Agree. Just looking at the "rising" tab shows how corrosive the shills and bot army are to this sub. They should be identified and banned, ya ask me.

Rule 10 is wisely made to prevent the reflex reply to thoughts one doesn't agree with - much like how t-d calls everyone cucks.

Call out shills with logic and facts, not with name calling.

Well said.

Shills are hard to spot. Actual real paid commentors probably exist but not nearly as prevalently as people accuse them of existing. And to make it all painfully worse, actual paid disruptors or unpaid ideological disruptors will happily just skip around calling everyone shills to cause massive drama outbreaks, then all they have to do is walk away and watch people destroy each other. None of which are probably even shills.

Rule 10, imho is the jewel of the sub.

Agreed.

Regarding Rule 10 and your perspective on the prevalence of paid shills: I strongly, strongly, and respectively, disagree. In my opinion, Rule 10 is unnecessary, because a baseless shill accusation could already be dealt with under the "No trolling" rule. It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. We could still disallow spamming "Shill!" while allowing actual analysis of shilling tactics when there appears to be reason for concern. If a person is pointing out shill tactics in good faith, then I consider it inexcusable censorship to remove their comments or ban them from the community. Without someone to explain the possibility, many unaware readers would not even consider the possibility that the top comments are bought.

Furthermore, I think it is INSANE to suggest that shills are not that prevalent. There may not be that many actual people behind the shills, but they can run dozens of alternate accounts and dramatically alter the course of discussion. You think they are not that prevalent, I think there are more likely thousands of shill accounts operating on Reddit. It's a propagandists wet dream. Within threads of interest, they can literally generate more discussion than actual honest users. And then there is the voting manipulation. They need accounts to do this. They have lurker accounts, they have bot nets, and they can cycle their active commenting accounts in and out to help them age and increase credibility.

To call Rule 10 the jewel of the sub is laughable. The same thing happened in /r/politics in 2015, and look at them now. It's a cancerous rule and it is being sugarcoated by the current moderator team here. I am very concerned.

The number one goal of shill organizations is to exhaust the honest users in the community until there are practically none left. It's not just about influencing discussion, it is about total forum domination. Shill talking points are crafted specifically to achieve this goal. Yes, they use bad arguments, but it requires more effort to argue against them then it does for them to be posted in the first place. That is their game. They can always post more low effort comments than the community can take the time to respond to. You are telling the community to play directly into their strategy and not even talk about what is really happening. It pains me deeply to say that I am beginning to suspect this is intentional. It pains me deeply to say that I am beginning to suspect Media Matters is achieving their goal of controlling alternative media. I don't want to feel those things. I care very much about this community, and I want to feel like it is being moderated properly. And yet here we are censoring the community for pointing out online manipulation now that it has reached a fully weaponized level.

Could we at least update Rule 5 to ban undisclosed paid commenting? I mean he's right, it's not even against the rules. I know that they wouldn't bother to disclose it, but it's silly that they don't even have to break the rules to come here.

Could we at least update Rule 5 to ban undisclosed paid commenting?

I am not against this per se, but it is just a gesture because there is no way that we, as mods, can tell for certain if someone is being paid to push an agenda, or doing it out of personal conviction. Shills and useful idiots are extremely hard to tell apart.

I understand that, but it's completely silly that even if you could somehow know for certain, there would be no basis to ban the account.

If we found evidence of shilling, we would permaban those responsible instantly (Rule 10) and report them to the admins. However, in the interests of consistency, we should spell it out.

Shills usually aren't that hard to spot, it takes about 3 minutes of browsing their profiles.

what are the signs you look for? what is your criteria?

The most obvious are the people who hang out almost exclusively

This is what I have always felt about rule 10 as well

if someone is a shill, it should be easy to counter their argument with something other than "shill"

Shill talking points are crafted to ensure that it takes more effort to counter them than it does to post them. So, even if it is easy to counter their argument logically, it is even easier for the talking point to be posted in the first place. This creates an imbalance that allows shill organizations to dominate a forum. They can always post more talking points than the community can take the time to respond to. This has two outcomes that are desirable to the shill organization:

1. Spread propaganda with a desired psychological impact.
2. Lock up resources of a community so that effort and time is spent countering low-effort arguments over and over rather than looking for new evidence and arguments to uncover the truth.
   

