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Comment by yelloweyes | Hacker News Reader

So you're telling me that russian bots spreading lies are merely "ideas you disagree with"? I can't... I can't... jesus...

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Words "Russian", and "bots" are absolutely irrelevant for the discussion. "Lies" is relevant, but who is the authority to decide what belongs to the category? The whole Free Speech thing is invented exactly because history of humanity many times proved that mandatory filtering of information inevitably leads to abuse, and to lies which you want to counter.

Yes, because that's exactly what it is. They are ideas. And you disagree with them.

It's very simple - anyone can assert anything, thus each individual must take it upon themselves to be skeptical of the assertion, or blindly agree with it.

The real problem you're getting at here is that many people are dumb, and may be made to believe anything.

If these people became skeptical or were simply deleted from reality, such bots would have no value.

Why is everything a Russian bot? That conspiracy needs to end. The American media lies to you constantly (Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky), politicians lie to you constantly, advertising lies to you constantly. This isn't one big Russian scheme, it's simply capital.

Was this Russia?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...

It's a meme, not something literal. Of course it's not all russian bots, and that's besides the point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/15/faceboo...

Verified by multiple sources. "Facebook said it had found and removed roughly 1.5 billion fake accounts" surely doesn't suggest they're all literally Russian, or bots, but they sure were fake and spreading propaganda.

Na BrO. You are probably not on the social often enough to see the ephemeral ads that (that have been paid for) to target specific opinion clusters. It's a sophisticated attack on common sense, by appealing to gut instincts. How do you think a bunch of old people were able to harness the power of the internet in 2016,17,18? They paid private firms to figure this stuff out. People love trading money for control, and you should not be so naive as to think the opposite.

You've just described most advertising, ever.

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