Shills

It is an easy enough accusation, and it is a real thing that happens all over social media. Private interests, corporations, sinister foreign government activities, domestic government activities, you name it. Here are some of my thoughts on accurately determining things as well as general thoughts. This guide will mainly be focused on shilling on Reddit. The tips are not a sure sign of shilling, just things to keep in mind when forming your opinion.

Thoughts

One thing to keep in mind as it relates to disinformation, misinformation, and astroturfing. You might actually agree with the shill. This objectivity is important in being able to recognize it. Being able to be critical enough to know when propaganda is working on you is paramount to detection. It feels good to see the information we want, and you are more likely to take it at face value.

Methods

• Check the account
  • Is the account very new? Very old? Accounts are bought and sold as a commodity. The most valuable are old accounts that have been consistently active. Is it a 6 year old account that just woke up and started posting frequently about a specific issue? Or is it a less sophisticated brand new account that is just part of a large network trying to blanket a topic and dominate the visible conversation.
  • What is their post history like? Random inane things about tv shows and a specific hobby then only one political viewpoint on a specific relevant issue? Suspect when a user only gets involved in confrontation or politics or products when it is a singular issue.
• Check the thread
  • Is there a common phrase or pattern of speech/thought dominating the thread? Or is it a varied mix of opinion like most things in life.
• Check the subreddit
  • How often do you see suspect posts? How frequently are these the only things at the top levels of popularity compared to more moderate takes never rising to the top? Is it a very large sub? These are more at risk to shilling because the impact they have.
  • How frequently are opposing views removed? How frequently can you see suspicious users based off of the first 2 tips?
• What is the topic?
  • This one becomes the most likely to give false suspicion and why I believe being able to detect your own biases and susceptibility to propaganda so important. Any information about war will have propaganda and shilling from both sides. To me, that is beyond debate. On occasion, take a step back from any personal views, and just analyze what you see as if you knew nothing.

Closing thoughts

I initially wanted to do a longer write up but never found the time so I will just keep this.

A practice I really would like to impart is this-

You see a piece of information, an article, a comment, a social media post, whatever. Read it at face value, do not think about who what when where or why it was posted. What does it make you think? Now add in context. Who posted it? Why was it posted? When was it posted? Add in this same critical thought. Without wondering about motives, what does it make you think? Now add in the motives, what does it make you think? Take it a step forward, even if you believe it is misinformation, what does the fact it is misinformation make you think? You never truly know the motives. Trying to make something obvious misinformation even has value. Being critical is important. Who benefits from you thinking the thing that you actually think? How do you know your view is not derived from propaganda?

Thanks for reading.

The main debunk of this topic that you often see getting pushed around-- that the US government doesn't care what you say online, or that "you're paranoid if you think government agents are arguing with you on the internet" has been thoroughly debunked: https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformation-dhs/

Although various agencies of the US government, and many other governments, have been openly caught spreading propaganda with fake social media accounts numerous times in the past, this still seems to be in "conspiracy theory" territory, even when the open facts prove the case. No "theory" here.

This Intercept article also highlights the fact that we are looking at two sides of the same coin here, when this subreddit primarily focuses on one: limiting/banning certain kinds of speech on one end, then injecting government-funded narratives into social media and other kinds of media, with the underlying goal to modify the overall opinions of the public, secretly.

Although I highly recommend reading the article in full (it's long), here are a few teaser quotes:

“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.

In late February, Easterly texted with Matthew Masterson, a representative at Microsoft who formerly worked at CISA, that she is “trying to get us in a place where Fed can work with platforms to better understand mis/dis trends so relevant agencies can try to prebunk/debunk as useful.” Meeting records of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, the main subcommittee that handles disinformation policy at CISA, show a constant effort to expand the scope of the agency’s tools to foil disinformation.

In June, the same DHS advisory committee of CISA — which includes Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya Gadde and University of Washington professor Kate Starbird — drafted a report to the CISA director calling for an expansive role for the agency in shaping the “information ecosystem.” The report called on the agency to closely monitor “social media platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper partisan media, talk radio and other online resources.” They argued that the agency needed to take steps to halt the “spread of false and misleading information,” with a focus on information that undermines “key democratic institutions, such as the courts, or by other sectors such as the financial system, or public health measures.”

To accomplish these broad goals, the report said, CISA should invest in external research to evaluate the “efficacy of interventions,” specifically with research looking at how alleged disinformation can be countered and how quickly messages spread. Geoff Hale, the director of the Election Security Initiative at CISA, recommended the use of third-party information-sharing nonprofits as a “clearing house for trust information to avoid the appearance of government propaganda.”

The board faced immediate backlash across the political spectrum. “Who among us thinks the government should add to its work list the job of determining what is true and what is disinformation? And who thinks the government is capable of telling the truth?” wrote Politico media critic Jack Shafer. “Our government produces lies and disinformation at industrial scale and always has. It overclassifies vital information to block its own citizens from becoming any the wiser. It pays thousands of press aides to play hide the salami with facts.”

