Slashdot Mirror
Truthy Project Uncovers Political Astroturfing On Twitter
An anonymous reader writes with a follow-up to the launch of the Truthy Project we discussed last month.
"Tens of thousands of tweets this election season have turned out to be automated messages generated by employees of political campaigns, Indiana University researchers have found. Quoting: 'In one case, a network of nine Twitter accounts, all created within 13 minutes of one another, sent out 929 messages in about two hours as replies to real account holders in the hopes that these users would retweet the messages. The fake accounts were probably controlled by a script that randomly picked a Twitter user to reply to, and a message and a Web link to include. Although Twitter shut the accounts down soon after, the messages still reached 61,732 users.'"
companies, famous people, and now political people. Twitter is spam central unless you only follow your close friends.
The world is how you make it
Umm.. no. Not surprised at all.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
... I hope they don't let twitter users vote.
Virtually all communication on the Internet is faked by somebody out to make a buck. BUY CHEEP V1AGR4!!!
Really? Politicians and political action groups - people who are willing to do just about anything to get elected or extend their power - are willing to 'astroturf'? Seems like a small sin compared to the shenanigans they normally stoop to.
If politicians are willing to sell out the citizens in exchange for campaign contributions as low as a few hundred or measly few thousand dollars, is there any possibly doubt they might just maybe engage in less than ideal campaign practices.
In reply to all the people who say that democracy is dead and we just have to live with this corrupt system, may I introduce you to the one (admittedly very difficult and long-term) alternative that actually has a chance of freeing us from politicians entirely?
Read: http://metagovernment.org/ and before you criticize it... remember that the only other alternative is this disaster we have now. That or authoritarianism.
On Twitter? Unpossible!
Actually, the only thing I'm surprised to learn is that there may, in fact, be some legitimate accounts on Twitter. 99.999% of it seems to be spam judging by my few visits to the site, although maybe calling it spam is unfair; after all, you have to sign up to the individual streams of advertising.
These types of services have been available for a very long time. Why would it surprise anyone that professional shill's would pick up newer comm methods like twitter?
Without doubt professional shills have accounts ready to go on just about any type of news site you can think of. Without question certain subjects bring up certain shills time after time on sites like Slashdot. Anymore this is just one more form of a perception management service to be offered by PR firms.
The best thing to do would be to have a law that would require disclosure of such shilling (similar to advertising shill regulation for places like amazon.com). It wont stop many of the shills, but the cost of discovery could be punitive enough to give pause to those that hire them.
Rand Paul:
"The Democrats tripled the U.S. debt!"
From the man who will
1. Privatize Social Security
2. Privatize the Veterans Administration
3. Replace the U.S. Federal Income Tax with a national sales tax.
4. Change the Moon to green cheese.
Go Rand ! all the way to the insane asylum.
Yours In Moscow,
Kilgore T.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25964/?p1=A4
"The result is the Twitter chatbot @AI_AGW. Its operation is fairly simple: Every five minutes, it searches twitter for several hundred set phrases that tend to correspond to any of the usual tired arguments about how global warming isn't happening or humans aren't responsible for it. It then spits back at the twitterer who made that argument a canned response culled from a database of hundreds."
Evil, no wait!
I would argue the findings don't matter a bit, because they didn't reach people not interested in seeing the messages sent.
So what if one holder generated twenty accounts in a second? The accounts exist in a void, and are only "truthy" if they trick people into following them. THEN I would say there was skullduggery at work, but they showed no proof of that.
On top of that, Twitter is a terrible outlet for spam because the first time you see someone you don't care about from someone you just unfollow them or never follow them to start. What good did it do? Again, the people actually following and receiving those messages WANTED to see them. I don't generally like or use twitter much myself but that is a huge benefit twitter has as a communications channel, in that it's immune from sent spam (now people who follow you just to spam you with presence, that's another matter but not under discussion).
On a side note I like how the only people they named explicitly were republicans and unnamed were some of the bigger supposed problem accounts. This was pretty obviously a kind of astroturfing, in and of itself... make up a problem where none exists and claim Republicans are at the heart of it, all on election day. Smooth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
See Karl?!?!? I TOLD YOU we shouldn't have created those accounts so closely together...
I for one welcome our new bot overlords
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
No wondering other non-western countries hold a very cautious and suspicious view of it. I bet during chaotic periods and time leading to it when tweet volume exploded, twitter wasn't so keen, quick or even willing to detect and shut down suspicious accounts and activities (read, CIA, NED, etc)
Says the AC
Was it as obvious as the "hot chick" named Tanya486 who follows you, is following 56000 other people, and has 2 followers?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
He wants to privatize the VA.. hes a fucking idiot.
Yours truly,
A veteran.
Yeah, I can't wait for the money supply to be controlled by international gold traders and/or mining cartels.
