Discussion About The Putin Stealthy Coup Rumors Mega-Thread...

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Oh oh, sorry, I see you're are still there at FB. I thought you had pulled up roots and split.

My bad.

Sooo....that reflexivity thing I mentioned...and this Putin thing...?



ETA

Yeah, people on Facebook tend to see the headline and react, without reading. That's why we use pretty pictures now.

Sorry, didn't see your post at first. There ya go then, that's what I'm talking about. You seem to have done the same thing with the Putin thing.

Nyet?



ETA 2:C'mon now, I don't mean to be mean. I'm certainly not going to hold your toes to the fire for not reading, SO. I'm kinda wondering why you didn't stop reading. I mean, c'mon, even I smelled the Putin-Troll #. "Reading" isn't going to protect anyone from this kind of crap; only experience can. Experience which I know that you have.

I know: You can't get people to listen to experience and then remember what they learned in a pinch. That's because people don't want to make up their minds and, especially in America, that's why a Russian propaganda service run out of the Kremlin and positioned in our nation's capital can walk all over American minds.

But, that's what a forum is for, right? Achieving consensus. It's for collectively deciding what bull# needs to be removed from the table as known-bull#. We have made a good step in the right direction by, as a community, #-canning Russia Today.

Finally, it leaves me wondering why there wasn't a thread with the headline: Putin Trolls The World: America Ignores Him.

a reply to: sosobad

And you poopooed any thread started with social media back then, what changed your mind?

Nothing as I was just pointing out the hypocrisy of some.

? Could it be that the initial thread fitted just right with your view of things? Imagine that.

You do understand what Rumor means don't you?

noun
1. a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts

dictionary.reference.com...

And I don't remember SO saying it was the truth...which is why he said Rumor in the title.

Good try, but I am not the topic of this thread...imagine that.

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

No you are not, was just pointing out your own hypocrisy while you are pointing out others.
/offtopic

So you advocate threads in the breaking news forum started by rumors as long as it has rumor in the title? If that is the way things are going it is going to get very messy around here and before you know it it will be turned into the other forum whose name shall not be spoken.

a reply to: sosobad

There's something to be said for the freedom of speech epitomized by The Godlike Production.

a reply to: Bybyots

Putin Trolls America: America Ignores Him

Give it time, it will be there.

a reply to: sosobad

No you are not, was just pointing out your own hypocrisy while you are pointing out others.

Care to show me anywhere that I said that social media is the truth?

I see you don't understand the jist of what I said, but here let me explain it for you...

If you were around during the beginning of the Ukraine conflict you would have seen social media was where you got information at the time, and even then you had to try and discern what is good and what is bad as far as what was reported.

Now here is the interesting thing you don't seem to get...those who say social media is a bad source were usually ones who used it as sources in the beginning.

So you advocate threads in the breaking news forum started by rumors as long as it has rumor in the title?

Care to show me where I advocated this thread, because unlike you I do know what the word Rumor means...maybe you should do the same and learn what it means.

I've been following along and waiting for Putin to show up along with the rest. I found it interesting to read views and all the possible scenarios there could be in regard to the disappearance and or demise of such an important individual. "News" reporting entities and social media never cease to amaze me. My overall view of this entire event?

- Rumor is rumor
- Always research before investing belief
- There will always be a population of people/entities who will outright deceive or manipulate stories for benefit and gain
- Fear stirs creativity
- Silence can be an extremely powerful tool

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

Care to show me anywhere that I said that social media is the truth?

Sure here

I also think people don''t seem to realize that social media is how you get to see into other countries that you don't get with any news.

Care to show me where I advocated this thread, because unlike you I do know what the word Rumor means...maybe you should do the same and learn what it means.

See the question mark in my sentence? What does that signify?

I know what rumor means, maybe you should read why people are pissed off. The thread was started in the breaking news forum, turned out to be untrue but is allowed to stand because rumor is in the title. That's the reason for this thread.

a reply to: Bybyots

That's why we use pretty pictures now.

The quality of NLBS will definitely afford you that sarcastic quip.



Nevertheless, I wish that you would push harder on that. Here's the deal: that thing Joe does where he takes people along with him through his discovery process and turns it in to an informative news show? There's something magical going on there, and that magic is what you should tackle in an NLBS show.

It's tha brains: they want to follow a protagonist through a story so that they can compare themselves to the protagonist and his/her decisions, and maybe learn along the way. That very same mechanism is what is causing the stupid people: there is no reflexivity. No one has come along and told them that they have come equipped with a brand new forebrain (neo-cortex) who's only job is to provide a pause before the emotions start the knee to jerking.

Anyhow, if you were aware of how deep this stuff goes you would also realize that "pretty pictures" are feeding the same loop that creates the "stupid people".

