I'd say it is a guarantee.

Yes.

Of course.

If you think there aren't people trying to influence you to push their own agenda, you're crazy.

What I find scariest is that while I'm sure there are paid shills, plenty have bought into whatever is vs them propaganda their side had pushed and shill for free

This. I've seen plenty of actual humans here on this sub, maybe average or not far below average intelligence, just peddling absolute chronic bullshit, all day every day. It doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny, and they are usually challenged on it, but the next day: more of the same. Again and again.

Thankfully there are also some very sharp people here who are genuinely curious and incisive, much moreso than me. I pay close attention to what these guys have to say about a given subject.

Which ideas are bullshit?

All ideas are bullshit, stop asking question!

Perhaps if you list some ideas you feel to be bullshit you could actually net some responses from the community.

Those post are for thinning out the heards

You might be underestimating how many shills there are.

They have some code for downvoting any real comments and putting lame comments at the top no matter whether the posts below actually have more upvotes.

I have seen many good comments get buried quickly.

It is not just shills, there are moderators involved in this. Reddit is censoring and it really freaking sucks.

And admins.

yep. It's quite ugly, kinda whorish in fact.

You know what's even worse? we know about dis info agents now in 2016-2017 at least most of us. Imagine what they were able to do on 911. What about green energy machines that have been created by people that go missing or suddenly die after eating at a restaurant and screaming' i've been poisoned' (stan meyer)

I used to believe in 'paid shills' until I began asking people for actual evidence that they exist. Then I began to realise that 'paid shills' are just the conspiracy community's version of the devil. Boogeymen to blame for any and everything, including petty disagreements over trivial matters.

Found the agent.

Removed. Rule 10.

source? SOURCE? Excuse me can you provide a source for your bizarrely pro establishment opinion?

Wilileaks dump- CIA department of Memetics - meme warfare

Proof: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2016/12/14/how-we-bought-reddit-for-200/

Interesting article. Does it prove that there are 'paid shills' on this sub, though?

No of course it doesn't. If you read it you wouldn't have to ask unless you're just being smarmy with a rhetorical question.

You're also arguing semantics. Bots are going to be overwhelmingly less expensive and more efficient than writing paychecks to human users.

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

they absolutely exist. multiple govts, major corps, lobbyists, everyone is doing it. the thing is there is probably 1/5 as many as people on this sub claim there is.

its usually used as a lazy argument "if you disagree, youre a shill"

but theyre here. try to find people defending indefensible things with insane mental gymnastics, or people spreading disinfo even after being corrected multiple times. those people are here to spread, not discuss

That is a mainstream media outlet. Suddenly we trust them now, do we?

what are your trusted sources?

I think most of it is automated with bots.

Watch /r/all. Like clockwork, once every two weeks, there is an "anyone who questions vaccine efficacy or safety is a drooling maniac" post. They will literally have the same top comments and replies to those comments.

I enjoy this subreddit. I must be insane. I really can't believe that anyone is after r/conspiracy. What is really being done here?

paranoia

Mods.

Mods.

and Mods.

The mods are sold out here.

They are part of the controlled opposition.

You aren't required to browse here either.

So if you think the mods are sold out, go somewhere else.

Write something negative about neonics and find out for yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid

Do you believe the government murdered Aaron Swartz?

i don't know if they did so directly, but they certainly pushed him towards suicide with the ridiculous charges and constant threats.

suicided, or pushed to suicide, it doesnt really matter as the results were the same in the end.

I once asked someone I had reason to believe to be paid to be here. The reply was:

 We are everywhere in the sub. We work 24/7 basically and some of us pretend to be anti trump while others pretend to be pro Trump, thus creating an illusion of strong division and influencing those who lean towards one side or the other to be more strongly against the opposition.

 PS. A couple mods are also working for us.

that was a few months back, he accidentily let it slip that he was paid, and got his account banned (first in this sub, now suspended for all reddit). could have been a troll or disinfo, but it seemed plausible at that time.
I thought it couldn't hurt asking via PM... and I assume now enough time has passed to put his quote here.

