If democrats are using bots, I’m certain republicans and anyone else there in the political arena is going to use it. It’s just the fact that you paint a picture of Obama being the evil mastermind of bots and that democrats are solely to blame here using all these bots to take down good ol honest Bill who’s infallible not that maybe it’s possibly Bill O’reilly did sexually harassed women. Again, it’s funny how the conversation isn’t concentrated on whether O’reily did it or not and there’s zero defense of him. It’s all the bots fault here. Sounds really ridiculous and a stretch to me. I can at least accept the argument that maybe he settled because he is innocent and they just wanted it to go away quietly and not dragged out in court. But no, we are going to blame the bots for this.
[quote=“tempogain, post:62, topic:159640, full:true”]
Exactly. Just because something exists doesn’t mean it has any application here.[quote]
Oh, pardon me, I thought you were saying it doesn’t make sense, that it’s not conceptually possible, not a plausible explanation. If it’s about proof of application, then this is just a political difference, I would of let that go a long time ago.
If matters are as Jotham described, with massive numbers of bots being applied, it should be easy to prove, right?
Depends what your standard of proof is. Even software detectors have trouble identifying them. The bot masters get better and better at escaping detection. Some badly designed bots are easy to spot, and Twitter destroys those easily. It’s a bit like viruses, the self-adapting ones survive and escape detection, very hard to find.
But I think it works like proof, certainly strong evidence, that it’s nearly impossible for humans to generate and keep up with that kind of activity.
I don’t think you have to be a mensa member to figure that out. Typical conspiracy theory type thinking being applied here. Something looks odd–I would like to think something occurred–I have no proof but I’ll say it anyway. The argument you make when you have no proof but would desperately like to think that something happened. Let me know when it can actually be demonstrated in some way.
Well, you’re not gonna get the kind of proof that you require, which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It’s a bit like global warming, you’re in a courtroom, you look at evidence and weigh it and use ratiocination, and weigh probabilities. Like I said, the dots are provided, which are ample, you can connect or not connect according to your preferences.
Blanket assertions about “Democrats” as if they were some massive block of clones also demonstrate a lack of any form of reasoned analysis being applied to the situation.
Interestingly enough, the New York Times does write an article about Republicans, Trump doing it. They even have researchers studying it, ha. I’m sure you believe this. But if you can’t fathom in the advertising case just because researchers aren’t looking for it, then that’s just politics and not intellectual curiosity or fairness.
But this is not the what you laid down, you painted a picture of Obama as the mastermind of bots, and the democrats are using this technology to destroy anyone who is against them. All of this sounds almost exactly like the recent episode of homeland.
Of course, Obama has his shadow government. Bots are not beneath him.
My misunderstanding with Tempo was I thought he was saying the explanation wasn’t even possible, not that he thought it was possible, but just looking for proof.
All I’m saying is that if it was this easy to use bots to and get away with it on a scale you are talking about. It would be something people would be on. You are talking about something that can literally change market forecasts, take down people, change political elections all the way to the highest office held. I’m just not seeing the scenario you laid out as something realistically feasible. Not that bots are not feasible. Just the way you painted how everything went down.
no he was saying the proof of the scenario you put out, i’m being nice not calling it a wacko conspiracy theory.
That evil obama just wants to control the world. I knew he was part of the Illuminati
People are on it. Twitter destroys them all the time when they detect them. But some designers are very clever and they don’t get detected and destroyed. Democrats would pay good money to find those designers, which everyone wouldn’t have access to.
You could probably easily buy bots to make a million followers on your Twitter account. But once you get over a million with fake bots, Twitter is likely to police it up.
Mostly these bots are used successfully by authoritarian governments. They do seem to be affecting elections a lot in Latin America. Not too much in democracies, probably as people are more sophisticated and can think for themselves. This is key, when people are influenced by surface stuff, large number of likes, followers, and their opinions, and not really thinkers, they will easily be swayed by them.
The Left was using them before the Right caught on, but the tide seems to be turning. Again, I don’t think this aspect is the most important, but rather internal politics at Fox. They could easily fight fake accounts.
It’s like World War I, people said it was started because a Serbian prince was assassinated in Serbia. But it was just the igniting match. Fact was that Germany and France were both prepared to fight and looking for a context, anything, to get them going. Probably the brothers are making huge changes at Fox and O’Reilly was going anyhow.
There’s a process to this sort of thing. It’s not instantaneous. Bots are relatively new. When everyone catches on, they’ll become ineffective. In the meantime, people are fooled by them. That’s how this sort of thing works.
Yes, of course Republican-friendly orgs will start doing it, if they haven’t already. That’s a step in the process. It’s how an arms race proceeds.
But nepotism will never go away. It’s a fundamental human failing. Fox News is facing a bleak future. It probably won’t go under soon, but it will become irrelevant - its unique value proposition destroyed. No more dominating its niche.
And the niche as a whole will continue its slow decline. Cable news will become something hipsters watch ironically. Mainly in airports.
Cheating is wrong, except when Republicans do it.
[quote=“rowland”]When I was young, I too had a childlike faith in the rationality and realism of decision makers.
[/quote]
[quote=“tempogain”]That’s interesting. I was never so delusional to think that people are actually motivated by blatantly imaginary crap somebody made up.
[/quote]
No Santa for you?
[quote=“rowland”]Bots are relatively new. When everyone catches on, they’ll become ineffective.
[/quote]
What, people will stop using the interwebs? Some people already have, but it’s a little inconvenient. For the rest, bots will simply adapt. 
Could it be because you made vague predictions and justified the vagueness by saying everything was obvious? 
I predict we will all die (eventually). One day, someone will read this and realize I was right. 
Finally, a shockingly insightful prediction I can get behind! (Except for the airports part.)
Cheating is going against the rules. When rules are arbitrary and subject to change, so is cheating. See Alinksy on the ethics of means and ends.
Me, I game the systems. It’s what winners do.
In other words, might makes right.
Does that make leftists right, as long as they win?
I think this is a positive to get away from the traditional media outlets. I’ll be tuning into the podcasts. The Factor was the only show that I liked on Fox News.
Well, the Factor man has lost, so… you do the math. 
This is looking like part of a larger pattern. False or exaggerated allegations for political or ideological purposes.
http://mensrights.bizhosting.com/
And lest we doubt there’s a double standard, remember all the left apologists for Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Al Gore and various other alleged horndogs. As Whoopie Goldberg said, it may be rape, but is rape rape?
Say, whatever happened with that Duke rape scandal? And did you know what the inventor of Earth Day did to his girlfriend? (Hint: it was environmentally conscious.)
Meanwhile, the planned emasculation of Fox News by the trust fund duo is underway, lest there was any doubt of what this was really all about. This is how they silence opposing viewpoints. But there are ways around it. It just takes some brains and guts and tech savvy.
Looks like another domino may be falling here
“Now-debunked?” I must have missed that one. Unproven, that’s true, but the fact that the article doesn’t even mention that Wikileaks is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Seth Rich’s murderer raises real issues about the journalistic integrity of The Atlantic magazine.
Their value has admittedly been dipping lately, now at around $27/share.
I was reminded of the discussion of twitter bots when I saw this:
Highlight: people from facebook etc. offered their services to Donald & Hillary, but only Donnie accepted.
"People in the Clinton campaign confirmed that the offer was made and turned down. "
So they decided to give up the opportunity to advertise on the main social media platform in the Us? Oh geez, I wonder why she lost.
This makes me wonder: how did the clinton campaign use the 1.5b dollars they raised? Trump had countless more rallies than hillary, plus his organization was collaborating with social media to advertise, which is something I guess doesn’t come cheap.