A Word About Trolls.....Keep Calling Them Out.

reply to post by MichiganSwampBuck

If a paid shill is running a dozen "fake" profiles on a half dozen forums, or what have you, they don't have the time to make every one an elaborate and convincing profile,

I disagree, paid shill has all the time in the world to make a convincing profile because that's what they do for money. It is in their (financial) interests to make their presence as convincing as possible. So they are very , very likely to do all the things that you have suggested they wont do.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by MichiganSwampBuck

 

If a paid shill is running a dozen "fake" profiles on a half dozen forums, or what have you, they don't have the time to make every one an elaborate and convincing profile,

I disagree, paid shill has all the time in the world to make a convincing profile because that's what they do for money. It is in their (financial) interests to make their presence as convincing as possible. So they are very , very likely to do all the things that you have suggested they wont do.

I don't know, but I'd say that shill is a low paying job.

Even so, if what you say is true, my point is to express yourself more on your profile.The intended emphasis of my post is in the last part of of the line you omitted from that quote.

reply to post by MichiganSwampBuck


The point is that people being paid to make posts are going to make every effort possible to be seen as credible posters. You are suggesting that they would favor quantity over quality with their online presence which would give them away as being shils. In other words they wouldn't be very professional in what they do.

Im saying that this would be counter productive to their goals so highly unlikely. Quality over quantity is much more likely to be the output of paid shill..or they wouldn't get paid would they?

Originally posted by vkey08
reply to post by MarkJS

 

Methinks you just don't like people disagreeing with YOUR Op's and that's why you want this (or by extension you don't' like anyone who disagrees with YOUR take on a topic)

I personally WANT to see the opposing views...

1) Make outrageous comments designed to distract or frustrate: An Alinsky tactic used to make people emotional, although less effective because of the impersonal nature of the web.

So, do you disagree or, are you trying to frustrate?

It seems to me, that you are making the OP a "strawman" in this case...which helps drive home his points.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


I can't say on what basis a shill is paid, or how much they get paid, or if they go through a training course, etc., you could be spot on with you're conclusion, that a good shill is one that stays employed, that makes sense.

However, my point is that expressing yourself in your profile is one way to help reveal and communicate to other members your opinions that would be otherwise restricted. I'm not talking about personal attacks on other members, just make it clear where you stand with members who disagree with and challenge your quest to deny ignorance. Do you finally see what I'm trying to get at, or do you need it spelled out?

One of the disinformation campaigns out there is that the people of the U.S. are all divided and angry with each other. The information that the citizens are at each other's throats on all kinds of issues seems to be paraded out for all who don't trust their own eyes and experiences by all the forms of media.
Yes, I believe there are paid trolls. I ignore them. I take note of who is posting and then just skip over them. Once a poster has proven themselves to be ignorant of an issue, it's a skip for me. Also skips for me are the posters who respond to the ignorance.
Trolling is rather easy to spot if you are well informed and trust your own 5 senses. It is just a branch of the disinformation campaign.
Look at the athletic shoe riots. My senses tell me if you had employment to be able to have $$$$ athletic shoes you would not have the time to line up at the mall and produce such a result. If you are making less than the big money would you save your money waiting for the chance to buy $1000 athletic shoes? The videos show large numbers of people rushing the mall. It demonstrates civil unrest. It demonstrates the "need to keep us safe."
This many people in the sluggish economy in one area will riot to buy $$$$ items?
My senses tell me many trolls wear very expensive athletic shoes. My senses also tell me there is a peacefulness on Main Street that I personally have never witnessed in my lifetime. I know it is not just my experience, I've asked around.
Stay informed, trust your own senses, don't feed the trolls and have a nice day.

Christ sakes people.
If you have no actual counterpoint to a person when he makes a point,
or if you cannot simply call out the strawman argument when its made
Then maybe you just aren't strong at debate...calling the opposing side of a debate a troll is a sign of a weak mind...it is the sign of a lost argument when you resort to attacking the poster than the post itself...and yes, calling someone a troll, a disinfo agent, or anything of the like is attacking the person verses the post.