This has an intentional psychological outcome of wearing down honest users until there are fewer and fewer remaining, and these users are replaced by more shills or useful idiots over time. Users who smell the foul play are banned for pointing it out, or they get so tired of watching the manipulation in silence that they eventually stop coming back.

u/Balthanos

What?

It's just thay, judging by your moderation habits, you seem to, at the very least, very much want to see that shills are protected. Plus, tbh, you're super rude. Like imagine what you would feel if a mod treated you the way you treat people. We all just want chill folks who know how to separate power from their personality.

You kids must have heard how I've been rattling that hornets nest of shillery out there.

Yesterday I started putting my foot down and started a process of disrupting an operation a group is spearheading in this subreddit. It appears today I'm targeted with bullshit.

I've had minimal interaction with users here due to two fucking surgeries I've gone through in the last six months. I haven't even been able to type more than 3 or 4 sentences until these last two weeks. So not only is this 17 day account pushing a false narrative but they are targeting one of the few mods who's pretty chill and hasn't had the chance to make enemies.

To the actual users here:

That's the new tactic BTW. If you aren't a shill or compromised you get attacked for being heavy handed. Your friendly neighborhood shills are pushing a narrative that us mods are somehow derelict in our duties for enforcing rules and banning trouble makers.

If you see one of us mods being called out for this behavior do your duty and check the mod logs for any evidence of this. I guarantee I can tell you I spent a good amount of time going through those mod logs myself before I was given the opportunity to moderate here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6gjd2s/comey_says_he_was_told_i_hope_you_can_let_this_go/diqv68l/

That's one of the only times I've seen you be rude, totally, but you gotta admit, a lot a lot a lot of your removals are rule 10s, and mostly for good reason, but there are a lot of them..

I dunno, I like most all of you guys almost all the time, but I think that sometimes you let all your past experiences be taken out on individuals, you know what I mean? It's understandable, but it's also the thing that makes racists racists. Like "ugh, another black guy" isn't that much different than "ugh, another shill accuser" if you let it turn into expressed disdain. If someone is being shitty, it's cool to not like them, and it's cool to take action on it if that's your job, but it's cooler still to do so graciously. Plus, when you're in power, it's something of an unspoken rule that you have to be above those you are placed above or you won't be above them anymore, which takes conscious effort. But that's just my experience in the working world, like with managing and stuff. I could be wrong about modding. Still, couldn't hurt to give a good example, right?

Hope I didn't offend, man.. I really do care very much about this sub and it's well-being, and I think you're a pretty good guy.

That wasn't being rude. That was being direct and stern. Being a moderator sometimes requires tone to reinforce what you are saying. Otherwise people start arguing with you.

In this case a user knowingly and intentionally phrased a statement to personally attack another user. Then when questioned about it they gloated that was their intent all along to skirt the rules.

I think that considering those facts I was much more lenient with that user than I could have been. They could have received a ban for their behavior.

Dude I have been here for years, active every day almost, and I resent that. You would delete another user's post if they insinuated what you insinuated. Not cool. I researched you when I had doubts and gave you a very fair shake..

So you are just going to leave it be? I think my observation is justified in a thread where there's a bunch of users witch hunting mods.

Not cool, man. Like seriously, not cool. I have been chill to you, and you have not been to me. I'm going to go now..

Don't feel too good to be accused of bullshittery does it? I'd suggest you not follow that bandwagon in the future.

For the record, this interaction left me with a foul taste in my mouth regarding you, not so much for /u/Ferfrendongles.

In my opinion, you are coming across as disingenuous.

Don't worry. We have the whole rest of lives to make our decisions about each other.

I'm not trying to decide how I feel about you, just stating how this interaction and the way you are speaking to the community comes across to me.

Thanks, man.

There are more shill sightings on Reddit than Bigfoot, UFOs, or MothMan sightings.

Surely, not all of the sightings are actual shills.

