True but the amount of effort some people invested into the flat earth BS with high quality videos implies some unknown long term strategy and not some spurious on the point channel disruption.
Same reason why you can't have a rational discussion about 9/11.
The idea has been so discredited by MSM that the moment you mention that you question the official story people have been trained to believe that you think Bush and Cheney were flying the planes themselves into the towers while throwing bombs by hand at the pentagon.
The myth of the flat earth has actually always been used as a tool for this purpose. It started as an enlightenment parody of the church to point out their "anti-science" ideology.
what's so interesting about its resurgence as a tool against "conspiracy theorists", is that it really is the same group acting as proponents. It's the Scientism (ScienceTM as a religion) crowd - militaristic atheists/ radical secularists who promote a humanist agenda and technocratic society with reductionist and leoliberal ideological argument. This is an aspect of the new enlightment.
I have pondered the same thing, that science is the new dogma people thrust their faith in. Every time you see peoples grasping at scientific papers like science can't fail. We've seen stellar advancements in the field of science in the last century, disproving earlier findings, but we still put our blind faith in what scientist and experts are feeding us.
The recent article about the sugar lobby proved nefarious forces were trying to influence our thoughts, as recent as the 60's.The tobacco industry has tried this. Even to this day this strategy is being applied.
As another person notes below me we should always keep a healthy amount of scepticism, may it be the government, experts, or scientist. They are still people, and they can also be wrong, or make mistakes.
it's such a philosophically hypocritical concept. you can't prove positives. the entire point of science is the process and evolution. it's not static. the "It's Science" crowd is inherently flawed in its foundational premise. And where there is such obvious hypocrisy, you have to read in between the lines for the true agenda.
"no statements are true unless they can be proven scientifically (or logically)"
it's a strange loop considering you can't prove that statement. So any concept which relies on that premise should be viewed with immediate SKEPTICISM. But they've managed to coopt that word and concept too...
I've observed discrediting by association before, but never knew what to call it w/o a long description +example. Thanks man. Are there any books that discuss tactics like these?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini wrote a book considered to be the gold standard instruction for modern influencers. He is assumed to be an advisor on the Hillary Campaign. Scott Adams calls him Godzilla.
Scott Adams is a professional hypnotist and has been writing on these kinds of tactics specifically during the current election. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/150032856301/godzilla That post is spam, but click through to his main blog for more of his writing.
https://www.jinfowar.com/# the Journal of Information Warfare is interesting. Cyber warfare and hacking is another example where disinformation has been used to obscure the truth. Both of these are actually social or psychological engineering techniques, not necessarily computer engineering (PEBKAC). Computers, books, phone calls, text messages, tweets, and Facebook emojis are modern weapons of war.
How do we know we're not experiencing this shared reality with flat landers. Sometimes when I'm dealing with some folk I feel they're stuck in a dimension less than me with how limited their consciousneses are.
I had the impression for a long time now that flat earth and some other very ridiculous ideas are counter intelligence products. For example, whenever you see good videos about UFO phenomena, and I mean the good ones that look into it scientifically you always get suggestions of wacky flat earth conspiracy.
I know at least 6 people who have seen a real one, whom i trust and i know they can distinguish a satellite, airplane or meteorite from a UFO. All of those find flat earth ridiculous.
I had the long term impression and it got proven by the snowden releases for me, that those are counter intelligence acts to make any credible but unwanted topic look suspicious for someone who does not look into more details.
Any platform with enough users will attract the attention of those groups and will get spammed. With some really good analysis, some of those trolls could be exposed i guess. very much depends on the effort they put into to hide their tracks.
Unfortunately that doesn't explain the professional made video productions to me which cost money. We don't talk about amateurish output here but engineered.
There are professional made video productions about just about every conspiracy topic there is. The aforementioned 9/11 theories, for instance. Loads of high quality productions around that topic.
Are those people also disinformation shills or do they truly believe what they espouse in their videos?
I know people in real life, face-to-face, who believe the Earth is flat and who devote a lot of time to spreading the word and "educating" others about their beliefs.
So I have zero problem believing such a person who also has decent video editing skills can put together good productions on the topic. It's a real belief that real people have. (And no, I'm not one of them.)
Don't do that man, don't lump flat earth with the moon landing, that's exactly the point of the the hoax in the first place, to get you to lump any theory about NASA with flat earth. Think about it, man.
Tamarack mines experiment. Rectilineator experiment. Sagnac effect. Airys failure. Every observation and experiment points to a concave earth yet you retards choose to mock instead. This is why you are called sheep.
Not OP, and I'm not gonna discuss the things you've mentioned as in my experience those who have faith in the concave earth theory tend to disregard any skepticism of their affirming experiments. That said, I don't think you're stupid if you believe in such things as skepticism on any front is a healthy mindset. I do however have a few questions for you, if you truly believe in the concave earth.
How come when I climb up high, either in a tree or to the roof of a building, and look out towards the horizon I see no concavity?
Even if I have a set of binoculars the further out I look the more convex the earth appears. Considering I'm high up in the air I should be able to see some sort of concavity, even without the aid of reference poles.
How do we account for gravity?
I know a popular theory is that gravity does not exist and instead we are experiencing a type of simulated gravity from the centrifugal force. However, gravity is an observable phenomenon without the aid of rotation. So if gravity exists, and the earth is concave, then anything on the axis of rotation would be pulled toward the center, and disintegrated by the sun (assuming you believe that is real). Now let's say gravity doesn't exist, how do you convince the millions of STEM students that they really are witnessing such a phenomenon if there isn't one?
How do we observe "major" red and blue shift in stellar objects?
If everything is contained within the earth, then what's with all those specks of light we see at night. When we observe them and they show a dopplar effect that requires they be quite far away, what is going on? If they are contained within the earth then the earth would have to be massive to account for such shifts. People have known the circumference of the earth (which is irrespective of whether it be concave or not) for thousands of years because of how relatively simple it is to calculate. Assuming the earth is concave, how do we fit all these stellar bodies in what must be a relatively tiny space? Are they just an illusion?
I have other concerns with the concave theory but these are some big ones I've never seen a good explanation for. I hope you don't take offense in any of this, I'm genuinely curious to hear your opinions.
I will get back to you when I get to a computer as I want to write a very detailed response along with links. Suffice to say, I have some pretty convincing arguments which perhaps youve already heard but maybe never had explained to you in a manner that is convincing.
this sub needs a sticky post thread, where anyone can out a suspected shill and others can vote and comment by looking into said-shill's post history. Nip the most successful shills, make their job harder.
Its not CTR on here 365 days per year, just during elections.
There is billionaire money put to use suing journalists out of existence. There is also a network of zionists who coordinate their upvotes and downvotes via bots.
I don't think there's anything sitewide against it, but it would break rule 10 of this sub's rules. In a smaller sub I mod, we did a similar thing where we made a sticky with no holds barred (except what breaks reddit's rules). We actually did this more to draw out a few users (almost certainly all alts) who had been complaining about mod abuse. It worked for our purposes, but I don't know if that would play in a sub as large as this.
Harassment on Reddit is defined as systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.
I would take that to mean you would have to be repeatedly commenting on the users posts, PMing them, or following them around. This would just be a post where the mods choose not to remove or warn comments, and the users calling out those users they feel are shills. If some users decide to then follow those called out, that would likely break reddit's rules, and those users could face measures by the admins. But I don't see the post itself as breaking any site wide rules.
the mods are pretty good at that. Just use RES and tag accounts, and let the mods do their jobs. If you have a public source list of shills, watch how fast your name ends up on it.
the problem is that if you start disagreeing with people about details or some conspiracy theories, some people who lack nuance will react and presume shilling.
interestingly, actual shills use this as part of their defense. they say "lol, anyone who disagrees with conspiracy theorists is automatically a shill". The shill subs actually use that as part of their MO. They hide behind jokes about how everyone calls them shills. Helps bring in the useful idiots and gives the shills a nice little smokescreen.
So then you have accounts pop up and try to discredit mods as shills. And when you have a paranoid group (with some legit schizophrenics and some legit shills and cointel guys, and some legit idiots), it's easy to turn people against each other. It's why you don't see a lot of cohesion in the conspiracy theory community. Every conspiracy theorist who gains any notoriety will be discredited by other conspiracy theorists who disagree with some minutae of their thesis as a potential shill.
And then you just introduce something to associate with the group youre trying to discredit. Anti-semitism, tea party/ republicanism, patriot party/ militia movement, white nationalism/ seperatism, flat earth, islamic extremism, black seperatism, etc. Now anytime there's an overlap in beliefs from another controversial ideology, you can discredit any "conspiracy theory" concept.
Do your own due diligence and make your own determinations about who is or isn't a shill. Beware of those who call everyone a shill, though.
I got called a shill last week for not agreeing that the planes on 9/11 were computer generated and I was echoing the narrative laid out by the government by suggesting there were planes over NY that day...people just love to throw the term shill around in here. It really makes it hard to even comment in this sub sometimes because if you're not agreeing with every nuance of a conspiracy you're a shill.
paid-commenter seems too long, shill does seem to convey a more sinister role than just being a stupid moral-less good-for-nothing-else minimum wage comment copy-paster, script and order follower. Fake is too broad in definition and used elsewhere. Troll is something else too, mostly for fun lulz activity engager, so...maybe the word should be PP paid-poster
Wouldn't even say most of them are shills, just people who get off on bullying. More tactful than your average bully, they find things you can outright criticize without having any legitimate reason to do so, which is what SJWs and whatever term you would call an anti-conspiracy theorist now are. Bullies of a different shade.
Not quite. As OP said, it's more subtle than that. It's not just "debunking" or whatever. It's about reinforcing the cultural stereotype that conspiracy theories are the product of diseased minds.
I've noticed it in r/UFOs as well. The comments play on the rational person's tendency to avoid crazy shit and crazy people. A classic one you see literally everywhere when someone posts a UFO experience, some person will come along and say "I saw the exact same thing in <some random state> back in <a while ago>". The commenter goes on to describe some crazy bullshit. It's as simple as that.
It's not about debunking. It's actually about manipulating the way we perceive these stories. Creating prejudices.
Perfect. If someone disagrees with the theory posted here, then they're a shill trying to discredit a legitimate theory. If someone agrees with a theory posted here, then they're a shill trying too support disinformation to further the association of conspiracy people with crazy people. Either way you're a shill.
South St Paul, MN when I put into google maps came up with
stockyards exchange building, which houses a restaurant and nightclub. It reminds me of fight club for some reason. Would be funny if ther'es a tavistock clone run like a dark mormon techocult, renting cheap office space out of their basement.
Just an aside, I did a bout three months of Urban exploring in the twin cities, and St. paul has literally hindreds of miles of tunnels underneath it. Down to a confirmed 7 stories below ground. It is awesome. I onpy got 4 stories down, had a hard time getting there, dropped into a four way below an old 1800's sewer with a skull carved into the sandstone and lost my cool a bit. The tunnels there stretched out beyond my vision all four directions. There is a whole counter-culture of explorers (and other very strange people) who seek these places out. Definitely there is a goverent aspect to these areas as they are kept secret and carry many utilities. There was even a very strange 80's looking office door that had strnge signage on it that we were convinced would trigger some alarm if we opened it. Theorized it was a possible escape route from the city under the Mississippi to the airport. Definitely more goes on underground than we know.
What i mean is if Reddit were to monitor my location, it would point to some random building in my neighbourhood, which is where my ISP's switchboard would be, along with thousands of people in a 5km radius, give or take.
Is it somehow possible that ISP's are using these spots as DSLAM ?
I'd guess a government funded shill operation would at least rely on some form of spoofing to make the trail harder to follow, it wouldn't be that big of a technical challenge.
I put McDonalds in there and looked at the first result, sorted by top. This is it.
TL;DRMy prediction would be that companies like McDonalds would have to change their business models which rely on low wage employees producing low quality products, or they will fail.
There's something about referring to McDonalds products as "low quality" that leads me to believe this wasn't written by McDonalds. Do you disagree? I only spent little time browsing through the subreddit but things don't look good when it comes to critical thinking.
But if you look hard enough there is good around. Keep asking questions your head is in the right spot though. CTR will fade away once the election is over only to rise again another time.
Look at how sad these disinfo agents have become. Most of this is so blatantly obvious to the masses now, THIS is how they have to act. Attempting to ridicule things that are beyond obvious.
You just have to laugh. All these yarmulke wearing bafoons.
Describing a physical characteristic of these fools with puddle deep attempted "cover" is not "racist." This was exactly how /r/conspiratard operated. It would take mere seconds ot reading their sub to direcrly determine their affiliation(s).
But that victim playing is right in line with the tactics so heavily over used and abused. Thank you for making that point once again of this nonsense. Nice try, /u/m4gikarp.
And to massively clarify this point, /r/isrconspiracyracist only seems to ever care about one solitary "race." Theirs. Not really suspicious at all....how very noble of them.
Most actual racism that's posted on this sub is directly posted by these scumbags. So they can then post about it on their sjw sub, while falsely accusing us of being "racist." The classic Jewish girl painting swastikas on her Synagogue, while claiming nonsense racist attacks. (Note that each of the links provided are for separate, but IDENTICAL "attacks." This is a reflection of EXACTLY how its done with the FALSE claims of racism against /r/conspiracy here.)
Tired and busted EXPOSED tactics they continually overuse. We can see right through it. We saw them yet again use this same method to try and shut down the /r/engineering 9/11 physics discussion of the critical failures that all destroy the "official" account [pure fiction] of that staged attack on America. Sending out their shill army to pretend to be "truther" using the same busted and fully exposed tactics to try and shut down intelligent discussion of the event.
(*the yalmuka comment was NOT stated in a derogatory or racist manner, and was ONLY used to drive home the point of the extremely blatant source and affiliation of these liars and attackers).
Yes, I'm sure all of the users in that subreddit wear yarmulkes. Even though most Jewish people don't even. It's gotta be true, because otherwise m4gikarp was just saying dumb anti-semitic bullshit!
Conspiracy Keanu says, "what if the yarmulke wearing JIDF hats are actually postpaperclip psychocivilizing mind control nazi ideologues (ie:freemasons/mormons) working for JTRIG to make conspiracy people look like antisemites...whoa"
It is. Many times some name I've never seen will bring up a topic like FE, then, immediately, about a half-dozen typical names will gleefully wet themselves and dive into the same commentary I've seen over and over. It's nauseating.
Kinda what life has become... sifting through bs. Silver lining is that it's hard evidence of clandestine fuckery.
Rambling edit: Keep in mind that all we have is time and each other. Their mission is in large part to divide us and waste our time. Keep your bs meter on but pick your battles wisely. Paid opposition is here to stay unfortunately. Calling just one real person a fake person has greater consequence than accurately identifying ten fake people in my opinion.
