The Dead Internet Theory -

[12FluidOunces]

BBC link: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56581266
Archive: https://archive.md/79oOw

'Fake' Amazon workers defend company on Twitter​

‘Fake' accounts claiming to be Amazon workers have been praising their working conditions on Twitter.
Votes are currently being counted in Alabama to decide whether Amazon warehouse workers will form a union.
But last night, a series of anti-union tweets were sent from accounts claiming to be staff.
Twitter has now suspended many of the accounts, and Amazon has confirmed at least one is fake.

This one appears to be a little more manual than the usual claims of AI demoralization but again, Twitter is awash in bots.

 

[ARghEAT]

It's stuff like this that made me finally, fully understand why The Great Firewall of China actually exists. It's less about keeping their citizens in and more about keeping us out. China has a history of being controlled by foreign nations and they are well aware of how subversion works.

It's also about controlling what the populace can express. Most Chinese people know about Tiananmen Square, but you can't express anything about it publicly, for example - and you can't express it anonymously on the Internet, either because there are very few to do so where it won't be blocked. The Chinese government is well-known for having at least some control over every major corporation in the country, so they'd rather have Chinese citizens stick to Baidu rather than use other social media that they have less control over.

 

[Xarpho]

Also everyone which of us Kiwi Farmers are bots do you think? I reckon we should absolutely be suspicious of anyone with a profile created after 2020 and who goes for low-hanging fruit like self-deprecating jokes and archiving in lieu of actual content.

Probably very few. Bots will generally show up if these three variables are fulfilled:

1) High-volume websites
2) Low gateway to entry
3) Incompetent or complacent mod staff

Kiwi Farms isn't super high-volume (not to Facebook/Twitter/etc. levels), it's not a particularly low gateway to entry (though bots can defeat CAPTCHAs), and finally the mod staff is autistic enough that they'll start noticing weird activity.

 

[Gimmick Account]

Bots are better used in places where high volume/low quality works, like reddit/chans/twitter or making some new platform you're inflicting appear populated to bait real engagement.
KF isn't like that, but it's an increasingly high-value target as other speech platforms are neutralised (tbh I'm not sure what's even left anymore) and every time the site spikes over mainstream drama. So it's a good bet we have a lot of sleepers and managed accounts but I doubt they're generally automated beyond monitoring.

I'm a solipsist, so most of the other people in the world are "bots".
Why should my internet experience be any different?

That's not really what solipsism means and the idea of shit like p-zombies isn't exclusive to that, it's just a good philosophical starting point.
But you should care because even with a fully solipsistic worldview you still have to interact with other "people" and it's in your interest for those personalities to be at least interesting and varied. Bots might be improving but they're still mostly shitty and even if they can fool you, they're still magnifying someone's cynical objectives en masse rather than acting as individuals, while signal-jamming both independently interesting personalities and your own sense of expression.

 

[Antarctic Hellbeast]

sad fact is you are correct. Said bots spam all kinds of faggot shit all over the boards and derail any type of meaningful conversation since theyre so paranoid about a successful arab spring type situation happening and overthrowing the US government when in reality, theyre paranoid retards with an itchy trigger finger and the tards theyre trying to fuck with and "disorganize" just want to shitpost and go on with their day in peace.

 

[serious n00b]

inb4 someone reposts that "all mods + jannies on /b/ are feds" image macro

 

[12FluidOunces]

MI5 warns of spies using LinkedIn to trick staff into spilling secrets

The security agency says thousands of UK workers have been approached by spies using fake profiles.

www.bbc.com

https://archive.md/95bwk

MI5 warns of spies using LinkedIn to trick staff into spilling secrets​

At least 10,000 UK nationals have been approached by fake profiles linked to hostile states, on the professional social network LinkedIn, over the past five years, according to MI5.
...
"Malicious profiles" are being used on "an industrial scale", the security agency's chief, Ken McCallum, said.

 

[Clarence]

Between all the cult mentality and people thinking "fuck that side, I'll take the opposite stance even if it's retarded", people not realizing when others are shit posting or trolling, and bots or paid shills pushing a narrative,
it's heavy to think about much people's opinions are being swayed based on who ever has the most free time or money to burn.

There really is "a war on for your mind".

 

[Gar For Archer]

Between all the cult mentality and people thinking "fuck that side, I'll take the opposite stance even if it's retarded", people not realizing when others are shit posting or trolling, and bots or paid shills pushing a narrative,
it's heavy to think about much people's opinions are being swayed based on who ever has the most free time or money to burn.

There really is "a war on for your mind".

That’s why the only way to win is to not play the game. Ever since I’ve realized this, my state of mind has greatly improved.

If you’re using the Internet for anything other than shitposting, you’re doing it wrong.

 

[Clarence]

That’s why the only way to win is to not play the game. Ever since I’ve realized this, my state of mind has greatly improved.

If you’re using the Internet for anything other than shitposting, you’re doing it wrong.

Thats a really good way to look at things.

 

[Uncle Ben's]

This is so beyond horrifying and evil that it has to be true.

 

[HymanHive]

i am not a schizo but if i was i would find this interesting (also i find this interesting and might be a schizo)

I've believed for many years that the number of bots (controlled by ai) and shills (one user paid to have hundreds of accounts) is astronomically high and that these bots are used to artificially inflate click rate and users on website to drive more funding from investors.

Social media and data collection are two bubbles that aren't far away from bursting

 

[A Welsh Cake]

Beep borp
There are no bots here
Bleep blaop

 

[HymanHive]

A few things to add:

Shadow banning exists on reddit. There's a chance that the users who have figured out that bots are bots, have been banned to shadow realm occupied by... other bots, to convince people that they aren't shadow banned. Its like an Internet re education, concentration camp or gulag.