Even if the person is a so called disinfo agent, facts and logic can easily destroy such arguments made by the persons giving false info. This isn't the dark ages..lies and distortions are a google search away.

Originally posted by REMflyer
Once a poster has proven themselves to be ignorant of an issue, it's a skip for me. Also skips for me are the posters who respond to the ignorance.

So, you skip people you deem ignorant of an issue...and anyone whom responds to the person you are ignoring.

Is there anyone left you do read on ATS?

I wanted to know what the "Liberty Party" was -- but I learned;

Liberty Movement (in Spanish: Movimiento Libertad), was a political party in Peru founded in 1987 by groups opposing the nationalization of the banking sector in 1986.

Yeah, well, that's probably ANOTHER "astro turf" movement funded by Private Bankers -- while ironic and appropriate, I don't think it's the "Liberty Party" the OP mentioned. This is just a spin-off of Ron Paul libertarianism, which pushes the same things as the Tea Party, which pushes basically the idea that "Government should be so tiny it cannot be corrupted" -- which is idiotic because if Government is corrupt, you need to deal with the corruption first, because whatever gets "shrunk" is stuff that was going to protect you. Case in point; I don't want to live in a country WITHOUT an organization like the FDA -- however, our FDA is corrupt and backs really unsafe stuff as long as it comes with a lot of money for officials when they get out and work for the industry they regulate.

So YES, I believe there are paid trolls -- but the problem is, a lot of rational people are going to find real, home grown thoughts to be ridiculous when they come from the "Liberty for Corporations" party.

It's just like the Chamber of Commerce which is comprised mostly of outsourcing multinational organizations -- this country doesn't need someone else protecting "Free Trade" and supply-side economics -- which is ALWAYS the end result of Libertarianism and by extension Republicans.

The Liberty Party is starting to run the Republican Party -- and it isn't getting any saner.

So kudos in calling out the trolls -- but why did you have to derail the discussion out of the Gate by pushing an extreme group that is in essence, Corporate Trolling? Would any corporation, for instance, throw money at some pro Union special interest group? No. Liberty Party is the exact opposite of what ACTUALLY provides liberty; financial security for the average worker.

Productivity has been going up for decades. Wages stagnant. The Dollar is watered down as everyone stomps up and down about the "deficit spending" and so the cut $800 Billion from programs that go to CITIZENS, while the Fed prints up $16 Trillion and uses that for zero-interest loans to banks -- then thousands of shills go out and tell us how "this costs us nothing -- these are guarantees." Until of course, the money isn't in the bank account and some transaction depends on that, and we've got to backstop $16 Trillion -- and that's also a hidden tax on the dollar in your pocket, so you are even poorer than you thought.

Now Government getting SMALLER doesn't really help that -- Government taking over the banks and ending the Fed while becoming the printer of MONEY AGAIN would, however... it would solve a lot of things, like banks not lending to people who actually need money, but only people who already have it. Their utility in our country is about as negative as Futures Contracts which only serve to bid up prices -- not stabilize them.

We don't need MORE or LESS government -- we need transparency and publicly financed elections - we need corporations to have no influence at all. The Liberty Party like the Tea Bag group before it -- is backed by very large market manipulators.

The OP sounds like a corporate Troll even as he calls them out -- see the problem here? Honest people adopt opinions that Corporations have propagandized and raised them on and don't even know it. And if I were a shill, I'd have more than $25 in the bank account right now. But nobody knows anyone, so we just BELIEVE whomever echoes what we already hold true -- extremism gets reinforced, not reason.

reply to post by MichiganSwampBuck


Yes i can see that you have changed the parameters of your argument from

If a paid shill is running a dozen "fake" profiles on a half dozen forums, or what have you, they don't have the time to make every one an elaborate and convincing profile, so make sure your profile is genuine and full of friends and RIVALS to show you are for real.

