Comment by aaron-lebo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aaron-lebo | Hacker News Reader

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Well, we know they have lots of money:

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-...

It it just a conspiracy?

The CTR conspiracy theory claims that certain parts of Reddit are controlled by a CTR conspiracy, pro-Hillary commenters are usually "shills", pro-Hillary news is usually upvoted by bots and/or interns. What I asked for is evidence of this grand conspiracy.

A PAC that does "online messaging" on certain platforms isn't evidence of this grand conspiracy. Everyone does online messaging. You're claiming something far wackier is being done by one specific group of people that you singled out.

You can find account after account like this on social media and you don't have to look very hard:

https://www.reddit.com/user/wardsalud/submitted/

There's a reason that account has been flagged for bot removal consistently. Their account consists of pro-Clinton articles every single day for months, lots of them upvoted and heavily-commented on. Yeah, there are some people who just don't have a life, but at some point you have to just start looking at evidence.

All you did here was find a pro-Hillary commenter and say "oh they must be a shill". I'm not sure if you understand what evidence is.

A network of people manipulating social networks is not going to come out and reveal themselves. Though we do have Correct the Record coming out saying they are "messaging" and we know they've spent $10 million. Where do you think that money went? What do you think messaging is? How is it by definition not paid shilling?

You just had to be on some of the reddits during the election season and you could literally see the tone change when the weekend would end.

We know the Clinton campaign did engage in a strategy of manipulating media attention (see Wikileaks). We don't know CTR is manipulating social media but we have a lot of reasons to suspect so.

At some point the burden of proof is on you.

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.

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?

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.

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

If I stab you and you try to defend yourself, it is whataboutism now?

Politics is about offense and defense. You can't fight a guy with bot networks pushing a false narrative without one of your own.

You honestly think unilateral disarmament is the way to go?

The YouTube thing isn't accurate because views tend to take a while to update.

Having said, I think the above poster is correct that the idea of CTR taking over reddit as some settled reality is a sort of mass hysteria.

It is something that is simply repeated over and over again until people accept it.

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