Bot Accounts - Disinformation and the removal of centre ground

listermint · 22-10-2018 3:18pm #1

I dont think i have ever really seen a thread on this so i thought i would open the discussion after bumping into numerous twitter bots on Twitter (obviously)

It can often be a handle that is thrown out, but sometimes other twitter users can open your eyes to it.

i read a thread earlier which was an article by RTE about a democrat senator race. and there was a classic out of hand comment about RTE being a democrat propaganda machine for the past 40 years.

So confused i read some of the comments below and then further into the details of that Twitter account noted that the account was 'joined April 2010' but i could not locate a single tweet it is history until Dec 2017 when it became superbly active.

How active ? it has over 90,000 Tweets to its name in less than a year.
The account dressed up as and Irish psuedonym from boggy somewhere or other. Started off lightly making non consistent comments on other peoples tweets and various articles. But eventually if you read the content it started grabbing articles and retweeting them. Articles from completely polarising viewpoints on very topical issues of the time. Global Warming / HPV Vacine / Vacines in general / Brexit race / Daesh / Terrorism / Robinson.

It would actually retweet extreme views from either side of the subject matter never sticking to one side or the other. Which led me to believe. This type of account is designed to Polarise. Its sole purpose is to remove middle ground. It wants to create a void of compromise on issues.

Who created it ?
Its clearly not Irish despite its profile.

It was created in 2010. So this shows me that this campaign was conceived over 8 years ago.

I think these are serious issues, that conventional politics still doesnt grasp the scale of. I dont think we have yet learned how to spot these, how to tackle them. And i believe Twitter is not robust enough either

Sure you can report them. But there is no followup, There is also no where to tell twitter why you think its a bot.

I would have assumed automation detecting dormant accounts that have been dormant for years and suddenly spring into 90,000 tweets in 10 months would be fairly easy for twitter to automate against.

But.... do they care ?

Anyway, i thought i would open this discussion up to discuss the implications of this information war. And has anyone else had similar experiences.

LuckyLloyd · 22-10-2018 4:27pm

Or the account was once a legitimate account since hacked or bought or handed over.

But I think there's obvious undeniable merit to your core point here.

looksee · 22-10-2018 6:44pm

Is it my imagination - am I falling for a kind of conspiracy theory notion - that since the internet has opened up everything to everybody we have situations like Trump, Brexit and now our Presidential race? Both Trump and Brexit were protest votes of a sort. Whether they went 'wrong' depends on your point of view, but it was an upheaval of a result. Now we have numerous people on Boards saying that they will vote for someone, pretty much admitting that it is a protest vote. The fact that we could end up with a relatively unsuitable person for President doesn't seem to matter. The whole thing doesn't matter a great deal, the Presidential role is ceremonial, but it would be good to be represented with dignity. Maybe Casey could do that, but his method doesn't inspire confidence.

I am trying to recall what influenced people before the internet, and the answer has to be the newspapers, television, pub talk and that was about it. And then it was mostly reaction to something raised 'officially', not an upsurge of interest from below about something unexpected. That was the time when students did a good deal of shouting about things that concerned them, the student protest had died down considerably around and just before the time of the internet, certainly before social media.

I think it has to be argued that public awareness is a good thing, at what stage does social media become a political tool with, as the op said, bots and people sharing rabble rousing arguments just because they can? Its a bit disturbing that the likes of Margaret Cash and Donald Trump can rant about things that do not even make any simple literal sense, much less have sound thinking behind them, and other people will agree and get on the same band wagon. I think we should indeed be concerned.

dudara · 22-10-2018 6:49pm

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Or the account was once a legitimate account since hacked or bought or handed over.

But I think there's obvious undeniable merit to your core point here.

This, it’s far more likely it was a dormant account that was hacked or bought. But other than that I don’t disagree.

I do believe that internat trolls or deliberate dispruption is a thing. What’s even worse though is the huge swathes of people who willingly drink the kool-aid. There’s something disturbing about our willingness to be polarised.

James Brown · 22-10-2018 7:34pm

These comments are designed to stir, so designing them to draw up the views of a particular minority by telling them they are 'the silent majority' or ' the PC media won't tell you about that/is covering up' is their bread and butter. Using these things to distract from policy or relevance is their point. We can only judge these organisations/people based on their record.
The internet and social media are tools. It's like everyone now has a newpaper/flyer. You pick sources you trust with a good track record and unlike the President of the USA, don't take every tweet somebody puts out there as 'news', (or claim to if it suits your agenda).

There is no doubt that there are people trying to sway public opinion, there always was and will be, but it's up to us to make informed choices and decisions, it's not like we've no access to information.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 22-10-2018 7:40pm

The idea that Russian trolls are spending any energy on Ireland is crazed nonsense.

(But then I would say that, wouldn’t I).

listermint · 22-10-2018 9:58pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

The idea that Russian trolls are spending any energy on Ireland is crazed nonsense.

(But then I would say that, wouldn’t I).

Ireland is a significant part of the EU and also the brexit debacle.

The idea that Ireland and its population are not legitimate targets for Russia propaganda is frankly laughable.

Note I never actually mentioned Russia in my opening post however.

So take from that what you will.

The core argument here is that the middle ground is being eroded. Loud right and left is now taken as the new norm and everyone else in the middle is being confused by information and as attempted to be pulled to either extreme.