And I'm disappointed at the entire issue. This is abject speculation masquerading as journalism, as Phage's first post in the original thread stated. This kind of speculation is exactly why ATS is not taken seriously. It is a perfect example of that erudite and civilized phrase, "exposing BS one turd at a time." This is the turd. That Skeptic Overlord doesn't see it that way is simply a reflection of his lack of journalistic training. This is precisely how conspiracy theories work.

First, someone notices they haven't seen Putin in awhile. Then someone correlates this with a fire several miles away and the presence of some big trucks parked at the Kremlin and suddenly we are off to the races discussing the presence or absence of a flag, wild and completely unsubstantiated theories of a coup, fanciful "insider information" and other - complete - crap.

Now notice what happens. Finally Putin appears, but does this expose the conspiracy for what it is? Noooo. Instead this is proof that there WAS a conspiracy, but Putin won out over his adversaries, has re-appeared to assure the masses, and now basks in his victory. Thus NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS the conspiracy is "proven." Now, in extreme cases the next thing to do is take credit for it and claim that BECAUSE YOU EXPOSED IT, this allowed the coup to fail and Putin to return. I haven't seen this extreme in this particular case, but you will notice that political groups will do this exact thing over the next few days.

Now people can post pretty much whatever they want there and that's part of the game, but this particular issue has an official ring to it because Skeptic Overlord started it. And now we get to witness his belligerent tone as he attempts to impugn the integrity of his critics, still insisting this is a legitimate story. And this is EXACTLY what we criticize the MSM of doing when they do not report what we think they ought to report. It's EXACTLY what politicians like Al Gore do to global warming skeptics do when they point out what "hide the decline" actually means. Call them kooks. Call them stupid. Anything but actually DEAL WITH the issues involved.

So what exactly happened to the SKEPTIC in Skeptic Overlord? What does "skeptic" mean? To DOUBT, to NOT BELIEVE everything you are told, so rather than doubting the truthfulness of this story you charge right in and create a rumor mill of unsubstantiated crap (turds, if you will) out of nothing, out of whole cloth.

And THAT'S why this site is not taken seriously. This simply is not a bastion of journalistic integrity. Instead, it is quite the opposite. How can you claim to be exposing, "BS, one turd at a time" and not recognize that

THIS is the turd?

If someone takes the time to go back and read the Ferguson threads, there's links there's proving twitter was played with by LEO so you're treanding was what they wanted based on where you live.

This Puten Rumor didn't interest me. However, the best thing about the Ferguson threads was all the links to info from places I wasn't aware of. I'm certain this was the exact same.

So, here's the deal: by the third page of that thread, it became somewhat of an experiment of both my JitCen concept, as well as how ATS can better adapt to and integrate with social media such as Twitter. For those experiments, Twitter is my primary source because of the immediacy.

By about the third page, 11PM PST in the US on March 14th, "Putin," "Kremlin," and soon "Moscow" were beginning to be a "twitter storm." The original Daily Mail and Forbes stories ignited the medium like few things I've seen before -- at least while paying attention. The story quickly evolved from a handful of sources referencing vague sources about a potential coup, to an overwhelming social media reaction to the possibility of a coup. Tens of thousands of people suddenly started paying attention, and Twitter turned into a firehose of information on the subject.

The things I wanted to experiment with:

1) Covering what's happening in social media with a feedback loop: report to ATS what's happening, ATS members analyze and filter the information, report back to social media with the analysis of ATS members. Wash, rinse, repeat.

2) Using immediate social media like Twitter as the catalyst for discussion on breaking rumors, comments, and reports. I did a little bit of this with the Ferguson riots, but wanted to see what happens when we go deeper. With mainstream media essentially useless (except for a dwindling list), as we all know, the emerging alternative is the massive narrative we get from a source such as Twitter.

3) The JitCen concept involves the need for a constantly updating opening post with deep links into the thread for developing or evolving aspects of the story. It also relies on the collaboration we saw in the thread, with scores of members doing excellent analysis and research.

4) What does it all mean to ATS?


With #1, I think it went well. At least from the point of view of non-Twitter-averse members ( ) and especially from the point of view of Twitter users. We had a good amount of very positive comments from engaged Twitter users.

Regarding #2, it needs work. While I did my best to focus on information coming from established and reasonably reliable Twitter accounts, the pace of new tweets (not retweets) was at most times, overwhelming. But still, I think we accurately reflected the general feeling of thousands of people showing some rather serious alarm at the combination of events in Russia.

Regarding #3, it also needs work, but wasn't too bad. It almost as if we need two or three person teams who are like a rapid response team to handle fast-moving topics with an evolving opening post. It was often times way too much for me alone. I missed a lot. But I really do firmly believe that #1, #2, and #3 represent how a site like ATS can not only remain relevant in the age of social media, but perhaps be a lens that focuses the social narrative on the important issues.


Now, #4, what does it mean for ATS?

