• @[email protected]
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    38 months ago

    Authoritarian countries like Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela do it much more than democracies.

    • @[email protected]
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      18 months ago

      I sometimes wonder if they’re just bad at it, so the astro turfing is obvious. The people posting have to be immersed in and understand the western site to blend in while remaining loyal to a very different kind of home communication and they often don’t manage it, and if they do that difference makes them stand out.

      While we have dozens of western police show up in any discussion of police violence to explain that it’s really hard. Not even astroturfing, I think, just people being themselves. Aside from being obviously police their posting style blends in perfectly, if there were western astroturf campaigns I think they would blend perfectly and use much more subtle techniques

      • @[email protected]
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        18 months ago

        A lot of them aren’t people, they’re LLMs. And I don’t think the actual people doing it stand out to the average person. They’re not posting “death to America, Putin is amazing,” it’s much more subtle.

        A common tactic is divide and conquer. They’ll support both extremes of a contentious political issue like abortion, gun violence, or policing.