Was this always the case ? For me no as we didn't have a propaganda spreader constantly in our hands or pockets 24 7. Technology and this point in time is a nexus for this type of information distribution. Frankly I don't blame people for not being able to make informed decisions people aren't to know that their perceptions are under attack . Constant attack.

Good idea on account purchase but more likely hacked and stolen .

VonZan · 22-10-2018 10:49pm

These are serious issues but the reality is that nothing will change unless people stop consuming politics like it's Hollywood media. How effective are these misinformation campaigns? If they are effective you're just admitting that some people are gullible morons and that's the crux of the issue. The media competing with social media for clicks just brings the content further towards the bottom of the barrel.

Also, politics in most western societies is dictated by the story of the day and not the long term issues we are facing.

blanch152 · 22-10-2018 11:10pm

looksee wrote: »

Is it my imagination - am I falling for a kind of conspiracy theory notion - that since the internet has opened up everything to everybody we have situations like Trump, Brexit and now our Presidential race? Both Trump and Brexit were protest votes of a sort. Whether they went 'wrong' depends on your point of view, but it was an upheaval of a result. Now we have numerous people on Boards saying that they will vote for someone, pretty much admitting that it is a protest vote. The fact that we could end up with a relatively unsuitable person for President doesn't seem to matter. The whole thing doesn't matter a great deal, the Presidential role is ceremonial, but it would be good to be represented with dignity. Maybe Casey could do that, but his method doesn't inspire confidence.

I am trying to recall what influenced people before the internet, and the answer has to be the newspapers, television, pub talk and that was about it. And then it was mostly reaction to something raised 'officially', not an upsurge of interest from below about something unexpected. That was the time when students did a good deal of shouting about things that concerned them, the student protest had died down considerably around and just before the time of the internet, certainly before social media.

I think it has to be argued that public awareness is a good thing, at what stage does social media become a political tool with, as the op said, bots and people sharing rabble rousing arguments just because they can? Its a bit disturbing that the likes of Margaret Cash and Donald Trump can rant about things that do not even make any simple literal sense, much less have sound thinking behind them, and other people will agree and get on the same band wagon. I think we should indeed be concerned.

There were media revolutions in the past.

Did the invention of the printing press help the Reformation revolutionise Christianity?

Did the newspaper revolution change American politics?

What role did tabloids play in the Wall Street Crash?

Did the popularity of TV influence the rise of telegenic Presidents like Kennedy?

Did the internet gives us Trump, Brexit and the splintering of Irish political parties?

Chris_Heilong · 22-10-2018 11:10pm

The whole Russian bot thing is just a fairy-tale, it is shocking the amount of people who buy into this.

pixelburp · 22-10-2018 11:41pm

I can't think of a single entity that has both simultaneously empowered and poisoned political engagement at the same time, than Twitter. Social Media in general has to be applauded for its role in engaging & liberating otherwise limited demographics to reach out to the wider world, spreading a message or goal, while avoiding any attempts by governments to stymie discussion - or even dissent.

Yet on the other hand political discourse is now reduced to frequent bite-size grenades, complex issues boiled down to hyperbole - increasingly wrapped up in lies and pejoratives. All made worse by that addictive feedback loop (Like a post! Retweet! Watch those Likes tick up) that rewards volume and noise over quantity, echo chambers acting as enablers to the worst demons.

I mean we know all this, not even sure for whose benefit I'm sharing the thoughts, I just don't know how we change or break the cycle: and with the presence of bots and shills - not to mention a US President acting as the god emperor of Twitter's ID - the validity of debate becomes even more redundant.

Suffice to say, I don't have a Twitter account.

goalscoringhero · 22-10-2018 11:44pm

What others have observed also is that with eroding the middle ground, it is becoming more difficult to practice empathy for perceptions or opinions of the 'other side'.

Discussions about current affairs have almost become a mirror of someone's social media filter bubble.

How can you practice empathy for a group that you don't even perceive to exist?
And what is more dehumanising than non-existence?

When we do this long enough, and forget that there are actually humans on the other side, it is easy to resort to ridicule, which creates more division, conflict and anxiety.

Victor · 23-10-2018 12:08am

listermint wrote: »

It was created in 2010. So this shows me that this campaign was conceived over 8 years ago.

Not quite. A use was conceived 8 years ago. That use was only defined recently, if at all.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 23-10-2018 8:28am

listermint wrote: »

Ireland is a significant part of the EU and also the brexit debacle.

The idea that Ireland and its population are not legitimate targets for Russia propaganda is frankly laughable.

Note I never actually mentioned Russia in my opening post however.

So take from that what you will.

The core argument here is that the middle ground is being eroded. Loud right and left is now taken as the new norm and everyone else in the middle is being confused by information and as attempted to be pulled to either extreme.

Was this always the case ? For me no as we didn't have a propaganda spreader constantly in our hands or pockets 24 7. Technology and this point in time is a nexus for this type of information distribution. Frankly I don't blame people for not being able to make informed decisions people aren't to know that their perceptions are under attack . Constant attack.

Good idea on account purchase but more likely hacked and stolen .

The middle ground is being eroded because it wasn’t that middle to begin with. It’s a bit odd that Russia gets blamed for influencing cultural wars that originate in the west, and mostly in the universities of the US.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 23-10-2018 8:30am

Victor wrote: »

Not quite. A use was conceived 8 years ago. That use was only defined recently, if at all.

Or, just perhaps - a user signed up 8 years ago and didn’t post until last year. I mean why would signing up early help bots anyway. You can sign up at any time.

