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posted by Fnord666 on Friday May 22 2020, @07:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the so-business-as-usual? dept.

Nearly Half of Twitter Accounts Pushing to Reopen America May be Bots

There has been a huge upswell of Twitter bot activity since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, amplifying medical disinformation and the push to reopen America.

In a new study, the researchers have found that bots may account for between 45 and 60% of Twitter accounts discussing Covid-19. Many of those accounts were created in February and have since been spreading and amplifying misinformation, including false medical advice, conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus, and pushes to end stay-at-home orders and reopen America.

They follow well-worn patterns of coordinated influence campaigns, and their strategy is already working: since the beginning of the crisis, the researchers have observed a greater polarisation in Twitter discourse around the topic.

[...] Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions to this problem. Banning or removing accounts won't work, as more can be spun up for every one that is deleted. Banning accounts that spread inaccurate facts also won't solve anything. "A lot of disinformation is done through innuendo or done through illogical statements, and those are hard to discover," she says.

Carley says researchers, corporations, and the government need to coordinate better to come up with effective policies and practices for tamping this down. "I think we need some kind of general oversight group," she says. "Because no one group can do it alone."

Twitter accounts pushing to reopen America

[Source]: Misinformation and Disinformation Regarding Coronavirus in Social Media

What is your take on this?

Researchers: Nearly Half of Accounts Tweeting about Coronavirus are Likely Bots

Researchers: Nearly Half Of Accounts Tweeting About Coronavirus Are Likely Bots:

Nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said Wednesday.

Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets discussing the virus since January and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans.

It is too early to say conclusively which individuals or groups are behind the bot accounts, but researchers said the tweets appeared aimed at sowing division in America.

"We do know that it looks like it's a propaganda machine, and it definitely matches the Russian and Chinese playbooks, but it would take a tremendous amount of resources to substantiate that," said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University who is conducting a study into bot-generated coronavirus activity on Twitter that has yet to be published.

[..] Reuters reported in March that Russian media have recently deployed a widespread disinformation campaign against the West to worsen the impact of the coronavirus to create panic and distrust.

Efforts to fight back against the spread of false information about COVID-19 come just as the federal government and election security experts keep a watchful eye on the November election.

American intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Experts believe Russian actors will try to influence the 2020 vote as well, including by using social media to amplify their messages.


Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Captival on Friday May 22 2020, @07:15AM (58 children)

    by Captival (6866) on Friday May 22 2020, @07:15AM (#997754)

    Trump, Brexit, the concept of Freedom... every time there's something leftists don't like, it must be Russian bots manipulating things. It couldn't possibly be that your position is unpopular.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Friday May 22 2020, @08:05AM (39 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Friday May 22 2020, @08:05AM (#997757)
    I don't think you understand how these bots work, and yes, they absolutely exist(ed) for all the examples you gave. There are bots on *both* sides of the debate, run by the same state sponsored groups. There are two objectives: primarily the obvious one - push the viewpoint that will be most beneficial to the state doing the attack, which may also be beneficial to the state under "attack", e.g. if you want them to vote the same was as you in a multilateral trade dispute, such as over crude oil pricing.

    The second is more subtle; polarize opinions so much that there can be no middle ground, as this provides a crack into which you can insert a lever at a later date. It's a well known strategy that dates back some time - "divide and conquer", perhaps you've heard of it? Historically, there was a lot more "crossing of the aisle" for many votes in both the US and UK political systems. Today, it's party lines pretty much every single time, and both sides are deeply distrustful of more centrist candidates. Some of that is absolutely down to just normal political shifting sands; Blair and Cameron were both fairly moderate, Corbyn and May/Johnson much further to the left and right respectively, but that too only gives the bot herders more fodder to divide, and maybe even conquer.
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Friday May 22 2020, @08:24AM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @08:24AM (#997759) Journal

      Those bots are right and popularity surely beat reality.
      Go open yourself to covid, nothing can go wrong [soylentnews.org]. Just do everyone else a favor and announce them what you did from a distance, it will make you very popular.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:21PM (#997898)

        [...] Just do everyone else a favor and announce them what you did from a distance, it will make you very popular.

        "Spooky action at a distance". More than one way to spread diseases. Mua-ha-ha-ha...

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday May 22 2020, @08:59AM (29 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @08:59AM (#997762) Journal

      Oh, apologies, I'm terrible sorry, I replied [soylentnews.org] to the wrong comment!!!

