Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
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
So we're now calling people who dissent to bombing another country without the approval of congress trolls. Isn't this McCarthyism?
Except in this case there's every reason to think that the majority of these people are directly (or indirectly) in the employ of the Russian government and under orders to advance Russian interests by influencing public opinion in the US.
I stole this Sig
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.
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.