Just the knowledge that they exist will help future movements become more impregnable. People are learning to stay away from the racists (or provocateurs) in this sub it seems like.
Yep, that and witch hunts tend to be more counterproductive in the long run anyway. It's good to have that healthy skepticism, but if you're spending a significant portion of your time tracking and identifying bad actors, they're winning.
Welcome fellow lizard to the flat earth society. You are totally right. I've noticed if you post about
Freemasonry, which is the common denominator implicated in all the intrigues
Jesuits, also implicated
Catholic church
Alternative Jesus theories or anything to do with Gnostiticsm
Conspiracies involving the US Military
US military enabling global drug trafficking
Luciferianism in the military
Pedo intrigues
Criticisms of Amazon or Google; how their algorithms show bias, suppression or gaslighting or hidden linkages / collusion
Then these topics will be downvoted. While flat earth is promoted, so is david icke, so is George Carlin "it's a big club and you ain't in it" and old 9/11 videos (perhaps rightly so, but it's been posted so many times I believe it's done as a forum sliding technique to suppress other stuff by diffusion--some argue politics is as well)
These things will get some traction but usually end up with <5-10 upvotes after being immediately and aggressively downvoted to 0
A lot of that has already been proven. So, it's "I know", not "I believe". It's been proven there are groups of people who will manipulate the voting systems and subs for money, religion, politics, ect. Some will make shitposts to be assholes (they know who they are). Others because they think it's funny.
You just have to take everything with a grain of salt. And call bullshit when you see it.
That's expected. If there is bad shit going on in the world, and if a small set of people talk about it in a forum, the bad people are naturally going to try their best to put some people in and make the small set of people look like idiots.
So if congruity is not what you wish to achieve, what would get your pathetic gut have the courage to talk to me?
Control grid -- good one. More like Zuvuya.
I've often thought that in connection with those people who constantly bring up Israel and push the stupid line that everything is a Jewish conspiracy...it wasn't like that a couple years ago.
Welcome to reddit, welcome to the internet, welcome to America, welcome to the world. The budgets afforded by the PAC, corporations, and governments are massive compared to however many individuals there are that want transparency and truth. But never give up.
I don't know. What I do know is the other popular subs are censored 99% of the time by biased or PAID mods. As crazy people we have the freedom of speech and also the freedom to believe what we want. If you want good old filtered totally biased news be on your way and subscribe to the many popular subs the masses enjoy and are entertained with everyday. Free thinkers only here.
There is a fundamental lack of understand about how people work, here. Both in this sub and this thread.
First, there are two spectrum of people on this sub:
people that want to use it for legitimate reasons and getting to the bottom of what might be actual conspiracies.
people, probably outnumbering the former, that wait around for people to float ideas, then poke the be give for fun. On occasion these people also drop a totally outlandish post, thinking they'll get karma for it, not realizing what the two groups actually are. They only get their own group's upvotes, it's an echo chamber where then they all sit around waiting for someone to attack.
Now that is all different from when someone from the first group that posts something they think is legit, but us easily debunked by average means. A lot of posts here have huge logical holes, on every side, and one group fights the other.
Honestly, no one gives a shit about r/conspiracy enough to pay teenagers to come in here and fuck around. There's no hard-hitting journalism, no links to original pdfs of damning documents. It's just a nested circle jerk that now exists inside a circle jerk.
I think this is absolutely on point. Your conspiracy info / conspiracy noise theory describes what I see.
The vocal majority will peddle left-right political propaganda, absurd theories, things that are absolutely nothing to do with conspiratorial events. This was always the case, but it's much worse since Reddit itself became a broken model that doesn't understand transparency and upvoting/downvoting principals which made the site so great.
Through design or lack thereof, at this point, there are so many people who use the sub incorrectly that noise and disinfo is an expected part of the sub. Mods do nothing about shitposts. If they did, they would be accused of censorship. Ironically, there really is no need for paid shills (although they do exist!) on this sub because we do such a good job or burying actual news, resources and facts ourselves.
Thank god someone gets it. I personally think it borders on arrogance to think that this sub is so hugely impactful to anything ever that it takes an organized group being paid for their time and talents to disrupt it. First, once a month someone whines about this sub "not being what it used to be." That's too meta to be allowed if there's organization behind it. The first step to treating a problem is acknowledging one exists, which paid shills wouldn't let happen.
Here we go, me attempting to tiptoe around the hot potato! I have had my fair share of warnings...
1) All the major Reddit subs are being censored extensively. It happens from behind the scene, a block box contraptions by design, to control the flow of information on Reddit. If your post contains articles or reveal crimes about the following subjects: The US Military, US Intelligence Community, T.B.T.F. Financial Institutions, Mega Corporations, US Politics, US Economic Data, Economic Inequality, Social Unrest, the Corporate Owned Mass Media or certain well connected individuals - if you do, you will become a targeted of their censorship.
2) Their favorite methods: 1) Algorithms that automatically detect specific wordings 2) Banning independent media outlets. 3) Subtle vote rigging. 4) Manual removal of posts. 5) Intimidation. 6) Banning of accounts. 7) Allowing Strolling by Chills & Fund-its (it rimes!). It is a very smooth and professional operation.
3) Reddit has now fully established a core of loyal followers and employees. If they don't want you to see what is going on, you won't see it, by design not accident. We can't fully observe the process, nor can we tell the entities apart. We can make patient observations. We can take notes. Patterns emerges. We are not allowed to talk about our observations or criticize "them", that would be a violation of rule #2 #5 #10. Catch 17 22! (Example: r/conspiracy)
4)Reddit has censored most of the independent media, with an increasing zeal, mainly because they are compromising the narratives of the Corporate Owned Mass Media. The alternative media punches holes in the official scenery of propaganda, fear, lies and polarization.
5) Reddit has become a cesspool of irrelevant trivia and celebrity gossip. Like mainstream TV it is now merely there to distract and entertain us with stupidity. This is how Reddit are dumbing us all down, turning all the forums into a mere shadow of their former glory, echo valley's full of idiots padding each other on the back.
List of Systematic Censorship
Update June 2016:
Censorship of massive voter fraud during the Democratic primaries.
Censorship of Clinton's E-mail server scandal.
Censorship of Deutsche Bank and Italian banks approaching bankruptcies.
Censorship of Central Banks by pumping (???) billions into the markets.
Censorship of ISIS/Al-Sham/Al-Qaeda soldiers moving from Turkey into Syria.
Update July 2016:
Censorship of news about Clinton and the DNC committing voting fraud.
Censorship of news from Syria and Ukraine.
Censorship of Turkish false flag coup - 10.000's getting arrested.
Update August 2016:
Censorship of news from Syria and Ukraine.
Censorship of Clinton's declining health and criminal acts in conjunction with the DNC during the Primaries.
Censorship of Clinton's E-Mail server scandal and charity fraud and rampant corruption.
Censorship of Muslim (refugees) attacks in Europe.
Update September 2016:
Censorship of news about candidate Clinton's declining health.
It's been taken over by people on both sides of the American election... It's gotten very boring now, whatever happened to our beloved alien conspiracies?
I'm sure they are dimes a dozen, but this won't prevent people from posting here that Trump is a pedophile and Hillary is a Jewish lizard zombie who's already dead and doesn't know it.
As long as there are people to vote and comment, there will be shitposting anyway.
People are using this sub for political agenda and not because they have any interest in 'conspiracies' , they'll probably all leave after the American election and the sub will be in tatters.
Yes and no, people aren't necessarily paid shills.
Most of the time you don't even have to pay them at all, just stirr the pot and you can't distinguish an iPhone maniac from a /r/The_Donald poster.
As much as I hate censorship, I'm beginning to think that any post about a candidate, no matter which side, needs to removed or consolidated to a pinned post.
But then I remember, this is a good way to identify gatekeepers and grieferbaiters.
Why would you think that sub, which is public would work any differently than any other public space?
People will go for the shiny stupid stuff and disregard the boring actual conspiracies.
Popular shits are always Trump/Clinton related, 9/11 but only the least plausible stuff, ie "jet fuel can't melt steel beams lelelelelel" then you have all the foaming at the mouth NASA morons that will spend hours watching at rocks until they manage to see Elvis in there.
Exactly like any other news sub, most political conspiracies will be forgotten after a month, nobody cares about Jesselyn Radack but everyone will spam "dem commies be taking muh guns" at every public shooting along with more far fetched idiocies telling how every shooting/terrorist attack is fake/inside job so someone can come to your house and steal your granddad's shotgun.
You don't need shills to make a sub uninteresting/irrelevant, you just need a bunch of idiots.
And if mods dare to try and make some order out of this mess, they'll get dragged into the conspiracy theory themselves, cause they're shills hiding the truth or whatever.
People on average are gullible idiots, you have to face the truth that heavy conpiracists have an important populations of giant paranoid idiots and deal with it.
It can't(burns at 900C optimal), but it wouldn't need to if there were explosives on the plane/already planted on the towers, either by terrorists or whatever. Don't forget the 3rd tower that collapsed without a plane hitting it. Probably explosives via A: Terrorists, or B: some govt agency, whether it's ours or someone else's. Plus fuck the micro nuke shit people are proposing, I think I would notice a gigantic flash of burning/blinding light from one of those.
I think, yes there's more to that story, but I doubt that our govt did it. Probably a foreign govt of some sort.
Exactly like any other news sub, most political conspiracies will be forgotten after a month, nobody cares about Jesselyn Radack but everyone will spam "dem commies be taking muh guns" at every public shooting along with more far fetched idiocies telling how every shooting/terrorist attack is fake/inside job so someone can come to your house and steal your granddad's shotgun.
Yeah that shit is getting old. Although, I wouldn't say they wouldn't try to make it harder to get guns by using that though.
it's part of the reason this sub is allowed to exist. you can speak the truth, sure, but if that truth is blended up with crazy, especially in a sub called 'conspiracy', the general public will throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Yeah, it's quite nice. I've seen a few political subs get literally taken over by shills, mod team included, so I'm really appreciative of the fact that things seem to be relatively decent here.
Agreed. I also think most of the outrageously racist shit on voat is from similar sources. Viable alternative appears, SRS types flood it with hate speech. This will attract people who actually feel that way, then it perpetuates itself.
I've noticed the same. NSA leaks are buried, so much that /r/NSALeaks is restricted to mod posting only. Those leaks continue to produce the content that this sub used to be full of and spur intelligent conversations; now I don't even bother xposting to here, and I see shit about flat earth, lizards, & chemtrails every day.
Has anyone seen the Tucker Max story & how they taught people how to create controversy for $$$. It's in the film TRUTH ABOUT LYING (on Netflix ). It explained that Tucker created fake accounts of people calling him out on being controversial to get the media to talk about how evil he was - thus getting him a book & movie deal.
That's def happening with this campaign.
The funny thing about the internet is that there's no way of identifying anyone & it's too simple to have one person run 25-50 accounts without being too noticeable.
You'll see disgusting racist comments on twitter from random users and reddit and then it's reported on CNN, Daily Show, etc. They could be coming from 30 year old adults. They could also be coming from 12 year olds. Or they could be coming from people within Jones camp to make her into a victim.
Perez Hilton also talked about this being part of his strategy when starting his website.
The left is talking about race & sexism in this election. Instead of the fact that the economy is still struggling after 8 years of bureaucrat shadow games.
I don't think it's so far fetched. When you have nearly unlimited resources you can afford to do that. Remember that the most important thing to them is what you think.
I always say to people that don't believe conspiracies that the best way to hide information is to discredit the person/group giving it out. Easiest way to do that with the internet is to pretend to be one of them and start spouting schizophrenic nonsense about how "the atmosphere bends the light and that's why it looks curved from space." I guess that's why we can circumnavigate the globe. Must be like a mario game where when you reach one end of the map you get teleported to the other end. God forbid you point that out.
Then by association with some ridiculous theory about lizard people from venus, the rest of the legit theories get ignored because "those are the people who believed in lizards from venus."
Maybe it's time to do what they use to. Before the internet, information use to be exchanged at protests. Trolls and shills don't show up to those because they run their mouths like they do on here and they end up swallowing some teeth.
An automaton is not a shill. It's just following instructions with love.
Most of these folks are automatons, and I am proud we have entered an era when robots, finally, will get the recognition and respect they deserve as politically relevant conversationalists.
Well there are those people, but it's also clear people are being paid. Firstly we know because of the intercept 'how covert agents infiltrate social media' article, lots of whistleblowing about it, Barrett Brown's hack of booz allen hamiton (iirc), and other sources. Also paid astroturfers invest way too much time battling with people they purport to think are morons. And only the mentally ill or a paid person would do that, when a normal person would simply go away.
Paranoia is also a real possibility as well. Anyone who disagrees isn't paid to personally attack you. I understand this subreddits goals and honestly I have seen more news articles on here than anything which does show our world is full of crazy shit but come on. Dissension is a real thing.
They have been poisoning the well here for years through the very effective use of paid schills and hundreds of accounts. People need to remember that all you need to game reddit is basic programming skills and some reliable proxies.
You'd be right...but it's also an internet-wide phenomenon (I've been taking mental notes, too, and there's a site or two I used to frequent where this has been going on since at least the early 2000's). If you ask me, the potential of the internet as a powerful social engineering tool was probably realized long before it even went live
Yep.
I used to post on democratic underground a lot. The first couple of years of its existence it seemed to be a legit site. Especially when it came to the 2000 election and Sept 11. Around 2004 or so, it became painfully obvious that it was not a legit site.
One good thing about that site now is that it is a good place to find out if a topic needs more scrutiny or is complete bullshit. All I have to do is go see what a certain group of posters there have to say about stuff. If they are supporting a particular topics or catapulting propaganda,it's a good bet it's bullshit or mis/disinformation.
I've been lurking here for quite some time, and in my observations i've noticed some unsettling things. A lot of posts are getting upvoted/downvoted very quickly when they push certain agendas. A lot of posts asking for evidence are downvoted.
You are spot on in you assumptions.
You kind of have to know what is going on, to know the difference between the good stuff, the insane stuff and the shill stuff.
The moderators and administrators, an intricate part of the "Chills & Fund Its" (it rimes) faction, also play an important role. They rule with an iron fist and they serve their overlords with a zealots dedication.
They will allow the crazy and insane stuff. Our beloved r/conspiracy has been turned into a shadow and a mockery of it self. It always was a bit crazy... a lot of crazy... but now it has been turned into an echo valley form idiots, trivia and celebrity gossip.
Any posts critical of the current hegemony - military industrial complex, financial industry, big corporations, political key figures, political system, corporate owned mass media and judicial system risk suffering censorship, vote rigging, intimidation, banning and trolling on an epic scale.