We won't have any economic crises after that.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Grand total inflation when gold and silver were the currency (between 1776 and 1913) was 14%.
Since then, it is tough to estimate, but at least a thousand percent.
Personally I'm outraged by this news!
Most politicians (and by that I mean Congress) waste enough time on my nickel (speaking as someone who would be a taxpayer if I made enough money for the federal government not to refund pretty much all of it ;) that quite honestly I would prefer that they would be required to Tweet every 15 minutes so we can account for every moment of their time in office!
I'd also like a requirement that Pictures and Geotagging have to be included, not just to ensure against fraudulent Tweets, but also to be used in evidence in the next (and there will always be a next time) sexual misconduct charge! In fact, given the fact that anyone in public service should not have any expectation of privacy, let's include a requirement for an entry whenever a member of congress enters the restroom! This way we can clearly establish not just who took the last square of toilet paper and/or soap without reporting it to maintenance, but whether or not a congressman really is reaching for a paper left on the floor and not, in fact, asking for sexual favors from the man in stall next to him in a restroom!
I'm honest enough to admit I lie to myself.
They're on the internets!!!1
If people are voting based on what Twitter tells them then we've got much bigger problems.
It's about time we start using the information age to separate false from true. Centuries-old practices of paid rumor-spreaders and disinformation should have some more chance of being tracked down and exposed. We are all tricked every day, it's time we all start to figure out what is going on, and not just be fed our opinions via factoids filtered for angle and timing.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
...while I dust off my 'surprised' face...
0 0
<O>
there we go.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
Soap, ballot, jury, cartridge. In that order.
Some amount of inflation is necessary for an economy to grow. And grow, it has to, when you're trying to take care of everyone, and not just the plantation owner. Gold only works if you have a static economy.
Besides, Gold standard introduced to the US (I assume that with the mention of 1776, you're talking about the US): 1873. At various points in time, currency was backed by gold, silver, others and nothing, the "nothing" periods primarily being wars (war of 1812, Civil War, etc).
With gold, you also have the exact opposite problem - deflation, when the gold supply grows at a rate slower than the economy.
But don't let basic economics distract you from talking points and sound-bites, inconvenient as they are!
As opposed to the banks? Or the privately run "Federal" Reserve. At least with gold they can't just make infinite free (to them) money by dropping the reserve requirements to zero. We have to find some form of currency that is tied to the actual value of the goods in the market.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED! To find that astroturfing has been happening on Twitter!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
We have to find some form of currency that is tied to the actual value of the goods in the market.
If you did some research, you'd find at least a couple of alternatives (not saying you don't have any in mind). Unfortunately, they kinda break the current corporate/global system...
If the spam is relevant and constructive, then it does not matter if it was generated by an astroturfing script.
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations..." -Winston Churchill
political horseshit placed by a shill or script, mod down
Not to poopoo your sentiment entirely, but take a look at the Senate's two-faced handling of VA benefits. They sit there cheering and cheering the war (because their campaign contributors are giving them fat kickbacks for it) and chanting "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!" while the CUT VA BENEFITS DURING AN ACTIVE WAR. I actively opposed the Iraq war (while agreeing that we had to go in to Afghanistan), but their cutting of VA benefits while sending out soldiers to "protect" us through war profiteering was simply monstrous behavior. Particularly because my stepbrother was one of the troops impacted by it.
He got home, suffered major depression and shell shock after honorable discharge due to dislocated shoulder in a mortar attack. The VA fixed his shoulder up, then denied all further coverage. My father, a private doctor, performed tests himself on his own buck, found that my stepbrother's body no longer produces testosterone. They go back to the VA, ask for payment for the test, and ask the VA to fix the problem now that they've shown the depression has a physical cause.
VA denied coverage. So much for supporting our troops.
I feel horrible for our troops. You guys haven't had a truly justifiable war (i.e. fought in self defense or fighting an opponent that truly posed a threat to us) in years. That's simultaneously good (there really AREN'T bad guys that can wage true war with us anymore) and bad (the military has been widely deployed the past two decades in a world like that). So basically you're asked to go out there and make sacrifices for a bunch of rich guys to get richer. THEN while you're deployed those same rich assholes take away your benefits, depriving you of care needed for the injuries and trauma suffered to protect their corporate interests.
Privatizing doesn't sound like a very great answer, but neither does leaving it in control of the assholes in power. It's between a rock and a hard place there, if you ask me.
Instead of calling it AstroTurfing, lets call it:
TurfHogging ...
or
TurfHacking
or
Lies
or
BrainWashing
or
BullShit by any other name would smell as sweet
Vote Early, Vote Often!
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
A democratic researcher looking for abuse of online social systems found only one instance of abuse (our politicians only cheated ONCE ? How likely is that ?). Obviously the only abuse he found was conservative.