DHS eventually scrapped the Disinformation Governance Board in August. While free speech advocates cheered the dissolution of the board, other government efforts to root out disinformation have not only continued but expanded to encompass additional DHS sub-agencies like Customs and Border Protection, which “determines whether information about the component spread through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter is accurate.” Other agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Science and Technology Directorate (whose responsibilities include “determining whether social media accounts were bots or humans and how the mayhem caused by bots affects behavior”), and the Secret Service have also expanded their purview to include disinformation, according to the inspector general report.

An FBI official interviewed by The Intercept described how, in the summer of 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, he was reassigned from his normal job of countering foreign intelligence services to monitoring American social media accounts. (The official, not authorized to speak publicly, described the reassignment on condition of anonymity.)

The first FBI official, whom The Intercept interviewed in 2020 amid the George Floyd riots, lamented the drift toward warrantless monitoring of Americans saying, “Man, I don’t even know what’s legal anymore.”

There was a user who talked about seeing some forms shills (for governments) had to sign. I tried googling for some but didnt see any. I'm curious about the forms and wonder what they look like.

Greetings /r/shills,

This is just your yearly reminder that all posts must be manually approved by a moderator. For the last few years, we've been getting sometimes up to 10 spam posts per day, so this sub would be quite useless if we left the door open. Not only that, but we have to make sure that the post is not just a witch hunt of some random person or a frivolous accusation.

If you don't receive an approval in a reasonable amount of time, you can always send us a modmail message here or simply private message me for a faster response. I'm usually online at least a couple hours per day, so you can even message me or the mods beforehand and let us know when you plan on posting so you can receive an immediate approval.

The subreddit is still here and it's still moderated. We just need more content. Good, convincing evidence is key, but most media reporting on this subject is also perfectly acceptable content. Our main rules can be found on the sidebar, or see below:

Rules

We strongly discourage witch hunts here. The mods may remove submissions depending on the weight of the evidence. If you don't see your post within a few hours, message us and we may approve it. We also encourage self-posts with your thoughts and theories about forum manipulation.

No cross-posting from other subs.

Do not post personal information. r/shills must uphold its high standard of quality content and information while simultaneously adhering to Reddits TOS.

And remember that the stickied megathread was designed to be cited if you come across people who aren't very familiar with the topic.

Mexican subreddits have been subjects to increasing activity by shill and fanatic accounts for (at least) the past 12 months.

In an effort to raise awareness and reduce their influence, I created /r/botsmexico/.

I took on the hobby to identify shill/sponsored or fanatic accounts, to which I refer as "Bots", although they are not automated accounts and are in fact operated by humans.

I have detected patterns that allow me to identify different types of shill accounts, and the method seems to have a reasonably good rate of accuracy, with obvious mistakes and their corresponding corrections.

Since my activity started to bringing some unwanted attention and it was generating some confusion, I made a post where I explained what I did and how i did it.

I'm anticipating some reaction from botfarms in the next few days/weeks and would like to know the opinion of a community that is familiarized with the topic.

Since this is focused on mexican subreddits, the main language is Spanish, but if this sparks interest in this subreddit, I'd be happy to translate.

So, what do you guys think about this? How would you recommend our communities to handle this?

Thank you guys!!

reddit.com/r/hoocoodanode

I can't believe what I'm seeing. Is this allowed?

I noticed that often when you post something that goes against shills' agenda, in addition to downvoting and comment responses for damage control, there is often a shill post the next day or so with similar content to the previously attacked post except if follows the shills' agenda and is promoted with upvotes and comments.

I am guessing that a reason for this is so that subscribers who saw the first post will see what the actual community consensus is on the topic. Also by including the correct key words, those doing a search for that specific topic will see the shill post before the original.

So if you ever see a post that looks unnatural, but there is no obvious agenda that is being promoted, check to see if there was a recent similar post it could be suppressing.

They really don't even hide it:

https://www.darpa.mil/program/social-media-in-strategic-communication

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

Everyone is up in arms over the Russian troll farms. It is nothing new. These troll farms are operated under the guise of "research". The true intent is to influence public opinion. Every nation does this and uses the same language/lies to justify what they are doing. The u.s. president used these tactics to win the election. Yet the government blames Russia and has successfully influenced opinion to support this narrative. This is on the American citizen's shoulders. The citizens are the ones accountable for their actions. 63,000,000 people got brainwashed from Facebook marketing/propaganda. And it's Russia's fault? He basically hired a marketing firm to use marketing tactics to persuade people to vote for him. It's what every candidate does. This was just the most successful and biggest campaign using these tactics. People need to take responsibility for what they read and how they interpret it.