Comment by darksaints | Hacker News Reader

Comment by darksaints | Hacker News Reader

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To add to your second point, those algorithms are extremely easy to game by states with the resources and desire to craft narratives. Specifically Russia and China.

There has actually been a pretty monumental shift in Russian election meddling tactics in the last 8 years. Previously we had the troll army, in which the primary operating tactic of their bot farms were to pose as Americans (as well as Poles, Czechs, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Brits, etc.) but push Russian propaganda. Those bot farms were fairly easy to spot and ban, and there was a ton of focus on it after the 2016 election, so that strategy was short lived.

Since then, Russia has shifted a lot closer to Chinese style tactics, and now have a "goblin" army (contrasted with their troll army). This group no longer pushes the narratives themselves, but rather uses seemingly mindless engagement interactions like scrolling, upvoting, clicking on comments, replying to comments with LLMs, etc., in order to game what the social media algorithms show people. They merely push the narratives of actual Americans (not easily bannable bots) who happen to push views that are either in line with Russian propaganda, or rhetoric that Russian intelligence views as being harmful to the US. These techniques work spectacularly well for two reasons: the dopamine boost to users who say abominable shit as a way of encouraging them to do more, and as a morale-killer to people who might oppose such abominable shit but see how "popular" it is.

https://www.bruegel.org/first-glance/russian-internet-outage...

> These techniques work spectacularly well for two reasons

Do they work spectacularly well, though? E.g. the article you link shows that Twitter accounts holding anti-Ukrainian views received 49 reposts less on average during a 2-hour internet outage in Russia. Even granting that all those reposts were part of an organized campaign (its hardly surprising that people reposting anti-Ukrainian content are primarily to be found in Russia) and that 49 reposts massively boosted the visibility of this content, its effect is still upper bounded by the effect of propaganda exposure on people's opinions, which is generally low. https://www.persuasion.community/p/propaganda-almost-never-w...

Notice that the two reasons I mentioned don't hinge on changing anyones mind.

1 - They boost dopamine reward systems in people who get "social" validation of their opinions/persona as an influencer. This isn't something specific to propaganda...this is a well-observed phenomenon of social media behavior. This not only gives false validation to the person spreading the misinformation/opinions, but it influences other people who desire that sort of influence by giving them an example of something successful to replicate.

2 - In aggregate, it demoralizes those who disagree with the opinions by demonstrating a false popularity. Imagine, for example, going to the comments of an instagram post of something and you see a blatant neo-nazi holocaust denial comment with 50,000 upvotes. It hasn't changed your mind, but it absolutely will demoralize you from thinking you have any sort of democratic power to overcome it.

No opinions have changed, but more people are willing to do things that are destructive to social discourse, and fewer people are willing to exercise democratic methods to curb it.

Do you have any evidence that a substantial number of people will be influenced in the way you claim? Again, propaganda generally has no or almost no effect.

That is tricky. I think some propaganda has no effect while some propaganda is so impactful that it is the sole cause of some major, major things. I know you said "generally" but I think that doesn't present the full picture.

The Russian state's hack and leak of Podesta's emails caused Pizzagate and QAnon. Russian propagandists also fanned the flames of both. It's not quite clear if this was a propaganda victory (it could be that it was propaganda from other sources commenting on the hacked emails which bears almost all responsibility for Pizzagate and what followed) or simply an offensive cybercapabilities victory, but this is an example of the complex chains of actions which can affect societal opinions and attitudes.

I am skeptical random LLM nonsense from Russian farms is shifting sentiment. But I think it's prudent to remain open to the possibility that the aggregate effect of all propaganda, intelligence, and interference efforts by the Russian state in the past decade could have created the impetus for several significant things which otherwise would likely not have occurred.

Another example: the old Russian KGB propaganda about America inventing AIDS as a bioweapon was extremely effective and damaging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver

More recent Russian propaganda about America running a bioweapon lab in Ukraine has been quite effective and is still believed by many.

> Again, propaganda generally has no or almost no effect.

This is a wild claim.

I read the early article, it claimed that most of the pro trump russian propaganda was consumed by republicans so it didn't change any viewpoints.

Ignoring the idea that it might have prevented a change, it's a pretty small sample size compared to, you know, all of human history.

> a "goblin" army

Hah, a "monkey amplifier" army! Look at garbage coming out of infinite monkeys keyboards and boost what fits. Sigh

> Specifically Russia and China.

...or USA

In this context, the USA does not need a "goblin army" for pushing domestic propaganda.

Silicon valley is already fully compliant.

What should make us believe any other state propaganda is better, even for its own general population?

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