I highly doubt someone paid to shill would judt accidentally type up details on how theyre a shill eith mods on their side. Do they gather all the shills in the room and tell they" hey, these mods and other users are on your side"

the story was:
minimum wage, low-tier work. no insights on higher tier big pictures. basically some bored/drunk/stoned guy in his mom's basement.
accidentily put text into post instead of message...
if you ever have been bored/drunk/stoned you know that can happen.

my exchange happened after the account was banned, and thus "out of the game". since it was very vague and no names or details were given, you may as well consider it a short-lived LARP.

Those aren't really details...

And in any case you're, in 2 seconds flat, already not believing it, so they can say whatever they want

And in any case you're, in 2 seconds flat, already not believing it,

He's being skeptical. Nothing wrong with that.

You would be surprised what people reveal when their emotions or other areas of their life are compromised. People slip up and talk about things they shouldn't because they are no longer thinking logically.

Didn't you say he offered you a job too?

No, not to me.

No worries, I just seem to recall it.

why not? its not like knowing this will change anything, i honestly think most of the chatter in here is scripts between them.

now the quote COULD be bullshit, but honestly it perfectly describes the oddness of what has been going on here for months and makes a lot of sense. their tactics are driving people out of the sub, burying things we should be talking about, and derailing anything that goes outside of this narrative they've cooked up.

the fact its been allowed to go on for this long leads me to believe that some mods MAY be in on it as well because its being allowed to happen.

They could easily be trolling their paranoia or someone posing as a shill to confirm a narrative of paid shills. Just sayin.

I believe something has been hidden from us since ancient history, and the only way to really even know what it would be would be to follow napoleon, attempt to disestablish all world governance, and attack religion directly, annexing Rome and breaking into the vaults to allow objective scientists and historians to see the entire library and all evidences

To create a 3rd and 4th diversion.

1. "Shills are everywhere!"

2. "You accuse everyone who disagrees with you of being a shill!"

The 4th one is actually their favorite angle. The 3rd is actually the truth.

I got asked the other day if i got paid by the lower or word and I fucked around with them and said "letter" and asked if they would like an application. Doesn't mean it's true. It means they didn't have a good response and accused me of being a shill so I sent them a bullshit answer.

So many possibilites...
I once got a PM with the simple question "Are you a shill?"...
Without any reply to my replies.
I later learned, that someone used that as testing method, to study the difference between bot behaviour and user behaviour. I am somewhat proud to have been part of the control group ;-)

Hell I mean I wish I was a shill. I waste enough of my fucking time on this website that it'd be good side money.

you must be new here

no doubt

Of course there is. As far as r/UFO's goes, keep in mind there are a ton of trolls in that sub too. A lot of the comments are meant to be sarcastic. Like calling a ufo that clearly can't be explained swamp gas or a balloon. That type of thing.

Depends what you mean by shills. Government paid agents, not very much. Some Russians but mostly in bot form. This sub is not nearly as important as the people here think it is, like they see shills everywhere. I see a bunch of nutcases TPB would have very little interest in.

There are groups of neckbearded basement dwelling 4 channers who love Trump and plan together in chat rooms though. You see them all the time, it's pretty obvious they all agreed to talk about Seth Rich that day as there 20 posts on it all with insane numbers of upvotes. I assume one day they will learn less is more and not massively overdue it like that, but maybe they just aren't very smart. The attitude seems to be that 50 posts gives the illusion of widespread support and that's all they want. A thinking intelligent person would see right thru that, but they aren't trying to convince intelligent people.

I did just skim by the Facebook Pizzagate is real group and was shocked it had like 25 thousand people. I guess the retard brigade works on stupid people, that's the target group: really stupid Trump voters. It seems to me though like they put in a ton of work and have not had any real success, no way do more people believe pizzagate now than 6 months ago.

If your referring to 4chan not having much success I have to point you to some haricots fun, jesus chatline. That in itself is an accomplishment.

