Parsing the comments
For many years I’ve made it a practice to read a lot of comments all over the blogosphere and in the MSM. I’ve noticed in recent years a growth in comments from – for want of a better word – trolls. Maybe some are bots. Maybe some are by actual people who are paid to do this. My sense, for what it’s worth, is that the majority are written by real people who are not being paid, and who devote a large portion of their free time to the task and have multiple accounts, concentrating on large circulation papers and blogs. They seem especially common on large traffic blogs that use a service such as Disqus to farm out their comments rather than doing their own policing. Hostile trolls can become very numerous on and even overwhelm such systems. So perhaps they seem more numerous than they actually are – but they seem plenty numerous indeed.
I usually notice even more of them on an election night that’s disappointing for Republicans, such as November 4. They come to crow, they come to taunt, they come to mock and tease. Tons of trolls.
The reason I’m writing this, though, is that as I skim such comments these days, it occurs to me that I often can’t tell if they were from leftists or from people on the Fuentes/Carlson right. The reason is that the two groups say such similar things on an occasion like that: you MAGA Republicans are losers, Trump is a loser, Jews and Israel are evil, Republicans lose because they support Israel – that sort of thing. The only identifier for the Fuentes/Carlson group as opposed to the leftist group are these words you see now and then: AMERICA FIRST!
It’s easy to forget, looking at the cesspools that some comment sections have become, that most people have better things to do than crank out bile or to even follow any of this closely. But of course, that sort of inattention can be exploited easily by propagandists.
Politics really is downstream from culture, and the internet has not helped our culture or our politics.
With AI, trolling is going to get worse, much worse.
AI Agents are about to be unleashed. An agent isn’t a one-off prompt. An agent pursues a goal under a broad set of conditions. For example:
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Create 100 personas with differing viewpoints on a blog. Make them argue with each other and with real users to create confusion.
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Today most trolls are humans with too much time and malice on their hands. They throw bombs here and there but it’s hand-made work, therefore limited.
That is going to change.
huxley:
At least at present there are several ways to protect against that. If it became a thing here, I’d activate more of them.
neo:
Please say more, if possible.
huxley:
My lips are sealed – for now. 🙂
But one thing I can say is that sometimes people require email verification and certain types of responses before they approve commenters, and only approved commenters are allowed to post.
Related (from Alexis de Tocqueville…well, um, indirectly):
“Tocqueville versus the Groypers;
“The Frenchman’s treatment of Arthur de Gobineau offers a lesson for today’s intra-conservative debates.”—
https://lawliberty.org/tocqueville-versus-the-groypers/
(Betcha didn’t know De T. was a blogger…but once again, his intellect, judgment, discernment and humanity are extraordinary.)
+ Superb Bonus (from Sasha Stone):
‘Barack Obama and the “Bitter Clingers”;
‘Part One of a Virtual Civil War’—
https://www.sashastone.com/p/barack-obama-and-the-bitter-clingers
H/T Powerline blog (for both).
Fuentes seems like a troll to me. I’m not convinced he’s a serious nazi.
On AR15.com, the biggest gun forum, there are quite a few trolls. There are different types.
We had one sometime back who ended up killing himself. He lied about a lot of things, and had serious issues.
“I often can’t tell if they were from leftists or from people on the Fuentes/Carlson right. The reason is that the two groups say such similar things on an occasion”
The common thread is bitterness and resentment. Whether it manifests as Left or as extreme Right depends, I think, largely an individual’s social circle and self-perception.
On the PJ Media sites,I like to do the occasional funny or nice comment. I also will type a thank you to a nice reply. I am trying to improve the overall tone of the conversations.
But some days, I just have to avoid the comments to save my sanity.
AI trolling to get much much worse, says Huxley?
This means authorized membership requirements to post comment on fora will get firmer and harder.
Choose your friends closely, and keep your enemies….
“I am trying to improve the overall tone of the conversations”
I appreciate your effort, Liz, but probably in vain. Just like my using my turn signals here in Florida in order to educate Floridians what that lever on the steering wheel column is used for.
It sounds quite reasonable for you to ask confirmation from the listed email address. Of course, that would cut off your entertaining Spambot entries.
Kate:
Long ago I decided I didn’t want to restrict people that much. But if more problems arise over time, I’d do it. So far I haven’t needed to, because I have other ways that are sufficient to deal with the trolls I do have.
Physicsguy – thanks, however, I hope it is not in vain and that I make someone smile every day.
One thing I do is follow up on some of the weak reporting in the articles and find some source documents and link to them. Or another fun thing to do is to read the various links that authors include and do a cut/paste reply to someone who complains about the lack of data. Apparently the trolls do not read the linked articles.
huxley,
I know you know IT. IP addresses. If you get 10 comments from different accounts, all within 1 second of each other and all coming from the same IP address, or the same, first three octets… You’re getting spam’med from a botfarm.
Most blog software (all?) have the ability to detect swarms of comments from similar IPs and block them.
There are ways around that, but they are expensive. I’m convinced countries employ those methods. And, unlike neo, my guess for the past several years has been that A LOT of comments are bots and/or hired hands working for governments or other interests vested in fomenting debate or stifling debate or making an issue seem more popular than it is.
LLMs are already being used to exacerbate this problem in the manner you describe, and, as you predict, it will most assuredly get much worse.
huxley,
And here’s Grok (4.1!) explaining the ways around that:
For the record, this is the only blog I comment on. I commented frequently on my own blog, but that’s been dead since 2012, or so.
I do see other Rufus T. Fireflies in comment sections on other blogs. “Duck Soup” is a great movie and Julius Marx’s character has a lot of fans. It’s an especially fitting nom de plume or nom de guerre for someone who wants to make fun of politics and politicians.
So, if you see a comment from a Rufus T. Firefly written after 2012 on any blog other than neo’s place; he ain’t me.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Not only do bots come from different IPs, but actual human trolls often use VPNs. There are other ways to block them, though. I won’t divulge my secrets 🙂 .
In addition, I actually agree with you that a lot of the trollish comments we see are indeed bots, or paid people. But I also think a lot – perhaps the majority – are real people, not being paid but just dedicated to the task of messing with the right, and willing to devote a lot of time to doing it and pretending to be many different people through various methods.
The more flak you get the more you know you’re getting to them.
You(Neo) seem to do an excellent job policing the comments. So far everyone here is very smart and well spoken. I realize you’ve been doing this for quite awhile and which I hope you continue.
I am not a troll or bot.
Rufus, I follow another Rufus on X and asked them if you were the same. He did deny it.
Dwaz,
I also am not the Rufus AI that answers questions on Amazon.
Fifth generation warfare is a thing, where state actors and Allie’s use bots and people to push their views / agenda.
Dr Robert Malone wrote a book this year on it that’s deeply disturbing.
An article he wrote in 2022 on fifth generation warefare:
https://www.malone.news/p/welcome-to-fifth-gen-information?