Also the influence of this platform is zero. Boards doesn’t matter. We’d have a whole different politics if the real world were influenced by AH.

Tell me how · 23-10-2018 8:41am

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote:

Also the influence of this platform is zero. Boards doesnâ€™t matter. Weâ€™d have a whole different politics if the real world were influenced by AH.

I think slightly differently.

Everything matters. To varying degrees. It's easy when you see someone you disagree with flat out challenge your view but what I think is being attempted (as with Cambridge Analytica) is the subtle flooding of conversation with a consistent view or theme.

Where this is dangerous is when the target (you or me) thinks they're in a space where there is free and open discussion and news reporting but a significant amount of the views they are hearing are manipulated.

badtoro · 23-10-2018 8:43am

They may be old genuine accounts. I've got a social media account on a platform I don't really use - a friend asked me to join to see photos of something. Got email this week about an unauthorised access attempt from .... Moscow! and to change my passwords.

Tell me how · 23-10-2018 8:44am

badtoro wrote:

I've got a social media account on a platform I don't really use - a friend asked me to join to see photos of something. Got email this week about an unauthorised access attempt from .... Moscow! and to change my passwords.

Hope it didn't ask you to enter your password to confirm it was you???

badtoro · 23-10-2018 9:26am

Tell me how wrote: »

badtoro wrote:

I've got a social media account on a platform I don't really use - a friend asked me to join to see photos of something. Got email this week about an unauthorised access attempt from .... Moscow! and to change my passwords.

Hope it didn't ask you to enter your password to confirm it was you???

Can't recall now, but they'd need to do a bit better than that to nab me.

mcmoustache · 23-10-2018 10:21am

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

The whole Russian bot thing is just a fairy-tale, it is shocking the amount of people who buy into this.

I suppose that the earth is flat and you're shocked that people could think that it's round?

To anyone keeping up with international news, these bots have been shown to exist. Many of their accounts have been exposed by private individuals as well as the social media companies themselves. Thanks to FBI indictments and Press releases by the Dutch intelligence services, we know which buildings they operated from, who was at the keyboards and who's in charge. There's even a money trail in rubles. European countries bordering Russia have been dealing with this for much longer than this became a big deal in the west.

If you think that Russian bots are just a fairly tale, you should be able to back that up - because the amount of evidence that these troll farms exist is overwhelming at this point.

Chris_Heilong · 23-10-2018 3:05pm

mcmoustache wrote: »

I suppose that the earth is flat and you're shocked that people could think that it's round?

To anyone keeping up with international news, these bots have been shown to exist. Many of their accounts have been exposed by private individuals as well as the social media companies themselves. Thanks to FBI indictments and Press releases by the Dutch intelligence services, we know which buildings they operated from, who was at the keyboards and who's in charge. There's even a money trail in rubles. European countries bordering Russia have been dealing with this for much longer than this became a big deal in the west.

If you think that Russian bots are just a fairly tale, you should be able to back that up - because the amount of evidence that these troll farms exist is overwhelming at this point.

When I hear the term 'Russian Bots' I do think of the flat Earth peeps as you are both as deluded as one another.
Just because the "news" says something does not make it truth, in fact a lot of people have seen news outlets create their own narratives for years, If they had proof of these things happening it would be reason enough to go to war with Russia but that is not happening because I do not think this has anything to do with Russia at all, maybe home grown activists making political memes and such but that is as far as it goes.

More likely it is an easy excuse when thing dont lean politically ones way for example: Trump(must be Russian bots), Brexit(must be Russian bots), the Last Jedi poor audience score on Rotten Tomatoes(must be Russian bots):rolleyes:

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo · 23-10-2018 3:07pm

There are most definitely online bots and internet users with an agenda behind them. That goes for Russians, Shinners, FF, FG, the NSA (who have over 40,000 employees and they are not all looking for terrorists or playing solitaire), right wing Christians, left wing Antifa types, Conspiracy folks, even big corporations like McDonalds or Burger King ect. ect. ect. There are bound to be a certain percentage of internet users at all times being paid to push a certain narrative. And this percentage in both bots and paid shills is likely to grow strongly into the future.

Having said that, I think people blaming Russianbot farms for Trump and Brexit are idiots quite frankly. Trump got wall to wall media attention from the get go. From that comedy roast speech that Obama did about him, to his Twitter account, to every news outlet leading with his every utterance for the entire electoral cycle. And going back to even well before the Apprentice. He's been a media darling and creation for decades.
Then with Brexit you had Robert Murdoch selling made up anti EU stories in his rag papers for decades before that vote came to pass. And all the 'glorious empire' crap that Brits are thought all through school and how they civilised the world has a knock on affect that is too often ignored.

I think banning Alex Jones and other far left and far right people from social media platforms is a massive back step in all of this. There are laws in place that prevent absolute hate speech, and you can get in trouble for it already. When you ban Alex Jones where does it stop? Would men's activist groups be next? Would far right Christian groups get the chop? Will whatever is not the flavour of the time get shut down next?

When it seems like at least a sizeable minority of people dismiss WikiLeaks as nothing more than a Kremlin mouthpiece at this stage I found it a little confusing. I don't care if he only released DNC emails. They have only ever released factual documents (not one was ever proven to be false). Which is a better record than every other newslet out there!

The thing is that everyone has an agenda of some kind. Hearing the BBC and SkyNews talk about the Irish 'issue' feels at least like there is some bias there. They go straight to a Brexiteer to waffle on about terrorists or how there is no problem with a technological border or that the Irish Fine Gael government are only using this to get their United Ireland agenda pushed forward.

