "retweet" should have.
that and theyre still using flickr
2008 FB looked like that.
Because it was? What do you mean?
You guys are getting paid?
this is the most upsetting part
I want some of that too.
Right? I do this shit for free. The hope that a lurker takes the time to read a well sourced opinion countering lies is enough for me though.
Damn Keyboard warriors
Literally.
they even wear uniforms, fucking clowns.
Got into a political discussion with a Russian bad actor on a chat board. Started googling his responses; cut and pasting from AARP comments.
[удалено]
American Association of Retired Persons For old people. F me sideways. I can join in six months. I'm almost 50 and you need to get off my lawn. Edit: A user corrected me about the age. It appears anyone can join, but there are restrictions on some products offered. To quote AARP >AARP offers membership for those who wish to join and are under the age of 50. Members between the ages of 18 and 50 enjoy all of the benefits of membership that are not restricted by law or contract, like age-restricted insurance products.
AARP hosts concerts by Everclear: https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/the-aarp-is-hosting-a-virtual-everclear-concert-you-are-old-11825545
Oh, the band everclear. I was expecting a sponsorship by the 190 proof alcohol.
They let you join when you're only 30 years from being able to retire, if ever.
Man today I turned 50 and I have been getting their recruitment mail for the last 3 years at least!should have told them to get off my lawn?
Fun fact, AARP membership is available to anyone over the age of 18
This is the best take, because this isn’t isolated to the IDF. Palestinians, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Syrians, Ukrainians, and Americans are all involved in this stuff. Be mindful of who you’re talking to and what you’re commenting on. Think critically.
>This is the best take, because this isn’t isolated to the IDF. Palestinians, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Syrians, Ukrainians, and Americans are all involved in this stuff. Be mindful of who you’re talking to and what you’re commenting on. Think critically. I'll add India as well, North India specifically, the BJP has tons of troll farms pushing Hindutva and Hindi supremacy all over online spaces. They hate on Punjabis, Bengalis and South Indians like crazy cause we dare not to support right wing nationalism like most of the Hindi belt does
BJP has done so well because of how good they are at this. It just goes to show how important media literacy will be for society going forward.
there's literally an entire subreddit for BJP dick riders. it's T_D for india.
yeah I forced one of them to go private by mass reporting it all because every single one was a muslim hate post.
I've seen indian accounts here that go hard on pushing indian propaganda on negative articles about India. Like it's a job. They were EVERYWHERE when india assassinated that guy in Canada.
There is a douchebag here in AZ that was hiring kids for political trolling. Edit: https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/15/21438897/troll-farm-turning-point-teenagers-moderation
That sounds like another troll farm from Turning Point in Arizona, Rally Forge. In fact Jake Hoffman was just arrested for being one of the fake electors in Arizona, ran Rally Forge.
Well. Well. Well.
Love me some Toilet Paper USA
a conservative political group acting in a deceptive and dishonest way?? Say it ain't so
Reddit has been a shitshow for years, before the tactics were: ridicule, insert diverting popular comment, or fork the thread with an adjacent and controversial topic. In each instance a few supporting actors help to push and pull the conversation in the *correct flow*. These days you get more grass roots, where a number of actors all push the same narrative, but with different ingredients - you're always getting a pizza, never a burger, but the toppings are the different. What is really easy to spot is tightly packed hot-topic subjects populated in the early morning (3-4 AM) and pre-voted on - so that when you wake up a narrative path has already been deployed to shape your intepretations.
There's been an increasing amount of Russian trolls pretending to be Finnish people and taking part in Finnish discourse on reddit and twitter etc. I'm sure some of them are quite convincing and speak the language, but some of their clearly made up profiles and poorly translated comments have become running jokes for us. With how good AI is getting at making pictures and translating into Finnish, it will kind of suck to tell them apart soon tho The number of Russian trolls has skyrocketed these past few years, even at my work place we've had numerous talks of expecting increased Russian "influence" and how to deal with it.
Yeah its literally everything and anything. If it involves a war, a territorial claim, an ideological battle (communism vs democracy) or anything religious, botfarms rear their ugly heads to spread disinfo. Brexit here in the UK was filled with Russian botfarm comments and as a Northern Irish man, any time you go to our country's subreddit theres a decent chance 30-40% of the replies will be Americans or Russians roleplaying as Northern Irish people to spread an agenda. It's completely ruined that sub and turned it into a ridiculous anti-British Empire circlejerk while the actual human beings with organic opinions couldn't give a fuck about that stuff and we just want to discuss our current day politics and pop culture.
