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Comment by partiallypro | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure the story is true, but I doubt it was effective. I don't think most politicians are really looking at their social media given most of it is trolling junk. I'm sure Russia/Iran/Hamas adjacent countries were doing the same. I just don't think they have been that effective in getting politician support. Direct lobbying or phone/email is much more effective than an online troll farm to get the attention of a politician in DC. I have worked in DC and this still feels very true to this day.

I think the more worrying is going after the low information voter. I didn't think Russia's election interference had much effect in 2016, but now when you look at US Media (largely conservative outlets) their footprint is very visible.

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Politicians are already influenced by AIPAC and other powerful groups working for Israel, doubt they needed more. They've managed to push anti-bds laws/orders in most states.

One thing I've learned about old people (and in the US, the people in charge are _OLD_) is that they have no concept of being scammed like this.

So they may recognize trolling, but if you tell them "Hey, the President of Israel tweeted at you," they just assume it was the President of Israel.

So the logic is something like this:

* my grandmother can't recognize fake information

* my grandmother is old

* politicians are old

* therefore politicians can't recognize fake information

Politics has always been full of deception, people doing politics professionally for decades should know a bit or two about it.

> Politics has always been full of deception, people doing politics professionally for decades should know a bit or two about it.

I think it's worth pushing back on this. Deception works when it's unexpected, and if the medium is something politicians aren't familiar with, they may not even be looking for the kinds of deception they're being targeted with. They think themselves hardened to deception, but they may not be open-minded enough to even realize there are forms of deception they haven't prepared for.

I shouldn't have implied it's 100%, but on average, how many gen Z'ers are getting scammed online vs. Boomers?

Kids these days just know everything is a scam or BS, but I can't seem to convince my parents' generation that someone would lie to them via e-mail.

My point is that top-level politicians are not your average grandma.

And yet their ranks have examples of senior top level politicians being scammed or phished at similar ball park rates to other people.

eg: (Various headlines)

* Australian Politicians Keep Falling For Telegram Scams

* The phishing email that hacked the account of John Podesta

* Who is behind the Westminster WhatsApp 'honeytrap' stings?

You can find examples for everything, the question is whether the incidence among politicians is close to the average elderly population (as implied in the original comment).

Aside from the terminally online politicians (like Mike Lee, AOC, Cruz, MTG) most do not use their own accounts or even look at them. They might have a firm that measure constituent engagement, but still to this day the most effective way to complain to your congress person is a phone call or email. If we're being serious, the latter is what these bot farms, etc are after. They want to influence actual constituents to do their ultimate bidding. Now if we can get evidence of a huge phone campaign using AI voice, that would be much more alarming. Israel is doing it, and Iran/Russia/Hamas adjacent are doing it. There's absolutely no denying it.

I am in my upper 60s--if a bit junior for Congress, let alone the White House--but like to think of myself as a bit more skeptical than that.

Helping my parents in their mid-70s is a constant uphill battle with these things. I simply tell her to ignore *everything* and if she needs confirmation to get in contact with me.

I would argue it is extremely effective.

Take a look a r/worldnews vs any other subreddit discussing this topic. r/worldnews is controlled. Negative comments towards Israel get comments deleted and users banned. Any other subreddit, there are people arguing from multiple directions. On r/worldnews, you only see dissenting opinions for the first hour or so until the mods "clean up the thread".

Obviously, this is anecdotal information and probably slightly biased.

r/worldnews has been astroturfed by questionable entities for a long time now. I'll never forget when they censored all information about blood drives after the Pulse Nightclub shooting.

The only difference with r/worldnews vs r/news or the vast majority of subreddits is that it leans right instead of far left.

It's just a different echo chamber...

It's not the difference. Back when it was easy to see deleted comments, it was clear to see that there was deliberate moderation to suppress certain viewpoints and stories. Now with the API changes its much more difficult, of course.

This is not anecdotal come on. Worldnews is 100% now a narrative control ops by pro Israel forces. Just looking at one thread is enough to confirm this.

I'm not in the US but am familiar with some politicians here, and they too have a problem with recognizing that the feed they received is personalized, the comments are not representative, etc.

If you're wondering why politics sometimes seem out of touch, it's because politicians, their media and the commentariat are locked into an echo chamber already.

If I were an actor interested in influencing the policy of another country, why would I spend $$$ on manipulating the voting populace if I can poison the feed of the people who matter for far less?

It's not just for the politicians, but the people around them, the companies researching the mood, the normal citizen who will carry the mood to others. It not simply to quantify the effect of this type of social engineering.

I'm aware how it works. But those numbers just aren't that compelling, because as I said every large social media platform is full of large troll farms. It's more about influencing actual constituents to write their Congress person.

We're just arguing semantics at that point though aren't we?

If the purpose of the trolling is to influence a decision, does it matter if the target reads it and is trolled directly or trolls enough constituents to call for action? Either way, the influence was asserted making the effort worthwhile.

No, because there is little evidence it's effective, which is what I said. Israel has lost ground in polling in the US and all around the world as well. If anything, there's a huge backlash online against this sort of things to the degree that it goes overboard into blatant antisemitism.

OTOH i ve seen politicians care about social media much more than average joe does.

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