7 ms·

So much of social media pre-supposes that no entity would spend the kinda money to influence an issue. They didn't take a state with limited resources into acco

So much of social media pre-supposes that no entity would spend the kinda money to influence an issue. They didn't take a state with limited resources into account.

cwhy 5y ago
No they definitely don't pre-suppose so. They run ads for main revenue, and just think about what is the definition of ads.
bena 5y ago
That's funny, recently there was an article about the magician Teller explaining the foundational rules of magic and illusions. And one of the first secrets is spending a lot of time, effort, or other resources on a method is a good way to fool people.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
blitzar 5y ago
It turns out you can spice things up on social media with relatively modest ad spends, the mob are so desperate to be incited that you dont even need to light the match.
- lunatuna 5y ago
  I recently watched 'Jallikattu'[0] again. The statement on being desperate to be incited matches one of the main themes of the movie so well. Worth a watch. [0] - https://youtu.be/ItcQNybOOHM https://youtu.be/ItcQNybOOHM
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Valakas_ 5y ago
  We need to stop talking about "the mob" as if these people came through a membrane from another universe and are fundamentally non-humans and different from us. Instead of being condescending to people maybe it would be more useful to understand why this behavior happens, instead of dismissing it as "weak mindedness" or "anger issues". The "mob" are people that are probably finding little meaning in life. Their "match" is probably feeling like they have something to fight for instead of their grueling 9-5 soul sucking work to pay debt in order to enrich just a few. It's easy for humans to also externalize pain. They might be angry for very valid reasons, but which they feel powerless to change, and that anger is still in their body, needing, indeed a match to escape. Repressed anger causes disease (cf. Gabor Mate). It's a natural instinct to act out and let out misdirected anger. Talking about "mob" is like talking about "witches" 400 years ago(pharmaceuts) or "hysteric women" 100 years ago (women with BPD or PTSD). It's dehumanizing and misses the point, and in a few years people will look back at comments like this like we look at witch burning and the stone age practices of psychiatry a few years ago.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
ska 5y ago
Forget state level resources, plenty of distortion is created by corporations or other much smaller interests with relatively modest resources. I wouldn't' be at all surprised if this were the source of majority of manipulation in practice. Assuming anything on social media is "untainted" is pretty naive, it seems.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  Yep. I see it locally with shill groups acting at the behest of real estate developers.
  - xxpor 5y ago
    And then there's the other side of it, where people accuse people on the other side of being shills with 0 evidence. It's extremely common in NIMBY v YIMBY fights.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      That's why accusing someone of shilling with is in extremely poor taste. It's effectively impossible to prove (or refute), so why waste thought and text on it?
- walterbell 5y ago
  A non-trivial percentage of the Fortune 500 have worked with "grassroots" PR consultants. See Edward Walker's 2014 book, https://twitter.com/evoleadership/status/761959456624082944?s=21 https://twitter.com/evoleadership/status/761959456624082944?...
SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
They do know. This activity is great for MAUs and session duration.
vfulco2 5y ago
unlimited you meant right?
celeduc 5y ago
*Unlimited resources
AzzieElbab 5y ago
There is plenty of material published by NYT that is very much on par with what they are criticizing social media for.
- salt-thrower 5y ago
  I recall the NYT being a mouthpiece for Bush administration propaganda leading up to the Iraq war. It later came out that they squashed articles which would have cast a critical light on the claim that Iraq had WMD capabilities, in favor of beating the war drum. Obviously no media outlet is perfect, but yes, corporate media is subject to the influence of monied interests almost by definition. That said, with how easy it is to run ads and hire influencer shills for whatever agenda, social media seems even more malleable if you're willing to spend money. Or, put another way, the financial barrier for creating propaganda is far lower on Facebook than in traditional media.
  - AzzieElbab 5y ago
    Good point wrt to financial barrier. IMHO these articles are simply trying to keep those barriers intact and valuable
- coldtea 5y ago
  It's bad when others do it. Same how it's ok when the US does it globally, but not when foreign powers do it.
- jjcc 5y ago
  Just a coincidence that I watched a video today that claimed NYT implied a Youtube vlogger must be paid by CPP. Here's his response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvvj_3QMGAM&t=234s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvvj_3QMGAM&t=234s I would not say NYT publishes propaganda. They just truly believe their own opinion based on some ideology framework but confused their opinions with solid facts. So they see anything not align with their belief as a propaganda. In other words they seem to be against propaganda. It's a meta-dishonest which is worse than dishonest which is a form of honest dishonest because many people trust meta-dishonest journalist. There are a lot of such kind of MSM journalists. Don Lemon for example.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
There are widespread allegation of UK conservative party using bots: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-50218615 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-50218615 One of the startup growth-hackers gave us a decent talk on some basic social media manipulation It is so easy to create entirely false narratives and / or manipulate online discussion, that at this point I would be surprised if any major group of people with access to half decent budget is not doing it. From twitter to amazon reviews to comment sections on BBC and other websites, who knows how many are fake, the well has been poisoned. Edit - expanded the post.
- walterbell 5y ago
  EU/NATO 2018 analysis, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29610932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29610932 (takes a few seconds to load the PDF file)
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    This is a great report, thank you.
- freen 5y ago
  The most important thing a con artist must convince the mark of is this: everyone else is on the take. Once this is believed, the mark will follow the con down any corrupt rabbit hole. Ask yourself this: who wants you to believe that everything is astroturfing? Who does that serve?
  - coldtea 5y ago
    Ask yourself this: who isn't astroturfing? (For the US in fact social media astroturfing doesn't even have to be covert: as the social media belong to domestic companies, they by default promote the national party line and foreign interests - it's only bad when someone else does it).
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Two things can simultaneously be true: (1) there is substantial astroturfing in the infosphere & (2) everything is not astroturf. Ironically, I think the accusations of astroturfing (whether true or not) more directly serve the meta goal of decreasing the public's ability and willingness to engage in debate, and accusations are much more amplification / outrage friendly.
xdavidliu 5y ago
> They didn't take a state with limited resources into account. Nit: UNlimited
- anikan_vader 5y ago
  Nit: The resources of a state are limited. My first take is that this is an intentional and humorous play on words.
LudwigNagasena 5y ago
Literally all traditional media are like that, yet for some reason it is normalized and few people care.
- sysOpOpPERAND 5y ago
  i care, there is an old saying, absolute power, corrupts absolutely. it is almost never a good sign when power is centralized among a few actors. online, offline just in general. democratic societies formed knowing this, but there is a will to power among certain people who will at any cost affordable to them will try and become the center focus of attention. you see this in mega corporations eating up smaller companies in order to centralized power and indirectly control the market. in the same way, actors use money to pump into traditional and social media in order to influence the masses or part of the masses to sway towards their agenda. which may or may not benefit society. media is very powerful especially if the transmission is consistent in messaging, and broad as well. meaning coming from many angles to achieve said goal or agenda. it can be very intoxicating once the scale tips towards the agenda, then social pressure or peer pressure to fit in takes control. it's a very odd thing to observe herd mentality from an outside perspective and almost instantly hammered down and framed as a negative thing to those who are entrenched within conditioning. i believe transparency is the only way we can subvert mental coups, if we know who is funding what then we can consciously ask why and then maybe, just maybe we will become enlightened of an atrocity before it is too late.