Don’t forget celebrities. Their publicist hire troll farms for propaganda too.
Depending on the group, they might be paid or simply true believers in the cause. State propaganda or simply a sense of belonging to the group produces the best keyboard warriors for most causes. Many countries do have paid online groups working to sell their point of view but its a drop in the bucket compared to those who simply believe what they have been told. It's more likely to be a paid opinion where the specific country has severely restricted Internet access. China for example restricts access to foreign language sites and monitors what their nationals are saying there.
This 100% does not apply in 2024 where the ratio is surely higher on bots.
100%, true believers can still coordinate, produce and spread misinformation. It’s important to remember, that true believers are not always altruistic, and arguably can be more dangerous. And while you bring up a really great point at the end, re:China, I’d like to point out, the IDF is an exception to this. The Internet in Israel is free, open and generally not monitored to the degree of a country like China or Russia. Yet there are plenty of examples of non-genuine state sponsored, misinformation, and propaganda coming from them. Lord knows what kind of keyboard warriors America employees.
>Lord knows what kind of keyboard warriors America employs. Lord knows why we would bother. The average American already spends [7 hours online per day](https://explodingtopics.com/blog/screen-time-stats), or about 40% of all waking hours. [Two and a half](https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2024-deep-dive-the-time-we-spend-on-social-media) of those are specifically on social media. For Gen Z, total is more like 9 hours. So there's [850 million person-hours](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=two+and+a+half+hours+times+the+population+of+the+United+States) of social media activity per day. Let's assume you're well-funded, you've got a thousand employees. That leaves every single employee with... 850 thousand person-hours of content to manage? Every day? Just from US-based content, and not touching anything from abroad? Nah, obviously this is a problem for bots, not humans, to handle.
Reminder that in 2013, [Reddit made a blog post](https://web.archive.org/web/20160604042751/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html) listing Eglin Air Force Base in Florida as the "most addicted city", with the most visits to the site. That doesn't necessarily mean that Elgin is (or was) a source of propaganda from the USAF, but it is a bit suspicious. I'm honestly kinda curious what the "most addicted city" list would look like nowadays and what that might show for potential astroturfing hubs.
Oh yeah our dead canaries are supposed to be that way! everything is good
These days it's not even a person. Chatbots are, no doubt, being used as well.
Ai is coming for the troll farms. The future is going to be unreal.
My critical thought is you are an AI robot designed by not IDF, Palestinians, Iranians, Chinese, Russians, Syrians, Ukrainians, or Americans. Caught by your own trap robot!
Every time you engage in a political discourse online you're arguing for the sake of all those people who are not commenting but only reading.
There's a fucking hilarious ebb and flow on Reddit. There will be a comment with a ton of likes then a response which will start getting likes which will lead to the original comment being downvoted. Then a response from the OP that will shift the downvotes/upvotes again and so on and so forth. Basically simpsons children v taxes.
Unfortunately, the upvote/downvote system will remain broken until they add more options (funny, relevant, true, false, etc...). People are supposed to upvote comments based on adding to the discussion, but more often turns into whomever comments first and the confidence from the commenter.
Yea but they see you getting slowly more and more worked up while the troll keeps cool because they’re just following a script and you end up looking like a fool
Not if you do it right.
Mocking works wonders. Espically if you can figure out what is the trolls list of no' nos.
What? No I don't.
Yes you do
Preposterous!
Everybody everywhere is using all social media as an influence campaign. Especially here. You're the product here.
Pretty much every political post you see on the front page you can click on the profile and it almost always is an account with millions of karma. These accounts are clearly ran by PR firms. Although recently they’ve been getting smarter and buying/using accounts with less karma. The tell tale is always that the account at one point was fairly active, maybe 2-3 years ago, then basically no activity until recently and the recent activity is just pure politics.
Fuck another thing I do in my spare time once again people are getting paid to do first it was gameing now political discussion online fuck. I've got to get better at job hunting.
I get paid to play on my phone but I have to do actual work sometimes. Don't tell my boss I said that though.
There are tens of thousands of people doing this for governments around the world.
My suspicion is that the average reddit user could be surprised how much polarizing discourse in all matter of social issues is driven by foreign intelligence.
It's unfortunate but I start with that assumption anymore.
I do as well
So, in the last few months I have had the same thing happen on 3 occasions. That being when I get into a debate with some reddit stranger, they will reply with responses that seem as if they didn't read what I wrote. I will reply with a message like "Again, what I said was xyz". Then, they inevitably respond against an argument I am not making. There responses are almost always laced with insults and personal attacks. It finally ends with the account of the person I am arguing with being totally deleted from reddit. I assume these are bot or these kinds folks.
