hackuser (u/hackuser)

hackuser commented on Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/hackuser

dang · 9 years ago

No, it's not admissible to see arguments you disagree with and make posts "wondering" if state actors are astroturfing HN. That's just another variation of the same insinuation, so please don't do it here.

hackuser · 9 years ago

Again, that's not what happened, and not what I described several times even though you can see it for yourself. I'm not going to repeat myself to describe it again, but this is absurd. It represents what you suspect in your mind - motives and intent - not the words on the page, while it overlooks half the actual text (the second paragraph, which contains the evidence). What defense is there from mind-reading? The baseless allegations are not welcome, even from moderators.

EDIT: I don't even disagree with the alleged astroturfers; I've known about Aadhaar for a long time and think it probably is a good idea on balance. This really is a ridiculous situation.

hackuser commented on Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/hackuser

abhishivsaxena · 9 years ago

That could be more because your tone, making unsubstantiated claims etc.

Instead if you want to blame some national party for it, it's you choice.

FYI I don't have downvotes powers.

Btw, I got donwvotes too. But I'm blaming anyone for it.

hackuser · 9 years ago

I thought my tone was civil and matter-of-fact. Please let me know if it seemed otherwise.

> unsubstantiated claims

I substantiated my hypothesis and acknowledged its uncertainty. Of course there is no clear proof of astroturfing, unless it's very clumsily done. The whole point of it is to look like legitimate users.

hackuser commented on Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/hackuser

dang · 9 years ago

If we haven't discussed this before, I must have confused you with someone else and apologize.

I've posted about this countless times: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR....

There are several ways you might have actual evidence that someone was astroturfing, but they're rare, and overwhelmingly less likely than people just making such accusations up because another user's comment pisses them off. The "you must be a shill" trope is pretty much the most popular internet cheap shot out there, and based on everything we know, it's a far greater threat to this site because it's so common and degrades discussion so quickly. Indeed it's a bit like antivirus software in causing the very problem it claims to combat.

So, unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.

hackuser · 9 years ago

To be clear, I agree that it's very often a cheap shot and I'm glad such things are not generally part of HN.

> I've posted about this countless times

Everyone needs to know policy, but I think few see your comments. You see all your posts and feel you are repeating yourself; users see a tiny fraction of them and may never read about any particular policy. I'm pretty active, but most days I see zero comments from mods - I see a few discussions and a minority of comments in each. Consider even your 'sticky' post at the top of this discussion - what tiny fraction of HN users will see it? Few will see this discussion, and even most/many commenters on this discussion will have moved on or will be reading their comment histories to see responses.

> unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.

To be clear, that's not at all what I did, as I described above. I'm still not sure if what I did say - pointing to a strong pattern of the same arguments repeated in angry posts, both hallmarks of astroturfing and propaganda - is admissible, since it seems to both meet your standards and yet was rejected. Moving on ...

hackuser commented on Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/hackuser

hackuser · 9 years ago

Well, I agree the discussion is pretty awful. But this policy is a bit unclear to me (and otherwise unwritten, AFAICT):

> not making insinuations about astroturfing and shills, unless you have evidence

That's confusing: What evidence could users have? In my comment, one of the ones you objected to, I cited some strong patterns in the discussion. That's going to be the best evidence that users have access to unless it's very clumsily executed. The astroturfers aren't going to out themselves; looking like ordinary users is the fundamental requirement of 'astroturf'.

So if there's no possible sufficient evidence, do you really mean, 'don't bring it up at all?' I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but nobody even should point out the general possibility, saying for example, "it seems like something odd is going on here; all these talking points look the same and are made provocatively ..."?

There is no doubt astroturf happens here, simply because there is overwhelming evidence that it is rampant on the Internet and HN isn't exempt. If users can't discuss the topic at all (probably not what you meant), that would shield the bad actors and be a recipe for it to happen unrestrained.

EDIT: some clarifying edits

hackuser commented on Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/hackuser

dang · 9 years ago

> Is the Indian government now also doing astroturfing?

You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence. Haven't we discussed this with you before? Please don't comment like this again.

hackuser · 9 years ago

dang: It's a bit shocking to read this, and it's disappointing too.

I hadn't heard of this policy until now. I've seen very many comments make similar claims in many discussions and I didn't see this response. I just checked the Guidelines and it's not discussed there. Please consider how a user would learn about it - I'm pretty active and I haven't seen it. One possible source of miscommunication: Users probably see only a tiny fraction of what you do, and you could make this comment 100 times and maybe only a fraction of users would come across it at all.