Government paid agents, not very much

Bullshit... r/conspiracy/wiki/shills

no everything here is completely and totally fine, please don't pay attention to any of the "strange" things going on or the people claiming that shills exist, these are just crazy people, bigots and the alt-right....../s

reddit is infested with disinfo agents.

The day of Charlottesville was insane. Every third person was a "day white die" shill trying to spread racial tension, and it probably worked.

It was refreshing to see a boatload of r/conspiracy users fight back and shout them down though.

What's interesting to me is that there's clearly disinfo being spread by both the left and the right, but comments like this think it's only one side doing it. It's not.

i didnt see any of this

any links?

I read this really interesting article about a paid shill that talks about their job and how they got it.

In biblical times people were given coin to spread false rumors and news in Greek and Roman public forums.

History hasn't changed much other then our public forums are now digitized and computer based.

Most likely not.

[You sure?](r/conspiracy/wiki/shills)

No, just a guess.

Clearly an incorrect one

Got any proof?

Yes, plenty. Already gave you the link in the original comment

They outnumber genuine users.

Some will say this is exaggerated, and it is -- but -- the disinformation activists will be the most vocal ones. They're here specifically to comment, whereas a lot of the reddit community are passive viewers. So they do significantly overrepresent as a proportion of the apparent reddit user base.

It's a fact. When I'm not on mobile I will link a study that confirmed 90% of comments in mainstream articles are from shills. I also know this because years ago I was solicited to develop persona management software. For every 1000 accounts there is 1 human operating them. This is a conservative estimate.

I would love to see this study, if you can find it.

depending on the sub, yes.

Yep. Gotta collect them all to unlock the achievement too.

Im not sure theyd need bots and shills working 24/7 when they likely have full api access to change anything they want to

'Cept [they do](r/conspiracy/wiki/shills)

To hear some tell it I am one because I ask for examples and evidence.

That way of thinking is strange to me.

r/conspiracy/wiki/shills

• NSA and GCHQ spies 'operated in games including World of Warcraft and Second Life'

Think they'd do this but not be operational on one of the most-visited websites/digital platforms in the world? It would naive to think so.

In fact there is plenty of evidence out there so I'm surprised you needed to ask:

• Israeli intelligence makes social media recruitment drive

• British spies have developed “dirty tricks” for use against nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers that include releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into “honey traps.”

....was going to make a list but then found someone already made one for this sub at r/conspiracy/wiki/shills

• The Guardian: British army creates team of Facebook warriors

• US military studied how to influence Twitter [and Reddit] users in Darpa-funded research

• CBC News- Canadian government monitors online forums

• Times of Israel: Israeli government paying bilingual students to spread propaganda online primarily to international communities without having to identify themselves as working for the government. "The [student] union will operate computer rooms for the project...it was decided to establish a permanent structure of activity on the Internet through the students at academic institutions in the country."

• Massive British PR firm caught on video: "We've got all sorts of dark arts...The ambition is to drown that negative content and make sure that you have positive content online." They discuss techniques for managing reputations online and creating/maintaining 3rd-party blogs that seem independent.

• The Guardian: US spy operation to manipulate social media

• Vietnam admits deploying bloggers to support the Communist Party's policies, operates a network of nearly 1,000 "public opinion shapers".

• Glenn Greenwald: How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations

• Behavioural Science Support for JTRIG’S Effects and Online HUMINT Operations

• USA Today: The co-owner of a major Pentagon propaganda contractor publicly admitted that he was behind a series of websites used in an attempt to discredit two USA TODAY journalists who had reported on the contractor.

• Glenn Greenwald: Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet

• Chinese officials flood the Chinese internet with positive social media posts to distract their population

• Cass Sunstein, the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, wrote in 2008 that the government should hire 3rd parties to discredit conspiracy theories using internet shills.

• Wired: Clinton Staff and Volunteers Busted for Astroturfing [in 2007]

• Bloomberg: How to Hack an Election [and influence voters with fake social media accounts]

• USA Today: Businesses and organizations may refer to it as a tool for competitive advantage and marketing; but make no mistake, they are using the massive reach of social media and the Internet as a weapon. One U.S. 3-letter special agent said, "You could influence an election with this."

