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Are there paid shills, hired trolls, and web bots on boards.ie?

Biggest lickspittle on boardz

It is finally starting to dawn on many people in the West that their perception of reality on social media is completely warped, and that many organisations, movements, and social justice campaigns have been little more than front groups for intelligence agencies.

Just today, we are seeing that two conservative Twitter personalities are actually Russian inventions:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/russia-fake-twitter-facebook-posts-accounts-trump-election-jenna-abrams-20171103.html?amphtml=y&mobi=true

Not only that, but the Russians have also been carefully creating movements on the other side too, such as the Californian independence campaign:http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41853131

Russia has also been revealed to have created multiple 'Black lives matter' accounts, and alt-right accounts too, in order to create social divisions and play both sides off against each other:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/if-russia-can-create-fake-black-lives-matter-accounts-who-will-next/2017/10/15/ffb2e01e-af79-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html

But I doubt Russia are the only ones doing this.
Now, many of you might be wondering if there are paid shills and influences on boards.ie.
In my opinion, there absolutely are. Certain posters have a very noticeable trend of only appearing for certain topics, and disappearing again until the next similar debate pops up. (There are also certain posters who group together and thank each others posts repeatedly, but they seem be to more partisan in nature.)

So, my question is this-how would boards.ie know if there are paid shills and automated web bot accounts, and what can they do about it?

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Prune Tracy

HonalD wrote: »

You keep believing that. I don’t. Always consider the source of the “report”.

Absolutely - consider the source of the report, question whether they're coming from a particular angle, examine how it has been written, the headline associated with it, how it fits into the agenda of the source, if one.

But none of the above means "all" news is fake. Surely for that statement to be correct, everything that has ever been reported in the news never actually happened.

suicide_circus

I bring my trolling to you free of charge.

RobbingBandit

donegaLroad wrote: »

I have a friend who worked in the office of a local TD, and he told me that his routine involved going online in the morning and checking RIP.ie, then politics.ie, boards.ie and the journal.ie.

RIP was to check in case there were any funerals that needed to be attended, and the other 3 were to monitor any growling that was being done about this particular TD.

6 years ago I complained about a particular FF politician on boards.ie, 2 weeks later I received a linkedin friend request from him.

There are plenty of political trolls on boards, it is easy to notice the pattern of comradery among them. See Irish Water threads for details.

So did you and Mr FF go for drinks, did you poison him?

Turtyturd

Fairly sure they’d be shut down until they started paying boards directly ala Gearbest.

What does the office charge for an alt right caricature account to have free speech?

Birneybau

kbannon wrote: »

It is very scary.
I read yesterday how Brexit is a plot by the Germans to lead us towards a WWIII in order to help push the German manufacturing industry. Apparently the French are helping as they have been promised billions by German banks.
This was backed up by so many facts in secret research papers which are being withheld by governments across Europe.
Our governments are complicit and lying to us all.

Rumpy Pumpy

http://www.sinnfein.ie/sfos

You can sign up on the link above to become a shinnerbot. Be part of the digital rising by spending your days arguing about a poppy.

tomwaterford

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

http://www.sinnfein.ie/sfos

You can sign up on the link above to become a shinnerbot. Be part of the digital rising by spending your days arguing about a poppy.

Because everyone who has misgivings about the poppy are immediately to be dismissed as SF members?

Pintman Paddy Losty

tomwaterford wrote: »

Because everyone who has misgivings about the poppy are immediately to be dismissed as SF members?

Shinnerbot activated....

Setting mode to denial

Creative83

Wheety wrote: »

The transport Unions have a few accounts on here :rolleyes:

EOTR

tomwaterford

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

Shinnerbot activated....

Setting mode to denial

See this is pointless......I've been called all sorts including a fgbot and worse of all... a dublin supporter

But regrettably I just like talking shíte with randomers

donegaLroad

RobbingBandit wrote: »

So did you and Mr FF go for drinks, did you poison him?

not at all, I would never let politics get in the way of a friendship.

suicide_circus

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

http://www.sinnfein.ie/sfos

You can sign up on the link above to become a shinnerbot. Be part of the digital rising by spending your days arguing about a poppy.

Woah. They have an actual shill sign up page. That is pretty blatant

[Deleted User]

100% there are. I first noticed it around the time Russia annexed Crimea and all the threads started about it.

There were definite Russian propagandists posting on here (you might remember a certain food in a cup) and it's ebbed and flowed since, in my opinion.

Fr_Dougal

Threads were allowed on Irish Water. Irish Water pay 💶💶💶💶 for a TalkTo account, all of a sudden IW threads are not allowed.

hairyslug

Philip Boucher Hayes has been tweeting about it for a few weeks, he saw his follower numbers explode with about a 25% increase, all bots.