If you're going to research this and you can't find at least one scumbag from either party, I'm not going to believe for a second you're impartial, or that you've got anything interesting to say about "abuse in general". You're just propagandizing.
Let's not pretend it's hard to find a lying scumbag in either party. This is politicians we're talking about. They're about as honest as a lawyer who likes to eat young virgins on friday night talking to the police.
Amen to that, brother. Amazing how many people are ignorant of the hypocritical actions of the politicians who wave the flag on one hand and then cut benefits to the people fighting for our country. I hope your stepbrother gets better care soon.
Didn't you know? Only whites can be considered racist, prejudice or discriminating. Every other race is just "Expressing pride in their color."
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
No, inflation is not necessary for the economy to grow. Inflation economies punish savings, and inflation-proof economies punish savings and push people toward investing (read gambling) in the market (read casino) to maintain their worth.
If you care to look at how the currency worked, it was unnecessary to "back" a gold or silver coin with anything. Gold and silver coins being currency in those days, they were their own backing.
Basic economics is what got us into this mess, starting on Jekyll Island in 1913. Experimental, wet-dream banker economics.
Yeah, lets create more software that lets nutcases create polling sites that lead them to believe their twisted worldview is a majority opinion. Sorry to break it to you, but half the people in this country have a two digit IQ. Direct democracy would quickly result in a racially segregated country, with an official state religion of Conservative Protestant (Lutherans, Methodists and other Devil Worshipers need not apply), where the teaching of evolution is punishable by death, with a tax rate of 0%, but everyone would still be guaranteed Medicare and Social Security.
We saw yesterday what happens when the stupid leave their TVs to vote. Imagine if they could vote on every issue right from their TV. With Fox News telling them how to vote on each issue. That would be great. At least with representative democracy it takes the electorate longer to fuck up the country because not everyone they elect is a congenital idiot. You're expecting people who believe their income taxes are too high even though they aren't paying any income taxes to manage the economy?
When people enter the military, we expect them to give up some rights. They no longer have unlimited free speech. They no longer have privacy. They are, in theory, held to a higher standard of behavior than others. I don't see why we can't do the same for political candidates. If you want to run for congress or for a federal office, you give up your right to lie with impunity. A $10,000 fine for each lie should do it, and lets say the 11th lie is a felony that gets you a little jail time, costs you your right to vote, and gets you dropped from the ticket.
I call bullshit. In 1776 inflation rate was about 20%. In 1777 it was 25%. In 1778 it was 30%. During the war of 1812 it hit 20%. In between were periods of deflation in there that hit 20% They may have added up to 14% (it's hard to tell from the document I'm looking at), but there was a hell of a lot of inflation and deflation in those periods and a whole lot of pain because of it. Deflation cripples the economy. Technically telling the true what propagating a false story (the gold standard prevents inflation) is still lying.
The economy was largely stagnant during much of that time and there were repeated depressions that got successively worse until the great depression. Gold isn't money, it's a commodity and its value will fluctuate like any commodity even if you hold large quantities in reserve. That destabilizes the money supply and during those years you got periods of inflation and deflation. If you look at the actual annual inflation/deflation rate (page 6 of this) you will see that prices have been far more stable since we've gone off the gold standard and into an actively managed economy. You'll also see that GDP growth has taken off much more than the total inflation has.
The only way you get a stable value for gold is if you only compare it to gold. Compared to other things its value isn't even close to stable.
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And just how much gold/silver can you have to back all the currency in circulation? How do you increase the gold supply to meet the demands of a larger population? Remember, most of the easily accessible gold has already been mined - what we have is a diminishing supply, which by your plan would necessarily be shared among a growing population.
Also, there are situations where you can have over-supply of the commodity being used to back your currency. Suppose you're backed by gold, and an alchemist the philosopher's stone. Just any way by which the supply can increase like crazy. Suddenly, your entire currency is rendered worthless. All those gold dollars under your mattress that you spent your life accumulating are now equal to something that a guy in a dark room dressed in a weird robe can conjure up in a few seconds. Where's your self-backed currency now?
The problem is that an unbacked currency, combined with the now accepted idea of monetizing debt, has already caused hyperinflation.
Bankers realized that making worthless money from cotton is so much more profitable than anything else they ever tried. Coin money, backed by itself, is more or less inflation proof. Supply and demand take care of the rest. So population increases faster than the gold supply, that just means that goods will cost less as there is less money chasing them. The actual amount of gold per human is moot. The people who save in such an economy don't need to gamble in the market just to maintain their wealth. All they need is a jar and a backyard.
The real magic trick was convincing people that worthless paper has some sort of value. Paper money, backed by debt, is only good for bankers and stealing resources from brown people.