I see that the Alternative for Germany (it is a reincarnation of the Nazi Party in all but name) is up to 94 seats in the Bundestag in 2017, from 0 in 2013. If I see it being blamed on Russianbot farms or WikiLeaks or online troll farms I will despair.

If people can try stick to the facts and not be an ideologue on issues than the centre ground can maintain I hope.

demfad · 23-10-2018 3:09pm

To understand how disinformation can work here is the Technological Propaganda Machine behind Trump, Brexit and other RW Campaigns in Europe.

https://medium.com/join-scout/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine-86dac61668b

Albright, an assistant professor and data scientist at Elon University, started digging into fake news sites after Donald Trump was elected president. Through extensive research and interviews with Albright and other key experts in the field, including Samuel Woolley, Head of Research at Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project, and Martin Moore, Director of the Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power at Kings College, it became clear to Scout that this phenomenon was about much more than just a few fake news stories. It was a piece of a much bigger and darker puzzle — a Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine being used to manipulate our opinions and behavior to advance specific political agendas.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 23-10-2018 3:11pm

mcmoustache wrote: »

I suppose that the earth is flat and you're shocked that people could think that it's round?

To anyone keeping up with international news, these bots have been shown to exist. Many of their accounts have been exposed by private individuals as well as the social media companies themselves. Thanks to FBI indictments and Press releases by the Dutch intelligence services, we know which buildings they operated from, who was at the keyboards and who's in charge. There's even a money trail in rubles. European countries bordering Russia have been dealing with this for much longer than this became a big deal in the west.

If you think that Russian bots are just a fairly tale, you should be able to back that up - because the amount of evidence that these troll farms exist is overwhelming at this point.

Troll farms are a pretty dumb way to influence anything. Saudi Arabia and other countries do it directly, by buying off politicians, journalists or other forms of direct influence.

So they might exist. Just another way of influencing a form of media with no obvious huge benefit.

Other countries also do this of course.

demfad · 23-10-2018 3:29pm

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

There are most definitely online bots and internet users with an agenda behind them. That goes for Russians, Shinners, FF, FG, the NSA (who have over 40,000 employees and they are not all looking for terrorists or playing solitaire), right wing Christians, left wing Antifa types, Conspiracy folks, even big corporations like McDonalds or Burger King ect. ect. ect. There are bound to be a certain percentage of internet users at all times being paid to push a certain narrative. And this percentage in both bots and paid shills is likely to grow strongly into the future.

Having said that, I think people blaming Russianbot farms for Trump and Brexit are idiots quite frankly. Trump got wall to wall media attention from the get go. From that comedy roast speech that Obama did about him, to his Twitter account, to every news outlet leading with his every utterance for the entire electoral cycle. And going back to even well before the Apprentice. He's been a media darling and creation for decades.
Then with Brexit you had Robert Murdoch selling made up anti EU stories in his rag papers for decades before that vote came to pass. And all the 'glorious empire' crap that Brits are thought all through school and how they civilised the world has a knock on affect that is too often ignored.

I think banning Alex Jones and other far left and far right people from social media platforms is a massive back step in all of this. There are laws in place that prevent absolute hate speech, and you can get in trouble for it already. When you ban Alex Jones where does it stop? Would men's activist groups be next? Would far right Christian groups get the chop? Will whatever is not the flavour of the time get shut down next?

When it seems like at least a sizeable minority of people dismiss WikiLeaks as nothing more than a Kremlin mouthpiece at this stage I found it a little confusing. I don't care if he only released DNC emails. They have only ever released factual documents (not one was ever proven to be false). Which is a better record than every other newslet out there!

The thing is that everyone has an agenda of some kind. Hearing the BBC and SkyNews talk about the Irish 'issue' feels at least like there is some bias there. They go straight to a Brexiteer to waffle on about terrorists or how there is no problem with a technological border or that the Irish Fine Gael government are only using this to get their United Ireland agenda pushed forward.

I see that the Alternative for Germany (it is a reincarnation of the Nazi Party in all but name) is up to 94 seats in the Bundestag in 2017, from 0 in 2013. If I see it being blamed on Russianbot farms or WikiLeaks or online troll farms I will despair.

If people can try stick to the facts and not be an ideologue on issues than the centre ground can maintain I hope.

Can you give us some facts to back your assertions here?

For example the troll farm in St Petersburg has been exposed and it's operators indicted in the Mueller investigation FOR interference in the US election?
Nobody is saying that this issue alone was responsible for Brexit or Trump but propaganda works and works especially well on Social media.
You aim to exonorate Wikileaks but remember BOTH RNC server and DNC server were hacked. The DNC hack was used to win the election. If you look at the timing of the dumps you can see this couldn't be clearer. E.g 45 mins after the 'Access Holywood' tape was released they dumped a massive load of Podesta emails.
If you do an NSLookup on the wikileaks website (wouldnt advise it) you will see the IP is hosted in the Russian Federation. Also all agencies of US intelligence regard Wikileaks as a front for Russia. The facts seem to be against you.
If you then consider that Trump invoked Wikileaks about 140-150 times in rallies and the media in the month before the election you can see how Trump used Russian operations to further boost himself.
THe icing on the cake though happenend before this when Russian disinformation fooled James Comey into declaring Clinton acted 'very negligently' when Comey closed the first Investigation. He commented on it becuase he thought Loretta Lynch could not. This was because he had being convinced she had spoken to a Democrat about 'going easy' on Hillary.
Infact A Loretta Lynch had spoken with a Democrat not THE Loreatta Lynch who was AG then.
THis is where the 'lock her up' cries came from and packed the dynamite when teh second investigation opened.
Considering that Clinton's lead dropped from 6% down to 1.5% due to this reopening and considering that a combined win of 80,000 over 3 states won it for Trump......At the very least there must be great doubt.

