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Pentagon Reports 2000% Increase in Russia Trolls Since Friday (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in Saturday's briefing that there has been a "2,000% increase in Russian trolls in the last 24 hours," following the coordinated strike against Syria on Friday night.
So we're now calling people who dissent to bombing another country without the approval of congress trolls. Isn't this McCarthyism?
So... what???
This obsession is insane.
I predict a 3000% increase in Rickrolling.
Basically, anything Trump flavored has had a pretty heavy tilt in its moderation, towards the pro-Trump. I've worked in a lot of rural areas, and the brand of angry conservatism/superlibertarianism is pretty rare among IT/Software guys. But for some reason, it's hyper-represented on Slashdot in the past few years.
Not that folks can't hold that view - it just seems disproportionate, compared to the population.
Ryan Fenton
The media, hollywood, most comedians, all of the big tech companies, and most social media is 24-7 hardcore anti-Trump for almost 2 straight years now. You see a couple of posts on slashdot that are right-leaning get modded up and all of a sudden it's "wildly conservative" now.
Might want to get your sensitivity meter adjusted just a touch.
Have you ever considered that might be the work of Russian trolls?
They're known to play both sides so they can control the dialogue completely.
The story doesn't even provide any evidence.. just some two paragraph statement that we're supposed to take as fact. The story itself is pretty vague.
Trolling where? Examples?
Sounds and smells like fake news.
The media, hollywood, most comedians, all of the big tech companies, and most social media is 24-7 hardcore anti-Trump for almost 2 straight years now. You see a couple of posts on slashdot that are right-leaning get modded up and all of a sudden it's "wildly conservative" now.
Might want to get your sensitivity meter adjusted just a touch.
Not to mention the story selection and summaries are massively tilted left.
It's more the down modding of any dissenting opinions that are critical of trump that are the problem. Even when they do end up with a positive score there are always troll and flamebait mods too.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well, there's no need to panic until it's over 9000%.
#DeleteFacebook
I take this to mean that American trolls are slacking. This calls for massive tariffs on imported troll posts so that the balance shifts to locally sourced, free-range, gluten and asbestos free troll posts. Step it up folks! Those likes, reblogs, and follows won't generate themselves!
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
It's more the down modding of any dissenting opinions that are critical of trump that are the problem. Even when they do end up with a positive score there are always troll and flamebait mods too.
Try sorting the dissenting opinions into "insults" versus "insight".
Almost all the "dissenting opinions" here are just simple name calling and deserve to be modded down.
Most of the rest are simple "I think $THE_OPPOSITE", with no background or support.
If you look at comments with that filter, I think you'll find that it's the insults that get modded down.
True insightful posts tend to get modded up.
Are you seeing some different version of /. than I'm seeing? Does /. do some sort of tailoring of the scores to the logged in user? Because I've witnessed the opposite. Lots of inane junk like "fuck trump" getting a "+5 insightful", while well-reasoned, thought-out posts that use some logic to defend a particular action of his getting modded as troll, presumably by someone who didn't have any logic to argue back with.
Not without knowing the criteria the Pentagon is using to brand an actor as a "troll".
That said, I doubt an increase in activity of that magnitude from state agents is feasible. You don't keep 95% of your workforce slack. So for this to be true, either they hired a lot of people in a hurry, or they moved a lot of their trolls off of other projects onto the anti-America beat. But the thing is, that takes specialized language skills and training for a Russian.
I don't doubt that paid Russian anti-American trolls are working overtime, but I very much doubt they've upped their output by 21x. We are very likely to be looking at an increase in activity by a mix of paid mindfuckers and Internet randos who are doing it for their own reasons.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It could be literally this simple "Russians curious about what is going on are checking US media and social media"... literally that.
I mean, who thinks they're doing quality control on that number?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I'm a (former) CPU engineer :) The science is here has mostly dropped to cargo cult level. It's the same with many other subjects.
It is funny to hear this from a user with 7 digit id addressed to a user who was there before any of us.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
Very few people 'like Trump'. He _was_ just the lesser of two evils.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
noticed.
I'm very liberal and when I post my strong dislike for the R's that are ruining things for all of us, I get modded down very unrealistically, compared to how slash used to be (note, I do have a low enough number to know what slash used to be like in the early days).
IT is not conservative; slash is mostly IT based and yet the R's come here in storm and mod things down in a pretty organized manner.
I'd say there are definitely paid shills and trolls here and have been over about 10 years, now.
I dont' really care; since I realize that this place has long been invaded and ruined. I still speak my mind and the message still does get out. but it is a shame that the invasion of social media has mostly ruined it, as a true communication medium.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
It can't be easy to be make a living as a pro-Trump comedian. The man is a parody of our times.
Basically, anything Trump flavored has had a pretty heavy tilt in its moderation, towards the pro-Trump.
It does seem like the extremes are over represented, but I suspect those are mostly just a few people using sock puppet accounts or AC. For my part, I find that if you arrive at a divisive story shortly after it’s been posted, the comments that have been moderated up disproportionately represent one side or the other. If you come back through a day or so later, things will have settled more in alignment with the general Slashdot groupthink.
I find that I’m much happier with the state of Slashdot (though I still miss its heydey) if I browse with anything under 3 hidden and wait at least a few hours before I read the comments.
He _was_ just the lesser of two evils.
No he wasn't. Just about everything Hillary was accused of supporting he did or did worse. There was just something about Hillary that meant the minority would rather see the greater of two evils as president than have her in the job.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You're on to us. Actually the Russian trolls are the only commenters left on this site. And bots of course. It's a honeypot site for the occasional visitor who strays onto the site. I spend most of the time quarrelling with myself under different ids in the hope I manage to trap a visitor. It's a lot of work.
Overwhelmingly Americans are against any involvement in Syria, and the government is calling these people Russian trolls.
I'd say there are definitely paid shills and trolls here and have been over about 10 years, now.
I dont' really care; since I realize that this place has long been invaded and ruined. I still speak my mind and the message still does get out. but it is a shame that the invasion of social media has mostly ruined it, as a true communication medium.
Or it could be that a larger proportion of reasonable people simply disagree with you.