Believing that US agencies aren't hired to to push propaganda on reddit because the people here already do it for free is like believing that a company like Apple doesn't need to advertise because so many people already buy their product.

48  2014-11-29 by [deleted]

There seems to be an argument that comes up again and again. And it basically boils down to two frames of thought.

  • 1) That there are massive amounts of US/Western shills on this site controlling the conversations and the voting scores

  • 2) That the first point is wrong and just an illusion based on the fact that this is a US/Western site and that we are just witnessing the bias of the site

But there is a massive part of the equations that the 2nd train of thought overlooks.

The amount of bias that already exists on the site is a direct product of the success of constant propaganda.

It is exactly like advertising. No popular company stops advertising just because their product is now mainstream or desired by the masses. As a matter of fact, the opposite happens. The more successful a product gets, the more effort goes into advertising because the initial success itself is largely attributed to the success of the advertising.

So its not like an agency hired to push the mainstream narrative is going to say "Well guys, no need to do any work on this website, they are already saying what we want them to!"

Its more like "Hey guys, look at how effective our campaigns have been, these people are already parroting our talking points, now lets really dig in to keep up this great momentum!"

Reddit is a massive portal for Western propaganda. And for example, as far as Russian propaganda goes, we are really only seeing the light-work because the heavy-lifting is occurring on Russian websites.

It makes no sense on any level to spend the majority of your effort trying to convince the home team to route for the away team. You run your campaigns on your own people and spend a limited budget to disrupt the enemies territory in the meantime.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this subject?

11 comments

10  LetsHackReality 2014-11-29

Completely agree. And pretty soon it'll be possible to automate all this using AI shillbots. In fact, I've already had a few interactions that "smelled" like I was talking with a bot. In a few years, the shillbots will be indistinguishable from human, and they can easily outnumber us 1000 to 1. That leaves us in a weird spot, as a species.

Our window of opportunity won't be open forever.

10  putin_hates_cats 2014-11-29

Yeah, its pretty crazy. People really underestimate the fact that the most popular web-forum in history is completely anonymous and that you could be talking to a computer program, or a person in a call-center with a sheet of talking points, or an 11 year-old.

I was looking through some of the Mike Brown Ferguson threads and it was crazy how many different commenters were saying the exact same thing. Like word-for-word. I believe I saw this comment "And black people wonder why people call them apes" at least 12 times. Not even variations, that exact comment, from "users" that had different comment histories and different amounts of time on the site.

These days, everything is up for grabs. I have seen web forums advertising reddit accounts for sale. Advertising upvotes. People asking for different kinds of accounts and offering money for high scores or long histories.

I really believe that propaganda and manufacturing a consensus has become the new weapon of mass-destruction. It really makes me wonder if it has always been like that, just through different means. I mean, how else can you convince millions of people to leave their families and loved ones and go out to kill or be killed. When you think about it, that is insane. Why would anyone do that? What does the individual have to gain for fighting in a war caused by bankers, politicians, and sick, old, egotistical men.

Sometimes I think that every single war was started the same way. Through a massive campaign of lies and propaganda. Used to be word-of-mouth, eventually evolved to writing, then radio, then TV, and now here we are at internet.

And how can we continue to fall for this shit? As a species, we apparently learn nothing. Or maybe the people who try to stop it and actually start making progress, they get killed. And the machine just keeps on chugging along.

Nutty shit.

0  master_baiter 2014-11-29

Mary saw a puppy in a window, she wanted it. What did Mary want?

7  InternetPropagandist 2014-11-29

Obligatory mountain of information on internet propaganda.

In a few years, this will simply be common knowledge. For now, way too many people are extremely uninformed about this.

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3  eggrole 2014-11-29

Educating our children in the Trivium nullifies this and many other sophist (clever liar) tactics.

Grammar Logic Rhetoric

3  northamerimassgrave 2014-11-29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBGary#Astroturfing

It has been reported that HBGary Federal was contracted by the U.S. government to develop astroturfing software which could create an "army" of multiple fake social media profiles.[36][37] Later it was reported that while data security firm HBGary Federal was among the "Persona Management Software" contract’s bidders listed on a government website, the job was ultimately awarded to a firm that did not appear on the FedBizOpps.gov page of interested vendors. “This contract was awarded to a firm called Ntrepid,” Speaks wrote to Raw Story.[38]

2  HuddsMagruder 2014-11-29

Take the opening words of Don Jon.

Apple startup sound "That sound gets me hard."

Tell me they didn't pay for that bit of advertising.

2  Vampiuh 2014-11-29

This has been going on for quite some time now.

2  Irradiance 2014-11-29

I just find it sick to think that there are people out there willing to do it. Like, surely you'd have to have some sociopathic tendencies. It's like getting a job for an environmental agency throwing rubbish into the ocean to make their policies more compelling. Maybe it's an 'ends justify the means' rationale going on, and they perceive the ends to be greater social stability, less "terrorism" and less crime generally.

2  TheRehabKid 2014-11-29

You've broken the argument into two extreme viewpoints. That's not fair.

What I mainly see (and what I believe) is that there are not nearly as many shills or hired help spewing propaganda as people seem to think there are. There are many people who simply believe in whatever product they are defending.