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @10:22AM (28 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @10:22AM (#997776)

        Nearly Half of Comments Pushing to Keep America Closed May be Bots

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Friday May 22 2020, @10:57AM (27 children)

          by zocalo (302) on Friday May 22 2020, @10:57AM (#997781)
          Almost certainly. One agenda damages the health of USians, the other damages the US economy. If you can get deadlock where one side refuses to lift lockdowns and the other refuses to obey the restrictions placed upon them, then a foreign state pushing both agendas wins on both counts. This is why precisely why the polarized opinions I covered above are so crucial to the divide and conquer strategy at play here; if you can't find a middle ground, then you end up doing *far* more harm than either extreme on its own.

          People are now getting so blinkered to the views of a given bubble, whether political or otherwise, that finding some middle ground and compromising is becoming increasingly hard to achieve. If it ever becomes impossible because all sides commit to an all or nothing approach, then it's pretty much game over.
          --
          UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
          • (Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:37AM (3 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:37AM (#997794)

            0.05% loss of population vs. 20% loss of economy

            • (Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Friday May 22 2020, @06:48PM (1 child)

              by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @06:48PM (#997944) Journal

              Bot or innumerate? Can be hard to tell the difference.

              When they talk about "social media", Soylent News is included.

              --
              Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
              • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:21PM

                by fyngyrz (6567) on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:21PM (#998124) Journal

                Without outing who it is, that comment came from a regular Soylent denizen.

            • (Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:16PM

              by toddestan (4982) on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:16PM (#998219)

              Well, in reference to the comment you just replied to, why not both?

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 22 2020, @12:19PM (1 child)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday May 22 2020, @12:19PM (#997807)

            U.S.ians protesting the lockdown was about as predictable as trouble in the pubs after an apparent bad call against England in the World Cup.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:17PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:17PM (#998123)

              Who has time for Twitter? Oh, people suddenly stuck at home. They would need to make accounts of course, all in February, and there you go.

              Humans are thus proven to be bots.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:11PM (14 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:11PM (#997820)

            The politicians using the lockdown for their own political ends and thus polarizing politics. Twitter does not change how people think, but politicians are simply disingenuous and manipulative.

            Once upon a time, our governor locked down the state to "flatten the curve" and keep the medical system from being overwhelmed. Far from being overwhelmed, our hospital has had four days this week of treating zero patients. Nobody is in our hospital with COVID. Yet the lockdown persists, and we are now told to do more, including wearing masks, than when this all started. The curve is flat, the hospital is empty, yet our governor (Inslee, a climate change fanatic) refuses to allow people to go to work or church. He claims that his decisions are guided by "science," but this is just the politician's way of deflecting blame for decisions that are, in fact, political. There's no science behind continuing to destroy the economy when the hospitals are empty, because that is a political decision.

            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:23PM (4 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:23PM (#997826)

              > Twitter does not change how people think,

              Disagree -- repeating the same thing over and over has been demonstrated to change how people think. Twitter is a great place to find repeats (echos). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect [wikipedia.org]

              • (Score: -1, Troll) by hemocyanin on Friday May 22 2020, @03:37PM (2 children)

                by hemocyanin (186) on Friday May 22 2020, @03:37PM (#997883) Journal

                So what you're saying is, RussiaRussiaRussia is a deceptive manipulative ploy designed to whitewash Democrats of responsibility for the policy decisions they've made over the last 30 years which culminated in the election of Trump.

                • (Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 22 2020, @05:38PM (1 child)

                  by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday May 22 2020, @05:38PM (#997925) Journal

                  Both articles explicitly mention they don;t know who is running the bots.

                  But hey, keep pummeling that straw man, it's so much easier than arguing with humans.

                  • (Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Saturday May 23 2020, @04:40PM

                    by hemocyanin (186) on Saturday May 23 2020, @04:40PM (#998176) Journal

                    Well, the legacy media is its own sort of bot and is almost entirely a marketing wing for the DNC. Yet who complains?

              • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @04:05PM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @04:05PM (#997894) Journal
                Indeed! Here's a beautiful example [soylentnews.org] of the power of repetition. Well, alleged repetition.

                Ah nice, another BOLD REPETITION with some more strawmen arguments. Sorry, you've reached the limit of how much I care to argue with you.