So much of social media pre-supposes that no entity would spend the kinda money to influence an issue. They didn't take a state with limited resources into account.

cwhy 5y ago

No they definitely don't pre-suppose so. They run ads for main revenue, and just think about what is the definition of ads.

bena 5y ago

That's funny, recently there was an article about the magician Teller explaining the foundational rules of magic and illusions. And one of the first secrets is spending a lot of time, effort, or other resources on a method is a good way to fool people.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

blitzar 5y ago

It turns out you can spice things up on social media with relatively modest ad spends, the mob are so desperate to be incited that you dont even need to light the match.

lunatuna 5y ago
I recently watched 'Jallikattu'[0] again. The statement on being desperate to be incited matches one of the main themes of the movie so well. Worth a watch. [0] - https://youtu.be/ItcQNybOOHM https://youtu.be/ItcQNybOOHM
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Valakas_ 5y ago
We need to stop talking about "the mob" as if these people came through a membrane from another universe and are fundamentally non-humans and different from us. Instead of being condescending to people maybe it would be more useful to understand why this behavior happens, instead of dismissing it as "weak mindedness" or "anger issues". The "mob" are people that are probably finding little meaning in life. Their "match" is probably feeling like they have something to fight for instead of their grueling 9-5 soul sucking work to pay debt in order to enrich just a few. It's easy for humans to also externalize pain. They might be angry for very valid reasons, but which they feel powerless to change, and that anger is still in their body, needing, indeed a match to escape. Repressed anger causes disease (cf. Gabor Mate). It's a natural instinct to act out and let out misdirected anger. Talking about "mob" is like talking about "witches" 400 years ago(pharmaceuts) or "hysteric women" 100 years ago (women with BPD or PTSD). It's dehumanizing and misses the point, and in a few years people will look back at comments like this like we look at witch burning and the stone age practices of psychiatry a few years ago.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

ska 5y ago

Forget state level resources, plenty of distortion is created by corporations or other much smaller interests with relatively modest resources. I wouldn't' be at all surprised if this were the source of majority of manipulation in practice. Assuming anything on social media is "untainted" is pretty naive, it seems.

alistairSH 5y ago
Yep. I see it locally with shill groups acting at the behest of real estate developers.
- xxpor 5y ago
  And then there's the other side of it, where people accuse people on the other side of being shills with 0 evidence. It's extremely common in NIMBY v YIMBY fights.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    That's why accusing someone of shilling with is in extremely poor taste. It's effectively impossible to prove (or refute), so why waste thought and text on it?
walterbell 5y ago
A non-trivial percentage of the Fortune 500 have worked with "grassroots" PR consultants. See Edward Walker's 2014 book, https://twitter.com/evoleadership/status/761959456624082944?s=21 https://twitter.com/evoleadership/status/761959456624082944?...

SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago

They do know. This activity is great for MAUs and session duration.

vfulco2 5y ago

unlimited you meant right?

celeduc 5y ago

*Unlimited resources

AzzieElbab 5y ago

There is plenty of material published by NYT that is very much on par with what they are criticizing social media for.

salt-thrower 5y ago
I recall the NYT being a mouthpiece for Bush administration propaganda leading up to the Iraq war. It later came out that they squashed articles which would have cast a critical light on the claim that Iraq had WMD capabilities, in favor of beating the war drum. Obviously no media outlet is perfect, but yes, corporate media is subject to the influence of monied interests almost by definition. That said, with how easy it is to run ads and hire influencer shills for whatever agenda, social media seems even more malleable if you're willing to spend money. Or, put another way, the financial barrier for creating propaganda is far lower on Facebook than in traditional media.
- AzzieElbab 5y ago
  Good point wrt to financial barrier. IMHO these articles are simply trying to keep those barriers intact and valuable
coldtea 5y ago
It's bad when others do it. Same how it's ok when the US does it globally, but not when foreign powers do it.
jjcc 5y ago
Just a coincidence that I watched a video today that claimed NYT implied a Youtube vlogger must be paid by CPP. Here's his response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvvj_3QMGAM&t=234s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvvj_3QMGAM&t=234s I would not say NYT publishes propaganda. They just truly believe their own opinion based on some ideology framework but confused their opinions with solid facts. So they see anything not align with their belief as a propaganda. In other words they seem to be against propaganda. It's a meta-dishonest which is worse than dishonest which is a form of honest dishonest because many people trust meta-dishonest journalist. There are a lot of such kind of MSM journalists. Don Lemon for example.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

There are widespread allegation of UK conservative party using bots: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-50218615 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-50218615 One of the startup growth-hackers gave us a decent talk on some basic social media manipulation It is so easy to create entirely false narratives and / or manipulate online discussion, that at this point I would be surprised if any major group of people with access to half decent budget is not doing it. From twitter to amazon reviews to comment sections on BBC and other websites, who knows how many are fake, the well has been poisoned. Edit - expanded the post.

walterbell 5y ago
EU/NATO 2018 analysis, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29610932 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29610932 (takes a few seconds to load the PDF file)
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  This is a great report, thank you.
freen 5y ago
The most important thing a con artist must convince the mark of is this: everyone else is on the take. Once this is believed, the mark will follow the con down any corrupt rabbit hole. Ask yourself this: who wants you to believe that everything is astroturfing? Who does that serve?
- coldtea 5y ago
  Ask yourself this: who isn't astroturfing? (For the US in fact social media astroturfing doesn't even have to be covert: as the social media belong to domestic companies, they by default promote the national party line and foreign interests - it's only bad when someone else does it).
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Two things can simultaneously be true: (1) there is substantial astroturfing in the infosphere & (2) everything is not astroturf. Ironically, I think the accusations of astroturfing (whether true or not) more directly serve the meta goal of decreasing the public's ability and willingness to engage in debate, and accusations are much more amplification / outrage friendly.

xdavidliu 5y ago

> They didn't take a state with limited resources into account. Nit: UNlimited

anikan_vader 5y ago
Nit: The resources of a state are limited. My first take is that this is an intentional and humorous play on words.

LudwigNagasena 5y ago

Literally all traditional media are like that, yet for some reason it is normalized and few people care.

sysOpOpPERAND 5y ago
i care, there is an old saying, absolute power, corrupts absolutely. it is almost never a good sign when power is centralized among a few actors. online, offline just in general. democratic societies formed knowing this, but there is a will to power among certain people who will at any cost affordable to them will try and become the center focus of attention. you see this in mega corporations eating up smaller companies in order to centralized power and indirectly control the market. in the same way, actors use money to pump into traditional and social media in order to influence the masses or part of the masses to sway towards their agenda. which may or may not benefit society. media is very powerful especially if the transmission is consistent in messaging, and broad as well. meaning coming from many angles to achieve said goal or agenda. it can be very intoxicating once the scale tips towards the agenda, then social pressure or peer pressure to fit in takes control. it's a very odd thing to observe herd mentality from an outside perspective and almost instantly hammered down and framed as a negative thing to those who are entrenched within conditioning. i believe transparency is the only way we can subvert mental coups, if we know who is funding what then we can consciously ask why and then maybe, just maybe we will become enlightened of an atrocity before it is too late.