where you say that a well maintained profile is a sign that you are not a shill to :

However, my point is that expressing yourself in your profile is one way to help reveal and communicate to other members your opinions that would be otherwise restricted. I'm not talking about personal attacks on other members, just make it clear where you stand with members who disagree with and challenge your quest to deny ignorance.

which doesn't seem to have anything to do with the premise of your first statement or anything to do with the OP or the topic of the thread which is about paid posters / shills. So no you dont have to 'spell it out' for me (which in itself is a phrase that could be considered a personal attack) its quite clear you are trying to back track slightly

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by REMflyer
Once a poster has proven themselves to be ignorant of an issue, it's a skip for me. Also skips for me are the posters who respond to the ignorance.

So, you skip people you deem ignorant of an issue...and anyone whom responds to the person you are ignoring.

Is there anyone left you do read on ATS?

Sounds like an ECHO chamber to me.

The problem is that people are drifting into cults and with no way to qualify every statement or fact, people tend to gravitate towards people saying things they already believe to be true. So instead of becoming more informed, they merely become more convinced in whatever they are inclined to believe.

As I've said; Extremism gets amplified on the web -- moreso of people lose faith in FACTS and suspect everything is propaganda. What people need to consider in sources is "who benefits, and who paid?" If you did not pay for the information -- commercials did, or someone wealthy who benefits by you being ignorant, then the information is suspect.

Paranoia works to the benefit of information shills as well as the disinfo itself.

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Christ sakes people.
If you have no actual counterpoint to a person when he makes a point,
or if you cannot simply call out the strawman argument when its made
Then maybe you just aren't strong at debate...calling the opposing side of a debate a troll is a sign of a weak mind...it is the sign of a lost argument when you resort to attacking the poster than the post itself...and yes, calling someone a troll, a disinfo agent, or anything of the like is attacking the person verses the post.

Even if the person is a so called disinfo agent, facts and logic can easily destroy such arguments made by the persons giving false info. This isn't the dark ages..lies and distortions are a google search away.

It's also sad that a person who is disagreeing with you might be setting you straight -- and you HOLD TRUE, something that propaganda put in your head.

There are still people who think we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan to get the 9/11 terrorists, for instance. At one time a large organization called "Big Tobacco" got everyone confused over the influence of cigarettes on lung cancer. Some issues are not so cut and dried (ahem, no pun intended on curing tobacco leaves), so we have to NOT call everyone a troll who disagrees with us.

We can all fall into "trolling" behavior -- that is; If you make a statement that doesn't advance discussion, and it only serves to rile people up -- you might be trolling.

However -- I've found that I cannot make a statement against people like Ron or Rand Paul without riling people up. I feel like the pro-anarchy ideas these men push are as useful to America as arsenic to a dying patient -- just another kind of poison -- on the OTHER HAND, I totally supported Ron Paul's win in a few key states and I believe the Republican conspiracy to shut him out was real; they rigged the votes. In large voting blocks they'd flip votes to Romney, while leaving smaller voting areas alone because the statistical manipulations would show -- anyway, old story. I just recognize that Ron Paul supporters are some of the most ardent and heart felt people, who have real concerns -- I just think they are going down completely the wrong path.

I say this as a person who voted for Ross Perot -- but he was pushing transparency and getting rid of the lobbyists who were corrupting the system. NOT just reducing government which does nothing to solve the problem. Government as a percent of GDP is about the same percent as it was in 1975 -- we just have less revenue.

Yes it certainly does depend on one's defination of well informed. Being well informed means reading the bill, Watching the actual senate or house broadcasts on cspan, reading the actual transcripts of speeches etc., knowing the history,and yes, following the money. It is helpful to give people ideas about how to inform themselves.
I agree, some people may think themselves well informed, when they are infact, not.
It is not too hard to spot trolls. You can also tell them by their timing.I have spotted 2 on this thread.I am but a beginner troll spotter.

