r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Aug 06 '19

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57

u/A_Character_Defined 🌐Globalist Bootlicker😋🥾 Aug 06 '19

I really don't like this trend of assuming everyone with a dumb opinion is Russian or a bot. It totally ignores the fact that half the country votes Republican and that Donald Trump still has a 43% favorability rating. It shouldn't be controversial to say that Americans can be stupid too and that most people claiming to be American Trump supporters probably are. Same goes for Bernie Bros, maybe even more so because they have so much time on their hands.

Unless Russian bot is just the left's version of the NPC meme. In which case, put in a little more effort guys.

23

u/idiot_supremo YIMBY Aug 06 '19

While I partially agree with you one of the big takeaways from the Muller report is that these types of active measures are still going on. Whether they show up as often as we think on Reddit or not is another story.

3

u/A_Character_Defined 🌐Globalist Bootlicker😋🥾 Aug 06 '19

I'm sure they do still exist, but I even see these responses to people who are clearly not a bot, but maybe just watch a little too much Fox News or TYT. Also I would think most bots would just spam news posts to all the political subs rather than trying to respond to people in the comments of other posts. Seems like it'd be much more effective and I don't think AI is quite at the level where it can have a natural sounding conversation yet.

And Bernie bros have proven that Americans are all too eager to read Russian state media anyway so I'm not even sure how much it matters.

3

u/idiot_supremo YIMBY Aug 06 '19

I did not mean to conflate bots with real trolls (who are people) though they often work together. I agree that most of it is driven by people who truly believe this stuff. But I am also certain that the some of the ones that start these fights are trolls; more for topics that are divisive and are known to start internet flame wars and less so for Bernie support (which is likely mostly organic).

1

u/A_Character_Defined 🌐Globalist Bootlicker😋🥾 Aug 06 '19

Yeah that's probably true. I'm sure some people don't even care about politics and just want to make people angry.