That's not including the propaganda machine in my post above (which is under investigation by Mueller) which used Russian bots also.

James Brown · 23-10-2018 4:07pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

The idea that Russian trolls are spending any energy on Ireland is crazed nonsense.

(But then I would say that, wouldn’t I).

Lots of Russian oil money, (connected to Putin too) gets washed in Ireland, mind the state is aware and okay with that so I wouldn't see a need.

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/russian-bank-collapse-shines-light-into-shadowy-corners-of-irish-finance-34482531.html

https://russiabusinesstoday.com/economy/russian-state-owned-leasing-company-establish-irish-financing-arm/

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/russian-backed-companies-moved-more-12126329

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo · 23-10-2018 4:15pm

demfad wrote: »

Can you give us some facts to back your assertions here?

For example the troll farm in St Petersburg has been exposed and it's operators indicted in the Mueller investigation FOR interference in the US election?
Nobody is saying that this issue alone was responsible for Brexit or Trump but propaganda works and works especially well on Social media.
You aim to exonorate Wikileaks but remember BOTH RNC server and DNC server were hacked. The DNC hack was used to win the election. If you look at the timing of the dumps you can see this couldn't be clearer. E.g 45 mins after the 'Access Holywood' tape was released they dumped a massive load of Podesta emails.
If you do an NSLookup on the wikileaks website (wouldnt advise it) you will see the IP is hosted in the Russian Federation. Also all agencies of US intelligence regard Wikileaks as a front for Russia. The facts seem to be against you.
If you then consider that Trump invoked Wikileaks about 140-150 times in rallies and the media in the month before the election you can see how Trump used Russian operations to further boost himself.
THe icing on the cake though happenend before this when Russian disinformation fooled James Comey into declaring Clinton acted 'very negligently' when Comey closed the first Investigation. He commented on it becuase he thought Loretta Lynch could not. This was because he had being convinced she had spoken to a Democrat about 'going easy' on Hillary.
Infact A Loretta Lynch had spoken with a Democrat not THE Loreatta Lynch who was AG then.
THis is where the 'lock her up' cries came from and packed the dynamite when teh second investigation opened.
Considering that Clinton's lead dropped from 6% down to 1.5% due to this reopening and considering that a combined win of 80,000 over 3 states won it for Trump......At the very least there must be great doubt.

That's not including the propaganda machine in my post above (which is under investigation by Mueller) which used Russian bots also.

There's already a long thread dedicated to Trump. In the grand scheme of things, Trump and Russianbot farms are a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to disinformation and propaganda.

Trump and Clinton were both terrible candidates who should have never gotten to where they are.

The Mueller investigation has nothing to do with this thread in my opinion.

mcmoustache · 23-10-2018 5:10pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Troll farms are a pretty dumb way to influence anything. Saudi Arabia and other countries do it directly, by buying off politicians, journalists or other forms of direct influence.

So they might exist. Just another way of influencing a form of media with no obvious huge benefit.

Other countries also do this of course.

They're cheap and shilling has been around longer than the internet. I can understand scepticism regarding their effectiveness but not regarding their existence.

mcmoustache · 23-10-2018 5:14pm

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

The Mueller investigation has nothing to do with this thread in my opinion.

The Mueller investigation has indicted and identified the organisation responsible, the building in which they do their shilling, the people running it, their accountant, the botnets and samples of the tweets. The indictments also describe in detail how this worked and how it was paid for. It's a literal A to Z of Russian state-sponsored trolling. It has a lot to do with this thread.

mcmoustache · 23-10-2018 5:26pm

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

When I hear the term 'Russian Bots' I do think of the flat Earth peeps as you are both as deluded as one another.
Just because the "news" says something does not make it truth, in fact a lot of people have seen news outlets create their own narratives for years, If they had proof of these things happening it would be reason enough to go to war with Russia but that is not happening because I do not think this has anything to do with Russia at all, maybe home grown activists making political memes and such but that is as far as it goes.

More likely it is an easy excuse when thing dont lean politically ones way for example: Trump(must be Russian bots), Brexit(must be Russian bots), the Last Jedi poor audience score on Rotten Tomatoes(must be Russian bots):rolleyes:

There's a lot wrong here but the most I'll do to help you is suggest that you try to understand what Project Veritas and James O Keefe are about. You should always be suspicious of organisations with "Truth" in their name, even if they hide it from you by using the latin version.

Also, you don't go to war with a nuclear power over information warfare. You impose sanctions. That actually happened.

James Brown · 23-10-2018 7:53pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Troll farms are a pretty dumb way to influence anything. Saudi Arabia and other countries do it directly, by buying off politicians, journalists or other forms of direct influence.

So they might exist. Just another way of influencing a form of media with no obvious huge benefit.

Other countries also do this of course.

It's swaying public opinion that gets you the politicians you want.
The old Journalism trick, 'Now I'm an impartial observer, but it seems to me....'