• Times of Israel - The internet: Israel’s new PR battlefield

• GCHQ’s menu of tools spreads disinformation across Internet- “Effects capabilities” allow analysts to twist truth subtly or spam relentlessly.

• The Guardian: Internet Astroturfing

• BBC News: US plans to 'fight the net' revealed

• Israel is paying internet workers to manipulate online content such as Wikipedia (2 minute video)

• Buzzfeed: Documents Show How Russia’s Troll Army Hit America

• NY Times- From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls” has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet — and in real-life American communities.

• NY Times: Effort to Expose Russia’s ‘Troll Army’ Draws Vicious Retaliation

• CENTCOM engages bloggers

• WIRED: Air Force Releases ‘Counter-Blog’ Marching Orders

• Military Report: Secretly ‘Recruit or Hire Bloggers’

• The Guardian: Israel ups the stakes in the propaganda war

• BBC News: China's Internet spin doctors

• Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people

• HBGary: Automated social media management

• Huffington Post- Exposing Cyber Shills and Social Media's Underworld

• Turkey's Government Forms 6,000-Member Social Media Team

• Why Reddit moderators are censoring Glenn Greenwald’s latest news story on shills

Please post this as a thread.

It's right here with much more r/conspiracy/wiki/shills

https://np.reddit.com/r/shills/comments/4kdq7n/astroturfing_information_megathread_revision_8/?st=j5ybwes0&sh=746186d7

was going to make a list but then found someone already made one for this sub at r/conspiracy/wiki/shills

Thanks for posting the link again, I guess

Looks like I got a little trigger happy. My bad.

Probably can't be posted enough to be fair. Is it just me or is this difficult to find on this sub? Can only see rules and related subeddits on the sidebar.

I have it bookmarked.

Yeah but should be on the sub's sidebar I think

Great post! There is indeed plenty of evidence out there about astroturfing organizations. I have compiled a few links as well.

There is a lot of info on the astroturfing organizations Correct the Record, ShareBlue and Media Matters. Their official mission statements that are publicly available state their intent to use propaganda for the DNC on the web and on social media such as Reddit, Facebook and Twitter. This implies the use of social community opinion management software and other tools.

Task force will help Clinton supporters push back on online harassment and thank superdelegates

Hillary Clinton PAC Spends $1 Million "Correcting" People Online And Reddit Is Furious

Hillary PAC Spends $1 Million to ‘Correct’ Commenters on Reddit and Facebook

Podesta meets with super PACS (Priorities USA and CTR) at law firm (Perkins Coie LLP.)

Astroturf and manipulation of media messages | Sharyl Attkisson | TEDxUniversityofNevada

For further reading I would suggest these links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing

How reddit is being manipulated

Reddit For Sale: How We Bought The Top Spot For $200

Reddit is Being Manipulated by Professional Shills Every Day

Guy makes short video where he explains that he has bought upvotes for his submission on /r/videos, submission has 20k+ upvotes before moderators deletes it to hide the incident

HOW THEY MAKE FAKE NEWS AND MANIPULATE REDDIT

How We Hacked Reddit to Generate 5 Million Media Impressions in 3 days

An Oxford research paper on astroturfing:

Troops, Trolls and Troublemakers: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation

From this Oxford research paper on astroturfing:

There is no doubt that individual social media users can spread hate speech, troll other users, or set up automated political communication campaigns. Unfortunately, this is also an organized phenomenon, with major governments and political parties dedicating significant resources towards the use of social media for public opinion manipulation.

... In many countries, political actors have no reported ability to field social media campaigns. In some countries, one or two known political actors occasionally use social media for political messaging, and in a few other countries there are multiple government agencies, political parties, or civil society groups organizing trolling and fake news campaigns.

Astroturfing Information Megathread- revision 8

I posted this in another thread about /r/MarchAgainstTrump but it fits /r/politics too, I'll recap

/r/MarchAgainstTrump uses bots to push posts and submissions as evidenced in these links.