But it's especially disappointing to read the accusation, which has no basis as far as I know. I've always been respectful of the mods, other users, the forum, and its rules, even when I think they aren't great ideas (inevitably, nobody will agree with everything). If I had known about this policy, I would have respected it too. I don't know how I was cast into the role of an antagonist. Like anyone, I don't appreciate loose allegations about me.

...

> You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence

I don't quite understand the policy as stated. I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but I certainly didn't do that even by implication. Half my comment was a question asking if there was evidence that it happens in other places, not HN. I also raised the possibility of it happening here, but clearly was unsure and 'insinuated' nothing; I meant simply what I said. If not even that is allowed ...

But to be clear, my concerns don't mean I won't respect your forum's rules. (However, uncertainties will make it more likely that it will happen unintentionally)

EDIT: Moved paragraph with questions of general interest to your post at the top of the discussion.

hackuser commented on Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/hackuser

hackuser · 9 years ago

Is the Indian government now also doing astroturfing? Does anyone know about any serious research or reporting on it? Chinese and Russian operations are well-known and reported, but I haven't heard of Indian ones.

Seeing the same, generally weak talking points, angrily defending the Indian government, advocating nationalistic points of view, and repeated over and over - it all reminds me of threads critical of China and Russia.

hackuser · 9 years ago

I'll add that in a few hours I got 6 (or maybe more) down-votes on otherwise uncontroversial comments that didn't agree with the seeming Indian nationalist party line - often the comments didn't directly disagree, they just didn't advocate or drink the Kool-Aid.

Not a complaint, but it looks like the symptoms of what I asked about.

hackuser commented on How Facebook Can Fight the Hate bloomberg.com/news/featur... · Posted by u/ZoeZoeBee

anythingbot · 9 years ago

How do people feel about a Zuckerberg presidency? As president, is Zuckerberg going to "fight the hate" in America? Is Bloomberg asking Zuckerberg to outline such an agenda?

> During a daylong brainstorming session, the group came up with a meme that subtly mocks people who blame minorities for the mundane frustrations of daily life, such as packed subway cars.

It seems that Bloomberg approves of hate speech in the form of mockery when it is directed at "people who blame minorities". It sounds like Bloomberg wants Zuckerberg to channel hate speech, not stamp it out.

What do you think? Is Zuckerberg going to take action against Baldauf for launching a hate campaign?

I doubt it.

Mockery is clearly a form of hatred, and Bloomberg wants Zuckerberg to permit this form of hatred while claiming to advocate a policy of retaliation against hate speech.

This is very misleading.

> Their mission was to come up with a social media campaign that might make Germans less susceptible to the wave of fake news and right-wing propaganda scapegoating Europe’s growing population of immigrants and refugees.

It appears that this is little more than an attempt to subvert German nationalism and German ethnic identity.

> you can hate people as long as you hate people I hate

Is it any wonder that two - Bloomberg and Zuckerberg - find common cause in directing hatred toward ethnic Germans?

Can you think of any reason why this might be?

Well I can: the holocaust. I think these two want to create a culture of hatred directed at ethnic Germans, all while claiming to be against hatred in principle.

What do you think? Is this kind of misrepresentation acceptable? Or do you find it as repugnant as I do?

hackuser · 9 years ago

I wish HN would ban comments like the parent. It's such an old tactic for spreading hate, I don't need to describe it. It adds nothing to HN - the pseudo-rational is just old propaganda - and is in fact a great detriment. I can speak only for myself, but please take your hate elsewhere.

hackuser commented on Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/hackuser

hackuser · 9 years ago

Is the Indian government now also doing astroturfing? Does anyone know about any serious research or reporting on it? Chinese and Russian operations are well-known and reported, but I haven't heard of Indian ones.

Seeing the same, generally weak talking points, angrily defending the Indian government, advocating nationalistic points of view, and repeated over and over - it all reminds me of threads critical of China and Russia.

hackuser commented on Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous blog.mozilla.org/netpolic... · Posted by u/hackuser

ams6110 · 9 years ago

Social Security Number in the US pre-dates the internet and any concerns people had about privacy. People used to include it on their pre-printed personal checks along with their name and address.

SSNs don't even have a checksum to detect typos, nor any convenient mechanism to issue a replacement number if one is compromised.

Using the security flaws of the SSN implementation to justify security flaws in any modern identity system is just not rational. If anything it shows that people didn't learn from history.

hackuser · 9 years ago

Generally I agree, but ...

> Social Security Number in the US pre-dates the internet and any concerns people had about privacy.

People in the US were concerned about privacy long before the Internet. The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution dates back to the 18th century, for example.

In fact, I'd say people are much less concerned about privacy in the Internet era; they put everything online and happily give private info to corporations and government.