this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2024
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If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn't that make me the journalist? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 weeks ago by Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Seeing a lot of bots defend Wikipedia the past couple months. […]

How are you determining that they are bots? Would you, by chance, have any examples?

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

“Astroturfers” may be a more accurate term. Especially in regards to Israel and Ukraine. There’s videos you can look up where they train Zionists to astroturf forums and strategically edit Wikipedia. The US Air Force has a massive astroturf farm at Eglin Air Force base pushing a lot of this, too.

Whether these commenters are professional astroturfers, or just repeating what they’ve heard from one, I don’t believe it a meaningful distinction to make.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

[…] There’s videos you can look up where they train Zionists to astroturf forums and strategically edit Wikipedia. […]

Can you cite a source for this?

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

[…] The US Air Force has a massive astroturf farm at Eglin Air Force base pushing a lot of this, too. […]

Can you cite a source for this?

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Besides public disclosure documents? Reddit admins accidentally outed them before they started masking their traffic.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Reddit admins accidentally outed them before they started masking their traffic.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160410083943/http://www.redditblog.com/2013/05/get-ready-for-global-reddit-meetup-day.html?m=1

Very interesting. Thank you for the link! When digging into this a little more, I came across this Reddit post ^[1]^, which pointed me to this research paper ^[2]^ authored, in part, an associate of Eglin AFB ^[2.1]^.

References

  1. Title: "Reddit has removed their blog post identifying Eglin Air Force Base as the most reddit-addicted "city" - Eglin is often cited as the source of some government social-media propaganda/astroturfing programs". Author: "Mumberthrax" u/Mumberthrax. "r/Blackout2015". Reddit. Published: 2016-08-19T22:11:33.372Z. Accessed: 2024-12-13T03:55Z. https://www.reddit.com/r/Blackout2015/comments/4ylml3/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_post_identifying/.
  2. Title: "Containment Control for a Social Network with State-Dependent Connectivity". Author: "Zhen Kan", "Justin Klotz", "Eduardo L. Pasiliao Jr", "Warren E. Dixon". arxiv. Published: 2014-02-23T18:13:47Z. Accessed: 2024-12-13T03:59Z. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1402.5644. https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5644v1.

      • One of the authors has a footnote stating that they are associated with

        Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin AFB, FL 32542, USA

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Besides public disclosure documents?

Do you have a handy source for those as well? Please don't interpret my prying for sources as sealioning — I'm very curious to read more about this, and I want to make sure that what I find is actually what you are referring to.