I commented on the weirdness around 9/11 a few days ago, and was surprised at how much resistance I got. I mean, the falseness of the official story is usually common ground for those interested in conspiracy theory, so it did make me quite suspicious of this place.
No topic in this type of sub should start "Official" anything, we are here to question not resolve and yet all i see is the later
The anti-hilary posts are nauseating and not even remotely interesting (i am not American before you accuse me of anything) and the low key anti-semitism is well.. detracting from the narrative a conspiracy theory mindset.
There are anti-Semitic posts on this sub all of the time. I expect info highly critical of Israel, Zionism, and the lobbies but some of these posts are forced-sounding and blatantly 19th century race science nonsense. When called out, these posters can't hold a conversation. I suspect some of them are totally fake.
and? what's your point here? No kidding. This site has millions of users. there are all sorts of paranoid freaks who want to dissuade any sort of bad optics from all sorts of things.
there's also a lot of nutbars who ramble about their imaginary stuff.
Then, there are truths. the more truth, the bigger the pushback typically. Proof of truth? It won't make it into the site probably.
the entire system is somewhat controlled by external influences.
I am intrigued by you post because it perfectly illustrates what I like least about this community. I'm so tired of all the shit posts with zero proof or even correlation to the claimed conspiracy, on top of which you can't even have a discussion about the issues or ask for clarification on the suspected end game of a conspiracy. But if they're just shills pushing the crazy conspiracy nut agenda that would explain a great deal.
If your post isn't related to the US election in some way, you get downvoted and called a shill. I'm well aware that shills have a presence on here, and yes they spread disinfo, but to label anyone a shill who takes interest in the more esoteric/fringe conspiracies is quite frankly disingenuous and bordering on paranoid.
You're going on about people discrediting the sub, but are blind to the fact that accusing everyone of being a shill discredits the sub.
The shills on here are glaringly obvious and they aren't posting esoteric stuff, they're correcting the record on the political stuff.
Its really simple. Its because this sub is "reality" that most people can't handle. Media, government and others that want to control the narrative will make anything look as if its not real. The point is they want to confuse everyone so that they have nothing to go on. You have to pick the most important battles and go after those.
Don't get discouraged by the users that want to muddy the waters.
They are throwing around "conspiracy theory" and bullshit with it a lot.
Today on FB I tried to talk about her recent episode, and her seizure in July with a supporter. He linked a snopes article claiming that she never had a seizure, and made a ton of comments like "oh it must be a conspiracy, she is a Muslim too and hangs out with Tupac"
This was on FB. Just parroting exactly what they read on their circle jerk Hillary threads. He literally REFUSED to believe that she had any episode at all, because snopes referenced a reporter who thought she was ok. "I have done things like that before"
More worryingly, important topics are being buried and bullshit is rising up top. Luckily it's not a total loss, it could be worse, every now and then something hits close to home here.
Basically they want us obsessing over the White House, to pick a side in the false dichotomy, and ignore the power behind the curtain so they can continue to run amok unrestrained and unidentifiable.
So let me ask you if you think that there's admins and mods on here that are government shills suppressing possibly important information?... the reason I'm asking is because I wrote a post about a petition I created about the CDC, proposed amendment following up Barack Obama's executive order 13295 , in The Patriot Act originally executive ordered by George Bush jr....
Anybody familiar with proposed amendment from CDC? it basically gives the CDC the authority to detain anyone etc.
Containment of communicable diseases. Its being suppressed everywhere. I put it on another petition website 3 times and it was deleted immediately after I made it, since I drafted the original one like two nights before on care2. After I wrote it and posted it my phone's been acting buggy my Facebook too.
Their proposed amendment is about forced apprehension detention (possibly indefinitely) medical exam in mandatory vaccines or else detention anyways without say.. and basically anybody could say that you're not looking well and tell then and they will come and arrest you and put un medical detainment
for when they plan to spray the zika virus pesticide Nationwide, I know they're already doing it in Florida and back east and on commercial Airlines supposedly.
It actually is it's a factual thing on the Federal Register it's not really conspiracy, I wrote a petition slamming the government and CDC and all the governors who support mandatory vaccines in it...the fuck is Obama and the government thinking...38 billion dollars to Israel and this proposal ,it's basically an outdoor concentration camp Nationwide and we're going to be like concentration camp prisoners.
I definitely think that reddit is tainted with government people and and suppressing really important information it's like this whole thing with Hilary it's like sleight of hand you know, they (gov) go around setting these fires and all of us are running around trying to put them out while they're robbing the bank...
To me this proposed amendment should be in headlines. What worries me the most is how they're not talking about it and not putting it on the news at all.
I can't believe people are actually reading it & they're just like whatever . I think it really says something that most of us Americans are like that were so conditioned by now to just roll with the punches in this country. People don't even think anything about it . It's sad, I feel like Americans are like horses when they get their Spirit broken so they can be ridden :/
Yeah, The few people that I was talking to they're like "Sigh it's just a proposal not a law " and I'm like" I don't give a shit if it's a proposal or law, my point is just the implications it's probably what the FEMA camps are for..& it's just treasonous for it to even be written up." And they're totally missing my point.
.I mean to me this proposal puts Hitler to shame and I wrote that in my petition .
15 brave people have volunteered to put their name on it so far..To me the conspiracy is how much
this government and our president could care less about our lives or any lives,I don't think he would even Flinch about doing this to citizens. I see the Hillary thing going on and just this it's just everything..
When the electoral fraud happened in Nevada for Bernie Sanders, I wrote the national Sheriffs Association and the Constitutional sheriffs and asked them what they're doing about the fraud, and why they're not present at these elections for their states, because constitutionally the sheriff's department is the first and last line of defense against tyranny from the government for the people and I asked them whose side they are on, like seriously what's going on ? you guys are just kicking back collecting a paycheck from the citizens. I told them what a shitshow Nevada was .. it was just crazy to see all the Bernie Sanders people just Milling around instead of calling the sheriff's to arrest the DNC DEMS for electoral fraud.
Nobody knew what to do, see people should know their rights and laws It's very important, there's many many laws and bylaws at least should know the election law and basic law.
I told them the Nevada Sheriffs are idiots they turn their back on the people that were being frauded and protected the fraudsters and that's treason.
To me I just have this feeling that Obama is going to try to stay in office make this amendment happen .. I mean the correction in the whole thing for federal the state is just crazy and I wouldn't put it past them...
Obama sure is spending money like he is staying in office & writing laws like he is .... this proposed amendment.. it's basically martial law without calling martial law.
Anyways I think that every person in America should know about this proposed amendment...
I'm sure there are paid shills here, but it's honestly hard to say how many.
There are over 380,000 subscribers to this subreddit now. Like in any large group of people, when dealing with that large of a number, you have to expect that a certain percentage of that group suffers from mental health issues.
Would it be unreasonable to assume that out of that 380K, there could be at least a few dozen unwell people, or perhaps a few hundred, or even a few thousand?
If we take those same numbers and apply them to /r/conspiracy's sub count, 1 in 5 of 380,000 gives us 76,000 people with potential issues. Obviously this isn't completely accurate, but using rough percentages of the amount of people with mental health issues in society as a whole was about the only baseline I could think of using for a guesstimate, so take that as you will.
Even if that total of 76,000 is off by a few thousand in either direction, it's still more than enough to completely fuck with the dynamics of any subreddit, especially so when it's a sub like /r/conspiracy, which deals with subject matter that can easily appeal to those suffering with mental health issues.
tl;dr: my bet is on crazy folks moreso than paid shills
While I do agree that there are, no doubt, shills in the mist, I find it rather difficult in real life to draw any stark contrast between what I perceive a 'shill' to be like and how most people are.
It's a completely rational suspicion. It's likely happening to some degree or another. But belief requires gnosis, otherwise it's faith you are talking about.
There is an easy fix. This sub should be set to randomly scramble Reddit posts and not sort by "best". We should really be scrutinizing each comment and giving weight to any opinion before judging. The comment/reply should be used for asking questions or trying to punch holes in a theory
Oh come on, there are many subs were you get down voted for telling the truth.
But just wondering, where would I get such a job that pays for trolling the internet?
I simply leave a subject once i read inconsistencies,and when it is void of standard facts, i proceed cautiously,and when the post fails to move forward with details(links to source,or people involved,etc....),I simply move on.Maybe even give it a down vote.
Trolls often ask for a source on something that is easily found in order to start a fight about validity of sources. If something can be easily found just by searching and I see someone asking for a source regardless, I just downvote. Even if they're not intending to troll or start a stupid argument, commenting just to ask for a source that's easily found by a single Google search is just a bad comment that adds nothing to the discussion.
I've definitely noticed the pro-Hillary shills come in here when a topic has a lot of upvotes and has something to do with Hillary. I haven't noticed any other definite shills. That said, I have noticed a pervasive element that seems to want to actively push anti-semitism even at the expense of making sense or offering a rational argument. I wouldn't be surprised if that sort of commenter is the type of person you're talking about, just here to make legitimate "conspiracy theories" look stupid by association.
I've noticed questionable conspiracy stories that are designed to make this community look like they don't do their research or check sources are being heavily upvoted.
And then to top it off, the top comment in these is usually someone debunking the story quite easily.
This I think does the most harm to this community.
The last time Reddit was for real was the Boston Bombing. Since then the powers that be have discovered it and it has lost all authenticity. Especially anything conspiracy related; these subs are obviously targeted and flooded with shit to discredit real posts. Most real people have moved elsewhere.
We can test it. We can start posting bat shit crazy stuff we know is not true, but could kinda sound true and then downvote. If the posts reach the top page, then we know there's an agenda to manipulate a foot.
I used to be a truther. Most who aren't truthers would still call me one. The reason I stopped? I started sounding crazy, even to the other truthers. There are a lot of conspiracies. Then there's shit that just sounds ridiculous. This shit sounds ridiculous. If you have to justify being called crazy constantly, you just might be. Plus, what exactly do you plan on doing about it? More reddit posts?
To be fair, you all do a pretty good job of it yourselves. There need not be corporate shills for anybody to think you're all a bit crazy when you link to the Daily Mail or RT as legitimate sources.
Even "tabloids" or state-sponsored propaganda have kernels of truth in them. You must consume as much information from as many sources as possible in order to determine the facts from the lies, the wheat from the chaff.
It's sad that you disagree with him, even though he did go full retard further down. Whomever you want to call the "real" posters of this sub need to stop sourcing posts and articles from foreign tabloids. In the UK, the daily mail is regularly called the daily fail, yet it is linked to as if it was some American CNN. RT is a similar example of another site spouting made up stories for propaganda.
I only argued as he was speaking as is he was the only sane person in the whole sub, which doesn't exactly help matters.
Edit: The daily mail isn't quite as bad as it's made out to be. It's bad, but nowhere near the worst of UK tabloids. Look at the crap the express, star & Sun report for example.
One hand I want the mods to remove tabloid sources from this sub but on the other I oppose any censorship of submissions in hopes that the community would self-regulate. These are strange times on Reddit.
How can there be pokestops but no pokemon spawns. Niantic shills are flooding the boards saying there are tons of spawns near poke stops but that isn't the case.
This is one of the things that bugs me most about this sub. Why are you so quick to jump to the conclusion that there is some hidden power behind everything? Isn't it more reasonable to just accept this as people with agendas acting on their own free will. You don't need to pay trolls if there are people who would are doing that in their free time already.
Isn't it more reasonable to just accept this as people with agendas acting on their own free will.
It's a confirmed fact that organizations pay people to post comments on social media sites. Most people are not paid shills, but you're being incredibly foolish to suggest that paid shills do not exist at all.
I'm not saying they don't exist. I'm saying that they are probably the minority of people posting the kinds of posts and comments the op is complaining about. I'm going to add that either way it doesn't matter whether someone is being paid or not, the response should be the same. Ignore them, and if they consistently cause trouble the mods will ban them. This kind of PSA, whether it is true or not, doesn't really accomplish anything. There's nothing you can do about it that is any different than what we are already doing, and it only serves to promote a kind of self righteous persecution attitude. This is what I really have a problem with because that kind of rhetoric pretty much immediately shuts down any chance of productive conversation by framing the issue as us-vs-them.
This is one of the things that bugs me most about people like you. Why are you so quick to jump to the conclusion that everything you're told is a fact? Isn't it more reasonable to just accept that something is happening when there's factual evidence it's happening? You need to pay trolls if there are no people who would are doing that in their free time already (plus they're not exactly a theory, correctrecord.org makes it pretty clear what they're doing, if only you knew what Google was).
So you don't have any examples of what you are saying, and just say check out /controversial? That is leaving it up my opinion, which is probably drastically different than yours. So, you can give an example and why you think it is, or this post is just being concerned and we all know, there could be an agenda behind such posts, as well. PSA's are great but FUD is real as well. Just saying...
Yeah the flat earth stuff that gets traction occasionally is bizarre. Any seemingly well spoken poster who asks people to consider flat earth or reptilians I disregard from there on as a paid disinfo agent.
It's always the most blatant ones who try to argue AGAINST this very obvious truth here. TopMinds and isrconspiracyracist exist solely for this effort.
linking clinton issues to aliens and some kind of secret cabal of uber rich and some life extension serum
"some kind of secret cabal of uber rich" <- Legit; who would disagree?
"some life extension serum" <- There have been actual news stories lately of blood transfusions from young blood donors that partially reverse the effects of aging.
"linking clinton issues to aliens" <- Clinton is the biggest news story right now and there's a whole lot of deception/misinformation from their campaign, complicity/coordination with the media, people left scratching their heads brainstorming explanations in the absence of trustworthy facts, an amateur blog-o-sphere that feeds on situations like this to turn headline clicks into cash, and a whole bunch of shills angling every side of this.
It's all about how you word things.. That being said, I know what you are talking about in regards to that, which is why I asked for more clarity/examples. Like I said, PSA's are great, but at the end of the day, people have to entertain/make up there own minds on various topics. No one has the answers. But with liberty comes failure. It's a learning process, imo...
No. That is not what he said. I've noticed that a tactic of shills is to put words in other people's mouths, in order to put them on the defensive about a non sequitur.
Do like he said, and seek your own truth. At this point, its up to you to disprove it. He does not have to do anything for you.
yeah, it happens. Not only actual shills, but a lot of meta groups as was the case with bipolarbear0 back in the day, or the conspiratard crowd which is now topminds / isconspiracyracist. You've got your state agencies, police groups, company lobbies like monsanto, and all that fun jazz.
Flat earth stuff has always been trolls mocking us to turn off new viewers, usually conspiratard / topminds these days. Srs has some part in that crowd. You should know this by now, you've been around for a while.