There was a psychological experiment conducted using 10 people, 9 of whom were participants and 1 test subject. The ten people sat in a horseshoe shape in a classroom and were asked a series of true/false questions. The people were asked to raise their hand if they thought the answer was true. To start with, complicated questions were asked to give the impression of mixed answers. After a while, basic questions like "the sky is green". The 9 participants raised their hands to indicate that this is true, and in the vast majority of cases, the 1 test subject would raise their hand. Afterwards, the subject even admitted they knew the answer was wrong, but they didn't want to be the only one without their hands up. It is very easy to manipulate highly susceptible and suggestible people. 10 bots can pursuade 8 people who persuade 4 people...

There's a reason that the MSM and SM sites lean left, politically, and it has nothing to do with politics. It's because they are the group that is open to the most suggestion and are easier to influence than any of demographic. You can't control a population if people don't conform or consent (covid is the classic example)

EA, Activision and Microsoft, to name a few, have all been caught using shill accounts and bot farms to push their games and slag off the competitors. EA/Activision spat happened a decade ago.

What is the baseline of AI? It's what we see on the internet and in video games. But get this; AI on the Dream cast and original xbox was far superior to what we see today. Infact, around 2006, not long after the launch of Crysis and the memes, computing power seemed to take a nose dive. The Xbox 360 launched with more power than a high end PC, yet the graphics and AI did not keep in line with improvements you would expect through a generation. The AI in Gears of War 1, was far advanced to that of Gears of War 2. I believe our perception of AI has been artificially manipulated so that we believe AI is LESS competent than it really is.

Internet forums and SM is a ponzi scheme of investors. A tech crash is 12-18 months away. Chip shortages, artificially higher usage (due to lockdown) and the crypto pump and dump that's coming (happened loads in wall street over the century) will be the straw that breaks the camels back.

Thanks for reading my autism.

 

[mickey339]

Love these kind of threads: they act as a window to the American way of thinking.

Instead of cleaning up USA as their dear constitution perscribes the modern US inhabitant prefers meticulously writing up page long essays describing how the federal, marxist, AI, pharma bot banned them from Twitter.

 

[serious n00b]

Love these kind of threads: they act as a window to the American way of thinking.

Instead of cleaning up USA as their dear constitution perscribes the modern US inhabitant prefers meticulously writing up page long essays describing how the federal, marxist, AI, pharma bot banned them from Twitter.

 

[melty]

Internet forums and SM is a ponzi scheme of investors. A tech crash is 12-18 months away. Chip shortages, artificially higher usage (due to lockdown) and the crypto pump and dump that's coming (happened loads in wall street over the century) will be the straw that breaks the camels back.

I have a theory that all the data collected by Facebook and Google about everyone is simply not that valuable.
These companies are worth billions based on the perception that because they know everything about you, they can sell you things effectively. But is that really true? How often do you click on ads or see people clicking on ads and buying things from them? How good are the ads you're shown if you don't have adblocker up? A lot of people claim their phone is listening in and showing them ads based on conversations, but are they actually buying that stuff or just posting how creepy it is?

Just personally the only ads I can remember clicking on are ones where they show me a product I was already looking at, and I eventually decide to buy it. But it doesn't take a genius AI high tech big data apparatus to figure out people might want to buy things they keep looking at. And even then, it's often showing me stuff that I already bought so that's useless. Also without going into too much detail, I've worked with this industry off and on, and there is simply a lot of fuckery going on.

I think digital ads work about as well as any kind of media display ad, as in they raise awareness and some amount of people see them and become interested in the product. That's it. All the tracking people nonsense is just bs big tech uses to inflate their value and importance.

 

[HymanHive]

I have a theory that all the data collected by Facebook and Google about everyone is simply not that valuable.
These companies are worth billions based on the perception that because they know everything about you, they can sell you things effectively. But is that really true? How often do you click on ads or see people clicking on ads and buying things from them? How good are the ads you're shown if you don't have adblocker up? A lot of people claim their phone is listening in and showing them ads based on conversations, but are they actually buying that stuff or just posting how creepy it is?

Just personally the only ads I can remember clicking on are ones where they show me a product I was already looking at, and I eventually decide to buy it. But it doesn't take a genius AI high tech big data apparatus to figure out people might want to buy things they keep looking at. And even then, it's often showing me stuff that I already bought so that's useless. Also without going into too much detail, I've worked with this industry off and on, and there is simply a lot of fuckery going on.

I think digital ads work about as well as any kind of media display ad, as in they raise awareness and some amount of people see them and become interested in the product. That's it. All the tracking people nonsense is just bs big tech uses to inflate their value and importance.

Good point that i never thought about. Targeted ads are more effective than old-fashioned TV ads, and that's why targeted ads sell more, but like you say, how much more valuable are they?

The whole thing is a house of cards

 

[Rusty Crab]

How often do you click on ads or see people clicking on ads and buying things from them?

Boomers do. Boomers will unironically sign up for mailing lists offering nebulous "promotions". I guess in their minds that means something like "cupins for The Walmart".

I don't know how well targeted ads work on normal people. What I do know is that it doesn't tend to work on us.

https://archive.md/w4SyC

 

[Neo-Holstien]

I wonder if in ten years everybody is just going to be segregated into small discord/(video game online friend chat/party)/skype clone, groups with no larger community. I think the Pandora's box of the internet has made the processes in which our masters operate and rule over us more frustrating and complicated. Lets say hypothetically you wanted to prevent autist on the internet who actively check for bots and ban people whom they consider shills from forming communities larger then 40, how would you do it?