I know, lemmy.ml is kind of cheating. I just thought this was a little interesting.
Also, almost all of the upvotes for my comment came from lemmy.ml. I think as time goes on, the narrative is getting punctured despite these guys’ best efforts.
The point that I was making is that systematized fake participation in online forums has been developed and polished to an incredible grade of effectiveness in the modern era. I don’t think that’s as widely known as it should be, but among practitioners in the field it’s absolutely common knowledge and has been for a while, because of Russia primarily.
I do understand that some people have a strong negative reaction to hearing that. That’s not my problem and it doesn’t mean that me talking about that is “trolling.” I just thought it was kind of funny that, at least in the headline, these guys were saying they were testing whether it could be made effective when it is already extremely obvious to experts in the field that it’s extremely effective and these researchers have quite a bit of catching up to do. And, in fact, the voting of every single one of the lemmy.ml users except the mod who sanctioned it seemed to indicate it was taken in the same way it was intended: Relevant commentary wrapped up with a little bit of humor.
Again, I do understand that certain people in authority on Lemmy tend to throw massive hissy fits about anyone who comes in and frames things in a way they don’t want to hear. That doesn’t mean the hissy fit becomes my fault, or my problem, or that me posting it meant I was aiming for that to happen. I do get that it doesn’t take some crazy extrapolation to think the point of my post was “lol Russia sucks amirite,” but honestly, in this case, it wasn’t.
Absolutely not.
The point that I was making is that systematized fake participation in online forums has been developed and polished to an incredible grade of effectiveness in the modern era. I don’t think that’s as widely known as it should be, but among practitioners in the field it’s absolutely common knowledge and has been for a while, because of Russia primarily.
I do understand that some people have a strong negative reaction to hearing that. That’s not my problem and it doesn’t mean that me talking about that is “trolling.” I just thought it was kind of funny that, at least in the headline, these guys were saying they were testing whether it could be made effective when it is already extremely obvious to experts in the field that it’s extremely effective and these researchers have quite a bit of catching up to do. And, in fact, the voting of every single one of the lemmy.ml users except the mod who sanctioned it seemed to indicate it was taken in the same way it was intended: Relevant commentary wrapped up with a little bit of humor.
Again, I do understand that certain people in authority on Lemmy tend to throw massive hissy fits about anyone who comes in and frames things in a way they don’t want to hear. That doesn’t mean the hissy fit becomes my fault, or my problem, or that me posting it meant I was aiming for that to happen. I do get that it doesn’t take some crazy extrapolation to think the point of my post was “lol Russia sucks amirite,” but honestly, in this case, it wasn’t.