
Automated Pro-Trump Bots Overwhelmed Pro-Clinton Messages - CapitalistCartr
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/technology/automated-pro-trump-bots-overwhelmed-pro-clinton-messages-researchers-say.html
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aaron-lebo
Here is the paper:

[http://politicalbots.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Data-
Mem...](http://politicalbots.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Data-Memo-US-
Election.pdf)

I really dislike the basis of their research which is:

 _Twitter provides free access to a sample of the public tweets posted on the
platform. The platform’s precise sampling method is not known, but the company
itself reports that the data available through the Streaming API is at most
one percent of the overall global public communication on Twitter any given
time. [6]_

So...we aren't going to mention a selection issue at all? Is that 1% of global
Tweets a truly random sample? Can you confirm Twitter isn't manipulating the
output? We have examples of them censoring stuff this cycle...

 _In order to get the most complete and relevant data set, the tweets were
collected by following particular hashtags identified by the team as being
actively used during the debate._

What's the methodology for selection? I'd hope research out of Oxford would be
a little better argued. But of course since it's Oxford this research will get
quoted in the New York Times by people who probably don't understand the paper
they are reporting on and we'll have talking heads endlessly parroting why
this justifies censorship.

All this research is showing evidence of is that the stream Twitter _provides_
is pro-Trump. It's a massive leap of faith to assume this data truly is
representative and non-biased.

~~~
d_e_solomon
Ignoring whether it's pro-Trump or pro-Clinton, don't you find the idea of
automated parroting of political speech via bots a bit obnoxious?

And maybe the platforms - Twitter, etc - have a responsibility to not publish
those posts?

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brightball
This has always been my concern about Twitter. If taken as an actual sample of
the behavior of the population, anyone with a reasonable amount of money and
time can portray the population as they choose. It's too easy to manufacture
scandal, racial tension, phobias, inflammatory news and then treat a response
as somehow reflective of the populace.

I've grown up and spent my entire life in the south. I've never had a parent,
relative or friend even hint that I should view/treat any race differently
than any other. You'd hear the occasional bad joke at school...but that was
about it.

From the news cycle at this point, I feel like I'm supposed to have been
mailed my own KKK gear as an expected housewarming gift.

~~~
pjc50
What was the local reaction to e.g. Black Lives Matter, or did the subject
never come up? There definitely are communities where politics is a taboo
subject, but I think it's increasingly rare these days.

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colordrops
What about the fact that Twitter deleted trending hashtags that were negative
to Clinton? And the takeover of reddit's /r/politics by the Correct the Record
PAC? This story is far bigger than a few twitter bots. It's hard to know
anymore who is genuine and who is a paid sock puppet in certain forums.

~~~
cynicalkane
The idea of CTR-controlled subreddits seems to be some form of mass hysteria.
You will never see anyone post any evidence of the alleged CTR conspiracy,
other than "people upvote news I don't like".

~~~
aaron-lebo
Well, we know they have lots of money:

[https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00578997](https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00578997)

And we know their mission:

 _Correct The Record will invest more than $1 million into Barrier Breakers
2016 activities, including the more than tripling of its digital operation to
engage in online messaging both for Secretary Clinton and to push back against
attackers on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and
Instagram. Barrier Breakers 2016 is a project of Correct The Record and the
brainchild of David Brock, and the task force will be overseen by President of
Correct The Record Brad Woodhouse and Digital Director Benjamin Fischbein. The
task force staff’s backgrounds are as diverse as the community they will be
engaging with and include former reporters, bloggers, public affairs
specialists, designers, Ready for Hillary alumni, and Hillary super fans who
have led groups similar to those with which the task force will organize._

[http://correctrecord.org/barrier-breakers-2016-a-project-
of-...](http://correctrecord.org/barrier-breakers-2016-a-project-of-correct-
the-record/)