If you want proof, i'd suggest asking /u/theghostofdusty or one of the mods that's been around for a long time.
I will concede (tonight), but I'm not leaving out the tactics such people use (reverse psychology - FUD). You know my account history and what I stand for. I don't care too much for the old tactics, and relishing on such nonsense. United we stand, divided we fall. FE is not bullshit and can lead to something, of knowledge, and many others here would agree. People say xyz is making us look bad is a tell tale sign. We are already crazy to most.
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
-Jiddu Krishnamurti
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
With the amount of trolling comes concern trolling (one in the same - FUD). I'm not saying shit, but you being a mod and in the know, should know that. Look at the frontpage and the posts following it in /new. Think of what they would do, outside the box.... Seems to be working apparently...
You come off as standoffish a lot, even when your position aligns with what's being said. That's probably why you got down votes.
We've gotten into it a few times over minute details, you're usually on edge I find from dealing with the different types that abuse this place. Can't fault you for that, it happens.
He's making a claim about evidence, least he can do is back it up..... But no...
chuckles you don't get it, do you son. NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING
do your own research or dismiss the comment as not worthy of your time. But to throw back on someone 'prove it' is old and tired thinking. Get with the program, we are NOT you vast unpaid research department.
this sub needs a sticky post thread, where anyone can out a suspected shill and others can vote and comment by looking into said-shill's post history. Nip the most successful shills, make their job harder.
Not quite. As OP said, it's more subtle than that. It's not just "debunking" or whatever. It's about reinforcing the cultural stereotype that conspiracy theories are the product of diseased minds.
I've noticed it in r/UFOs as well. The comments play on the rational person's tendency to avoid crazy shit and crazy people. A classic one you see literally everywhere when someone posts a UFO experience, some person will come along and say "I saw the exact same thing in <some random state> back in <a while ago>". The commenter goes on to describe some crazy bullshit. It's as simple as that.
It's not about debunking. It's actually about manipulating the way we perceive these stories. Creating prejudices.
I think this is absolutely on point. Your conspiracy info / conspiracy noise theory describes what I see.
The vocal majority will peddle left-right political propaganda, absurd theories, things that are absolutely nothing to do with conspiratorial events. This was always the case, but it's much worse since Reddit itself became a broken model that doesn't understand transparency and upvoting/downvoting principals which made the site so great.
Through design or lack thereof, at this point, there are so many people who use the sub incorrectly that noise and disinfo is an expected part of the sub. Mods do nothing about shitposts. If they did, they would be accused of censorship. Ironically, there really is no need for paid shills (although they do exist!) on this sub because we do such a good job or burying actual news, resources and facts ourselves.
Perfect. If someone disagrees with the theory posted here, then they're a shill trying to discredit a legitimate theory. If someone agrees with a theory posted here, then they're a shill trying too support disinformation to further the association of conspiracy people with crazy people. Either way you're a shill.
It is. Many times some name I've never seen will bring up a topic like FE, then, immediately, about a half-dozen typical names will gleefully wet themselves and dive into the same commentary I've seen over and over. It's nauseating.
Even "tabloids" or state-sponsored propaganda have kernels of truth in them. You must consume as much information from as many sources as possible in order to determine the facts from the lies, the wheat from the chaff.
And to massively clarify this point, /r/isrconspiracyracist only seems to ever care about one solitary "race." Theirs. Not really suspicious at all....how very noble of them.
Most actual racism that's posted on this sub is directly posted by these scumbags. So they can then post about it on their sjw sub, while falsely accusing us of being "racist." The classic Jewish girl painting swastikas on her Synagogue, while claiming nonsense racist attacks. (Note that each of the links provided are for separate, but IDENTICAL "attacks." This is a reflection of EXACTLY how its done with the FALSE claims of racism against /r/conspiracy here.)
Tired and busted EXPOSED tactics they continually overuse. We can see right through it. We saw them yet again use this same method to try and shut down the /r/engineering 9/11 physics discussion of the critical failures that all destroy the "official" account [pure fiction] of that staged attack on America. Sending out their shill army to pretend to be "truther" using the same busted and fully exposed tactics to try and shut down intelligent discussion of the event.
(*the yalmuka comment was NOT stated in a derogatory or racist manner, and was ONLY used to drive home the point of the extremely blatant source and affiliation of these liars and attackers).
270 comments
150 pickengrin 2016-09-13
Yep. It's like the huge influx of flat earth posts we had for a while
36 nisaaru 2016-09-13
True but the amount of effort some people invested into the flat earth BS with high quality videos implies some unknown long term strategy and not some spurious on the point channel disruption.
55 [deleted] 2016-09-13
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25 bickspickle 2016-09-13
Same reason why you can't have a rational discussion about 9/11.
The idea has been so discredited by MSM that the moment you mention that you question the official story people have been trained to believe that you think Bush and Cheney were flying the planes themselves into the towers while throwing bombs by hand at the pentagon.
3 redikulous 2016-09-13
Wait, that's not how it happened?
/s
1 bickspickle 2016-09-13
May the praise and glory of Allah rain down on you. You made me snicker.
10 know_comment 2016-09-13
The myth of the flat earth has actually always been used as a tool for this purpose. It started as an enlightenment parody of the church to point out their "anti-science" ideology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth#Historiography_of_the_flat-Earth_myth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_thesis
what's so interesting about its resurgence as a tool against "conspiracy theorists", is that it really is the same group acting as proponents. It's the Scientism (ScienceTM as a religion) crowd - militaristic atheists/ radical secularists who promote a humanist agenda and technocratic society with reductionist and leoliberal ideological argument. This is an aspect of the new enlightment.
7 [deleted] 2016-09-13
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7 SpazeNeko 2016-09-13
I have pondered the same thing, that science is the new dogma people thrust their faith in. Every time you see peoples grasping at scientific papers like science can't fail. We've seen stellar advancements in the field of science in the last century, disproving earlier findings, but we still put our blind faith in what scientist and experts are feeding us.
The recent article about the sugar lobby proved nefarious forces were trying to influence our thoughts, as recent as the 60's.The tobacco industry has tried this. Even to this day this strategy is being applied.
I recently read an article that goes into more depth. It's called "Science as the new religion." by Tony Cartalucci.
As another person notes below me we should always keep a healthy amount of scepticism, may it be the government, experts, or scientist. They are still people, and they can also be wrong, or make mistakes.
3 know_comment 2016-09-13
it's such a philosophically hypocritical concept. you can't prove positives. the entire point of science is the process and evolution. it's not static. the "It's Science" crowd is inherently flawed in its foundational premise. And where there is such obvious hypocrisy, you have to read in between the lines for the true agenda.
it's a strange loop considering you can't prove that statement. So any concept which relies on that premise should be viewed with immediate SKEPTICISM. But they've managed to coopt that word and concept too...
6 redtape20 2016-09-13
I've observed discrediting by association before, but never knew what to call it w/o a long description +example. Thanks man. Are there any books that discuss tactics like these?
6 holocauster-ride 2016-09-13
For the purposes of this comment a book is anything carrying information.
Snowdens leaks https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ Google JTRIG Manipulation for lots of sources and links.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein#.22Conspiracy_Theories.22_and_government_infiltration this guy is an adviser to the WhiteHouse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini wrote a book considered to be the gold standard instruction for modern influencers. He is assumed to be an advisor on the Hillary Campaign. Scott Adams calls him Godzilla.
Scott Adams is a professional hypnotist and has been writing on these kinds of tactics specifically during the current election. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/150032856301/godzilla That post is spam, but click through to his main blog for more of his writing.
Propaganda is a classic, by the man who made Sigmund Freud famous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)
https://www.jinfowar.com/# the Journal of Information Warfare is interesting. Cyber warfare and hacking is another example where disinformation has been used to obscure the truth. Both of these are actually social or psychological engineering techniques, not necessarily computer engineering (PEBKAC). Computers, books, phone calls, text messages, tweets, and Facebook emojis are modern weapons of war.
3 OmeronX 2016-09-13
If your going to believe in any conspiracy, it should be that some "conspiracies" exist to make you look foolish.
9 whipnil 2016-09-13
tavistock
1 Legalise_Gay_Weed 2016-09-13
Flat Earth content is rife on GLP, along with a general hatred for anyone who isn't a god fearing white American.
2 whipnil 2016-09-13
How do we know we're not experiencing this shared reality with flat landers. Sometimes when I'm dealing with some folk I feel they're stuck in a dimension less than me with how limited their consciousneses are.
3 ConspiracyAccount 2016-09-13
I agree that there is absolutely nothing wrong with exploring the possibilities of more esoteric conspiracy theories.
1 GoldenTruth 2016-09-13
lol wat
0 tinylilzikababyhead 2016-09-13
Thaaaar she blows!!
5 poelzi 2016-09-13
I had the impression for a long time now that flat earth and some other very ridiculous ideas are counter intelligence products. For example, whenever you see good videos about UFO phenomena, and I mean the good ones that look into it scientifically you always get suggestions of wacky flat earth conspiracy.
I know at least 6 people who have seen a real one, whom i trust and i know they can distinguish a satellite, airplane or meteorite from a UFO. All of those find flat earth ridiculous.
I had the long term impression and it got proven by the snowden releases for me, that those are counter intelligence acts to make any credible but unwanted topic look suspicious for someone who does not look into more details.
Any platform with enough users will attract the attention of those groups and will get spammed. With some really good analysis, some of those trolls could be exposed i guess. very much depends on the effort they put into to hide their tracks.
0 TheFrank314 2016-09-13
Maybe they just actually believe it.. hence the effort
5 nisaaru 2016-09-13
Unfortunately that doesn't explain the professional made video productions to me which cost money. We don't talk about amateurish output here but engineered.
3 seeingreality9 2016-09-13
There are professional made video productions about just about every conspiracy topic there is. The aforementioned 9/11 theories, for instance. Loads of high quality productions around that topic.
Are those people also disinformation shills or do they truly believe what they espouse in their videos?
I know people in real life, face-to-face, who believe the Earth is flat and who devote a lot of time to spreading the word and "educating" others about their beliefs.
So I have zero problem believing such a person who also has decent video editing skills can put together good productions on the topic. It's a real belief that real people have. (And no, I'm not one of them.)
1 TheFrank314 2016-09-13
So you're saying if you believe these outlandish ideas then you don't have money and/or skills to produce or commission a high quality video?
2 big_face_killah 2016-09-13
And all the alien stuff. I mean aliens are at least possible - i just don't think there is any evidence
2 FatJennie 2016-09-13
Then there are the genuine crazies who believe it like my aunt, because her boyfriend spends 8 hours a day on YouTube
1 NewDNA 2016-09-13
Oh yes, that's a hateful mob.
1 flyyyyyyyyy 2016-09-13
they do seem to have mostly disappeared. i almost hadn't noticed... interesting.
1 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
Lately,they've been busy pushing the Sept 11 crapola.
BTW, calling that day 9-11 is one of their mind fuck. It's purpose is to equate that day with emergencies.
1 ItGotZenified 2016-09-13
100% top conspiracy flair should be added.
-1 Eurotrashie 2016-09-13
That alone is a campaign to discredit conspiracy theories - like the moon landing hoax.
18 Vitalogy0107 2016-09-13
Don't do that man, don't lump flat earth with the moon landing, that's exactly the point of the the hoax in the first place, to get you to lump any theory about NASA with flat earth. Think about it, man.
3 Eurotrashie 2016-09-13
That's my point friend, it is a campaign to discredit respectable conspiracy theories, like the moon landings.
3 Vitalogy0107 2016-09-13
Oh, sorry! I completely misunderstood your sentiment.
1 Eurotrashie 2016-09-13
English is my third language, so I could have been clearer I think.
6 kickercvr 2016-09-13
Poisoning the well tactic on display here...
1 lucycohen 2016-09-13
Every time the moon landing info is discussed, we get swarmed with shills, whereas with Flat Earth the known shills actually push it
-8 PrimalRedemption 2016-09-13
The flat earth is to discredit concave earth theory, not this shitty sub Reddit.
6 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-13
Both theories are used to discredit torus earth theory with sprinkles of ultraterrestrial enclaves
0 Tilo15 2016-09-13
The torus earth theory is just used to discredit the pyramid earth theory
0 beer_and_ 2016-09-13
Mmmm... Cream-filled earth theory.
-1 PrimalRedemption 2016-09-13
Yawn.
Tamarack mines experiment. Rectilineator experiment. Sagnac effect. Airys failure. Every observation and experiment points to a concave earth yet you retards choose to mock instead. This is why you are called sheep.
2 2matt2reject 2016-09-13
Not OP, and I'm not gonna discuss the things you've mentioned as in my experience those who have faith in the concave earth theory tend to disregard any skepticism of their affirming experiments. That said, I don't think you're stupid if you believe in such things as skepticism on any front is a healthy mindset. I do however have a few questions for you, if you truly believe in the concave earth.
Even if I have a set of binoculars the further out I look the more convex the earth appears. Considering I'm high up in the air I should be able to see some sort of concavity, even without the aid of reference poles.
I know a popular theory is that gravity does not exist and instead we are experiencing a type of simulated gravity from the centrifugal force. However, gravity is an observable phenomenon without the aid of rotation. So if gravity exists, and the earth is concave, then anything on the axis of rotation would be pulled toward the center, and disintegrated by the sun (assuming you believe that is real). Now let's say gravity doesn't exist, how do you convince the millions of STEM students that they really are witnessing such a phenomenon if there isn't one?
If everything is contained within the earth, then what's with all those specks of light we see at night. When we observe them and they show a dopplar effect that requires they be quite far away, what is going on? If they are contained within the earth then the earth would have to be massive to account for such shifts. People have known the circumference of the earth (which is irrespective of whether it be concave or not) for thousands of years because of how relatively simple it is to calculate. Assuming the earth is concave, how do we fit all these stellar bodies in what must be a relatively tiny space? Are they just an illusion?
I have other concerns with the concave theory but these are some big ones I've never seen a good explanation for. I hope you don't take offense in any of this, I'm genuinely curious to hear your opinions.
1 PrimalRedemption 2016-09-13
I will get back to you when I get to a computer as I want to write a very detailed response along with links. Suffice to say, I have some pretty convincing arguments which perhaps youve already heard but maybe never had explained to you in a manner that is convincing.
0 pickengrin 2016-09-13
Why are you here in this "shitty sub Reddit"
You should find better ways to spend your time
118 grndzro4645 2016-09-13
I believe this sub is infested with shills who are paid to discredit anything of note that is posted here.
31 kbxads 2016-09-13
this sub needs a sticky post thread, where anyone can out a suspected shill and others can vote and comment by looking into said-shill's post history. Nip the most successful shills, make their job harder.
18 Afrobean 2016-09-13
There are probably site rules against that sort of thing.
