Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Trolls For Trump

Jebus, this is definitely worth a read.
But it is not going to make you happy.
The internet has not been an unmitigated good for humanity.
I can't resist pointing out that the author is full of shit at a few points (e.g. "GamerGate, a vicious campaign against feminists in the video-game industry.") But that is really, really, really not worth mentioning against the backdrop of the extreme, thermonuclear jackassery of this Cernovich person. I mean holy crap. This guy pegs the repulsometer.
Anyway.
You have been warned.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You want to see something really scary? Go to /pol/ on 4chan and wait for those guys to set up a social media brigade to spread misinformation and downright lies about people.

For instance, back in August, I believe, just before Trump made the claim that "Hillary Clinton is a bigot," 4chan decided that they would create fake Twitter accounts and pose as outraged black people who claimed that Hillary Clinton was a racist because she wants to trap black people in welfare. The hashtag/meme campaign started trending in lefty circles within hours. It wasn't two weeks later before Trump started echoing this sentiment on the campaign trail.

Perhaps this was a coincidence, but given the fact that Trump seems to get his news from fringe sources and viral social media stories, it wouldn't surprise me if there is *some* causation there.

4chan is notorious for doing this kind of thing, and I really think that people underestimate them; they laugh them off as a bunch of pissed off, basement-dwelling neckbeards (which they kind of are).

My knee-jerk reaction is to say that the Kremlin is involved somehow, but I've got nothing to back that one up, so...bleh.

Maybe the UN will start doing something to crack down on 4chan. Or maybe I'm just overestimated their influence. Gods I might be going crazy..

12:53 AM  

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