                You can see the person fully agrees with my position because I repeated it (allegedly) enough times.

            • (Score: 5, Informative) by Aegis on Friday May 22 2020, @02:26PM (7 children)

              by Aegis (6714) on Friday May 22 2020, @02:26PM (#997853)

              Once upon a time, our governor locked down the state to "flatten the curve" and keep the medical system from being overwhelmed. Far from being overwhelmed, our hospital has had four days this week of treating zero patients.

              So they used science and it worked. Good for them.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:22PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:22PM (#997878)

                The whole problem is, neither they nor you care one bit whether it is bad for anyone else.
                You are too accustomed to playing your games without negative feedback. It is high time you get reacquainted with the concept.

                • (Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:53AM

                  by driverless (4770) on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:53AM (#998091)

                  I'm outside the US so I don't know how bad it really is there, but in some countries the leaders did care about doing the right thing. It wasn't just the leaders, even opposition parties got into the act and supported the government in getting things sorted out. It was weird talking to our neighbours yesterday, both of whom are lifelong Party X supporters, who said they'd vote for the current leader despite her being Party Y. In other words we're not really very polarised, and if someone does a good job they'll get the credit for it no matter which political group they're part of.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @04:06PM (2 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @04:06PM (#997895) Journal
                Are they going to use science again? Or is this just a one-time thing?
                • (Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 22 2020, @08:11PM (1 child)

                  by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday May 22 2020, @08:11PM (#997966) Journal

                  Are they going to use science again?

                  Republicans are trying their hardest to make it a one time occurrence.

              • (Score: 4, Informative) by HiThere on Friday May 22 2020, @06:55PM

                by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @06:55PM (#997946) Journal

                Try "is working" rather than "worked". The tense change is significant.

                Mind you, "lock down" is overly strict. It has the sole advantage that it's something that can be done quickly. Then you need to figure out how to loosen up without getting back into insufficient social distancing, with the problem that there's a two week delay between the mistake and when the epidemic starts ramping up again....and it's spreading during that delay.

                --
                Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by toddestan on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:35PM

                by toddestan (4982) on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:35PM (#998225)

                The problem is that it's working too well. It's still out there. We still have community transmission, we can slow it down a lot, but we're not going to be able to stop it. Maybe if science was used right from the start it would be different, but that train left the station some time ago.

                The only thing the US can do now is let it burn through the population. Partial lock downs, social distancing, masks, etc. are tools to slow down the rate and flatten the curve so that the healthcare system doesn't get overwhelmed. Ideally, the burn rate should be just below what the healthcare system can handle to make the remaining lockdown a short as possible. Since that's going to be a hard target to hit accurately and you don't want to overshoot, obviously you want to aim a bit below that. But if the hospitals are almost empty then the lockdown is just being needlessly prolonged.

                Of course, the politicians aren't going to come out and say this, because it's essentially admitting that their plan is that you will be exposed to the virus at some point and you will be infected which isn't going to go down well with a lot of people. And of course that they screwed up back in the January-February timeframe.

            • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:37PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:37PM (#997903)

              [...] The curve is flat, the hospital is empty, yet our governor (Inslee, a climate change fanatic) refuses to allow people to go to work or church. He claims that his decisions are guided by "science," but this is just the politician's way of deflecting blame for decisions that are, in fact, political. [...]

              It's a game of brinkmanship.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @08:05PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @08:05PM (#997964)

            One agenda damages the health of USians, the other damages the US economy.

            Actually, the open-now agenda damages the US economy MORE, just few months down the road. If you can't get the virus under control fast, it means that people are not following the rules. And if they are not following the rules now, they will sure ignore any further restrictions down the road which will damage the economy more as businesses shut but people get sick more and start dying. You can see Peru as a perfect example of Sheeple that

              1. ignored lockdown measures
              2. now cry they are dying and complaining to government they didn't do enough.

            If you want a healthy economy, you need to have healthy people not afraid of going outside. And the idiots pushing now for re-opening are the idiots that will keep majority from reviving the economy.

            If you want to see how virus hurts economies even without strick lockdowns, look how Sweden is hurting as their cases are increasing.

            • (Score: 1, Touché) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @08:23PM (1 child)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @08:23PM (#997970) Journal

              And if they are not following the rules now, they will sure ignore any further restrictions down the road which will damage the economy more as businesses shut but people get sick more and start dying.