What about the Flat Earthers? I think that they constitute as being trolls.

After all, pretty much every scientific discipline would have to be bullshit for their brand of conspiracy theory to be true. They will totally ignore whatever logic or examples are presented as being proof that the Earth is in fact shaped like a sphere.

You can lead a troll to the truth but you can't make him believe it.

Yeah, can we get this conversation going, mods?

So we should just agree that anyone that questions trump or doesn't think random people on twitter claiming they saw hillary strangle seth rich is true are shills?

I have a 7 year old account, I've been coming here for most of those and the past year and a half I've been called a shill almost every time I've posted here.

Anyone with an opinion will get called a shill here eventually. It doesn't matter whether you like dogs or cats dude.

True. That's why I thought the short period of time that the mods were serious about temp banning people for calling others shills was a good idea.

If fighting shills is important to you you gotta realize the first thing a shill does when someone disagrees with them is call them a shill.

I also don't think a real shill is impeded in any way by being called out as a shill, however real users are quite discouraged from posting when ganged up on and called a shill.

Two well thought out points. I agree with you. As long as they are creating division and chaos they don't give two fucks how they are doing it.

Oh, come on now, that's not fair. I've never been called a shill and I have super strong opinions. lol

I think that, just from my own perspective, we know what shills are. Did you see that post of mine with ShareBlue's 2017 donor pitch? All the stuff they talk about doing is usually what most people think of as "shills". I could be biased, but in all fairness, I've searched out shills outside of reddit to an extent that I know most people have not, and I haven't been able to find anything other than the anti-conspiracy, national security types over at Eglin AFB (voted "most reddit addicted city" lol), and then the ShareBlue ones who are entirely just "fuck Trump" as their whole goal, at least according to their own documents.

There's shills from every different faction out there. Until there's laws out there to fight it these firms will keep growing and multiplying. As of right now these firms work for many different special interest groups.

You have firms working for every day companies like Wal-Mart and Comcast. There's firms out there working for drug and health care companies. There's the Monsanto's and the chemical companies. There's firms working directly with each political class in most major countries. There's firms working directly for state, then there's those who work for the unaffiliated special interest groups like CFR and AIPAC.

The beat goes on.

Yeah, totally, there are corporate shills, and that's why /r/hailcorporate exists, but as far as political action groups, they exclusively come from the "left" (I'm not on the "right").

As long as you don't talk about branded stuff, and you don't try to be like overtly and inorganically pro-left/anti-Trump, you never get called a shill. That's just anecdotal, but for real, I promise you, there are no "Trump" shills, if that's what you're getting at. I have looked far and wide..

Israeli shills are the ones I worry the most about, tbh, if that makes a difference in how you see me.

Look harder. Trump himself might not be hiring shills but you would be ignorant to thing that the GOP doesn't have shilling firms on retainer. Since Trump is the current face of the GOP any "Reputation Management" company under GOP employment is going to fit into that category.

You would literally have to be arguing that the GOP is allowing the DNC to fight and win a one sided war. I think we both know the odds of that happening.

I would love it if you could link me some info.. I'm not trying to fight you, dude. I honestly want as complete a picture of shilling as I can come to.

It happens on both sides. They are tricky, too. Often they post something that glorifies the other side, but from a particularly dodgy source just to give themselves and their coworkers and their alt accounts a forum to ridicule the glorification.

I would love it if you could link me some info.. I've seen the tendencies you've talked about, and seen them written about in the documents of ShareBlue, but for real, I'm trying to be as inclusive as possible, I just can't find anything definitive on Trump shills, nor do I really see too much of them, tbh.

I'll keep an eye out and tag you when I see it.

Thank you! :)

For what it's worth, this is the most pleasant "disagreement" I've had on Reddit. Thank you for that as well.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/technology/automated-pro-trump-bots-overwhelmed-pro-clinton-messages-researchers-say.html

http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/05/18/the-battle-against-bots-julie-wittes-schlack

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4593286/The-man-millions-Twitter-bot-Trump-followers.html

Mercer.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/billionaire-gop-patron-behind-trump-social-media-bot-army-article-1.3236933

Russia

http://time.com/4783932/inside-russia-social-media-war-america/

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html

The same bots in that story^ turned into pro trump 'american' bots before the presidential election

I understand where you're coming from and I dislike bots, but, personally, I think shills are much more of a danger, don't you?

