Before they had bots, they had the Act.il app.
People could submit random social media comments/posts that were critical of Israel, and if you went to that site and commented, you got “points” that could be redeemed for gift cards.
Not much money, but it was all online so people from a lower income country could make decent money off it compared to local employment.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ishmaeldaro/act-il-social-media-astroturfing-israel-palestine
After blow back they delisted the app
Now I think it’s just a website instead.
It’s good people are finally talking about all the propaganda Israel puts out tho. But it’s not a new development. They’re just switching from humans in poverty to AI.
Hell, we’re probably better off if they think AI can do as good of a job at this as humans.
Quick edit:
Mentioning the act.il app on Reddit used to get you banned from a lot of the major news/politics subs
So it was really hard to talk about.
Or the pro-Russia AI-powered Superbot Or the pro-China AI-powered Superbot Or the pro-India AI-powered Superbot . . . .
Reminder that almost 10 years ago, Reddit accidentally released that their most “reddit-addicted” city was Eglin Airforce Base, which has multiple Cyberspace units.
If any government is trying to influence you on an american-based english-speaking websites, it’s the American government.
That’s non sequitur. And doesn’t really even pass basic critical thinking tests. The government which has outsized control of all television radio and print media in the United States. Is really spending that much time and effort to propagandize to Americans on an international platform already heavily skewed fascist and right wing? Just because they ran ML off doesn’t mean it was some sort of government psyop. A lot of people even on the left. Don’t like Marxist leninists for good reasons.
Social media is one of the current best vectors for finding influence in the United states. If the US government really is using it to propagandize the people. They’re doing such a poor job of it I don’t think we really have anything to worry about from our governments propagandizing at all.
Nearly half the American voting population has a more favorable outlook on a foreign fascist dictator than they do our own president. And a large chunk of that current government is actively seeking to hurt American Allies and destroy the country’s power at large. Talk about a propaganda fail.
No the more likely explanation is that they’re pissing against a tide of a foreign misinformation. And having just about as much success as pissing against the ocean.
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
William Casey, former director of the CIA, upon being asked what the goal of the agency was (in 1981).
Sure, and I bet you think the NSA only spies on foreigners.
No. But thak you for the contribution of your strawman. You gonna try to actually respond to anything I said? Or just going to continue to damage your position?
The idea that the US gov’t doesn’t propagandize the US people is just so laughable and observably false.
The most popular non-sports video game series is US propaganda. The most funded Hollywood movies, Marvel et al, has the military literally approve the scripts beforehand.
Reddit’s current Director of Policy worked the Atlantic Council and had no experience in social media before working for Reddit and purging it of popular leftist communities. After October 7th, they put out a message banning war footage or propaganda showing the Palestinian perspective.
Notice how Reddit is overwhelmingly pro-Ukraine, anti-russian, anti-Iranian, anti-chinese, and pro-zionist? Literally zero difference between what the major subreddits support and what the state department would want them to support.
The idea that the US gov’t doesn’t propagandize the US people is just so laughably and observably false.
I never said they didn’t. But thank you for showing that you’re not here in good faith and are just being disingenuous. It lets us all know not to bother talking to you.
Oh fuck off with that, I read your post, the point you were making was that the US propaganda operations must not be bigger than other countries because it is “piss poor” if it exists. I gave you evidence of its existence and its effectiveness.
Respond to the core point, or any of the evidence that the US has bigger propaganda operations directed at the US than any other country could possibly manage and quit squirming.
Unpopular opinion: “the other side is just bots” is the new “the other side is just paid protestors.”
Bot warfare is a very real and very serious form of information warfare but the idea that any particular political actor is using it disproportionately is pretty difficult to prove. This article, for example, identifies a study which found a third of internet traffic is made up of “bad bots.” The study shows that the VAST majority of bad bot traffic is targeting Gaming (virtual currency farming), IT (DDoS), and Data Scraping, with propaganda bots making up less than 2%.
Unpopular opinion: “the other side is just bots” is the new “the other side is just paid protestors.”
That’s literally what’s happening here…
They use to pay people thru an app to do this, now they use bots…
Like, I got called a racist once for telling another white employee that if they wanted the admin leave for an office holiday party, they had to stay at work till it started.
That obviously doesn’t make me a racist, but if you put on an Obama mask and started making monkey noises… That’s still racist, even tho that old guy called me racist for not letting him leave before the holiday party started.