              Passing stricter rules for people to ignore is going to be so much better.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:32PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:32PM (#998005)

                > Passing stricter rules for people to ignore is going to be so much better.

                I'm not going to pay any attention to rules or lack of rules. I'm a hermit anyway, work at home already. I'm not coming out, except as strictly necessary, until there is a vaccine that has been shown to work for awhile (and after I've been vaccinated.)

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:40AM (2 children)

            by driverless (4770) on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:40AM (#998088)

            Almost certainly. One agenda damages the health of USians, the other damages the US economy. If you can get deadlock where one side refuses to lift lockdowns and the other refuses to obey the restrictions placed upon them, then a foreign state pushing both agendas wins on both counts.

            Yup. That's why you need effective national leadership to provide direction in the presence of noise.

            If it's good leadership then that's even better.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:47PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:47PM (#998167)

              My leader sent me $1200 and a signed letter. What more do you want?!

              • (Score: 2) by helel on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:19AM

                by helel (2949) on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:19AM (#998375)

                Weekly testing to see if I or anyone I've been in contact with has been exposed.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 22 2020, @12:17PM (1 child)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday May 22 2020, @12:17PM (#997806)

      polarize opinions so much that there can be no middle ground

      The old Jedi mind trick, it only works on the weak minded.

      -----------------------

      These aren't the bots you're looking for.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @11:36AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @11:36AM (#998115)

        So, anyone born after 1990?

    • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 22 2020, @12:27PM (2 children)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday May 22 2020, @12:27PM (#997810)

      > Today, it's party lines pretty much every single time

      I don't think that is true in the UK up until Boris Johnson. Tony Blair, David Cameron and Theresa May have been all very centrist (compared to say Margaret Thatcher and Neil Kinnock). Boris Johnson hasn't really shown his colours yet.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @02:30PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @02:30PM (#997854)

        > Boris Johnson hasn't really shown his colours yet.

        He's a self-styled Churchillian liberal, hence his reluctance to have taken the UK into lockdown.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:50PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:50PM (#998169)

          He's a self-styled Bozo the Clown with a handful of go-to's when the going gets hairy.

          Bluff and bluster, do a belch, oo-missus, there we are nicely off topic.

    • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:32AM (#998059)

      You are missing the forest for the trees. It isn't important how the bots work, what matters is how Twitter works. If you aren't living in a cave you know Twitter has been madly banhammering anyone to the Right of AOC for a few years. For the last year when you get banned you stay banned. Your Google / Apple ID is banned, your phone numbers is banned, not just your twitter account. Reports are they now ban any new account that geolocates to the same address as a banned account.

      Yet we are also to believe some entity is out there spinning up hundreds of millions of bot accounts, pushing State sponsored propaganda and not being banned. Really. Any of the possibilities are remarkable.

      1. Twitter is a Russian front, allowing Russians free access to their system to spin up bots to do their evil. Jack is a traitor who must be jailed.

      2. Twitter is helpless to detect bots, only Karens detecting Evil Republicans / Trump supporters. And of course CNN and MSNBC hosts recommending accounts to ban.

      3. This whole "Russia!" hoax is played out but it just won't die. The 80s are calling and want their boogey man back.

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:07AM

      by driverless (4770) on Saturday May 23 2020, @06:07AM (#998083)

      Well of course they're bots, Russia is now the second-worst-hit country in the world and they're heading towards being the worst-hit unless they can convince the US to reopen early and get hit by a second wave. And a third. And a fourth. As long as Putin's Russia doesn't end up being the worst-hit country, any way to achieve that is fair game.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @12:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @12:06PM (#997800)

    > ... it must be Russian bots manipulating things.

    Russia bot warning (note high uid).

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 22 2020, @12:14PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday May 22 2020, @12:14PM (#997804)

    I think bots are just a fact of life now - on all sides.

    Hell, 10 years ago I entered a crappy little online contest and some kid in India decided he liked my entry, so he set up a voting bot that propelled me into the finalist round (I set up my own voting bot as well, but I didn't need to use mine because the Indian kid was already spam-voting me to the top...) 30 years ago I made a chat bot that would dial up a local BBS and post to their forums at 4 in the morning.

    If the forum permits bots, explicitly or implicitly (and most almost all online forums today are unable to completely filter bot posted content), you should expect bots to be present.