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo · 23-10-2018 8:46pm

mcmoustache wrote: »

The Mueller investigation has indicted and identified the organisation responsible, the building in which they do their shilling, the people running it, their accountant, the botnets and samples of the tweets. The indictments also describe in detail how this worked and how it was paid for. It's a literal A to Z of Russian state-sponsored trolling. It has a lot to do with this thread.

I think people have lost the plot talking about Trump.

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-10-2018 9:42pm

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

I think people have lost the plot talking about Trump.

Your point being?

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo · 23-10-2018 10:05pm

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Your point being?

That people are disproportionately concerned with Trump considering this is an Irish message board.

dr.fuzzenstein · 23-10-2018 10:16pm

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

That people are disproportionately concerned with Trump considering this is an Irish message board.

From a European standpoint, I am worried about Trump. This may be an Irish message board, but the world doesn't cease to exist outside of Ireland's little bubble.
Trump dislikes Europe's trade power and Putin wants to wrestle back control of Eastern Europe.
Trump is definitely beholden to Putin and both don't like the EU one little bit.
Strife and discord will certainly play into their hands, so we're too busy arguing about refugees, Brexit, Neonazi sh*theads and the EU in general to notice how we are being attacked on both sides.
When you see the utter bitterness and abject stupidity spreading through the internet, well, I refuse to ascribe it solely to stupidity (unless a large proportion of the world's population has an IQ of about 50), there has to be some malice to it.

mcmoustache · 23-10-2018 10:40pm

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

I think people have lost the plot talking about Trump.

Ctrl-F "Trump". I haven't mentioned him until this post.

If you want to keep going on about Trump, there's a thread here for it. This one is about bots and it's impossible to talk about them without discussing their influence and the US investigations into them which demonstrated their existence and capabilities to the world. Trump is going to come up in that context in the same way that a discussion on poor refereeing decisions will end up with Thierry Henry being mentioned.

Tell me how · 24-10-2018 12:27am

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

That people are disproportionately concerned with Trump considering this is an Irish message board.

mcmoustache wrote: »

Trump is going to come up in that context in the same way that a discussion on poor refereeing decisions will end up with Thierry Henry being mentioned.

I'm with mcmoustache on this one. Think it is absolutely necessary to consider his election and presidency within this topic. Especially given Bannon and the relationship with Cambridge Analytica.

As an aside though, I think it is very dangerous for people to stop paying attention to and talking about what he is doing as it has the potential to be world changing and also will influence politics for years to come. Ivanka Trump for President in 2032 after 8 years of Nikki Halley anyone?

Trumps success and any overlap with subversive bots or accounts means that the latter is here to stay. It's only a question of whether we can see it and ignore it or if we fail to see it.

mcmoustache · 24-10-2018 12:46am

Trump is just one example of many bot campaigns but he and Brexit are the only ones that we're going to hear about. I don't think many of us follow Ukrainian, Finnish, Baltic or Former Yugoslavian countries' politics so Trump and Brexit are the only context that most of us will be able to relate to.

With regard to what they're likely to promote in Ireland, I'd say it'll just be far right and far left stuff although anti-eu sentiment will be a common thread. It's less about picking leaders and more about sewing division. The data on the US, which is publicly available and verifiable demonstrates this - they were pushing BLM and Sanders too.

mcmoustache · 24-10-2018 12:57am

Tell me how wrote: »

Especially given Bannon and the relationship with Cambridge Analytica.

There's a small distinction between CA and the Russian program. CA are a data analytics and advertisement targeting company that sell their expertise to people running for election. Russia's program is just shít-stirring abroad.

That's not to say that their interests align sometimes though in terms of collaboration. It hasn't been definitively shown yet so I'm inclined to stay away from that angle until more information is available.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo · 24-10-2018 9:12am

mcmoustache wrote: »

Trump is just one example of many bot campaigns but he and Brexit are the only ones that we're going to hear about. I don't think many of us follow Ukrainian, Finnish, Baltic or Former Yugoslavian countries' politics so Trump and Brexit are the only context that most of us will be able to relate to.

With regard to what they're likely to promote in Ireland, I'd say it'll just be far right and far left stuff although anti-eu sentiment will be a common thread. It's less about picking leaders and more about sewing division. The data on the US, which is publicly available and verifiable demonstrates this - they were pushing BLM and Sanders too.

This is what I was trying to get at with my opening comment. Politics on this site has 40,000 posts about the Trump presidency, and 20,000 on the lead up to his election. It really is only looking at this through one focused lens. We are in the relative infancy of mass online communication, and we have reached a tipping point only very recently that online behaviour can have an influence on real world politics.

Yet Trump, Brexit, Sanders and BLM all addressed very real issues to people already, and they have their infancy long before Russian botfarms. I think that it's really good if people become engaged and aware of how propaganda can be used against voters in the digital medium. The likelihood of bad actors at play in the digital world and being successful is almost certainly only going to grow.

This is an evolution of how disinformation is at play. But disinformation comes from all sides in varies degrees and in different ways. And propaganda and lies have been used by powerful players for as long as time itself.

TheIrishGrover · 24-10-2018 9:32am

Part of the issue is is that it becomes so partisan: "You are only saying it's a bot because it's saying something I agree with. You want to look at a bot? Look at the things this one is saying.
I absolutely believe that these are malicious actions intended to seed confusion, distrust and sow hatred and fear. These bots are cheap (Relatively speaking) to operate and have a massive impact.