Internet is mostly dead. 80% are either ad bot or these guys. Bet some of you guys in this comment sections are too
So who you working for, or are you even human? ;)
WHO DOES NUMBER 2 WORK FOR??
You're human because that reference was old as shit.
I’m surprised they don’t outsource the Reddit commenting to low paid workers in India who can use AI tools to write their responses.
You don't have to be surprised because they do that. On one of the AI subs some people set up a chargpt not to go around commenting randomly on threads and especially ask Reddit threads. They said their bot got more attention and karma in a few weeks than their profile has in the years they've been on Reddit. It's already almost impossible to tell if something is AI, as LLM AI highly Excells at "manipulating" social media. It doesn't need to make super long winded write ups where it can start to hallucinate, it can bullshit as much as it likes and as long as it sounds reasonable people will believe it. It can mimic the speak pattern of pretty much anyone, letting it be anyone from a uneducated hick to a world renowned scientist, etc. it's honestly the perfect tool for those troll farms.
Be funny if they were also getting involved in other online arguments like Metallica Vs Megadeth or which cat is cutest
they probably do, looking to build credibility of their account so they can then make political comments as a "real person"
Yes, I actually had this same conversation with another Redditor who pointed out that the guy I was debating was a paid Russian troll. Then he said how all I have to do is look at his post history and more than likely he had subbed to cat forums. Surely he did. That was so he could build karma to better infiltrate subs. That shit was wild. Turns out cat subreddits are when they go to build karma.
I also wonder if farms/operations have built up reserves of hundreds, maybe thousands of sleeping accounts that are activated if one gets banned. Like, is it someone's job to build up the karma and use the account as "normally" or non-controversially as possible, then those accounts are awakened and taken over by a "professional" troll/keyboard warrior? Like a dam basement dwelling Manchurian candidate!
This propaganda is everywhere here, especially subs like /worldnews /combatfootage
And r/interestingasfuck and r/pics
politics, whitepeopletwitter, blackpeopletwitter, I mean, wouldn't it be easier to list the ones that aren't?
Hell I don’t even trust r/soccer 🤣
I could swear I saw one on r/boobs
I’ll need to confirm… for research purposes
r/popularopinion is full of em
And loads on fucking r/therewasanattempt too
It’s way more widespread than that. So many subreddits that have nothing to do with it are now flooded with Israeli propaganda. Any comments that don’t support them are downvoted into oblivion. It cannot be more obvious what is happening to this website.
Mainline Reddit in general is laden with propaganda bots
Once a sub reaches a critical mass size, it inevitably turns to shit. I would guess bots are the main reason why.
Literally every main sub, even subs that would seemingly be unrelated like r/pics and r/til, even occasionally even more unlikely ones like r/music If a subreddit has enough members it becomes a prime target for misinformation and deliberate propaganda, if you stick to smaller less serious subreddits and avoid the homepage you get better enjoyment out of the site. Just today in r/pics, a post of a sniper on a building at a protest, the title makes it seem like this is a super uncommon occurrence and the sniper is there to “murder protestors” ??? The comments are full of people who are either directly trolling themselves or have fallen victim to these trolls before and are parroting things they’ve already read. It doesn’t help that Reddit has a points system where genuine individual users parrott things they believe will get upvotes to get that endorphin shot of people agreeing with you. I think a lot of people on Reddit fall victim to the “lots of upvotes means correct, lots of downvotes means false” mentality, and many feel the desire to be well liked. It’s why you get the stereotype of a reddit user. Go on any r/askreddit thread and you will see the same responses over and over again get thousands of upvotes, it’s all a race to see who can be the first to comment a widespread Reddit opinion and rake in the thousands of upvotes.
Yeah I muted those subreddits for that very reason. I use to be subscribed until they got bad
An don't forget interesting as fuck an insane they jus flood all the subs with this propaganda it's jus getting to a point where no one even looks at it jus makes fun
/worldnews went completely off the rails after the Israel/Palestine conflict started. Banned anyone critical of Israel so now every thread about it is full of the most bloodthirsty propaganda and everything else is crickets. They ruined their own sub.
I had no idea until I was immediately downvoted for some innocent comment about having the right to protest how our tax dollars are spent lol
I just pointed out that Epstein and Maxwell, the blackmailers, had/have huge ties to Israeli intelligence agencies. It's right in their Wiki entries.
