#bot farms

[stopsignsworstenemy]

i think its kind of crazy how it was revealed that there are bot farms that were used against amber heard with evidence that it has strong ties to the saudi arabian government and that reveal doesn’t get explored enough.

Inside the podcast exposing the Saudi bot army mobilised to take down Amber Heard

Alexi Mostrous on his new podcast, Who Trolled Amber Heard, and the targeted campaign behind the “trial by TikTok”

the podcast in question

Who Trolled Amber?

<p>What comes to mind when you think of Amber Heard? Liar? Survivor? Narcissist? Millions of us watched the celebrity trial of the century,

[ancestralsurvival]

Bot farm amplification is being used to make ideas on social media seem more popular than they really are. A bot farm consists of hundreds and thousands of smartphones controlled by one computer. In data-center-like facilities, racks of phones use fake social media accounts and mobile apps to share and engage. The bot farm broadcasts coordinated likes, comments, and shares to make it seem as if a lot of people are excited or upset about something like a volatile stock, a global travesty, or celebrity gossip—even though they’re not.

The article gives examples of many types of manipulation, including:

Russian and Iranian bot farms promote pro-Palestinian misinformation to inflame divisions in the West. Their objective is to pit liberals against conservatives. They amplify Hamas’s framing of the conflict as a civil rights issue, rather than the terrorist organization’s real agenda—which is the destruction of the state of Israel and the expansion of Shariah law and Islamic fundamentalism. The social media posts selected for coordinated amplification by Russian and Iranian actors tend to frame Palestinians exclusively as victims, promoting simplistic victim-victimizer or colonizer-Indigenous narratives—false binaries amplified not to inform but to inflame and divide democratic societies from within.

I highly suggest reading every word of this article: https://www.fastcompany.com/91321143/bot-farms-social-media-manipulation

[odinsblog]

You can be absolutely positive that Elon Musk, Donald Trump and other rightwing billionaires and authoritarian countries are employing these bot armies right now.

[generaljenobi]

The internet is not actually as unhinged as it would appear. Before you engage, remember bot farms exist and they're sounding more and more human the more you argue with them.

"No, this person is real"

Okay, then they've been emboldened by robots to be rude and dumb. You still think it's worth it?

[demonicae]

Is 'someone' talking shit in your comments?

Guaranteed you will find at least one of these features in their blog:

No Icon

Made a short time ago OR

An account that has been largely bereft of content for years and then seemed to start spam posting.

No blog content

Content almost entirely made of AI ragebait

All their comments are shit-talking people

Porn blog

If a blog like that is in your comments talking shit and trying to get everyone riled up: THAT IS NOT A REAL PERSON, YOU ARE TALKING TO A BOT.

Please remember that governments and 'private agitators' (i.e. billionaires) spend a LOT of money on bot and troll 'farms' in order to distract and destabilize entire populations.

They are used to sway public opinion. They know that if people spend energy arguing with a bot online, the less energy they will have to combat problems in the real world.

Bots will also give the lay person the impression that there are more people out there with a certain opinion than there really are.

For example: imagine a bot farm running an alt right leaning set of bots.

This will give a platform the 'feeling' that it is full of alt right fashy types, when in fact they're not the majority.

The result is that anyone who isn't an alt right fashy type will be intimidated into silence or driven to rage by a bunch of bots. OR, IRL neo nazi's will be emboldened by the sudden online surge of 'people just like them.'

The term for this is 'Consensus Reality,' where the 'truth' of a situation is determined by a group based on their perception, rather than an objective truth. This issue is made worse online because the internet is a space where it can be impossible to determine objective reality.

What the fuck do YOU do with that information?

Well, it's simple for us: DON'T ARGUE WITH BOTS.

No, not even to insult them. Block them, report them. At most you should draw the attention to the presence of bots if a comment section is particularly rife with them. But your goal should never involve getting into a conversation with them.

[baronfulmen]

If you want to know why so many people that voted for Trump seem to have done so against their best interests or without knowing seemingly a single true fact about Trump or politics in general, you should probably watch this video.

While it’s mainly looking at Twitter, it’s worth noting that Tumblr has had confirmed Russian disinformation agents active on the site.  To be super clear this is not a conspiracy theory, it is confirmed fact.

[mklutz]

I've had to edit my message settings

I get SO many scam messages on here, so I'm turning off anonymous messages (via inbox) and if I get one more I am also switching it to only allow messages from people I follow.

These seem to be run by bot farms so I guess we know what replaced most of the pornbots.

[ohsalome]