I realize that to suggest that, say, some proportion of the reddit mods are on the payroll of a .gov alphabet agency sounds like tinfoil hat territory, but it would have been dramatically crazier in the 50's to suggest that the CIA was funding socialist literary magazines, art galleries, and the like.
We really need to ditch the tinge of conspiracy "theory" when we talk about these issues, they're backed up by primary sourced evidence that wasn't tampered with and corroborated by insiders that are independent from each other. If this were science, this would be as much evidence as we would have for the primary working hypothesis to describe the phenomena.
This is obviously true because anyone who tries to introduce an idea typically feels compelled to put a disclaimer 'I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but' as a leader.
The same pattern appears whenever whole topics of discussion are regarded as not allowed. It's the unmistakable signature of a move by someone to shut down debate using labels over arguments.
But suggesting that censoring the anti-authoritarian playground that is Reddit or persuading Hacker Newsers of the virtues of the TSA are sufficiently high on their list of current national security priorities to dedicate manpower to in our current environment just seems... rather more of a stretch.
If they are attempting to astroturf these particular corners of the internet it's something of an understatement to say they're not very good at it.
> If they are attempting to astroturf these particular corners of the internet it's something of an understatement to say they're not very good at it.
This is where I have trouble buying into this being present on HN or reddit. For what purpose? What goal are they pursuing?
The CIA and other TLAs have long contracted with PR firms for propaganda work. PR firms actively court this business.
PR firms now sell astroturfing-as-a-service. How likely is it that they haven't sold this service to their government clients?
The same goes for the whole consent-manufacturing industry.
A reasonable communist might appeal to the people, you discredit them by making them more extreme. When the FBI and NYPD infiltrated the antiwar movement in the 60s, in many cases the agents were agent provocateurs, ultra-extreme "members" of these groups encouraging violence or other behaviors not in the interest of the group. The idea was to undermine and anti-war movement and identify the leaders and undermine them.
(Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gainesville_Eight "Bill Lemmer, the Southern regional assistant coordinator of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, revealed himself as an undercover FBI operative in May 1972. Bill Lemmer had been thrown out of a 'fast'/protest by DCVC(VVAW) on the Capitol steps in Washington D.C. in January 1972 after advocating for violent, destructive actions on the Washington Monument." )
If there is a covert presence on internet fora, it would probably be in a similar light -- build trust among potentially influential adversaries by emboldening them, then cutting them down by hook or crook. The ultimate coup is to actually co-opt the radical agenda.
But on Reddit? I don't think government agencies are needed to persuade Redditors to say and upvote things that don't look good in the media, or that the Reddit hivemind represents a perceived threat on a par with the antiwar, socialist or even civil rights movements in the 60s
"Walker examines the “back stage” work that public affairs professionals do to organize the “front stage” of public participation on behalf of various clients in part by incentivizing, coordinating, and orchestrating engagement ... the book does open up a new agenda .. on a variety of topics including public trust in advocacy groups (and its consequences) .. and also broader questions about the consequences of professionally-facilitated advocacy ... we also need to know more about how these campaigns affect corporate bottom lines, similar to how others have studied the effects of protests on stock prices."
For instance, I went to an art exhibition in Berlin a couple of years back to see a retrospective of mid 20th century painting, and some of the info-cards claimed that the CIA sponsored a lot of the avant-garde US and European artists as a way to reject Soviet Social Realism movement. To show in a way that art in the West was freer in its imagination, execution, and scope. Quick Google, here's[1] a piece from the British newspaper, the Independent form 1995 :)
It is interesting that despotic regimes tend to persecute intellectuals and artists whereas the CIA, though far from lily-white, seems to have done the opposite. Though I'd say the dossier on Chomsky is a mile long!
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-w...
http://www.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs
This may not go far in answering your questions regarding government funded sock puppets, but it gives an idea of what they're interested in. Basically they're interested in damn near everything, and they're willing to spend large sums of money investigating what works.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/22/controversial-...