I dont see much of a difference really. Different tools of the same tactic

Oh, no, the difference is humans, and them being paid to put their intellect to work serving the agendas of bad people. That's like Hitler paying people to cheer at his speeches, to me. I don't mean to equate shills with Hitler, but that's just an example everyone can relate to.

Bots are mostly what people call "targeted ads". Those we've dealt with for ages, and I hate advertising 10x as much as the next guy, I'm sure, but I can definitely see a difference between ads and paid propagandists impersonating real people.

On something like twitter you have one shill write something shilly on one account, then use your bot army to amplify that message by retweeting x1000.

Here Bots control what is seen via thread submissions and up/down votes. The shills are more annoying, what abouting away issues with false equivalency and baiting people into pointless tangential arguments. They then use bots or Alts to up/down vote supporters and detractors.

They are the same people though, using both tactics. I doubt a real shill would just post, even with alts. Who would pay for that?

I mean.. ShareBlue pays for it.. You pay for it at Eglin AFB. Israel gets it for free by conscripting college kids. Tons of corporations pay for them.

It's easy to fix, too, on the admin side. All you have to do is ban the IP range for whatever server farm they operate from. I, just a regular guy, have found the IP range for ShareBlue, submitted proof to the admins, and they never responded. I think that that's the real conspiracy. Why do we not see Trump shills on Reddit, but we see tons of ShareBlue ones, when admin could easily take action against them all? Perhaps their bias continues? I say that as a man who does not pick sides other than to champion free speech. I'm not active on Twitter, but I do know that, here, things tend to work that way. For instance, I went onto /r/T_D, too, and I've tried to find out if there are shills there, using the same methods that I used to locate ShareBlue, but every person, even the most suspect, turned out to be real, espousing the same things that they share on Reddit, on their own personal FB pages. I know that that's anecdotal, but I can't share my methods or the data I have archived using them, for fear that they will catch on and change their ways.

Promise I'm a pretty fair guy, though, for what that's worth. lol

Thank you for joining in this fight! I think we both just want a more fair world.

Why is the air force doing the dncs work

It's just a base that shills. They were voted "most reddit addicted city" despite their tiny population. lol Their job is to go against "national security" stuff, which means truth about government, conspiracies, that kinda stuff.

share blue is specifically democrat party stuff though isnt it?

govt shilling is pretty gross, but i dont know what you do because it happens over national borders, i fear we are at a point where it is just something to be expected. Theres no way they wont do it.

I feel like awareness is the only counter. which ever shills have the best argument wins, we just have to filter out the completely fabricated stuff

share blue is specifically democrat party stuff though isnt it?

govt shilling is pretty gross, but i dont know what you do because it happens over national borders, i fear we are at a point where it is just something to be expected. Theres no way they wont do it.

I feel like awareness is the only counter. which ever shills have the best argument wins, we just have to filter out the completely fabricated stuff

Yeah, they are... I think we should have sites that only allow home-allocated IPs to post. Wouldn't solve it, but it would stem the tide.

I feel you though.. Shitty stuff all around..

Oh, come on now, that's not fair. I've never been called a shill and I have super strong opinions. lol

This is a crucial point. Low-effort, dismissive comments invite shill accusations much more so than unpopular opinions.

People who mostly make low-effort comments are almost as bad for the community as actual shills. People that get called shills frequently should really think about how much effort they are putting into their comments. If you don't appear to be posting in good faith, then we are better off without you whether you are paid or not.

Maybe you need to open your mind a bit

I have the most open mind.

Clearly you do. Because you understand that government corruption goes far beyond Trump, and it's been an issue for decades. And the last two decades, we've seen an escalation of the corruption, thanks to the Clinton cabal. Clinton cash, a doc made long before the election, is a good start to recognizing the deep corruption that has been safe and unchallenged, until now, based on the corrupt media and establishment's reaction to being more exposed and the rise of the new media.

You need to open you're mind.

You need to take some psychedelics and educate yourself on some facts

Its because the mod team has some shariablue agents. Have you guys really not noticed?

Rule 10 should be changed to "Accusing another user of being a troll or shill without evidence"

Would you mind giving us an example of the type of "evidence" you think might be worth considering?

Thx

Here are some reasonable examples:

1. Pointing out low-effort, dismissive comments that primarily attack the community.
2. Pointing out known shilling tactics as they appear in the wild.
3. Pointing out the spread of known disinformation, or explaining why you believe disinformation is being spread.
   

It should be 100% about whether or not the accusation is made in good faith. If somebody goes around spouting "Shill!" at everyone who disagrees with them, then just ban them for being a troll or spammer. If somebody generally makes an effort to contribute to the community and they take the time to explain what is concerning about the behavior they are calling out, then it is indefensible censorship to ban them or remove their comments.

Pointing out low-effort, dismissive comments that primarily attack the community.

Already a Rule 10 violation

Pointing out known shilling tactics as they appear in the wild.

Such as?

Pointing out the spread of known disinformation, or explaining why you believe the information to be disinformation.

Well, that's kind of the purpose of disinformation, isn't it? To plant seeds of "false facts" in the minds of others with the idea that they will, IN TURN, spread the falsehoods on to others.

So again, you can't tell whether a given party is knowingly and willingly spreading propaganda, or whether they're just a Zealot/ "useful idiot" that is parroting what they have heard elsewhere.

Define "Shills". Is it only persons who are PAID to pimp propaganda, or does it include "tag-alongs" who echo whatever message they feel will forward the agenda of their "cause"?

Tell you what: in either case, your BEST move in dealing with these clowns is to call them on their shit - make them show their hands with sources and extended detailed explanations on WHY they hold given views.

Anyone can hire ignorant oafs to copy-paste talking points, but if you pin them down on their reasoning - on the rationality behind their statements, they'll shrivel, because they not only lack any background knowledge, they have ZERO INCENTIVE to learn - it isn't in the job description.

So they'll be left with 3 choices: 1) ignore you, 2) run away, or 3) launch ad hominem attacks - RULE 10.

The best way to deal with both paid shills AND "useful idiots" is to call their bluff and force their hand. If nothing else, you can EDUCATE OTHERS on why you, a sincere person, on your perspective.

Or is that too much work?

Pointing out low-effort, dismissive comments that primarily attack the community. Already a Rule 10 violation

Well it happens all the time in highly upvoted comments and I never see them removed. We see shill accusations removed every day, however.

Pointing out known shilling tactics as they appear in the wild. Such as?

The classics

Define "Shills". Is it only persons who are PAID to pimp propaganda, or does it include "tag-alongs" who echo whatever message they feel will forward the agenda of their "cause"?

Yes, it is paid commenters that I'm referring to, but more generally posting in bad faith. The primary motivation to do that would be for money, but in theory there could be others (e.g. self-preservation for implicated criminals). You're right, we can't really tell the difference. But if an honest user notices a pattern of dishonest debate tactics, I don't think it should be such a big deal for them to say, "Guys, I've tried reasoning with this person but they are obviously not interested in a real discussion. I don't believe this person is posting in good faith, and I suspect this could be a shill account." Other people can read that warning and make up their own mind. What is the big downside of saying something like that? You might hurt someone's feelings? So what? I thought the main concern was that we didn't want to derail conversation with shill accusations? Obviously a conversation has to play out first before it makes sense to accuse someone of being a shill.

Oh wait, you completely skipped over what I said:

If somebody goes around spouting "Shill!" at everyone who disagrees with them, then just ban them for being a troll or spammer.

You can't really tell the difference between a shill and a useful idiot, and I'm not saying the mods should ban accounts just on a suspicion. But why should honest users be forced to ignore their gut instinct when there are so many dishonest "users" visiting us daily? I have already explained how the "derailing discussion" argument is bunk since we can still ban people for spamming shill accusations mindlessly. Now you are falling back on the weaker explanation of not wanting to hurt people's feelings because they get called out on arguing dishonestly. Nobody is entitled to that kind of emotional protection.

