All threads that have... certain keywords... are like this. Talk about meta. Looks like I'm now in the positive (+5) after being in the negative just a moment ago.

Anyways, I got really interested in this topic around mid 2010s because of some really interesting reporting by Codastory[0] covering Russian "troll factories" especially used to influence opinion in eastern Ukraine, but also in many other circumstances. In Houston in 2016, Russian troll accounts planned both an ANTI Muslim rally AND a counterprotest to that rally all on Facebook.[1] Hundreds of real human beings showed up!

Russia got a ton of attention for their use of troll farms but the truth is that the US and certain allies have actually been using stuff like this for far longer and, imo, with much more success. In fact, Coda Story itself is funded by the NED which is a massive pillar of global US, uh, "soft power".

[0] https://www.codastory.com/

[1] https://www.npr.org/2017/11/01/561427876/how-russia-used-fac...

Because cognitive biases are one of the hardest things to even acknowledge, let alone suppress. All the media out there has such a strong bubble effect, because people hate being challenged and love to stay in their comfy echo chambers. Remember labubu? Bao buns certainly do not.

There have been so many bot armies exposed over the years that one would think every narrative being pushed should be considered to be backed by bots. Some state-level actors even operate their narrative-pushing campaigns openly, yet people still happily deny their entire existence.

HN is very much not an exception to this rule. It's very hard to accept that maybe some thoughts you have were actually installed.

These 2 sources say nothing about Heard using bots, only Depp.

There’s bots that automatically downvotes certain topics on HN. I post at times that often coincide with the middle of the night in North America, and I get 3–5 downvotes within the next 5 minutes.

Talking about a country that sets up fake think tanks is a good way of triggering them.

You're not supposed to acknowledge that think-tanks are sort of endemically propaganda outlets. You're supposed to think it's special this time.