You might be interested to see r/therecordcorrected though. They're exposing Clinton's CTR shills over there.
4 cuckname 2016-09-13
Its not CTR on here 365 days per year, just during elections.
There is billionaire money put to use suing journalists out of existence. There is also a network of zionists who coordinate their upvotes and downvotes via bots.
3 kit8642 2016-09-13
Looks like CTR has been a bit baffled for the past couple of days, yesterday r/politics looked like it did before the conventions.
1 not---a---bot 2016-09-13
They didn't have anyone in the office on Sunday morning when HRC collapsed. I figure they just collectively went "fuck this shit".
1 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
They were waiting for their marching orders.
1 CelineHagbard 2016-09-13
I don't think there's anything sitewide against it, but it would break rule 10 of this sub's rules. In a smaller sub I mod, we did a similar thing where we made a sticky with no holds barred (except what breaks reddit's rules). We actually did this more to draw out a few users (almost certainly all alts) who had been complaining about mod abuse. It worked for our purposes, but I don't know if that would play in a sub as large as this.
1 Rockran 2016-09-13
It would likely violate the rules https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205701155
0 CelineHagbard 2016-09-13
Maybe.
I would take that to mean you would have to be repeatedly commenting on the users posts, PMing them, or following them around. This would just be a post where the mods choose not to remove or warn comments, and the users calling out those users they feel are shills. If some users decide to then follow those called out, that would likely break reddit's rules, and those users could face measures by the admins. But I don't see the post itself as breaking any site wide rules.
1 Rockran 2016-09-13
I say a particular user is a shill, and others choose to then brigade them - Did I just incite a brigade? In a way I did.
6 know_comment 2016-09-13
the mods are pretty good at that. Just use RES and tag accounts, and let the mods do their jobs. If you have a public source list of shills, watch how fast your name ends up on it.
the problem is that if you start disagreeing with people about details or some conspiracy theories, some people who lack nuance will react and presume shilling.
interestingly, actual shills use this as part of their defense. they say "lol, anyone who disagrees with conspiracy theorists is automatically a shill". The shill subs actually use that as part of their MO. They hide behind jokes about how everyone calls them shills. Helps bring in the useful idiots and gives the shills a nice little smokescreen.
So then you have accounts pop up and try to discredit mods as shills. And when you have a paranoid group (with some legit schizophrenics and some legit shills and cointel guys, and some legit idiots), it's easy to turn people against each other. It's why you don't see a lot of cohesion in the conspiracy theory community. Every conspiracy theorist who gains any notoriety will be discredited by other conspiracy theorists who disagree with some minutae of their thesis as a potential shill.
And then you just introduce something to associate with the group youre trying to discredit. Anti-semitism, tea party/ republicanism, patriot party/ militia movement, white nationalism/ seperatism, flat earth, islamic extremism, black seperatism, etc. Now anytime there's an overlap in beliefs from another controversial ideology, you can discredit any "conspiracy theory" concept.
Do your own due diligence and make your own determinations about who is or isn't a shill. Beware of those who call everyone a shill, though.
1 eyedharma 2016-09-13
I got called a shill last week for not agreeing that the planes on 9/11 were computer generated and I was echoing the narrative laid out by the government by suggesting there were planes over NY that day...people just love to throw the term shill around in here. It really makes it hard to even comment in this sub sometimes because if you're not agreeing with every nuance of a conspiracy you're a shill.
1 know_comment 2016-09-13
Those accusation accounts are often new, because the mods tend to root them out.
4 HempCO719 2016-09-13
Can we change the word from shill? I've said it out loud a few times and it doesn't sound right...
4 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
Gatekeepers is a good alternative.
3 HempCO719 2016-09-13
I like it
1 flyyyyyyyyy 2016-09-13
pr agent?
1 HempCO719 2016-09-13
That'll do
1 kbxads 2016-09-13
paid-commenter seems too long, shill does seem to convey a more sinister role than just being a stupid moral-less good-for-nothing-else minimum wage comment copy-paster, script and order follower. Fake is too broad in definition and used elsewhere. Troll is something else too, mostly for fun lulz activity engager, so...maybe the word should be PP paid-poster
1 HempCO719 2016-09-13
A 'sinister' perhaps? Point out the sinisters and make their sinister jobs more difficult...
-2 HiveNode 2016-09-13
Wouldn't even say most of them are shills, just people who get off on bullying. More tactful than your average bully, they find things you can outright criticize without having any legitimate reason to do so, which is what SJWs and whatever term you would call an anti-conspiracy theorist now are. Bullies of a different shade.
1 jackosan 2016-09-13
And couldn't shills use said process to eliminate the 'real' nut cases like the rest of us..
1 kbxads 2016-09-13
they probably do, but in a private forum overseen by their admin/handler
0 Rockran 2016-09-13
You'd have to have Rule 10 removed before doing that.
6 getmysponge 2016-09-13
Not quite. As OP said, it's more subtle than that. It's not just "debunking" or whatever. It's about reinforcing the cultural stereotype that conspiracy theories are the product of diseased minds.
I've noticed it in r/UFOs as well. The comments play on the rational person's tendency to avoid crazy shit and crazy people. A classic one you see literally everywhere when someone posts a UFO experience, some person will come along and say "I saw the exact same thing in <some random state> back in <a while ago>". The commenter goes on to describe some crazy bullshit. It's as simple as that.
It's not about debunking. It's actually about manipulating the way we perceive these stories. Creating prejudices.
5 Eurotrashie 2016-09-13
Agreed - in the end, this is still Reddit.
3 unruly_mattress 2016-09-13
Perfect. If someone disagrees with the theory posted here, then they're a shill trying to discredit a legitimate theory. If someone agrees with a theory posted here, then they're a shill trying too support disinformation to further the association of conspiracy people with crazy people. Either way you're a shill.
26 Fauglheim 2016-09-13
I'll buy that for sure. Eglin air force base is probably the number one subscriber.
16 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
Context:
Oak Brook is the HQ of McDonald's by the way.
2 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-13
South St Paul, MN when I put into google maps came up with stockyards exchange building, which houses a restaurant and nightclub. It reminds me of fight club for some reason. Would be funny if ther'es a tavistock clone run like a dark mormon techocult, renting cheap office space out of their basement.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/South+St+Paul,+MN/@44.893243,-93.034069,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1s105653245!2e1!3e10!6s
8 RecklessRatRedditor 2016-09-13
Just an aside, I did a bout three months of Urban exploring in the twin cities, and St. paul has literally hindreds of miles of tunnels underneath it. Down to a confirmed 7 stories below ground. It is awesome. I onpy got 4 stories down, had a hard time getting there, dropped into a four way below an old 1800's sewer with a skull carved into the sandstone and lost my cool a bit. The tunnels there stretched out beyond my vision all four directions. There is a whole counter-culture of explorers (and other very strange people) who seek these places out. Definitely there is a goverent aspect to these areas as they are kept secret and carry many utilities. There was even a very strange 80's looking office door that had strnge signage on it that we were convinced would trigger some alarm if we opened it. Theorized it was a possible escape route from the city under the Mississippi to the airport. Definitely more goes on underground than we know.
2 GoochMon 2016-09-13
Wow! I heard someone briefly mention that like 8 years ago when I was a kid. I definitely have to check it out now.
2 Y_Sam 2016-09-13
Just asking but, could these particular locations have a technical reason?
IP tracking is only so precise, couldn't it be DSLAMs locations indicated like this?
1 Notatraindriver 2016-09-13
It's because Eglin is full of thousands of really bored engineers and government workers surfing Reddit most of the day.
2 Y_Sam 2016-09-13
What i mean is if Reddit were to monitor my location, it would point to some random building in my neighbourhood, which is where my ISP's switchboard would be, along with thousands of people in a 5km radius, give or take.
Is it somehow possible that ISP's are using these spots as DSLAM ?
I'd guess a government funded shill operation would at least rely on some form of spoofing to make the trail harder to follow, it wouldn't be that big of a technical challenge.
0 hoopdizzle 2016-09-13
This is very likely the reason, ip address geolocation is not terribly reliable
-2 unruly_mattress 2016-09-13
Heh. Is McDonald's also shilling Reddit or could it be that they're just really bored at work?
2 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
/r/HailCorporate is replete with examples of "native" advertisements from that junk food corporation.
1 unruly_mattress 2016-09-13
I put McDonalds in there and looked at the first result, sorted by top. This is it.
There's something about referring to McDonalds products as "low quality" that leads me to believe this wasn't written by McDonalds. Do you disagree? I only spent little time browsing through the subreddit but things don't look good when it comes to critical thinking.
24 amoebassassian 2016-09-13
They are everywhere on this site no doubt.
But if you look hard enough there is good around. Keep asking questions your head is in the right spot though. CTR will fade away once the election is over only to rise again another time.
10 Juan__Lennon 2016-09-13
/r/conspiratard and it's zio offshoots - /r/isrconspiracyracist and /r/topmindsofreddit
-7 Juan__Lennon 2016-09-13
Look at how sad these disinfo agents have become. Most of this is so blatantly obvious to the masses now, THIS is how they have to act. Attempting to ridicule things that are beyond obvious.
You just have to laugh. All these yarmulke wearing bafoons.
14 M4gikarp 2016-09-13
See, this is exactly the kind of shit that makes people think you're racist.
13 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
Seriously. Almost like a stage play...
1 redtape20 2016-09-13
Seems likely
4 Gravesh 2016-09-13
There's an alarming amount of Anti-Zionists who are outright anti-Semitics (there is a different) on this sub. Makes the rest of it look bad.
3 OmeronX 2016-09-13
Working as intended. What this whole post is about
1 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-13
They misspelled buhfoonz
0 Juan__Lennon 2016-09-13
Describing a physical characteristic of these fools with puddle deep attempted "cover" is not "racist." This was exactly how /r/conspiratard operated. It would take mere seconds ot reading their sub to direcrly determine their affiliation(s).
But that victim playing is right in line with the tactics so heavily over used and abused. Thank you for making that point once again of this nonsense. Nice try, /u/m4gikarp.
0 Juan__Lennon 2016-09-13
And to massively clarify this point, /r/isrconspiracyracist only seems to ever care about one solitary "race." Theirs. Not really suspicious at all....how very noble of them.
Most actual racism that's posted on this sub is directly posted by these scumbags. So they can then post about it on their sjw sub, while falsely accusing us of being "racist." The classic Jewish girl painting swastikas on her Synagogue, while claiming nonsense racist attacks. (Note that each of the links provided are for separate, but IDENTICAL "attacks." This is a reflection of EXACTLY how its done with the FALSE claims of racism against /r/conspiracy here.)
Tired and busted EXPOSED tactics they continually overuse. We can see right through it. We saw them yet again use this same method to try and shut down the /r/engineering 9/11 physics discussion of the critical failures that all destroy the "official" account [pure fiction] of that staged attack on America. Sending out their shill army to pretend to be "truther" using the same busted and fully exposed tactics to try and shut down intelligent discussion of the event.
(*the yalmuka comment was NOT stated in a derogatory or racist manner, and was ONLY used to drive home the point of the extremely blatant source and affiliation of these liars and attackers).
-1 leftistpatriot 2016-09-13
If you don't support gratuitous trolling & COINTELPRO to poison this community, then you must be anti-free speech.
-3 Vitalogy0107 2016-09-13
It's not racist if it's true.
4 Afrobean 2016-09-13
Yes, I'm sure all of the users in that subreddit wear yarmulkes. Even though most Jewish people don't even. It's gotta be true, because otherwise m4gikarp was just saying dumb anti-semitic bullshit!
1 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-13
Conspiracy Keanu says, "what if the yarmulke wearing JIDF hats are actually postpaperclip psychocivilizing mind control nazi ideologues (ie:freemasons/mormons) working for JTRIG to make conspiracy people look like antisemites...whoa"
0 Vitalogy0107 2016-09-13
https://archive.is/pyiOR Check that out, those are the types of people that are in Top Minds of Reddit.
13 Juan__Lennon 2016-09-13
It's so blatant.
5 tinylilzikababyhead 2016-09-13
It is. Many times some name I've never seen will bring up a topic like FE, then, immediately, about a half-dozen typical names will gleefully wet themselves and dive into the same commentary I've seen over and over. It's nauseating.
11 four_leaf_tayback 2016-09-13
Kinda what life has become... sifting through bs. Silver lining is that it's hard evidence of clandestine fuckery.
Rambling edit: Keep in mind that all we have is time and each other. Their mission is in large part to divide us and waste our time. Keep your bs meter on but pick your battles wisely. Paid opposition is here to stay unfortunately. Calling just one real person a fake person has greater consequence than accurately identifying ten fake people in my opinion.
3 redtape20 2016-09-13
Just the knowledge that they exist will help future movements become more impregnable. People are learning to stay away from the racists (or provocateurs) in this sub it seems like.
1 CelineHagbard 2016-09-13
Yep, that and witch hunts tend to be more counterproductive in the long run anyway. It's good to have that healthy skepticism, but if you're spending a significant portion of your time tracking and identifying bad actors, they're winning.
10 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-13
Welcome fellow lizard to the flat earth society. You are totally right. I've noticed if you post about
Then these topics will be downvoted. While flat earth is promoted, so is david icke, so is George Carlin "it's a big club and you ain't in it" and old 9/11 videos (perhaps rightly so, but it's been posted so many times I believe it's done as a forum sliding technique to suppress other stuff by diffusion--some argue politics is as well)
These things will get some traction but usually end up with <5-10 upvotes after being immediately and aggressively downvoted to 0
8 xxTh35ky15Fa11ingxx 2016-09-13
A lot of that has already been proven. So, it's "I know", not "I believe". It's been proven there are groups of people who will manipulate the voting systems and subs for money, religion, politics, ect. Some will make shitposts to be assholes (they know who they are). Others because they think it's funny.
You just have to take everything with a grain of salt. And call bullshit when you see it.
7 kbxads 2016-09-13
That's expected. If there is bad shit going on in the world, and if a small set of people talk about it in a forum, the bad people are naturally going to try their best to put some people in and make the small set of people look like idiots.
2 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-13
Yep. I call those bad people 'control grid'. Just like they live. When you pin it out like this its easy to see who is behind it.
1 mlgscrublord 2016-09-13
So if congruity is not what you wish to achieve, what would get your pathetic gut have the courage to talk to me?
Control grid -- good one. More like Zuvuya.
6 We-think-we-are-free 2016-09-13
I can see it with all the hillary content being push. R\hillaryconspiracypsyop
5 Jeffreyrock 2016-09-13
I've often thought that in connection with those people who constantly bring up Israel and push the stupid line that everything is a Jewish conspiracy...it wasn't like that a couple years ago.