More people need to be informed of these kinds of organizations.

These are a few examples:

• Evidence of MarchAgainstTrump moderator using 5 bot accounts to post almost 5000 articles to their sub in under 2 months
• 100% bombproof evidence of massive botting in /r/MarchAgainstTrump
• r/MarchAgainstTrump : out of the top 100 submissions for the month, 32 are from suspended or deleted accounts. 39 are from currently active bots.
• Manipulation, automation, and shenanigans are killing reddit. For example r/MarchAgainstTrump
• I'm heavily involved in the anti-Trump community on reddit, and I believe /r/MarchAgainstTrump needs to be stopped. Vote manipulation, botting, ban evasion, etc. Reddit needs to nuke that sub.
• More evidence of shenanigans by /r/MarchAgainstTrump
• A real-time illustration of gaming the #1 hot thread using r/MarchAgainstTrump as an example
• Even more proof that /r/MarchAgainstTrump is vote botting, courtesy of /u/CleanBaldy
• MarchAgainstTrump drops a 'T' from their name and creates new sub to evade /r/all filters. Hits front page with 26 subscribers. Reddit admins when will you openly address this problem?
• Are /r/MarchAgainstTrump and /r/esist cut from the same cloth?
• The Admins censor T_D for "spamming " the front page but /r/MarchAgainstTrump gets away with fucking retarded Shit posts and posts that are against Reddit ToS. Shit like this is killing this site.
• /r/MarchAgainstTrump is both exploiting the Portland tragedy for subscribers and claiming credit for a GoFundMe they have nothing to do with
• A 20 day old account with only 4 posts all on MAT (two have hit front page). This is its first post. They aren't even trying to hide the fact they are using bots.
• MAT is doing more suspicious shit
• /r/MarchAgainstTrump at it again with verified fake news
• r/MarchAgainstTrump has thread about reporter claiming Trump never visited hospital of shooting victim reach r/all, then locks thread after 2 hours to prevent people from commenting that the image is in fact false and the reporter made a retraction
• Guess what? Barawo33 did it yet again. Locked post with only his comment in order to gain karma in his BS sub
• r/MarchForTrump isn't even trying to hide how fake their upvotes are
• /r/MarchAgainstTrump moderators remove comments showing Acosta issued a correction in order to further their narrative
• New Anti-Trump sub "march agains trump" with 26 subscribers has a post at 764 post karma. Currently its over 2000 post karma

Now, several more botting anti-Trump subs have surfaced with nothing being done about them from the admins.

geez, where can I get this job?

God bless you

Of fucking course there are.

I've been trying to be aware of it, because they ARE on this subreddit, trying to slowly make us pass these things off as fake. I saw a commenter trying to debunk alien footage with a much more 'normal' reasoning behind the footage, I wasn't really buying it

I know there are.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2017/02/20/reddit-is-being-manipulated-by-big-financial-services-companies/

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/6ql2tu/made_my_delivery_drivers_night_by_showing_him_vr/?sort=top

https://www.reddit.com/r/HailCorporate/comments/4nip9u/astroturfing_information_megathread_xpost_rshills/

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does a bear shit in the woods?

"When it becomes serious you have to lie" -Juncker

https://www.wired.com/2007/12/clinton-staff-a/

Clinton has been at it since at least 2007. I have no doubt their system is solid.

Clearly. However, I believe that paranoia over this also causes deep, painful divisions that are ultimately more harmful to discussion. If someone disagrees with you and you write them off because you believe they are a shill, you are closing your mind.

on r/UFO I get the feeling there are more nonbelievers and naysayers of the phenomena than there are those who believe

Well, one of these groups is spreading misinformation, that's for sure.

Does the sun shine?

My only question where do the plants get their talking points from; the media, an office or are they already ideologues?

Yes, they are called shills.

And moderators who are controlling what we post.

First I was kicked off of Ask_the_Donald for suggesting that there are many liberals that don't believe the Russian hacking bullshit and that we should all work together to get the truth out there.