It it just a conspiracy?

~~~
fweespeech
1) $1 million doesn't go far to be honest.

2) People on Reddit and elsewhere noted pro-Trump videos with thousands of
shares and a couple hundred views repeatedly. The only way that would happen
is with bots since to trigger the share link on YouTube would be by viewing
the video.

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aaron-lebo
1) They've spent almost $10 million as of today. That was 6 million in late
October and 1 million in March. It's just ramping up.

2) Yeah. Trump and Russia are doing it, too. It's just as nefarious there. Why
is the standard defense of Clinton whataboutism?

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grzm
Frankly, I see whataboutism being used regardless of political persuasion. (Is
this a whataboutist response to whataboutism?)

I think the only way to combat accusations of whataboutism is to rigorously
apply the same standards whenever these things are brought up and do one's
best to remove even the appearance of partisanship when making them. That can
be tough to do.

You know, stuff like this is actually where people can cross party lines and
work together. Find an issue that should be non-partisan, set aside the other
issues they may disagree on, and get something positive done.

Edit to add: I didn't think this was controversial. If you down vote, I'd
appreciate it if you would take the time to comment in the interest of
communication.

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1024core
> For example, the top 20 accounts, which were mostly bots and highly
> automated accounts, averaged over 1,300 tweets a day

That works out to about 1 tweet/minute per day... how is this not spam? Why
can't Twitter do the most basic of spam filtering? And you know why I don't
use Twitter anymore? It's because of this. They optimized for the wrong
metric: the number of accounts, or the number of tweets/day.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
> They optimized for the wrong metric: the number of accounts, or the number
> of tweets/day.

Who optimized for this, Twitter or the SV VCs?

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pdog
I'm worried about the sudden drumbeat of post-election "fake news" articles.
It's really just a subtle form of censorship (and an attempt to control the
social media narrative).

~~~
lawless123
There stories still doing the rounds saying Hillary, Soros etc are all some
stanic pedo cabal..

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pessimizer
Non-automated, boiler-room conversation disruptors from the Clinton campaign
overwhelmed online forums throughout the election. They all disappeared the
day after; most of them seemed to disappear at around 5:00 CST on election
day. I still don't know how press-releasing that you were going to have people
on discussion boards paid to disrupt negative messages, and who were not going
to identify themselves, was a good move. It didn't seem like a legal
requirement to go public; could it have been to drum up business for Brock
himself to do the same service for other companies or politicians, or just a
way to seem forward-looking and tech-savvy (and Obama-like?) It's strange that
the left-identified candidate would openly use a tactic that was previously
associated with China and Russia (employing boiler-room internet trolls at
scale.) Especially for Clinton, who spent a lot of time during the campaign
trying to promote new Cold War fears. In addition, it ended up compromising
the advocacy of her honest supporters by putting them under the suspicion of
being paid people.

It was pretty terrifying how many fake people were used from both major
candidates this election. This bot/shill divide between the campaigns looks
like another way in which Trump went frugal and still managed to be effective.
I think that in the end, Brock's people ended up repulsing voters rather than
helping their candidate.

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squozzer
>“Anyone who claims that automated spam accounts that tweeted about the U.S.
election had an effect on voters’ opinions or influenced the national Twitter
conversation clearly underestimates voters and fails to understand how Twitter
works,” said Nick Pacilio, a Twitter spokesman.

The general approach to propaganda is to analyze the target audience and look
for vulnerabilities (messages that might work) and susceptibilities (the
effectiveness of a given message.)

The research link from politicalbots.org looks like a first-order pass using
hashtags as a proxy for actual content, which is usually harder to analyze in
an automated fashion. Understandable, but prone to errors, such as using pro-
candidate hashtags with anti-candidate content.

But getting to the heart of the matter, it's hard to say how effective
computational propaganda was in this election without more detailed testing
and analysis.

Generally, a political campaign aims to do three things -- 1) motivate their
followers to vote; 2) convert undecideds; 3) demoralize opponents. I could see
bots doing 1) and 3) pretty well, but 2) not so much.

Of course, a well-designed experiment could prove me wrong.

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simosx
The question is, should Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit work harder to identify
those networks and publicise those attempts to game the social networks?

These companies have all the tools to figure out orchestrated efforts.

~~~
DominikR
Well I would say that is up to Twitter, Facebook and Reddit shareholders to
decide since it is their property.

You don't get to cancel property rights because you don't like the reporting
there. You also don't get to cancel freedom of speech because you don't like
what someone is saying.