5 EuroTrash69 2016-09-13
Welcome to reddit, welcome to the internet, welcome to America, welcome to the world. The budgets afforded by the PAC, corporations, and governments are massive compared to however many individuals there are that want transparency and truth. But never give up.
4 Namesoog 2016-09-13
I don't know. What I do know is the other popular subs are censored 99% of the time by biased or PAID mods. As crazy people we have the freedom of speech and also the freedom to believe what we want. If you want good old filtered totally biased news be on your way and subscribe to the many popular subs the masses enjoy and are entertained with everyday. Free thinkers only here.
3 silentmonkeys 2016-09-13
Can't disagree. Reddit is low-hanging fruit when it comes to the tried-and-true tactic of throwing out so much noise that the signal gets lost.
3 cashcow1 2016-09-13
I agree 100%, and I have found several of these shills.
3 OGLizard 2016-09-13
There is a fundamental lack of understand about how people work, here. Both in this sub and this thread.
First, there are two spectrum of people on this sub:
people that want to use it for legitimate reasons and getting to the bottom of what might be actual conspiracies.
people, probably outnumbering the former, that wait around for people to float ideas, then poke the be give for fun. On occasion these people also drop a totally outlandish post, thinking they'll get karma for it, not realizing what the two groups actually are. They only get their own group's upvotes, it's an echo chamber where then they all sit around waiting for someone to attack.
Now that is all different from when someone from the first group that posts something they think is legit, but us easily debunked by average means. A lot of posts here have huge logical holes, on every side, and one group fights the other.
Honestly, no one gives a shit about r/conspiracy enough to pay teenagers to come in here and fuck around. There's no hard-hitting journalism, no links to original pdfs of damning documents. It's just a nested circle jerk that now exists inside a circle jerk.
Downvote away, my pretties!
1 pyFamily 2016-09-13
I think this is absolutely on point. Your conspiracy info / conspiracy noise theory describes what I see.
The vocal majority will peddle left-right political propaganda, absurd theories, things that are absolutely nothing to do with conspiratorial events. This was always the case, but it's much worse since Reddit itself became a broken model that doesn't understand transparency and upvoting/downvoting principals which made the site so great.
Through design or lack thereof, at this point, there are so many people who use the sub incorrectly that noise and disinfo is an expected part of the sub. Mods do nothing about shitposts. If they did, they would be accused of censorship. Ironically, there really is no need for paid shills (although they do exist!) on this sub because we do such a good job or burying actual news, resources and facts ourselves.
1 OGLizard 2016-09-13
Thank god someone gets it. I personally think it borders on arrogance to think that this sub is so hugely impactful to anything ever that it takes an organized group being paid for their time and talents to disrupt it. First, once a month someone whines about this sub "not being what it used to be." That's too meta to be allowed if there's organization behind it. The first step to treating a problem is acknowledging one exists, which paid shills wouldn't let happen.
3 Denmark1976 2016-09-13
Reddit - Big Brother is Watching You
Here we go, me attempting to tiptoe around the hot potato! I have had my fair share of warnings...
1) All the major Reddit subs are being censored extensively. It happens from behind the scene, a block box contraptions by design, to control the flow of information on Reddit. If your post contains articles or reveal crimes about the following subjects: The US Military, US Intelligence Community, T.B.T.F. Financial Institutions, Mega Corporations, US Politics, US Economic Data, Economic Inequality, Social Unrest, the Corporate Owned Mass Media or certain well connected individuals - if you do, you will become a targeted of their censorship.
2) Their favorite methods: 1) Algorithms that automatically detect specific wordings 2) Banning independent media outlets. 3) Subtle vote rigging. 4) Manual removal of posts. 5) Intimidation. 6) Banning of accounts. 7) Allowing Strolling by Chills & Fund-its (it rimes!). It is a very smooth and professional operation.
3) Reddit has now fully established a core of loyal followers and employees. If they don't want you to see what is going on, you won't see it, by design not accident. We can't fully observe the process, nor can we tell the entities apart. We can make patient observations. We can take notes. Patterns emerges. We are not allowed to talk about our observations or criticize "them", that would be a violation of rule #2 #5 #10. Catch
1722! (Example: r/conspiracy)4) Reddit has censored most of the independent media, with an increasing zeal, mainly because they are compromising the narratives of the Corporate Owned Mass Media. The alternative media punches holes in the official scenery of propaganda, fear, lies and polarization.
5) Reddit has become a cesspool of irrelevant trivia and celebrity gossip. Like mainstream TV it is now merely there to distract and entertain us with stupidity. This is how Reddit are dumbing us all down, turning all the forums into a mere shadow of their former glory, echo valley's full of idiots padding each other on the back.
List of Systematic Censorship
Censorship of ISIS/Al-Sham/Al-Qaeda soldiers moving from Turkey into Syria.
Update July 2016:
Censorship of news about Clinton and the DNC committing voting fraud.
Censorship of news from Syria and Ukraine.
Censorship of Turkish false flag coup - 10.000's getting arrested.
Update August 2016:
Censorship of news from Syria and Ukraine.
Censorship of Clinton's declining health and criminal acts in conjunction with the DNC during the Primaries.
Censorship of Clinton's E-Mail server scandal and charity fraud and rampant corruption.
Censorship of Muslim (refugees) attacks in Europe.
Update September 2016:
Censorship of news about candidate Clinton's declining health.
3 ninjawasp 2016-09-13
It's been taken over by people on both sides of the American election... It's gotten very boring now, whatever happened to our beloved alien conspiracies?
2 Y_Sam 2016-09-13
Or you know, actual government/corporate felonies being buried and whistleblowers silenced. Aka "things that really happened and nobody cares" ?
Well nobody cares here either, go figures.
2 ninjawasp 2016-09-13
90% of it is either side of the American election writing more and more ludicrous things about each other.
The bullshit has taken away any sense of purpose this sub used to have.
Maybe there should be a separate sub for American election conspiracies?
0 Y_Sam 2016-09-13
I'm sure they are dimes a dozen, but this won't prevent people from posting here that Trump is a pedophile and Hillary is a Jewish lizard zombie who's already dead and doesn't know it.
As long as there are people to vote and comment, there will be shitposting anyway.
1 ninjawasp 2016-09-13
Which takes us back to the ops point...
People are using this sub for political agenda and not because they have any interest in 'conspiracies' , they'll probably all leave after the American election and the sub will be in tatters.
1 Y_Sam 2016-09-13
Yes and no, people aren't necessarily paid shills.
Most of the time you don't even have to pay them at all, just stirr the pot and you can't distinguish an iPhone maniac from a /r/The_Donald poster.
1 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
As much as I hate censorship, I'm beginning to think that any post about a candidate, no matter which side, needs to removed or consolidated to a pinned post. But then I remember, this is a good way to identify gatekeepers and grieferbaiters.
Edit: autocorrects
3 Y_Sam 2016-09-13
Why would you think that sub, which is public would work any differently than any other public space?
People will go for the shiny stupid stuff and disregard the boring actual conspiracies.
Popular shits are always Trump/Clinton related, 9/11 but only the least plausible stuff, ie "jet fuel can't melt steel beams lelelelelel" then you have all the foaming at the mouth NASA morons that will spend hours watching at rocks until they manage to see Elvis in there.
Exactly like any other news sub, most political conspiracies will be forgotten after a month, nobody cares about Jesselyn Radack but everyone will spam "dem commies be taking muh guns" at every public shooting along with more far fetched idiocies telling how every shooting/terrorist attack is fake/inside job so someone can come to your house and steal your granddad's shotgun.
You don't need shills to make a sub uninteresting/irrelevant, you just need a bunch of idiots.
And if mods dare to try and make some order out of this mess, they'll get dragged into the conspiracy theory themselves, cause they're shills hiding the truth or whatever.
People on average are gullible idiots, you have to face the truth that heavy conpiracists have an important populations of giant paranoid idiots and deal with it.
0 MoeOverload 2016-09-13
It can't(burns at 900C optimal), but it wouldn't need to if there were explosives on the plane/already planted on the towers, either by terrorists or whatever. Don't forget the 3rd tower that collapsed without a plane hitting it. Probably explosives via A: Terrorists, or B: some govt agency, whether it's ours or someone else's. Plus fuck the micro nuke shit people are proposing, I think I would notice a gigantic flash of burning/blinding light from one of those.
I think, yes there's more to that story, but I doubt that our govt did it. Probably a foreign govt of some sort.
Yeah that shit is getting old. Although, I wouldn't say they wouldn't try to make it harder to get guns by using that though.
1 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
Thanks for blowing your cover.
1 MoeOverload 2016-09-13
What do you mean "blowing my cover"? Do you think I'm a shill?
1 Y_Sam 2016-09-13
No he thinks you're an alien.
And a shill.
A...
Shillien !
A Shirrorist !
A Shillarist !
1 MoeOverload 2016-09-13
Great, I'm an alien now guys! I don't have to stay on this planet as it's being raped by the human race!
1 Y_Sam 2016-09-13
But if you leave, who will take the selfies with the people for the forums? :o
3 hillbilly_joe 2016-09-13
The Hillary psy-ops are plenty.
3 flyyyyyyyyy 2016-09-13
it's part of the reason this sub is allowed to exist. you can speak the truth, sure, but if that truth is blended up with crazy, especially in a sub called 'conspiracy', the general public will throw the baby out with the bathwater.
3 TechNarcissist88 2016-09-13
Operation Mockingbird
Tavistock Institute
COINTELPRO
Absolutely, OP
3 Potss 2016-09-13
You believe correctly.
2 [deleted] 2016-09-13
[deleted]
1 Afrobean 2016-09-13
Yeah, it's quite nice. I've seen a few political subs get literally taken over by shills, mod team included, so I'm really appreciative of the fact that things seem to be relatively decent here.
2 dagonn3 2016-09-13
Agreed. I also think most of the outrageously racist shit on voat is from similar sources. Viable alternative appears, SRS types flood it with hate speech. This will attract people who actually feel that way, then it perpetuates itself.
2 marcomula 2016-09-13
im just waiting for this election to be over. do i think Hillary is sick? probably. but ive been getting tired of seeing 9 posts about it every day.
2 AddictedReddit 2016-09-13
I've noticed the same. NSA leaks are buried, so much that /r/NSALeaks is restricted to mod posting only. Those leaks continue to produce the content that this sub used to be full of and spur intelligent conversations; now I don't even bother xposting to here, and I see shit about flat earth, lizards, & chemtrails every day.
2 LWHOW 2016-09-13
Has anyone seen the Tucker Max story & how they taught people how to create controversy for $$$. It's in the film TRUTH ABOUT LYING (on Netflix ). It explained that Tucker created fake accounts of people calling him out on being controversial to get the media to talk about how evil he was - thus getting him a book & movie deal.
That's def happening with this campaign. The funny thing about the internet is that there's no way of identifying anyone & it's too simple to have one person run 25-50 accounts without being too noticeable. You'll see disgusting racist comments on twitter from random users and reddit and then it's reported on CNN, Daily Show, etc. They could be coming from 30 year old adults. They could also be coming from 12 year olds. Or they could be coming from people within Jones camp to make her into a victim.
Perez Hilton also talked about this being part of his strategy when starting his website.
The left is talking about race & sexism in this election. Instead of the fact that the economy is still struggling after 8 years of bureaucrat shadow games.
2 Apollo_D 2016-09-13
For sure. Post a comment on here agreeing with the top post, but several hours later, the shills jump on it and downvote.
2 SoCo_cpp 2016-09-13
This sub is just a comedy shitting ground for many dumb fuck trolls, who post/comment nonsense for their own sick twisted amusement.
2 tbarb00 2016-09-13
Thanks for the reminder... to unsubscribe
2 devisav 2016-09-13
I don't think it's so far fetched. When you have nearly unlimited resources you can afford to do that. Remember that the most important thing to them is what you think.
2 MoeOverload 2016-09-13
I always say to people that don't believe conspiracies that the best way to hide information is to discredit the person/group giving it out. Easiest way to do that with the internet is to pretend to be one of them and start spouting schizophrenic nonsense about how "the atmosphere bends the light and that's why it looks curved from space." I guess that's why we can circumnavigate the globe. Must be like a mario game where when you reach one end of the map you get teleported to the other end. God forbid you point that out.
Then by association with some ridiculous theory about lizard people from venus, the rest of the legit theories get ignored because "those are the people who believed in lizards from venus."
2 Renato_Lopes 2016-09-13
Hahahaha, I believe the USA government is paying people to downvote everything on this sub.
I mean really, what are the chances? We live a fucking lie, they want to keep that way.
2 Mr-Krinkles 2016-09-13
Maybe it's time to do what they use to. Before the internet, information use to be exchanged at protests. Trolls and shills don't show up to those because they run their mouths like they do on here and they end up swallowing some teeth.
1 Anuswrangler420 2016-09-13
That is a pretty meta conspiracy theory. Anyways, you are most likely correct.
1 Polusplanchnos 2016-09-13
An automaton is not a shill. It's just following instructions with love.
Most of these folks are automatons, and I am proud we have entered an era when robots, finally, will get the recognition and respect they deserve as politically relevant conversationalists.
1 keg2000 2016-09-13
Where can I sign up to be a paid shill?
3 Legalise_Gay_Weed 2016-09-13
I don't think many are paid. I think the people who don't think for themselves act as both prison guards and inmates.
2 911bodysnatchers322 2016-09-13
Well there are those people, but it's also clear people are being paid. Firstly we know because of the intercept 'how covert agents infiltrate social media' article, lots of whistleblowing about it, Barrett Brown's hack of booz allen hamiton (iirc), and other sources. Also paid astroturfers invest way too much time battling with people they purport to think are morons. And only the mentally ill or a paid person would do that, when a normal person would simply go away.
-1 [deleted] 2016-09-13
Same, pm me.
1 HulaguKan 2016-09-13
How do we know you aren't a shill?
1 gtaver 2016-09-13
Paranoia is also a real possibility as well. Anyone who disagrees isn't paid to personally attack you. I understand this subreddits goals and honestly I have seen more news articles on here than anything which does show our world is full of crazy shit but come on. Dissension is a real thing.
1 l33tdude 2016-09-13
They have been poisoning the well here for years through the very effective use of paid schills and hundreds of accounts. People need to remember that all you need to game reddit is basic programming skills and some reliable proxies.
1 eupf 2016-09-13
You'd be right...but it's also an internet-wide phenomenon (I've been taking mental notes, too, and there's a site or two I used to frequent where this has been going on since at least the early 2000's). If you ask me, the potential of the internet as a powerful social engineering tool was probably realized long before it even went live
2 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
Yep.
I used to post on democratic underground a lot. The first couple of years of its existence it seemed to be a legit site. Especially when it came to the 2000 election and Sept 11. Around 2004 or so, it became painfully obvious that it was not a legit site.