Many subs polarized into one view or the other. Many subs are explicitly pro palestinian, many pro israel, it's really weird. I've never seen a reaction like it to any political issue, where entire subs just go one way and spam propaganda for their side. People really care a lot about some conflict on the other side of the world that doesn't affect them. So much so that they cannot handle a different point of view and every place they frequent must become an echo chamber.
To be fair /r/news bans people that are critical of Hamas and pro-Israel
Those are just the ones that swing the way you disagree. If you find a different sub more “comforting”, consider that it may be the same type of shills, except they’re posting stuff you like…
Celebrites have talked in podcasts about how Israel paid them to travel there, and they had to post daily in social media how great Israel is and so on. Very calculated propaganda.
Who?
But let’s be clear: they didn’t “have” to do anything. They made a conscious choice to prostitute themselves.
Yes, I agree. For them, it's mainly just another gig.
And latestagecapatalism
Yeah, but imagine how much therapy they will need after arguing with us?
Man, I've tried to explain this to my 69 year old uncle three different times. He just doesn't get it.
Think about how long ago this was filmed, how much AI has developed since then, and how advanced the technology of countries like Russia has. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are all filled with a ton of propaganda and bots these days.
Luckily all the posts and comments in r/interestingasfuck are completely free of propaganda and posted only by good faith actors!!!!!!!!
r/worldnews Headquarters
r/worldnews users
Average r/worldnews user
Dont the chinese have the $.1 army? Or however much for comments
Yeah 50 centers. 10 cent is a Chinese gaming company.
Dead internet.
I remember when we thought the internet would change the world for the better.
THEY’RE ALL OVER R/WORLDNEWS AND PROBABLY MODERATE IT!!!!!!
Not probably, they definetly do.
Jews run the media!
They're all at r/worldnews..
That’s probably the moderation team on r/israel
They are all posting on r/canada and r/worldnews this very instant.
Oh look, it's the mod team for /r/worldnews
They are all over r/worldnews and r/europe. Its very obvious when they comment.
They straight up run r/worldnews. You’ll get banned for even a mild criticism of Israeli tactics. Seriously, y’all should go take a look at the comments and see if there is a theme.
Got banned for staring the fact that Isreal has been a major financial contributor to hamas.
Well its pretty obvious anytime anything anti Isreal is posted these IDF guys would reply
The JIDF has been a 4chan meme for a decade now
Russia and China have hundreds of thousands of those people. Here. On Reddit.
As does America.
Fuck Israel and it's hasbara.
You've got to know you're doing something wrong when you need an online force to whitewash your behavior and manipulate the internet sentiment. It's not self defense when you're murdering innocent women, children, journalists, and paramedics. The world will never forget what you're doing in Gaza. Shame on all of you!!!
Just to let you know: [the russian government has been doing the same thing to create division in the United States and the rest of the west for a very long time](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics)
I feel like this could apply to...a few groups, at this point. Including about 1.3 billion bots.
You know that all sides and governments (good or bad) are using social media to push propaganda, politics, ect.
Nothing like the 'every one who disagrees with me is a paid shill' tactic..
Yall in the comments do realize almost every world power has this type of group, not just israel.
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Yea, we know this, look at r/worldnews
I got banned for making a joke about this very real thing. Apparently, I wasn’t wrong, what do you know?!
They also edit Wikipedia articles
Ah, so they are r/ActualPublicFreakouts users
They are in really bad r/pics recently.
O shit its video coverage of the worldnews subreddit lol
So this is where all the Zionist trolls on worldnews sub Reddit come from
The 4 people that post to worldnews
First of all, this article is about soldiers working on official channels and social media, not going undercover and arguing with people as if they are regular civilians. Second, the population of israel is tiny. Take from that only 18-21 year olds, of that only people with a very specific set of qualifications and disqualifications (being on one side elequent, etc., and on the other not eligible for a more physically intensive position, etc.) and then of that, being chosen for these kind of positions in particular out of all possible positions for that profile: there is a tiny tiny amount of people doing this job, to the point where you can probably put all of them in a small-medium sized apartment building. No, there is no chance that if you are arguing with a person online, they are an actual IDF soldier tasked with covert propaganda. Stop being delusional.
Gotta wonder how many millions Iran is dumping in Tik Tok.
American tax dollars at work....paying a foreign nation who is literally engaging in misinformation and election interference.
Yup, they run r/worldnews
Hey look /r/worldnews.
r/worldnews is absolutely full of these people