
Monsanto accused by legal opponents of hiring internet trolls - valeg
https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/monsanto-paid-internet-trolls/
======
nxc18
This is disgusting. A younger version of myself fell for this nonsense - its
embarrassing to admit, but I think its worthwhile to point out that there are
ordinary people that get caught up in it.

This kind of thing really breaks down trust in online communications, which I
suppose in hindsight means I should have been less trusting in the first
place.

I'd like to think real name policies (like Facebook's) would deal with this
sort of thing, but clearly it doesn't, and causes a whole host of other
problems. What's the solution here?

~~~
alexandercrohde
I like that you're asking the right question. I have a number of ideas, but
none are very clean or simple answers.

------
cmroanirgo
It makes me wonder how many other markets and industries are out there using
the same techniques to bend the public's heart and minds to continue to be a
consumer of 'X'?

Are we at a point that we must be distrustful of everything we read and hear,
because we can't trust it? I've seen quite a few articles here on HN on how
even scientific reporting is not as rock-solid, A-grade 'truth' as we'd like
it to be.

~~~
kstenerud
You never could trust it. The only difference now is in the number of actors
involved, and their motives for lying to and manipulating you.

Other than that, it's the same as it always was.

------
jhcl
Send those responsible to court or slap a fine on it but that's not the
problem. The problem is that everyone believes what Joe or Jane Doe posts on
the internet, no matter who pays them.

Have reporters query (non corporate) scientists skilled in the subject, let
the mad blabbermouth era be over and live the life of information again.

~~~
tjr225
It really boggles my mind that a decade ago I would've been told not to
believe what I read on wikipedia and now folks don't question anything they
read on the internet.

Is it because we've been fed this illusion of social networks?

~~~
whatshisface
> _folks don 't question anything they read on the internet_

(summary: Even if people were to quit believing what they read, claims against
Monsanto would be among those claims disbelieved, so Monsanto still wins.)

Because you quickly run in to the "poisoned wine" problem. You can't pick the
wine in front of you because the King might have poisoned it, but you can't
pick the wine in front of him because he might be expecting you to pick it,
but he might have thought that you would have expected him to pick it and then
put it in front of you... So at the end the knowledge that one cup is poisoned
doesn't help you pick which one to drink.

In the same way, if everything you read could have been written by a troll,
and if you can't de-troll it by identifying which cause they are subtly going
after, the sentence becomes non-information. If _everything_ you read could be
trolling, then _every_ sentence becomes non-information. You're left alone in
a crowd of millions, because whether or not the person talking to you is a
shill, useful idiot, or enlightened freedom fighter, you're not going to trust
them.

In other words, Monsanto can halt all communication about Monsanto, without
having to prevent anyone from talking. They just have to bring the average
correctness of any statement about Monsanto low enough, and then there will be
no point in reading.

So, faced with the option of completely disregarding everything they read on
the internet (thereby, essentially, ending their use of it), most people just
shoulder the risk and assume good faith, hoping that the benefits of the true
information that they end up believing will not be outweighed by the false
information they end up believing. As long as the false information is kept to
a low enough level this is an acceptable bargain.

------
ex_angry_guy
friendly reminder that conspiracy theorists have been very vocal about this
for years in the face of mockery.

corporations are working their hardest to control social narrative. the
internet has made this tactic frighteningly effective. I suspect we would all
be deeply bothered if we learned the true extent of it.

edit: my shill senses are tingling ;)

------
droithomme
They've been everywhere for years and discussion about "Monsanto shills" and
their "50 cent army" has been ongoing, always resulting in being called a
crank conspiracy theorist by other shill accounts - as well as the terminally
naïve. Interesting that the actual policy was to leave no comment uncontested,
no matter the size of the forum, anywhere on the net. How much did they spend
on this multi decade long campaign?

In addition to the phenomenon of tons of people you never saw or heard from
before suddenly appearing in an obscure forum to attack anyone who questioned
Monsanto's claims, we also say high profile and prominent trusted commenters
who were shilling as well.

~~~
tptacek
You're not a crank conspiracy theorist when you suggest Monsanto pays people
to astroturf forums. It would be surprising if they didn't, since far less
freighted companies have done the same thing.

You risk becoming a crank conspiracy theorist, however, if you start to lapse
into the position that anyone defending Monsanto must either be themselves a
shill or the catspaw of some shill.

------
dragonwriter
Source headline is clickbait and HN headline just adds a question mark; an
accurate headline reflecting th content of the story is “Monsanto accused by
legal opponents of hiring internet trolls."

(And not “to counter bad publicity” but “in bizarre scheme to manipulate
decisions in ongoing legal cases via PR”; that is, the accusers _specifically_
state that this is a _tort defense_ strategy.)

~~~
dang
Ok, we've put your suggested title above. If someone can suggest a better
(i.e. more accurate and neutral) one, we can change it again.

------
code_beers
I had suspected this, just from the juvenile tone of the conversation. Those
who raised legitimate questions about GMOs were dismissed as "afraid of
science" from all sides pretty much immediately.

I find largely unregulated scientific experiments carried out on an entire
population with literally zero long-term studies to support their safety a bad
idea, but many (most?) on the Web appear easily misled by these trolls.

------
lovemenot
Which weed-killer's effective against astro-turf?

------
ribble
want to see some in action? check out the mods of r/farming.

------
interesthrow2
It does not surprise me. They've been extremely active on reddit and HN for
years. You cannot say anything bad about Monsanto without at least a dozen of
people coming at you with bullshit studies defending Monsanto products/ techs.
This is a confirmation that indeed, Monsanto paid shills to systematically
answer comments on internet forums to counter any criticism of that company.

This is obviously not the only company engaged in this, but the scale is
insane, each time I left a comment regarding the latest Monsanto VS a farmer
that got cancer due to Monsanto's product case, at least 30/50 comments were
left as an answer. It happened only on Monsanto threads.

~~~
randomdata
On the flip side, Monsanto gets some _incredibly_ ridiculous comments directed
towards it. Things that even those who have the most hatred for Monsanto would
realize doesn't add up.

People on Reddit in particular love to point out when someone is wrong. For
free. Discussions about Monsanto are low hanging fruit and easily searched
out. The fact that you received 30-50 comments suggests to me that most were
just regular Reddit users doing what Reddit users do.

What if the paid trolls were the ones who posted the ridiculous comments so
that the 'right fighters' come out of the woodwork in droves to defend the
company? Once they get used to defending the company for things that are
clearly false, they become skeptical of the real grievances. That's kind of
brilliant when you think about it.

~~~
tokai
A Shill Defence Force® that lures them into never ending flamewars, so the
rest of us can post in peace. I like it. Someone needs to start a fundraiser
and get the mechanical turk going.

~~~
acct1771
Don't underestimate the danger of falsehoods going unopposed in forums.

------
staz
Strange, the original article's title doesn't have the ending question mark

~~~
dang
We add question marks sometime as a way of de-baiting a controversial title.

------
0x262d
this is a problem of capitalism - large companies have the resources and
incentive to do evil shit and cover it up. it has happened in various forms
for hundreds of years. any talk of online discourse or moderation that ignores
this fundamental, overriding incentive and power structure misses the point.
private profit and private property need to be abolished to fix it.