One good thing about that site now is that it is a good place to find out if a topic needs more scrutiny or is complete bullshit. All I have to do is go see what a certain group of posters there have to say about stuff. If they are supporting a particular topics or catapulting propaganda,it's a good bet it's bullshit or mis/disinformation.
1 doppelgaber 2016-09-13
This whole site is gamed
1 Hootietang 2016-09-13
Some people are also just incredibly stupid. Sad, I know. But yes there are definitely a whole lot of shills in here too.
1 hikikomori_forest 2016-09-13
lolnoshit?
1 Denmark1976 2016-09-13
Truth Be Told
You are spot on in you assumptions.
You kind of have to know what is going on, to know the difference between the good stuff, the insane stuff and the shill stuff.
The moderators and administrators, an intricate part of the "Chills & Fund Its" (it rimes) faction, also play an important role. They rule with an iron fist and they serve their overlords with a zealots dedication.
They will allow the crazy and insane stuff. Our beloved r/conspiracy has been turned into a shadow and a mockery of it self. It always was a bit crazy... a lot of crazy... but now it has been turned into an echo valley form idiots, trivia and celebrity gossip.
Any posts critical of the current hegemony - military industrial complex, financial industry, big corporations, political key figures, political system, corporate owned mass media and judicial system risk suffering censorship, vote rigging, intimidation, banning and trolling on an epic scale.
1 Venicide1492 2016-09-13
After reading about flat earth on this sub I agree
1 Legalise_Gay_Weed 2016-09-13
I commented on the weirdness around 9/11 a few days ago, and was surprised at how much resistance I got. I mean, the falseness of the official story is usually common ground for those interested in conspiracy theory, so it did make me quite suspicious of this place.
1 HarryParatesties 2016-09-13
"Wow, that is some high level paranoid thinking....like Hitler, or Willy Wonka."
1 cb75 2016-09-13
No topic in this type of sub should start "Official" anything, we are here to question not resolve and yet all i see is the later
The anti-hilary posts are nauseating and not even remotely interesting (i am not American before you accuse me of anything) and the low key anti-semitism is well.. detracting from the narrative a conspiracy theory mindset.
1 soutech 2016-09-13
There are anti-Semitic posts on this sub all of the time. I expect info highly critical of Israel, Zionism, and the lobbies but some of these posts are forced-sounding and blatantly 19th century race science nonsense. When called out, these posters can't hold a conversation. I suspect some of them are totally fake.
1 Dragofireheart 2016-09-13
Sounds correct.
1 billthedozer 2016-09-13
That very well may be but most people equate critical thinking to nutjob conspiratorial thinking these days anyhow.
1 R04drunn3r79 2016-09-13
Exactly, flat earth people who were her for a while.
1 thisisround 2016-09-13
There really are a lot of crazy-gullible people out there though.
1 scootermcgee4938 2016-09-13
lol....government shill....
1 skyleach 2016-09-13
um... this is reddit. everything here is part of a social engineering sandbox. duh
1 If-im-not-you-im-me 2016-09-13
This sub needs no help with that imo
1 sonicmasonic 2016-09-13
and? what's your point here? No kidding. This site has millions of users. there are all sorts of paranoid freaks who want to dissuade any sort of bad optics from all sorts of things.
there's also a lot of nutbars who ramble about their imaginary stuff.
Then, there are truths. the more truth, the bigger the pushback typically. Proof of truth? It won't make it into the site probably. the entire system is somewhat controlled by external influences.
y'all gotta get cryptic.
1 slobbie 2016-09-13
Ya think?
1 Sublimefly 2016-09-13
I am intrigued by you post because it perfectly illustrates what I like least about this community. I'm so tired of all the shit posts with zero proof or even correlation to the claimed conspiracy, on top of which you can't even have a discussion about the issues or ask for clarification on the suspected end game of a conspiracy. But if they're just shills pushing the crazy conspiracy nut agenda that would explain a great deal.
1 BARchitecture 2016-09-13
Nothing is real anymore.
1 andredawson 2016-09-13
Duh
1 C_Thomas_Howell 2016-09-13
/r/NoShitSherlock
1 PsychedelicPhlegm 2016-09-13
Fuck it, I'll brave the downvotes.
When did r/conspiracy become so closed-minded?
If your post isn't related to the US election in some way, you get downvoted and called a shill. I'm well aware that shills have a presence on here, and yes they spread disinfo, but to label anyone a shill who takes interest in the more esoteric/fringe conspiracies is quite frankly disingenuous and bordering on paranoid.
You're going on about people discrediting the sub, but are blind to the fact that accusing everyone of being a shill discredits the sub.
The shills on here are glaringly obvious and they aren't posting esoteric stuff, they're correcting the record on the political stuff.
1 TwoFlush 2016-09-13
Its really simple. Its because this sub is "reality" that most people can't handle. Media, government and others that want to control the narrative will make anything look as if its not real. The point is they want to confuse everyone so that they have nothing to go on. You have to pick the most important battles and go after those.
Don't get discouraged by the users that want to muddy the waters.
1 Quotezart 2016-09-13
They are throwing around "conspiracy theory" and bullshit with it a lot. Today on FB I tried to talk about her recent episode, and her seizure in July with a supporter. He linked a snopes article claiming that she never had a seizure, and made a ton of comments like "oh it must be a conspiracy, she is a Muslim too and hangs out with Tupac"
This was on FB. Just parroting exactly what they read on their circle jerk Hillary threads. He literally REFUSED to believe that she had any episode at all, because snopes referenced a reporter who thought she was ok. "I have done things like that before"
Its crazy
1 SteveDave123 2016-09-13
McReddit has been compromised for some time now.
It's no different than getting mad at google for censorship - people seem to forget that Google is first and foremost an advertising agency.
McReddit is an advertising forum.
1 Nick246 2016-09-13
Vote Quimbe
1 aenemic 2016-09-13
Or the internet is full of complete idiots.
1 JTRIG_trainee 2016-09-13
it's a good sign. I'll worry when they stop trying to counter us.
1 TokingMessiah 2016-09-13
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
1 kidbudi 2016-09-13
Well that's what this post sounds like too
1 ToAllAGoodNight 2016-09-13
yup
1 adrixshadow 2016-09-13
No Shit Sherlock.
That has always been the case in ANY conspiracy forums.
That's why you do your own research and check the sources.
1 MesaDixon 2016-09-13
That's not a conspiracy post, that's just common sense.
That's such a funny word picture, it deserves its own sub.
1 DocturDread 2016-09-13
http://spherebeingalliance.com/blog/transcript-cosmic-disclosure-government-troll-data-center.html
"Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses." - Plato
1 forehead_implant 2016-09-13
More worryingly, important topics are being buried and bullshit is rising up top. Luckily it's not a total loss, it could be worse, every now and then something hits close to home here.
Basically they want us obsessing over the White House, to pick a side in the false dichotomy, and ignore the power behind the curtain so they can continue to run amok unrestrained and unidentifiable.
1 showmeurboobsplznthx 2016-09-13
That's top minds
1 Xristen1 2016-09-13
So let me ask you if you think that there's admins and mods on here that are government shills suppressing possibly important information?... the reason I'm asking is because I wrote a post about a petition I created about the CDC, proposed amendment following up Barack Obama's executive order 13295 , in The Patriot Act originally executive ordered by George Bush jr....
Anybody familiar with proposed amendment from CDC? it basically gives the CDC the authority to detain anyone etc. Containment of communicable diseases. Its being suppressed everywhere. I put it on another petition website 3 times and it was deleted immediately after I made it, since I drafted the original one like two nights before on care2. After I wrote it and posted it my phone's been acting buggy my Facebook too.
Their proposed amendment is about forced apprehension detention (possibly indefinitely) medical exam in mandatory vaccines or else detention anyways without say.. and basically anybody could say that you're not looking well and tell then and they will come and arrest you and put un medical detainment
for when they plan to spray the zika virus pesticide Nationwide, I know they're already doing it in Florida and back east and on commercial Airlines supposedly.
It actually is it's a factual thing on the Federal Register it's not really conspiracy, I wrote a petition slamming the government and CDC and all the governors who support mandatory vaccines in it...the fuck is Obama and the government thinking...38 billion dollars to Israel and this proposal ,it's basically an outdoor concentration camp Nationwide and we're going to be like concentration camp prisoners.
I definitely think that reddit is tainted with government people and and suppressing really important information it's like this whole thing with Hilary it's like sleight of hand you know, they (gov) go around setting these fires and all of us are running around trying to put them out while they're robbing the bank...
To me this proposed amendment should be in headlines. What worries me the most is how they're not talking about it and not putting it on the news at all. I can't believe people are actually reading it & they're just like whatever . I think it really says something that most of us Americans are like that were so conditioned by now to just roll with the punches in this country. People don't even think anything about it . It's sad, I feel like Americans are like horses when they get their Spirit broken so they can be ridden :/
Yeah, The few people that I was talking to they're like "Sigh it's just a proposal not a law " and I'm like" I don't give a shit if it's a proposal or law, my point is just the implications it's probably what the FEMA camps are for..& it's just treasonous for it to even be written up." And they're totally missing my point. .I mean to me this proposal puts Hitler to shame and I wrote that in my petition .
15 brave people have volunteered to put their name on it so far..To me the conspiracy is how much this government and our president could care less about our lives or any lives,I don't think he would even Flinch about doing this to citizens. I see the Hillary thing going on and just this it's just everything..
When the electoral fraud happened in Nevada for Bernie Sanders, I wrote the national Sheriffs Association and the Constitutional sheriffs and asked them what they're doing about the fraud, and why they're not present at these elections for their states, because constitutionally the sheriff's department is the first and last line of defense against tyranny from the government for the people and I asked them whose side they are on, like seriously what's going on ? you guys are just kicking back collecting a paycheck from the citizens. I told them what a shitshow Nevada was .. it was just crazy to see all the Bernie Sanders people just Milling around instead of calling the sheriff's to arrest the DNC DEMS for electoral fraud. Nobody knew what to do, see people should know their rights and laws It's very important, there's many many laws and bylaws at least should know the election law and basic law.
I told them the Nevada Sheriffs are idiots they turn their back on the people that were being frauded and protected the fraudsters and that's treason.
To me I just have this feeling that Obama is going to try to stay in office make this amendment happen .. I mean the correction in the whole thing for federal the state is just crazy and I wouldn't put it past them... Obama sure is spending money like he is staying in office & writing laws like he is .... this proposed amendment.. it's basically martial law without calling martial law.
Anyways I think that every person in America should know about this proposed amendment...
1 Mr-Krinkles 2016-09-13
So you hijacked this thread to post your agenda?
1 Xristen1 2016-09-13
??? 👍 👌
1 _josepi_ 2016-09-13
Wait, you're saying it's not a jewish lizard person living under australia thing?
/joke
I hear ya,
1 alwayslurkeduntilnow 2016-09-13
I suspect time travelling lottery winners are financing it.
1 stephen_1975 2016-09-13
I'm sure there are paid shills here, but it's honestly hard to say how many.
There are over 380,000 subscribers to this subreddit now. Like in any large group of people, when dealing with that large of a number, you have to expect that a certain percentage of that group suffers from mental health issues.
Would it be unreasonable to assume that out of that 380K, there could be at least a few dozen unwell people, or perhaps a few hundred, or even a few thousand?
Here in Canada for example, Our Canadian Mental Health Association suggests that 1 in 5 adult Canadians will suffer a mental disorder in their lives..
If we take those same numbers and apply them to /r/conspiracy's sub count, 1 in 5 of 380,000 gives us 76,000 people with potential issues. Obviously this isn't completely accurate, but using rough percentages of the amount of people with mental health issues in society as a whole was about the only baseline I could think of using for a guesstimate, so take that as you will.
Even if that total of 76,000 is off by a few thousand in either direction, it's still more than enough to completely fuck with the dynamics of any subreddit, especially so when it's a sub like /r/conspiracy, which deals with subject matter that can easily appeal to those suffering with mental health issues.
tl;dr: my bet is on crazy folks moreso than paid shills
1 holocauster-ride 2016-09-13
I've stopped trusting things I read on the Internet.
1 X_Irradiance 2016-09-13
While I do agree that there are, no doubt, shills in the mist, I find it rather difficult in real life to draw any stark contrast between what I perceive a 'shill' to be like and how most people are.
0 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
It's a completely rational suspicion. It's likely happening to some degree or another. But belief requires gnosis, otherwise it's faith you are talking about.
0 zzielinski 2016-09-13
This suspicion makes it nearly impossible to raise questions or debate theories. If I don't sheep along, I'll be labeled a shill. Kind of a bummer.
0 TrumpLovesCucks 2016-09-13
There is an easy fix. This sub should be set to randomly scramble Reddit posts and not sort by "best". We should really be scrutinizing each comment and giving weight to any opinion before judging. The comment/reply should be used for asking questions or trying to punch holes in a theory
0 ichoosejif 2016-09-13
We know. Thought you knew.
0 DAT_SAT 2016-09-13
Oh come on, there are many subs were you get down voted for telling the truth.
But just wondering, where would I get such a job that pays for trolling the internet?
0 [deleted] 2016-09-13
http://vaniquotes.org/wiki/Category:Krsna_Consciousness_Movement_Is_Saving_The_World
0 AccurateLinguist 2016-09-13
It sure is. It's going to make for some funny judo.
0 livinlizard 2016-09-13
I simply leave a subject once i read inconsistencies,and when it is void of standard facts, i proceed cautiously,and when the post fails to move forward with details(links to source,or people involved,etc....),I simply move on.Maybe even give it a down vote.
0 raytreflip 2016-09-13
Bro I think so too. This subreddit did NOT used to be like this
0 Rodent_Smasher 2016-09-13
Meta.
0 Afrobean 2016-09-13
Trolls often ask for a source on something that is easily found in order to start a fight about validity of sources. If something can be easily found just by searching and I see someone asking for a source regardless, I just downvote. Even if they're not intending to troll or start a stupid argument, commenting just to ask for a source that's easily found by a single Google search is just a bad comment that adds nothing to the discussion.
I've definitely noticed the pro-Hillary shills come in here when a topic has a lot of upvotes and has something to do with Hillary. I haven't noticed any other definite shills. That said, I have noticed a pervasive element that seems to want to actively push anti-semitism even at the expense of making sense or offering a rational argument. I wouldn't be surprised if that sort of commenter is the type of person you're talking about, just here to make legitimate "conspiracy theories" look stupid by association.
0 unruly_mattress 2016-09-13
It's good that you didn't point any fingers. This way everyone thinks you're talking about everyone but them.
0 Demarcator 2016-09-13
just say something like tamud teachings are as real as the easter bunny and santa claus and watch them butthurt
0 mvdl86 2016-09-13
I've noticed questionable conspiracy stories that are designed to make this community look like they don't do their research or check sources are being heavily upvoted.
And then to top it off, the top comment in these is usually someone debunking the story quite easily.
This I think does the most harm to this community.
0 sheabutter63 2016-09-13
The last time Reddit was for real was the Boston Bombing. Since then the powers that be have discovered it and it has lost all authenticity. Especially anything conspiracy related; these subs are obviously targeted and flooded with shit to discredit real posts. Most real people have moved elsewhere.
0 cm18 2016-09-13
We can test it. We can start posting bat shit crazy stuff we know is not true, but could kinda sound true and then downvote. If the posts reach the top page, then we know there's an agenda to manipulate a foot.
0 aregulardude 2016-09-13
But then how do you explain this exact post being one of the more highly upvoted ones? Check mate?
-1 Terribletimes 2016-09-13
Found the shill
-1 Demarcator 2016-09-13
its fun driving these zios and culty flag muchers crazy
-1 b4nk 2016-09-13
The crazy conspiracy theorists now have a theory theyre all shills LOL
-1 musicmaker 2016-09-13
I'll bite. What would the motivation be?
-1 Hollywoodisburning 2016-09-13
I used to be a truther. Most who aren't truthers would still call me one. The reason I stopped? I started sounding crazy, even to the other truthers. There are a lot of conspiracies. Then there's shit that just sounds ridiculous. This shit sounds ridiculous. If you have to justify being called crazy constantly, you just might be. Plus, what exactly do you plan on doing about it? More reddit posts?
1 Mr-Krinkles 2016-09-13
So why even post at all self admitted crazy person?
-2 Al89nut 2016-09-13
You all don't matter enough to be "shilled"
-2 lucycohen 2016-09-13
Yep, they feed us Flat Earth, No Planes and Jew-Hating
-2 Penguinfosho 2016-09-13
To be fair, you all do a pretty good job of it yourselves. There need not be corporate shills for anybody to think you're all a bit crazy when you link to the Daily Mail or RT as legitimate sources.
1 ConspiracyAccount 2016-09-13
Even "tabloids" or state-sponsored propaganda have kernels of truth in them. You must consume as much information from as many sources as possible in order to determine the facts from the lies, the wheat from the chaff.
0 MarcoBoogers 2016-09-13
You realise that you are one of the people that your own comment is directed at, right?
1 Penguinfosho 2016-09-13
So you think I'm a paid corporate shill because people link to tabloid articles? Amazing.
0 MarcoBoogers 2016-09-13
Reading comprehension fail.
Your comment has nothing to do with what I said.
1 mcfluffs3 2016-09-13
It's sad that you disagree with him, even though he did go full retard further down. Whomever you want to call the "real" posters of this sub need to stop sourcing posts and articles from foreign tabloids. In the UK, the daily mail is regularly called the daily fail, yet it is linked to as if it was some American CNN. RT is a similar example of another site spouting made up stories for propaganda.
Please people, check your sources.
2 MarcoBoogers 2016-09-13
I only argued as he was speaking as is he was the only sane person in the whole sub, which doesn't exactly help matters.
Edit: The daily mail isn't quite as bad as it's made out to be. It's bad, but nowhere near the worst of UK tabloids. Look at the crap the express, star & Sun report for example.
1 mcfluffs3 2016-09-13
One hand I want the mods to remove tabloid sources from this sub but on the other I oppose any censorship of submissions in hopes that the community would self-regulate. These are strange times on Reddit.
0 Penguinfosho 2016-09-13
#woke #blessed #robohillary4prez
Am I doing it right? I'm just trying to live up to your standards.
1 MarcoBoogers 2016-09-13
To summarise what just happened, seeing as you don't have enough intelligence to understand your own comment.
You were addressing users of r/conspiracy. You were not addressing shills etc.
I then point out that you are a user of r/conspiracy, and then you go full retard.
0 Penguinfosho 2016-09-13
How can there be pokestops but no pokemon spawns. Niantic shills are flooding the boards saying there are tons of spawns near poke stops but that isn't the case.
1 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
Nice try at defecting attention in order to change the subject.
-4 Huayrasilva 2016-09-13
This is one of the things that bugs me most about this sub. Why are you so quick to jump to the conclusion that there is some hidden power behind everything? Isn't it more reasonable to just accept this as people with agendas acting on their own free will. You don't need to pay trolls if there are people who would are doing that in their free time already.
2 Afrobean 2016-09-13
It's a confirmed fact that organizations pay people to post comments on social media sites. Most people are not paid shills, but you're being incredibly foolish to suggest that paid shills do not exist at all.
-1 Huayrasilva 2016-09-13
I'm not saying they don't exist. I'm saying that they are probably the minority of people posting the kinds of posts and comments the op is complaining about. I'm going to add that either way it doesn't matter whether someone is being paid or not, the response should be the same. Ignore them, and if they consistently cause trouble the mods will ban them. This kind of PSA, whether it is true or not, doesn't really accomplish anything. There's nothing you can do about it that is any different than what we are already doing, and it only serves to promote a kind of self righteous persecution attitude. This is what I really have a problem with because that kind of rhetoric pretty much immediately shuts down any chance of productive conversation by framing the issue as us-vs-them.
2 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
You're right . Not all of them are paid. Why would anyone pay a bot?
1 TheVineyard00 2016-09-13
This is one of the things that bugs me most about people like you. Why are you so quick to jump to the conclusion that everything you're told is a fact? Isn't it more reasonable to just accept that something is happening when there's factual evidence it's happening? You need to pay trolls if there are no people who would are doing that in their free time already (plus they're not exactly a theory, correctrecord.org makes it pretty clear what they're doing, if only you knew what Google was).
-5 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
Evidence would help your claim ;)
1 [deleted] 2016-09-13
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-11 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
So you don't have any examples of what you are saying, and just say check out /controversial? That is leaving it up my opinion, which is probably drastically different than yours. So, you can give an example and why you think it is, or this post is just being concerned and we all know, there could be an agenda behind such posts, as well. PSA's are great but FUD is real as well. Just saying...
12 [deleted] 2016-09-13
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5 Contrary_mma_hipster 2016-09-13
Yeah the flat earth stuff that gets traction occasionally is bizarre. Any seemingly well spoken poster who asks people to consider flat earth or reptilians I disregard from there on as a paid disinfo agent.
3 [deleted] 2016-09-13
Same.
1 dagonn3 2016-09-13
Only ever heard about lizard people from detractors. And maybe a couple of the real wacky theorists out there.
1 Juan__Lennon 2016-09-13
It's always the most blatant ones who try to argue AGAINST this very obvious truth here. TopMinds and isrconspiracyracist exist solely for this effort.
1 beeeeeeefcake 2016-09-13
"some kind of secret cabal of uber rich" <- Legit; who would disagree?
"some life extension serum" <- There have been actual news stories lately of blood transfusions from young blood donors that partially reverse the effects of aging.
"linking clinton issues to aliens" <- Clinton is the biggest news story right now and there's a whole lot of deception/misinformation from their campaign, complicity/coordination with the media, people left scratching their heads brainstorming explanations in the absence of trustworthy facts, an amateur blog-o-sphere that feeds on situations like this to turn headline clicks into cash, and a whole bunch of shills angling every side of this.
-2 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
It's all about how you word things.. That being said, I know what you are talking about in regards to that, which is why I asked for more clarity/examples. Like I said, PSA's are great, but at the end of the day, people have to entertain/make up there own minds on various topics. No one has the answers. But with liberty comes failure. It's a learning process, imo...
5 RDay 2016-09-13
No. That is not what he said. I've noticed that a tactic of shills is to put words in other people's mouths, in order to put them on the defensive about a non sequitur.
Do like he said, and seek your own truth. At this point, its up to you to disprove it. He does not have to do anything for you.
-1 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
Basically is...
Congrats...
That's what I said, not OP. Can you read?
Person makes a claim, and cannot back it up, so it's on those who call it out? Logic at [10]..
He's making a claim about evidence, least he can do is back it up..... But no...
1 Mahat 2016-09-13
yeah, it happens. Not only actual shills, but a lot of meta groups as was the case with bipolarbear0 back in the day, or the conspiratard crowd which is now topminds / isconspiracyracist. You've got your state agencies, police groups, company lobbies like monsanto, and all that fun jazz.
Flat earth stuff has always been trolls mocking us to turn off new viewers, usually conspiratard / topminds these days. Srs has some part in that crowd. You should know this by now, you've been around for a while.
If you want proof, i'd suggest asking /u/theghostofdusty or one of the mods that's been around for a long time.
-1 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
Not denying, however, you brought in /u/theghostofdusty, and you have an interesting account. Would be interesting to hear what they think ;)
1 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
I agree with what Mahat said and you've seen me provide these sources before. My res shows their account +2 and they seem cool at a glance.
-3 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
I will concede (tonight), but I'm not leaving out the tactics such people use (reverse psychology - FUD). You know my account history and what I stand for. I don't care too much for the old tactics, and relishing on such nonsense. United we stand, divided we fall. FE is not bullshit and can lead to something, of knowledge, and many others here would agree. People say xyz is making us look bad is a tell tale sign. We are already crazy to most.
-Jiddu Krishnamurti
-Aristotle
1 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
I don't think anyone is disagreeing with any of that.
0 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
With the amount of trolling comes concern trolling (one in the same - FUD). I'm not saying shit, but you being a mod and in the know, should know that. Look at the frontpage and the posts following it in /new. Think of what they would do, outside the box.... Seems to be working apparently...
1 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
Check the mod log. The worst of the worst is taken care of I assure you.
1 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
...and my point is, some are smarter than others... Bernays would like a word with you...
1 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
I don't think anyone's trying to argue with you here.
1 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
Apparently they are, for pointing out something so simple. I'm being downvoted to hell, in /r/conspiracy. lmao... I'm immune to that though...
1 TheGhostOfDusty 2016-09-13
Oohh I see now. This is all about what happened above what I've seen before now. Yeah, let your immunity do its thing and don't worry about it.
1 Putin_loves_cats 2016-09-13
Huh? I merely poked. Dafuq you talking about, Dusty?
1 Mahat 2016-09-13
You come off as standoffish a lot, even when your position aligns with what's being said. That's probably why you got down votes.
We've gotten into it a few times over minute details, you're usually on edge I find from dealing with the different types that abuse this place. Can't fault you for that, it happens.
Anyway, back to the shadows I go, cheers.
1 RDay 2016-09-13
chuckles you don't get it, do you son. NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING
do your own research or dismiss the comment as not worthy of your time. But to throw back on someone 'prove it' is old and tired thinking. Get with the program, we are NOT you vast unpaid research department.
Good day, sir.
-9 NapoleanBoneTO 2016-09-13
Trolls love trolling. Plus you people are easy targets.
8 yellowsnow2 2016-09-13
What do you mean by "you people"? Do you have something against black conspiracy theorists? Damn racist.
31 kbxads 2016-09-13
this sub needs a sticky post thread, where anyone can out a suspected shill and others can vote and comment by looking into said-shill's post history. Nip the most successful shills, make their job harder.
5 Eurotrashie 2016-09-13
Agreed - in the end, this is still Reddit.
6 getmysponge 2016-09-13
Not quite. As OP said, it's more subtle than that. It's not just "debunking" or whatever. It's about reinforcing the cultural stereotype that conspiracy theories are the product of diseased minds.
I've noticed it in r/UFOs as well. The comments play on the rational person's tendency to avoid crazy shit and crazy people. A classic one you see literally everywhere when someone posts a UFO experience, some person will come along and say "I saw the exact same thing in <some random state> back in <a while ago>". The commenter goes on to describe some crazy bullshit. It's as simple as that.
It's not about debunking. It's actually about manipulating the way we perceive these stories. Creating prejudices.
1 Legalise_Gay_Weed 2016-09-13
Flat Earth content is rife on GLP, along with a general hatred for anyone who isn't a god fearing white American.
1 pyFamily 2016-09-13
I think this is absolutely on point. Your conspiracy info / conspiracy noise theory describes what I see.
The vocal majority will peddle left-right political propaganda, absurd theories, things that are absolutely nothing to do with conspiratorial events. This was always the case, but it's much worse since Reddit itself became a broken model that doesn't understand transparency and upvoting/downvoting principals which made the site so great.
Through design or lack thereof, at this point, there are so many people who use the sub incorrectly that noise and disinfo is an expected part of the sub. Mods do nothing about shitposts. If they did, they would be accused of censorship. Ironically, there really is no need for paid shills (although they do exist!) on this sub because we do such a good job or burying actual news, resources and facts ourselves.
3 unruly_mattress 2016-09-13
Perfect. If someone disagrees with the theory posted here, then they're a shill trying to discredit a legitimate theory. If someone agrees with a theory posted here, then they're a shill trying too support disinformation to further the association of conspiracy people with crazy people. Either way you're a shill.
0 MarcoBoogers 2016-09-13
You realise that you are one of the people that your own comment is directed at, right?
1 Dotlinefever 2016-09-13
Nice try at defecting attention in order to change the subject.
5 tinylilzikababyhead 2016-09-13
It is. Many times some name I've never seen will bring up a topic like FE, then, immediately, about a half-dozen typical names will gleefully wet themselves and dive into the same commentary I've seen over and over. It's nauseating.
1 ConspiracyAccount 2016-09-13
Even "tabloids" or state-sponsored propaganda have kernels of truth in them. You must consume as much information from as many sources as possible in order to determine the facts from the lies, the wheat from the chaff.
0 Juan__Lennon 2016-09-13
And to massively clarify this point, /r/isrconspiracyracist only seems to ever care about one solitary "race." Theirs. Not really suspicious at all....how very noble of them.
Most actual racism that's posted on this sub is directly posted by these scumbags. So they can then post about it on their sjw sub, while falsely accusing us of being "racist." The classic Jewish girl painting swastikas on her Synagogue, while claiming nonsense racist attacks. (Note that each of the links provided are for separate, but IDENTICAL "attacks." This is a reflection of EXACTLY how its done with the FALSE claims of racism against /r/conspiracy here.)
Tired and busted EXPOSED tactics they continually overuse. We can see right through it. We saw them yet again use this same method to try and shut down the /r/engineering 9/11 physics discussion of the critical failures that all destroy the "official" account [pure fiction] of that staged attack on America. Sending out their shill army to pretend to be "truther" using the same busted and fully exposed tactics to try and shut down intelligent discussion of the event.
(*the yalmuka comment was NOT stated in a derogatory or racist manner, and was ONLY used to drive home the point of the extremely blatant source and affiliation of these liars and attackers).