Or is that too much work?

I do everything you said because that is the only choice left. But don't you understand? That is exactly their strategy. They want communities like us to take a soft stance against them because they want us to argue against them without being allowed to voice our suspicion that they are not posting in good faith. The goal is to wear the community out while spreading propaganda.

They don't care if they win or lose arguments. They play a volume game. Plenty of people in the community catch on to the influence, but they are silenced from speaking out about it. This is what the shills want, and they have only gotten bolder in response.

Look, this is a conspiracy forum. Seriously, are we having this conversation? This whole forum is about things that we suspect are true but can't necessarily prove, or at least things that could be true that can't be ruled out. But now suddenly when we have a massive influx of accounts with the intent to manipulate users and control alternative media, we are not allowed to voice our suspicion.

But how do you prove a shill? I've been called one multiple times because I tried putting forward an alternate perspective.

Lots of people also like making fresh accounts regularly

Agreed. I never get called a shill. Ever. Not that I don't get reddit hate, just never shilling.

Rule 10 is meant to protect opposing views, which shills obviously take advantage of.

Nods just need to remove tho ga that aren't conspiracy related. Its really that simple. They allow "news" to spam the page instead of conspiracies. Quite frankly its tiring to read the same topic every day

Clearly you do. Because you understand that government corruption goes far beyond Trump, and it's been an issue for decades. And the last two decades, we've seen an escalation of the corruption, thanks to the Clinton cabal. Clinton cash, a doc made long before the election, is a good start to recognizing the deep corruption that has been safe and unchallenged, until now, based on the corrupt media and establishment's reaction to being more exposed and the rise of the new media.

You need to open you're mind.

Agreed.

Regarding Rule 10 and your perspective on the prevalence of paid shills: I strongly, strongly, and respectively, disagree. In my opinion, Rule 10 is unnecessary, because a baseless shill accusation could already be dealt with under the "No trolling" rule. It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. We could still disallow spamming "Shill!" while allowing actual analysis of shilling tactics when there appears to be reason for concern. If a person is pointing out shill tactics in good faith, then I consider it inexcusable censorship to remove their comments or ban them from the community. Without someone to explain the possibility, many unaware readers would not even consider the possibility that the top comments are bought.

Furthermore, I think it is INSANE to suggest that shills are not that prevalent. There may not be that many actual people behind the shills, but they can run dozens of alternate accounts and dramatically alter the course of discussion. You think they are not that prevalent, I think there are more likely thousands of shill accounts operating on Reddit. It's a propagandists wet dream. Within threads of interest, they can literally generate more discussion than actual honest users. And then there is the voting manipulation. They need accounts to do this. They have lurker accounts, they have bot nets, and they can cycle their active commenting accounts in and out to help them age and increase credibility.

To call Rule 10 the jewel of the sub is laughable. The same thing happened in /r/politics in 2015, and look at them now. It's a cancerous rule and it is being sugarcoated by the current moderator team here. I am very concerned.

The number one goal of shill organizations is to exhaust the honest users in the community until there are practically none left. It's not just about influencing discussion, it is about total forum domination. Shill talking points are crafted specifically to achieve this goal. Yes, they use bad arguments, but it requires more effort to argue against them then it does for them to be posted in the first place. That is their game. They can always post more low effort comments than the community can take the time to respond to. You are telling the community to play directly into their strategy and not even talk about what is really happening. It pains me deeply to say that I am beginning to suspect this is intentional. It pains me deeply to say that I am beginning to suspect Media Matters is achieving their goal of controlling alternative media. I don't want to feel those things. I care very much about this community, and I want to feel like it is being moderated properly. And yet here we are censoring the community for pointing out online manipulation now that it has reached a fully weaponized level.

Could we at least update Rule 5 to ban undisclosed paid commenting? I mean he's right, it's not even against the rules. I know that they wouldn't bother to disclose it, but it's silly that they don't even have to break the rules to come here.

Shills usually aren't that hard to spot, it takes about 3 minutes of browsing their profiles.