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posted by takyon on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-my-hundred-million-cents dept.

Current Affairs published an in-depth editorial on recent revelations about a $1 million astroturfng campaign by Correct the Record:

Astroturfing makes me angry. It should make you angry. It should make you fucking well see red. It's marketing evolved into something incredibly scary, sophisticated, and evil. It's essentially thought warfare, or psychological warfare, which takes away much of what was supposed to make the internet a new and beautiful frontier of communication. Worse yet, if you actually identify and approach these operatives, they'll gaslight you and deny that they are such an operative. These are people who are paid to psychologically abuse you. Do you get this? It's an ugly and evil thing, and not only does it take away our ability to take information and fact at face value, but it takes away our ability to take opinions, feelings, and personal stances at face value as sincere and legitimate.

takyon: For some additional context, "Hillary-supporting super PAC invests $1 million to hit back at online Clinton critics":

Correct the Record, a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's bid to become US president, has promised to invest more than $1 million to respond to users criticizing its candidate on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and other social media services. The super PAC says its new "Barrier Breakers digital task force" will to respond "quickly and forcefully to negative attacks and false narratives found online," in addition to thanking major supporters and "committed superdelegates" directly.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:30PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Tuesday April 26 2016, @02:30PM (#337509) Homepage Journal

    I liked the internet a lot better before youtube brought all you aliterates to it. And no, that's not a misspelling despite the idiotic spell checker, in both Webster's and the OED. I doubt you'll find it in the Urban Dictionary.

    Just so you guys know, if you want me to hit a youtube link, let me know how funny it is unless it's something really cool that absolutely requires video that can't be done in print.

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    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 26 2016, @11:42PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 26 2016, @11:42PM (#337670) Journal

    I liked the internet a lot better before youtube brought all you aliterates to it.

    Well, I liked it better before the alphabet agencies started to look into all the traffic and digging into it.
    Take the above as an example of (an innocent) conversation which will resist automatic "pattern detection" and yet would be able to transmit a meaning.
    (incidentally, this is one technique that was used in life under communist regimes - of course, not based on youtube).

    Just so you guys know, if you want me to hit a youtube link, let me know how funny it is unless it's something really cool that absolutely requires video that can't be done in print.

    See? It works.
    Not foolproof, but it will work even if Eve knows the technique (by increasing at least one order of magnitude the effort to detect/decipher a conversation automatically)

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    It's somehow a shame that one which aspire to be a writer didn't recognize in it the same technique used in creating literature (when was ever "telling straight what you mean" considered literature? This is what manifests and slogans are for), even if this case relied on means other than printed words.

    As a penance (for being dismissive and expecting "funny"), I'd suggest you to write a story about a sophisticated society in which failure to use this technique in every aspect of one's everyday life is punishable with degrading one into a lower caste; the somehow meritocratic elite maintains itself by the ability of its members to "speak" multiple languages of various society groups. Shared ethos and lore, thus supposedly able to resonate - if not empathize - with their needs; the more ethoses one can share, the more groups can trust that one to be their voice.
    * "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" - is the language commoners speak - shared experience of the global society, but unrefined for specific areas of life
    * "The Moon Moth" will show you the elite will use not only verbal symbols, but also visual clues and music. Add other means as necessary.
    * Shunning someone by not seeing him even when present - one is dead when even his parents don't see him anymore - I can't remember the book/author (nor even the plot) in which this was used (some help will be gratefully appreciated)

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    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday April 27 2016, @03:31PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday April 27 2016, @03:31PM (#337982) Homepage Journal

      I'm not dismissive of art or humor or anything that's best presented as a video; both True Grit movies were good, the book sucked. But it took a lot less time to read the book than to watch either movie, and that's the trouble with 90% of youtube links I've hit - someone reading to me when I can read it myself twenty times as fast with better comprehension.

      Someone made a video of They're Made Out of Meat. Lousy movie, two guys sitting in a diner parroting the aliens' words. Pathetic.

      If, otoh, 90% of the links were moving illustrations rather than talking heads I wouldn't have a problem. But I have no use for a video of someone talking.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 27 2016, @04:10PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 27 2016, @04:10PM (#338000) Journal

        I'm not dismissive of art or humor or anything that's best presented as a video

        Just to male sure... you did get that part of my explanation were I said the dialogue had nothing to do with the quality of the videoclips, right?
        (should I decode the dialogue for you?)

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford