Russian trolls

[pineapplemike]

Yeah I think the Russia troll hype is just the mainstream coming to terms with paid shills on the internet. We all know Israel does it, HRC used Correct the Record to do it, I wouldn't be surprised to find out many more countries are active in anonymously promoting their ideas online.

I'm sure the effective reaction will be to further "strengthen" the "freedom" of the internet by forcing users to surrender their anonymity and post using their full name or from an "approved" and "verified" internet account

[BjornP]

Don't you remember Hillary and her Techno Experts? https://www.c-span.org/video/?c39269/cl ... priorities
Meddling is the name of the game and has been so forever. Now the Russians are doing it to the US and suddenly it's foul play? It's just Trump derangement syndrome. The cognitive dissonance caused by Trump winning the election has to be explained away. That's the only thing this troll panic is about. The Democrats are just shooting themselves in the foot by focusing everything on Russia. They need to analyze why they lost for real and do something about it. Time is ticking.

It's not the "only thing" it's about because you're right about meddling being the name of a game since forever, but it's definitely the only thing it's about for Clinton, the Democrats... and Republicans and Trump voters. Russia was influencing American popular opinion long before Trump and Hillary, but influence is not control, and the American people still had and have free will. They used it to reject her, and she and her party is pathetic for keeping on whining about it and blaming it all on the Russians. Yeah, Russia's influenced someone against you... but how the fuck is it then not your own responsibility as a politician to regain that influence? To win over, to persuade the American electorate.

[kybkh]

Don't you remember Hillary and her Techno Experts? https://www.c-span.org/video/?c39269/cl ... priorities
Meddling is the name of the game and has been so forever. Now the Russians are doing it to the US and suddenly it's foul play? It's just Trump derangement syndrome. The cognitive dissonance caused by Trump winning the election has to be explained away. That's the only thing this troll panic is about. The Democrats are just shooting themselves in the foot by focusing everything on Russia. They need to analyze why they lost for real and do something about it. Time is ticking.

It's not the "only thing" it's about because you're right about meddling being the name of a game since forever, but it's definitely the only thing it's about for Clinton, the Democrats... and Republicans and Trump voters. Russia was influencing American popular opinion long before Trump and Hillary, but influence is not control, and the American people still had and have free will. They used it to reject her, and she and her party is pathetic for keeping on whining about it and blaming it all on the Russians. Yeah, Russia's influenced someone against you... but how the fuck is it then not your own responsibility as a politician to regain that influence? To win over, to persuade the American electorate.

Correct. You can't Correct The Record when you sit on a throne of lies that has been exposed by the internet.

Maybe once they scrub all the USS Liberty testimonies and the throwing babies from incubators and Iraq WMD lies from the internet we can get back to a more normal political narrative.

[kybkh]

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... er/555104/

The massive new study analyzes every major contested news story in English across the span of Twitter’s existence—some 126,000 stories, tweeted by 3 million users, over more than 10 years—and finds that the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor. By every common metric, falsehood consistently dominates the truth on Twitter, the study finds: Fake news and false rumors reach more people, penetrate deeper into the social network, and spread much faster than accurate stories.

[DrYouth]

the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor...[/i]

I guess the question is...

When was the high water mark for truth? What decade would you put forward?

Hoax and Rumour has dominated throughout human history hasn't it?

Mythology, legend, witch hunts, false prophets... false heirs and usurpers...

Maybe truth has never competed any better than it is today... although it doesn't seem we are at the high water mark today...

[Ph64]

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... er/555104/

The massive new study analyzes every major contested news story in English across the span of Twitter’s existence—some 126,000 stories, tweeted by 3 million users, over more than 10 years—and finds that the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor. By every common metric, falsehood consistently dominates the truth on Twitter, the study finds: Fake news and false rumors reach more people, penetrate deeper into the social network, and spread much faster than accurate stories.

And sadly the MSM, rather than rising to the occasion to become the bastion of verified truth... continues to sink deeper and deeper into partisan advocacy and divisiveness pursuing their own hyped up fake news.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor...[/i]

I guess the question is...

When was the high water mark for truth? What decade would you put forward?

Hoax and Rumour has dominated throughout human history hasn't it?

Mythology, legend, witch hunts, false prophets... false heirs and usurpers...

Maybe truth has never competed any better than it is today... although it doesn't seem we are at the high water mark today...

Truth has always been boring as fuuuuck.

[Hastur]

I think it's an effect of the globalization of information. It takes a long time for all the different versions of the old truths to align with each other. Perhaps this is the new power struggle. It's no longer about control over the biosphere, the battle has moved on to the noosphere.

[DrYouth]

Truth has always been boring as fuuuuck.

I dunno...

The truth can be awesome when narrated by the right podcaster...

[Okeefenokee]

Ned Ludd tried to warn us.