~~~
d_e_solomon
A private company censoring the content on their platform is not a violation
of freedom of speech. I believe that the point being argued is that they have
a responsibility to filter out automated messaging.

~~~
DominikR
> A private company censoring the content on their platform is not a violation
> of freedom of speech

It's not, but a third party forcing FB to censor or me to shut up is
censorship.

> I believe that the point being argued is that they have a responsibility to
> filter out automated messaging.

No, there is no responsibility whatsoever. Users are free to not use the
service if they don't like it.

If you see this different then we have different views on what private
property is.

~~~
grzm
_" a third party forcing FB to censor or me to shut up is censorship."_

Would you expand on this? I don't follow how a third party other than the
state could force Facebook to censor?

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DominikR
I'm not going to answer such a question pretending you are a 3 year old that
really doesn't know how media + government collude and operate to control
society.

You are incapable of seeing how it poses a threat to freedom of speech when
all major media combined call for censorship? There's no point for me to
engage in a discussion with you.

~~~
grzm
I'm sorry, but I think I'm asking a different question.

I'm not asking about whether Facebook can engage in censorship. That was
addressed by you here:

 _> A private company censoring the content on their platform is not a
violation of freedom of speech

It's not, but a third party forcing FB to censor or me to shut up is
censorship._

I'm asking how a third party (someone other than Facebook or the government)
can _force_ Facebook to censor.

I think figuring out how to create a constructive online community is an
important and complex issue. It's not as simple as letting everybody do
whatever they want. And limiting what can be done includes limiting speech in
some way. How you do that in a way that's not censorship is a legitimate
question.

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ryanx435
if you've read wikileaks, you would know that the New York Times is a known
colluder with the Clinton Campaign and therefore can't be trusted with any
political coverage.

~~~
perseusprime11
This election taught me an important lesson about our media. I stop
subscribing to CNN, FoxNews, NYTimes, and Washington Post. I will not click on
any of their links or tweet their links for that matter. I signed up for
Intercept for my daily dose of news. So far the reporting is excellent!

~~~
d_e_solomon
That's roughly the equivalent of trading a diet of donuts for a diet of
cocaine. One's not healthy, the other will make you crazy.

~~~
perseusprime11
Isn't that what's happening on Twitter? More bubbles for
future....[https://www.fastcompany.com/3065777/inside-gab-the-new-
twitt...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3065777/inside-gab-the-new-twitter-
alternative-championed-by-the-alt-right)

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lawless123
" and identified automated posting by finding accounts that post at least 50
times a day."

But they could just have 25 bots post twice a day..

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coldcode
Does a bot writing tweets mean anything if no one reads them?

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niels_olson
Producing false statements about people with intent is libel. The people who
deploy such bots should be held accountable every bit as much as any
journalist. Job title means nothing: a fake news purveyor and a journalist
should be held to the same standard.

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DominikR
This is the second NYT article I see here today that is calling for more
censorship because of some unsubstantiated claims. These people must be
completely out of their minds.

~~~
dominotw
I am guessing a reaction to total loss of trust in media by general public.
Now they have launched a mass propaganda against alternative news by calling
them "fake news" . Nytimes just doesn't get it.

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tdb7893
I don't know if you have never met anyone who thought Obama was born in Kenya,
or that Hillary Clinton murdered one of her campaign staffers but there is
definitely fake news out there.

~~~
xname2
I don't know if you have never read any trump anti-semitic photo story on
washington post?

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usefulcat
Sounds like you and GP are in agreement then.

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xname2
Then why was I downvoted?

~~~
grzm
Likely because of your tone and the way you conveyed your point, rather than
the point yourself. That attracts down votes as well. If your message was that
this happens regardless of party, you can say just that. FWIW, I think the
tone of your parent could be better as well, which may have contributed to the
manner in which you posted.

Given no one has commented on why they down voted, this is just speculation on
my part based on what I've seen elsewhere on HN.

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nashashmi
I find it surprising that degree-less, low-income, conservatives (classical
trump supporters) are going to be techy enough to program Pro-Trump bots.

The tech hackers are not on the conservative scene, but on the liberal front.
This is why Obama had such a great campaign in both terms, and the
conservative I-want-it-too failed outright.

Edit: LOL! I get downvoted for being demeaning, but my points stands. No
apologies.