You are always going to have a certain percentage of easily-led people who are easily swayed by Twitter, Facebook and other social-media platforms. Platforms with no fact-management: Once it's on the net and there is more than one link to it then it's fact.

Facebook and Twitter and Social Media in general are cesspits of hatred and propaganda and lies. This is unfortunate but that's human nature. People will vent their own spleens online and nothing can be done about it. There is just too much out there to police. Even if they did try you will have people claiming censorship. They will say: Why did you remove my post? "Because it was an unsubstantiated post that was verified to be a lie". They will state and what about their post? "That was verified independently as fact". "Yeah but it's Fake News and you are biased.

There is no such thing as "Fake News". No such thing. It does NOT exist. There is accidentally incorrect information (Mistakes), correct information (Facts) and intentionally incorrect information (Lies). Whether someone deems a correct information (fact) to be newsworthy or not does not classify this as "Fake News".

So, sorry, off on a tangent there

Issue is that any action taken against these bots (Even if something could be done) would be considered partisan and censorship. Look at how long it took social media platforms to even begin to tackle disgusting, dangerous, hate-mongering trolls like infowars.

mcmoustache · 24-10-2018 10:58am

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

There is no such thing as "Fake News". No such thing. It does NOT exist. There is accidentally incorrect information (Mistakes), correct information (Facts) and intentionally incorrect information (Lies). Whether someone deems a correct information (fact) to be newsworthy or not does not classify this as "Fake News".

I think that the term Fake News, outside of authoritarian types, has come to mean a specific type of disinformation. I guess it would fall under the Lies that you mentioned but more recently, it has come to mean lies presented from a medium that looks like a news website. They often mimic the layouts of other sites and have similar names to actual news such as cnn.co.ga or Bloomberg.com.au etc but the content is just made up. It is quite specific though and doesn't cover mistakes or facts that people don't like.

The thing with fake news is that without botnets and paid promotion on social media, it wouldn't have the reach that it has now.

TO give an example of how this works, lets say I created a website where I just made up stories and I had one story where Hillary Clinton was caught in a threesome with George Soros and Nancy Pelosi in the basement of an abortion clinic in Chicago. At first, this story isn't going to show up on google. So how do I get this story to as many people as possible and better yet, to as many people who are likely to believe it?

One way is to pay facebook to show this to people with certain demographic traits. In this case sending it to a bunch of east-coast, college-educated professionals won't gain much traction but if I send it to a demographic that has already been shown to believe that stuff, then they'll "like" or whatever it is and the story will spread organically to others with similar profiles. To give that spreading a boost, though, if I had access to someone who controlled 100 facebook pages, I could get them to promote the story even further. Soon enough, this story is seen by millions of the sort of people who are most likely to believe the story.

On twitter, it would be even cheaper to spread the story. All you need is control of a bunch of accounts, tailored for your target demographic - blonde female profile picture, American flag, references to God and military etc. Have them regularly retweet popular conservative twitter feeds and conservative news organisations for a while and have them retweet and like each other's activity. These can be automated or controlled by humans from poor countries. Soon enough, tweets from these accounts will be showing up in the timelines of the type of people you're after. Then it's just a matter of having that botfarm tweet the cr*p out of that story and it'll make its way to the kinds who are likely to believe it.

All of this is relatively inexpensive and both private and state actors have been caught doing exactly this.

TL;DR

Fake News (not mistakes or news people don't like) gets spread by bots and shills on social media by targeting demographics that are likely to believe and spread the fake story themselves. The bots/shills don't do all the work but they boost the story among likely believers. It's cheap and easy to do so it's not surprising that private entities and states would use such techniques.

TheIrishGrover · 24-10-2018 11:52am

mcmoustache wrote: »

..........

TL;DR

Fake News (not mistakes or news people don't like) gets spread by bots and shills on social media by targeting demographics that are likely to believe and spread the fake story themselves. The bots/shills don't do all the work but they boost the story among likely believers. It's cheap and easy to do so it's not surprising that private entities and states would use such techniques.

Well, the issue is that these all get lumped into one group: this (Extremely cleverly, if hateful) term "fake news".

So mistakes and lies get lumped in with facts that the target wishes people to ignore. Seemingly unrelated true facts that would be embarrassing or potentially damaging. When it's a mistake it's "Lie/Fake News". When it's a mistake it's "Lie/Fake News". When it's embarassing/damaging it's Lie/Fake News". When they are called on it as being a lie they trot out "We never said it was a lie. We said it was Fake News"

So the target says "Fake News". Their supporters assume this means lies (Never mistake or fact) and ignore it. Their detractors assume this is fact that they wish to hide but cannot engage in debate because their opponents consider this Fake News: Lies.

As you said, once it is promoted heavily on social media it is now "fact" to a certain group of easily-swayed people. These people then are happy pawns of these bots.

All it would take is a twitterbot post and three other "Unrelated" twitterbot retweets for this to become fact. "Well, everyone is saying it. Look, @yeehawUSA says so and he couldn't possibly be a Russian with that name.

Look at your Facebook page (If you still have one). What percentage of the posts are actually people posting something of their own: Photo or update or something. And what percentage is clickbait spam. If I see one more post from a friend of mine about how "this supermarket is selling rotten meat. The answer will surprise you".

But, as I said, bar manual monitoring of every single post before being allowed online (Impossible) there is nothing social media companies can do. Even then you will hear cries of "Censorship".

mcmoustache · 24-10-2018 12:19pm

TheIrishGrover wrote: »

Look at your Facebook page (If you still have one). What percentage of the posts are actually people posting something of their own: Photo or update or something. And what percentage is clickbait spam. If I see one more post from a friend of mine about how "this supermarket is selling rotten meat. The answer will surprise you".