Then I was forbidden from posting stories on world news because I was posting the recent mainstream stories that the russian hacking was all bullshit.

They had already been blocking me from posting about the EU being pissed off about the sanctions and how it seemed like a business deal for the US.

but I could still post comments.

After writing about Big Pharma's control over congress, I am now forbidden from posting comments.

I was pretty shocked they actually let me post on this subreddit.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

Wouldn't it be odd if there were astroturfers on this site with the sole purpose of fanning the flames? Like rather than derailing a conversation with scripted talking points, they are just there to antagonize the userbase and then move on to the next user? In other words, the astroturfers use their hands to anger users and like dominos, they fustrations spread among the userbase confirming biases (irrational resentment and generalizations like all libs are sjws and republicans are racist) and spreading people even further apart.

The people serve as their own disinformation agents. Just read all the BS in this very thread to verify that for yourself.

It's painfully obvious, yes

stupid post

CTR

the fact this even has to be asked is why this subreddit is completely in the shitter.

yes

Disinformation agents are everywhere. Use your power of discernment and do your own research before buying into a theory.

I don't need to believe anything. I know there are a lot here, just in this sub alone there are a handful.

Duhhh.

Yup. All over reddit. Here also. Mods prob involved too.

r/politics has more bots and paid posters than regular posts from actual people, this has been true since the election.

Purpose: You will be pacified into accepting the take over of your nation.

There don't need to be, 'regular' folks routinely knock themselves silly with homegrown nonsense for anyone to bother with orchestrated disinformation campaigns. The lower classes are their own worst enemies most of the time, at least in Trumpmerica.

100%

Yeah they're called Correct The Record and the guy who founded it also started Share Blue, which is the primary news source of some subreddits.

You can all fuck right off.You're against right-wing positions? "ShariaBlue shill yaddayaddayadda."

You oppose left ideas? "Russian shill,nazi yaddayaddayadda."

Try to live in the real world.At least a little bit. There are people who just disagree with you.That does not make them shills or disinfo agents.

There are tons of shills to pretend they don't exist is silly.

No one says they don't exist.But to most here and elsewhere It's always shills.They have conditioned themselves to invalidate differing opinions by trying to undermine every argument by screaming "shill"

That was the whole goal of releasing shills into the wild.

Does a bear shit in the woods?

There are people who do it for free, of their own accord, so of course there are people who are paid to do it as well.

I expected there are shills looking at your post right now, wondering how the hell they can derail it?
That said, /r/UFO is probably not the best example. especially on /r/politics, the shills reign supreme!

I can assure you that there ARE NOT.

Well considered the most reddit-addicted city is Eglin Air Force base, and considering Eglin literally published and funded studies about how to influence social media... yes, yes I do. Also look into Operation Earnest Voice

No.

Now, go back to sleep and stop asking excellent questions!

There are tons of paid trolls on reddit, OP, of course. I've personally dealt with a vicious one who haunts reddit's drug boards for about a year and a half now. (since I figured him out- he's been here much longer) He constantly pushed an anti-spiritual agenda, saying psychedelic experiences are random, rather than meaningful. He could be at /r/ufo too, telling people not to look closely, we all know UFO's are 100% military, no aliens ever. Trust him.

Who's asking?

I read this subreddit but I must be crazy because I really believe no one is targeting this subreddit. I don't think anyone feels this subreddit is a threat.

Yes. 100% yes.

Fuck yes. It just makes sense. If I was a politician I would absolutely have people create disinformation campaigns on reddit and 4chan. Some of the biggest highways on the internet, used by the youth of the United States largely that can easily influence 100,000s of people with one good post.

They could easily be trolling their paranoia or someone posing as a shill to confirm a narrative of paid shills. Just sayin.

I believe something has been hidden from us since ancient history, and the only way to really even know what it would be would be to follow napoleon, attempt to disestablish all world governance, and attack religion directly, annexing Rome and breaking into the vaults to allow objective scientists and historians to see the entire library and all evidences