    Similarly, when you write to the President or your Congresscritters - you get a bot generated reply, whether in e-mail or paper/snail mail. And, even in the distant past - when staffers would reply, they generally were selecting from prepared script replies, sometimes not even as imaginative as today's better bots. I'm sure plenty of bot traffic flows in the other direction too.

    For that matter: what is junk mail? What percentage of the paper that reaches your snail-mail inbox is "bot generated"?

    Like SPAM? Thank a capitalist.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 5, Funny) by istartedi on Friday May 22 2020, @04:42PM

      by istartedi (123) on Friday May 22 2020, @04:42PM (#997906) Journal

      I think bots are just a fact of life now - on all sides.

      Sigh... it looks like I'll have to back to using reason to figure out whether or not I want to jump off a bridge, instead of doing it because all my associates are.

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:16PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:16PM (#997876)

    It's another way for the democrats to insult you. "We are so smart, people who disagree with us are so dumb they are convinced by fifth-columnist twitter bots".

    • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:42PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:42PM (#997886)

      Kind of like how crtical.*.Theory "science" means that boys are girls and it's fair to have them compete in female sporting events.

      I agree, evangelicals have some retarded ideas but that doesn't mean Democrats aren't just as retarded and when they make up their own facts,

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @04:08PM (3 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @04:08PM (#997897) Journal

        Kind of like

        Kind of like how slugs like cabbage. As in not kind of like at all.

        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by HiThere on Friday May 22 2020, @07:08PM (2 children)

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @07:08PM (#997949) Journal

          The GP actually has a valid point hidden in his bias. If you grow up with testosterone, your body shapes itself in ways that are beneficial in certain sports. Later changing things doesn't remove, at least not completely, that advantage.

          But I don't consider "sports" to be a valid driver of social policy. You might also consider "Hard cases make bad law.". Social rules are always oversimplified versions of some part of reality. This means that inherently some special cases will be treated unfairly. I'm quite happy if the worst that happens is that the "wrong person" wins a sports competition. Usually things are much worse than that. (Unfortunately, they *are* worse, but that's a separate argument.)

          Now the problem: Is the GP a bot? How can you tell? He's arguing like one, but so do some people. Fortunately, one doesn't need to decide whether he's a bot. One can grasp the style of argument (using phrasing designed to inflame people on both sides) to decide that he's not worth believing.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @04:58PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @04:58PM (#998182)

            I'm not a bot. I'm the writer above AND I'm the one who just gave you a karma point back by modding you underrated.

            Here's the deal -- Democrats like to pretend that their positions are driven by science when the reality is, they're just as much full of woowoo as 80s/90s evangelicals were, the difference being that they get their woowoo from different sources. Evangelicals took it from a book of fairy tales compiled in the distant past, Democrats from agenda driven SJW papers devoid of actual content written more recently. What's interesting is that evangelicals will embrace the fact that they are anti-science, while Democrats pretend to be the opposite and then get up on their high horse and condescend, when really, they're equally moronic to those they denigrate.

            • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @03:27AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @03:27AM (#998337)

              There is a difference between actual science vs social science, any virologist does better science than someone trying to argue why a guy should be a girl.

              However, science is a mechanism to pursue the truth, not the absolute infallible truth. And that is where many on the left fall back to medievalism: They rejected Jesus and all that jazz and replaced it with a truthier religion, "Science". CNN shows them virologist X who says we must abandon our friends, families and livelihood, then anyone who disagrees must be a heretic. Because they disagree with "The Science".

              Even if it is another virologist who somehow got a voice on CNN.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:07PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:07PM (#997896)

    Far right ideology is and always has been a minority ideology. With few exceptions like the reign of the Nazis, most people are too decent to subscribe to such a hateful ideology. We do not need slavery, concentration camps, gas chambers, lynching squads, death squads, mass graves nor ovens to burn the bodies-- all things that right-wing ideology has repeatedly brought to the unfortunate people where this hateful ideology has taken over (often funded by right-wing governments in the United States). In India, today, fascists have taken over and are currently rounding up people into concentration camps. The right is synonymous with evil.