But, as I said, bar manual monitoring of every single post before being allowed online (Impossible) there is nothing social media companies can do. Even then you will hear cries of "Censorship".

I've been lucky enough never to have had a facebook one. I did have a bebo briefly but that was maybe 15 years ago. These days, I'm only here and on twitter.

You're right about this being hard for social media companies to police. They can easily stop the obvious stuff but it's just going to be an arms race. Whenever the social media companies take measures, the bot and troll farms will just change their behaviour to defeat these counter measures.

While the social media companies can help, the only thing that will really work is a population that is aware of what's going on but I don't have a lot of faith in that happening.

25-10-2018 6:33am

Anyone have opinions on Correct the Record? Seems rather similar to everything else being mentioned.

VinLieger · 25-10-2018 9:31am

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote: »

That people are disproportionately concerned with Trump considering this is an Irish message board.

America are our largest trading partner and a massive amount of people are employed by American companies here. Not to mention their continuing closening of ties to Russia who have very clearly made it a goal in the last decade to do everything they can to weaken and dismantle the EU.

You might want to open your eyes to the bigger picture?

Pelvis · 25-10-2018 9:57am

Chris_Heilong wrote: »

The whole Russian bot thing is just a fairy-tale, it is shocking the amount of people who buy into this.

Countries used to go to the trouble and expense of flying airplanes and dropping millions of leaflets containing propaganda. But yes, having people post on the internet from thousands of miles away and creating bots to do so automatically, THAT'S the fairy tale.

Speaking of Fairy Tales. A while back I delved into the Twitter API and decided, for the heck of it, to 'publish' a book on Twitter, the book I chose was Alice in Wonderland. Here's the account if you want a read! 1123 tweets posted in just a few days, and that was only running when I was at home!

That shows just how incredibly easy it is, even for a dope like me, to post information online automatically.

seamus · 25-10-2018 9:59am

I've been noticing this with Facebook accounts more recently. Accounts throwing out extremist/contrarian views on public shares. And when you look into them have very little activity over a number of years, despite have public profiles. There are some genuine ones out there. You look at them and see patten of similar comments and posts.

It's the accounts with one or two profile pictures, nearly ten years old but without any posts.

"Bot" is probably an unhelpful pejorative. Because it implies an automated algorithm which can be fooled. This is not the case; there's someone behind the account who will often respond when called out. Then you look silly for calling it a "bot" account. But nevertheless, the account is not a genuine individual's account.

Tell me how · 25-10-2018 10:13am

seamus wrote: »

"Bot" is probably an unhelpful pejorative. Because it implies an automated algorithm which can be fooled. This is not the case; there's someone behind the account who will often respond when called out. Then you look silly for calling it a "bot" account. But nevertheless, the account is not a genuine individual's account.

i wonder when we hear of user accounts being compromised, is there a chance that log in details for such dormant accounts make their way to the black market and hence they become active.

I wonder how many accounts are being started and "cultivated" now for active duty at some point in the future.

I suspect the whole of FB might be just 10,000 people with multiple accounts fighting various arguments and causes. :pac:

OneOfThem Stumbled · 25-10-2018 10:16am

dudara wrote: »

This, it’s far more likely it was a dormant account that was hacked or bought. But other than that I don’t disagree.

I do believe that internat trolls or deliberate dispruption is a thing. What’s even worse though is the huge swathes of people who willingly drink the kool-aid. There’s something disturbing about our willingness to be polarised.

We tend to (by nature) focus on the most extreme, and media producers follow suit to fill this natural preference.

Who is interested in seeing someone at a rally with a relatively neutral opinion?

What is more likely to gain attention? Focusing on a Neo-Nazi Trump supporter, or a steel worker Trump supporter? What's more likely to gain attention? A feminist championing minor legislative or social change, or one who is screaming that all men are rapists?

Having positions we might not necessarily agree with associated with people who are repulsive we are more likely to find ourselves polarised, whilst simultaneously feeling a greater certainty of our own correctness

VinLieger wrote: »

You might want to open your eyes to the bigger picture?

I've heard that Xi Jinping is a swell guy

dr.fuzzenstein · 25-10-2018 10:23am

seamus wrote: »

I've been noticing this with Facebook accounts more recently. Accounts throwing out extremist/contrarian views on public shares. And when you look into them have very little activity over a number of years, despite have public profiles. There are some genuine ones out there. You look at them and see patten of similar comments and posts.

It's the accounts with one or two profile pictures, nearly ten years old but without any posts.

"Bot" is probably an unhelpful pejorative. Because it implies an automated algorithm which can be fooled. This is not the case; there's someone behind the account who will often respond when called out. Then you look silly for calling it a "bot" account. But nevertheless, the account is not a genuine individual's account.

I absolutely agree. These are accounts that go back absolute yonks. One pic, zero activity and suddenly it springs into action 10 years later.
And I've noticed that they go very quiet, very quickly when called out on it.
One would have to be a bit simple or have an interest in disputing their existence to say otherwise.
Waving them away or saying"shurr, this is Ireland", why bother posting? It's don't know, don't care, move along, nothing to see here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/world/europe/russia-troll-factory.html

Bot Accounts - Disinformation and the removal of centre ground

Comments