
How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet (2014) - vezycash
https://theintercept.com/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
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laughfactory
Old, but I missed it previously. It's horrifying to read that this kind of
thing isn't practiced only against state actors. The risk here is that these
techniques (and false news, for that matter) if over-used will inevitably make
people doubt the veracity of everything they see online, in emails, and in
texts. So the risk they run is that these tools go from profoundly effective
to not effective at all. Already I find myself believing less and less of what
I read online (for example). I would encourage government agents and agencies
to exercise significant restraint in the use of these tactics in order to
maintain the effectiveness of these tactics against truly bad actors, and to
protect the integrity of the web.

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wfo
This happened in a big way during the election -- the Clinton campaign poured
millions into paid online supporters to go on reddit, etc. through an
organization called Correct the Record. Once this became known every post in
support of Clinton was suspect; people noticed similar comments appearing out
of the woodwork, accounts which did nothing but post pro-Clinton comments. The
entire politics subreddit turned into a lockstep echo chamber -- no anti-
Clinton dissent of any kind allowed for a month or so before the election.
Anyone who mentioned correct the record was instantly banned. I'm sure there
was some amount of Record Correcting out there but the tragic part was that
every single comment in support of Clinton no matter how earnest and honest
and real was immediately suspect and accused of being a paid troll. It's
impossible to have a real discussion when you are always wondering if the
other side of the conversation is not arguing in good faith, and that's the
exact climate this sort of thing creates.

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striking
It sounds like a conspiracy theory or something but you can actually look at
all the payouts from CTR here
[https://beta.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?two_year_transactio...](https://beta.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?two_year_transaction_period=2016&disbursement_purpose_categories=other&committee_id=C00578997&disbursement_description=%09SALARY%3A+NON-
CONTRIBUTION+ACCOUNT&min_date=01%2F01%2F2015&max_date=12%2F31%2F2016)

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woogiewonka
When climate change discussion was ripe, I saw evidence of mass manipulation
via fake profiles on Yahoo news. It was so obvious and disgusting that I
stopped reading commentary on news sites and eventually news entirely. I also
see patterns of suspicious behavior on Reddit that could be attributed to
social experiments by programs such as discussed in the article. I have no
doubt political agendas are promoted through such programs all the time.
Several years ago it was already as simple as having access to the right
forums and you could get your hands on software for FB mass account creation
which could be used for herding. It's really scary how much influence a single
individual can possess online with the right tools and how easy it is to
manipulate people. Imagine having access to 10 million pairs of eyeballs to
manipulate as you please - such is possible on Facebook.