Fist, our Twitter feed acquired 800 new followers yesterday alone. Our feed was so abnormally active, that new tweets were temporarily suspended until I confirmed the account (Twitter does this when an account suddenly goes ballistic, presuming it may have been taken over by a spammer).

For Twitter searches on "Kremlin," two of our tweets were in the first ten returns, primarily because high-value Twitter accounts were retweeting it (that's their metric for the initial order of search returns).

On AboveTopSecret.com, the first-time visitors clicking past the thread to the recent posts page and the home page was nearly five-times the normal metric. And the average first-time visitor from yesterday's efforts looked at an average of 4.3 pages (normal average is 3.2).

There was only a minor uptick in new member accounts, so fears that a Twitter-flood will bring twitter-style members isn't supported (yet).

Overall, it was a very good tactic to bring new eyeballs to your content.

a reply to: schuyler

Your condemning ATS for that thread is way too far.

Threads here are for discussion of things THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW. Discussion of topics in ways that don't fit the MSM view. That Putin missing rumor thread was exactly that. The guy was missing for 11 days...he has only been missing from public view for 2 days on 2 occasions. There was validity in questioning IF something strange had happened.

Nobody masqueraded as journalists in that thread. Lots of the 'reports' that popped up were quickly determined not to be related. The fire was debunked very quickly. The trucks linked to the Crimea celebration setup quickly as well.

You just mis-characterized what happened in that thread.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

I saw ATS pages being listed in Google searches as I searched for info during the Putin missing 'storm' as well. Page 1 listing with 'putin missing' as search terms.

Pretty good exposure!

originally posted by: schuyler
And I'm disappointed at the entire issue. This is abject speculation masquerading as journalism, as Phage's first post in the original thread stated. This kind of speculation is exactly why ATS is not taken seriously. It is a perfect example of that erudite and civilized phrase, "exposing BS one turd at a time." This is the turd. That Skeptic Overlord doesn't see it that way is simply a reflection of his lack of journalistic training.

There are plenty of mainstream media websites that encourage comments at the bottom of their news stories. Perhaps you'd feel more comfortable commenting there? Otherwise, I don't know at what point you felt ATS evolved from a community of people speculating on what's happening in the world that the mainstream isn't telling us, to a community that must respect journalistic standards.

This is precisely how conspiracy theories work.

Yes. Your point?

a reply to: schuyler

And if there had been a coup, and ATS had nothin on it, you'd have been disappointed about that too, right?

Its that old phrase

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

However, as I said in my earlier post in this thread, there is likely still more to these recent events than meets the eye.
The challenge is, I suspect, finding it.

But if you give up, because you get disappointed, you'll never know.

a reply to: schuyler

How is this any different than when protestors were burning down London? People were posting tweets, cell phone pics etc and wild speculation was rampant? I specifically recall you being down and dirty in that weekend long story that lacked professional journalism.

Guess it has to do more with the subject than the means by which information gets discussed when it comes to attracting or repulsing audiences.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

You know I find it amazing how quickly a large group of people jump on a bandwagon to nay say ats. Although I do think ATS has been worse off the last few years than the years prior (mostly from a lousy community), I do want to say thanks for being part of the team that put up a great site for many years and I found the Putin threads interesting and a lot of fun.

I have had many various accounts over the years on ats and some of the most fun I have had came from fun speculations. Does anyone remember the promotional websites that would have some kind of riddle and a group of us would try to solve it only to find out a week later it was some advertisement haha....but man the fun I had trying to see if we could figure out where it led to before they released the info. Or all the ebola connections wed try to make that turned out to go no where. It was fun..pure speculative fun.

Anyway just wanted to say thanks for the website....and hope some of you other guys chill the # out over a thread that has been the most popular and most fun ive had in probably 2 years on ats.

And by the way..we still have no clue what happened yet those 2 weeks he was "missing"...

a reply to: sosobad

Sure here

I also think people don''t seem to realize that social media is how you get to see into other countries that you don't get with any news.

And where exactly did I say that it was the truth, because as you can see what I said was that people using social media get to see into countries you don't see with the news.

Nowhere was truth even mentioned, but good try.

I know what rumor means, maybe you should read why people are pissed off.

I have, and I have also stated the reason why it is ridiculous to get mad when the title clearly said Rumor, so nowhere in the title of this thread was the word truth posted.

Had SO said it was the truth then I can see why people are upset, but the fact that he said it was a Rumor just shows certain members are trying to find anything they can to argue about.

You included.

I think I'm confused... I've been pretty busy last few days and have missed most of this stuff on ATS (the Putin coup stuff)
Can someone summarise what happened and what was the outcome?
Reading the last few posts and page or so it seems people are torn.... this was either an experiment to get ATS some more Twitter followers and had no basis in reality or it was a fantastic piece of fluid investigating using social media as the primary source?