Throw a "paid, disnfo, shill, troll" accusation into the pot and slam the lid on. I can't think of any better way to set people against each other than to randomly accuse nameless, faceless "others" of being paid to disrupt.

Look, its working perfectly...

Divider and conquer. The result being that trust and friendship evaporates in the wake.

Like somebody calling somebody else in a jail cell a "snitch". Or in the CIA, a memo being distributed about a "spy in the ranks". What result would you expect that to have? Are you stupid/ or just trolling for attention? Most definitely a "s*** stirrer". Lets fling some poop at the fan, tee hee hee...

This used to be a 404 subject and those accusing each other of being shills were banned outright.

People who make comments that polarize groups of people or people who take to the extreme one point of view or another in a way that is inflamatory to the opposite viewpoint should just be ignored all together.

The truth is usually somewhere in between two sides of an argument. We all should at least make an attempt to find that common ground. Otherwise you really arn't contributing anything to society you are just making things worse.

I can see people doing this. Most like the Nice Stuff and shy away from the Truth. State the truth and you get neg feedback! Most post are so far out there it's crazy! Only the idea could actually have some truth to it.
Let's use the Mar's hipe now. We are actually going in 2023; MarsOne and a few others like SpaceX have the idea. So what did NASA really find sending them little rovers? OPP'S NOTHING! Or why there is a war soon to be coming out East, OIL! Or why China is buying everything at twice the cost, opp's Own's 1/3 of US now.
Now what I just said could be true or I could be just a Larger Troll;
All you have to do is watch GNN and see how it's just a game show! A place like this to share some idea's is good for the Mind. Just because someone post's something anywhere does not mean it is Truth, just another Idea your either gonna look into or blow off!
As for the TROLLS, let's face it. There everywhere!

Want to know where paid trolls work? Public relations agencies throughout the globe. If you were to join one of these PR firms as a junior associate, part of your job is to influence opinions about your clients - whether it be governments, corporations or non-profits. And yes, the comments sections are part of a larger strategy to influence society about the opinions of the paying party. They've been doing it since around 2006 when PR bosses decided to attack comments sections and forums.

Another thing to think about, these junior associates at PR firms are college educated and typically pretty bright. They map out comment/response plans for clients, with client input, so before stories or posts are written they already have a plan to deal with the honest public.

An example - say I work for Coke Cola and an ATS thread pops up that's anti-sugar, anti-Coke, anti-obesity. I'll have a Google Alert set (say "coke" + "obesity"), and since ATS threads are indexed by Google, I'll know pretty quick -within a day- about a potentially negative conversation happening about Coke. Now Coke doesn't pay me be a shill or disinfo agent - they pay me to keep them in the conversation and in a positive light while filling the role of "crisis communications." So I get that Google Alert - I join ATS - figure out the requirements fast and jump into the conversation and start blaming lack of exercise, self control, and laziness for the obesity problem while moving the conversation away from Coke. Now Coke has 50 people like me, who do lots of others things for Coke in the media, but using the comment sections/forums does occupy a part of each day for each hired hand.

Ethically, people who do this should identify themselves as representing the company/government (and some do), but overall it's an abused system.

Edit: I just have to share this too. I know first hand of a CEO at a known company who goes crazy in the comments sections, and have heard stories of other senior people who do this. So if you think paid trolls all live in a dark corner of the web or in some dirty Internet cafe - you'd be wrong, some are in corner offices, others in cube farms at "respectable" organizations.

reply to post by PhoenixOD


PhoenixOD, I'm only asking you to read between the lines of what I posted.

If you look at my wording and the emphasis I made, you should be able to get the message. If it is too cryptic for you then I give up.

Don't loose any sleep over it and have a wonderful day.

MSB

Here is a great way to handle trolls... If you suspect a troll then do not engage with this person.

But if that doesn't work you can try these out....





That may be the last line of defense against trolls....

Actually for trolls I made a simple warning that I use if I find myself getting a little too annoyed by them, and it seems to drive them away..