The only people who follow me on twitter expect me to pay for porn.

server down

circadian wrote: »

100% there are. I first noticed it around the time Russia annexed Crimea and all the threads started about it.

There were definite Russian propagandists posting on here (you might remember a certain food in a cup) and it's ebbed and flowed since, in my opinion.

Why do you assume that people who are sympathetic to Russia are paid by them (or that Russia would care about boards anyway).

Pintman Paddy Losty

suicide_circus wrote: »

Woah. They have an actual shill sign up page. That is pretty blatant

Anatomy of a shinnerbot

Rumpy Pumpy

Pintman Paddy Losty wrote: »

Anatomy of a shinnerbot

Genuine lol.

[Deleted User]

There hasn't been a sf bot on boards for years.

There are a few docs online about how to be a bot for Israel, prepared answers to deflect and whatabout on the usual criticisms. There used to be a guy on the politics forum about a year ago who would only post provocative Israeli threads and weird red pill stuff

The_Valeyard

Huge about of Labour party bots and pro choice american funded groups

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Arghus

I think we've a high opinion of ourselves if we think the place is infiltrated with bots and shills.

The_Valeyard

Fred Swanson wrote: »

American Pro Life groups have huge groups of bots trying to save Ireland.

Third time you made the same point.

Definitely a Pro Choice Bot.

tayto lover

Arghus wrote: »

I think we've a high opinion of ourselves if we think the place is infiltrated with bots and shills.

The Water threads were full of them imo.

[Deleted User]

server down wrote: »

Why do you assume that people who are sympathetic to Russia are paid by them (or that Russia would care about boards anyway).

I didn't assume lightly. The poster in question started out with pro-Russia posts in relation to Ukraine. Then they eventually branched out into more Irish centric topics. Their posting in these improved but I started to notice some copypasta from other sources pop into their talking points.

Are you familiar with the book The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia? It highlights the ideas of sowing racial tensions and other civil discord in America, cutting off the UK from the rest of Europe amongst other things.

Boards is one of the busiest sites in Ireland and it also happens to be a discussion forum. Why do you think Russian propagandists wouldn't be interested in posting here?

server down

circadian wrote: »

I didn't assume lightly. The poster in question started out with pro-Russia posts in relation to Ukraine. Then they eventually branched out into more Irish centric topics. Their posting in these improved but I started to notice some copypasta from other sources pop into their talking points.

Are you familiar with the book The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia? It highlights the ideas of sowing racial tensions and other civil discord in America, cutting off the UK from the rest of Europe amongst other things.

Boards is one of the busiest sites in Ireland and it also happens to be a discussion forum. Why do you think Russian propagandists wouldn't be interested in posting here?

Because Ireland doesn’t matter. If Russia is using the pathologies and divisions of the west to harm the west then maybe we should abandon our pathologies and divisiveness- most of which is driven by the fever swamps of American culture wars.

[Deleted User]

server down wrote: »

Because Ireland doesn’t matter. If Russia is using the pathologies and divisions of the west to harm the west then maybe we should abandon our pathologies and divisiveness- most of which is driven by the fever swamps of American culture wars.

You don't think that the Repeal the 8th debate is going to draw some interest from these propaganda farms?

I fail to see how Ireland doesn't matter. It's the only English speaking country in the EU once the UK leaves. It's an easy target given our close ties with the UK and USA given that many Irish people emigrate there or have family there.

Just look at the extent of these propaganda farms in US social media alone, I'm sure more will come out about UK social media too.

Then I think we won't be surprised to find out about smaller operations in places like the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Poland etc. Ireland is just as important as any other country in the EU. Causing discord amongst it's citizens and increasing hostility against the EU is the game of the day.

[Deleted User]

I'll just get some popcorn....

greencap

Where might one sign up for this paid trolling.

Asking for a friend.

server down

circadian wrote: »

You don't think that the Repeal the 8th debate is going to draw some interest from these propaganda farms?

I think that there will be plenty of US involvement on both sides if that’s what you mean. I’m pretty sure that the guardian will have something to say as well.

I fail to see how Ireland doesn't matter. It's the only English speaking country in the EU once the UK leaves. It's an easy target given our close ties with the UK and USA given that many Irish people emigrate there or have family there.

Just look at the extent of these propaganda farms in US social media alone, I'm sure more will come out about UK social media too.

Then I think we won't be surprised to find out about smaller operations in places like the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Poland etc. Ireland is just as important as any other country in the EU. Causing discord amongst it's citizens and increasing hostility against the EU is the game of the day.

This discord already exists. I find it hilarious that the Russians are blamed for amplifying cultural wars that the US is basically responsible for creating and exporting.