    But, members of the right demand control. So, they have always employed techniques to amplify their influence. Be it wide spread cheating in elections, as they are famous for, in the United States* and elsewhere. Insisting on anti-democratic institutions like the United State's electoral college or Senate to amplify minority (pro-slavery) rule. Or, just using the far-right controlled commercial media to amplify falsehoods, as is common in countries ranging from Venezuela to the United States and the UK. Employing bots to pretend that their positions have more support than they have is just par for the course of this destructive ideology that has been rejected by most people because they are decent.

    *
    https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-e&gbv=1&q=republican+gerrymandering&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgx7Pz6sfpAhWOjp4KHZcZDOIQvwV6BAgXEAE [google.com]

    https://www.google.com/search?q=republican+voter+suppression&client=firefox-b-1-e&gbv=1&sei=XPbHXte_A9iX-gT_w4ToAw [google.com]

    • (Score: 3, Offtopic) by HiThere on Friday May 22 2020, @07:17PM (1 child)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @07:17PM (#997950) Journal

      Are you intentionally ignoring things like Pol Pot? A more accurate phrasing would be extremist beliefs are always fringe except during the collapse of a system. Some times the collapse happens in the middle of the rise.

      Please note that this is largely true by definition. If most of a population holds a belief, then it is not extremist. You can only get a large extremist group if the population has been driven to being bimodal, in which case it is either splitting apart or coming together. If it's coming together it will settle down into a population with a single mode somewhere near the mean. A particularly difficult case is where you have two populations with very different modes that are dependent on each other. Examples from the current time are (the wealthy | the poor) and (the urban | the rural). Whether these groups can merge into a single population will determine whether (and how) the current civilization collapses.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:02PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:02PM (#998493)

        It doesn't matter what labels someone wants to put on themselves, the important parts are their actions.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 22 2020, @06:13PM (2 children)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday May 22 2020, @06:13PM (#997937) Journal

    It couldn't possibly be that your position is unpopular.

    It's not.

    Americans more worried about reopening too quickly than not opening quickly enough, survey says [usatoday.com]

    Nearly three out of four Americans – 71% – say they are more concerned by the government lifting social distancing restrictions too quickly, according to a survey from the Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape Project. That's more than double the 29% who say they are worried restrictions are not being lifted quickly enough.

    Most Americans Think It’s Too Soon To Return To What Life Was Like Pre-Pandemic [fivethirtyeight.com]

    In their latest poll (conducted May 3-5), The Economist/YouGov found that only 11 percent of adults believed it was safe to end social distancing and reopen businesses right now. Six percent said it would be safe in about two weeks, and another 19 percent said it would be in a month or so.

    A Morning Consult survey taken April 29-30 found that just 20 percent of registered voters thought the economy should reopen in April (i.e., immediately) or May, 37 percent said June or July, 16 percent said August or September, and 12 percent said October or later.

    The vast majority of Americans disagree with this astroturf campaign.

    Has it occurred to you that it is YOUR position that is unpopular?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @10:58PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @10:58PM (#997998)

      It has not.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @05:33AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @05:33AM (#998069)

        And yet, it is for their own good.

        Pass the tax cuts.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Friday May 22 2020, @07:20PM (1 child)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @07:20PM (#997952) Journal

    What does whether something is popular have to do with whether it's real?

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:44PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:44PM (#998013)

      > What does whether something is popular have to do with whether it's real?

      If the USA Today survey is accurate, opening up places that lack social distancing won't change things radically, many people will continue to shelter at home. If the survey is about how people are going to behave, and if the survey was well run, then it is likely to reflect the near future. We only have to wait a few weeks to see how this turns out...

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @10:33AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @10:33AM (#998111)

    Yeah, yeah, so "left-wing" that they do exactly what their capitalist sponsors tell them what to do :-). These are company-sponsored trolls, and calling them "leftists" is only to spread the possible actions against them to other groups. Simultaneously of course they have been converted to a good marketing target group.
    The real leftist trolls work usually against companies and do it to the absurd scale. However, because lack of sponsorship and as modern Internet users are advertising companies, they are quite rare.
    It's not only in the left extremism. The nationalism, while initially was a quite consistent ideology, has been "re-packed for marketing purposes" by removing all anti-monopoly and anti-marketing things and marketed as "alt-right". Suddenly the hate against foreigners became converted to hate against those who not buy, the countries isolation has been pierced with "but economy!" holes, and traditions which could not be exploited commercially have been removed.
    Personally, I'm not defending any of it, they all became the same junk recycled to give as much profit as possible.