Volunteers found Iran's propaganda effort on Reddit — but their warnings were ignored
More than a year before the announcement from Facebook and Twitter, a group of moderators on Reddit noticed a peculiar pattern of submissions.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
More than a year before Facebook and Twitter announced that they had discovered a new foreign influence campaign tied to Iranian state media, a group of volunteer moderators on Reddit noticed a peculiar pattern of submissions.
Some Reddit users were repeatedly posting divisive political rhetoric from a group of obscure news websites. That effort led a Reddit moderator from California named Alex Brown and a small team of volunteers to investigate. Using publicly available data about who started the news websites, they were able to find evidence of a wide-ranging propaganda network across the social news site with ties to Iran.
Brown and other amateur researchers notified Reddit, but the website, the fifth-most visited in the U.S., according to data from Amazon’s Alexa analytics, did not respond.
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So let's see if we can get interest in the featured article. Will be looking for NT writers to put in this spot in the future.
So I personally have never gotten into Reddit. I visited a couple of tech conversations, but the formatting was a very discouraging jumbled mess... and never went back.
Considering how slow tech companies are to make any serious effort to clean up their acts, I think we must doubt their will to do so. After all... they are not in business to spread sweetness and light; they are in business to make money, and on the internet, the rule is simple: Clicks are money .
Just as industrial companies pollute water and air because doing so improves their bottom line, so internet companies pollute the internet because it improves their bottom line.
It is not in the financial interest of "Facebook & Friends" to keep it clean... and "financial" is the only thing that counts. Just as industrial companies only clean up their pollution in the measure that not doing so would cost even more... so internet companies will only clean up their act reluctantly, kicking and screaming in their desire to keep getting those clicks!
The glory of the internet is anonymity. We can go online and be a different person. We can say things that we'd never say in the real world.
The shame of the internet is anonymity. We can go online and be a different person. We can say things that we'd never say in the real world.
Anonymity is a relative thing. In a fairly small community like NewsTalkers, we "know" each other, whether we know real names or not. Each of us knows who believes what. We can accurately predict each other's reactions to events.
This doesn't prevent some NTers from being dishonest, or from seeding fake news. But we all know who does these things, so we can take account of the authors.
NT is somewhat self-regulating. Reddit not at all.
Well said Mr. Nelson. I viewed Reedit in the same manner.
BTW, what is the photo posted in your comment all about? I is it an Reddit editing machine or is it something you're trying to sell to Perrie?
Mr. Verlinger--nice to see you again. Have you been away for a while or did we just not cross paths/
It's a "governor" on an old steam engine. A device that prevented the engine from going faster and faster until it seized up. It seemed appropriate to this topic: the internet's problem is its lack of governor.
Welcome back, Jerry. Where have you been hiding yourself?
Wow, your comment was posted one weekago and I'm just seeing it. I have been around, but in a very spasted manner. The problem is the change that Perrie made regarding the way (or lack of a way) we are informed (or not informed) when someone makes a post on our discussions or follow-up comment regarding our discussions. Previously we were notified of a comment via our personal email, but now Perrie told me we are only notified via the "Track" button on the NewsTalkers banner.
For me that system does not work, because I have to be on NT to see the comments on "Track". When I'm on my email I go where the email sends me, now it never sends me to NT. IMO, Perrie believes NT members must sign in every day and check for messages. Personally, I don't believe that is a very effective system.
It took a while to get used to the new system, but it's actually better than the email notifications.
The easiest way I have found is to create a "Bookmark" pointed at
This takes you straight to the "New Discussions" version of the Tracker, which is where you usually want to be. You can leave NT for as long as you wish, and be brought straight back to where the action is.
Truth, as beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
"It was pretty easy to tell what the angle was here: pro-Palestine, pro-Iran, anti-Israel, generic anti-America sentiment or articles about exposing the evils of the West," Brown said.
Since when did being pro-palestinian become propaganda? Is Brown trying to say that there is no evil in the West, or simply that it is anti-american to point it out?
Propaganda, fake news, has been with us since humans learned to communicate. This is not a new thing, and the purging of that which someone decides is propaganda has been with us since the first fake news story. Many times, truth has been purged because it didn't fit with the beliefs of some individual or group.
I personally would rather have all of it, truth and non-truth, available to me so that I can make the decision. You can't protect people from themselves.
For an alternative take on the above read the below link:
Saudis Move to Behead Female Activist as Facebook Censors Anti-Saudi Content
Whose propaganda is true? Whose is false?
It's also clear that what Iran was doing was fundamentally different from what Russia was doing. Pro-Iran sentiments on issues largely concerning Iranian interests isn't comparable to manipulating foreign elections.
Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda
Why should inauthentic military accounts not be deleted?
I don't know whom you are addressing...
As far as I am concerned, all fakes should be deleted.
Wasn't addressing any one in particular. Just asking a question.
I'm rather of the mind of just letting them all stay out there. I'm not keen on someone else telling me this is fake and this is not.
... on the condition that we are able to tell the difference. As AI becomes more competent, Photoshopping has become more or less undetectable. The same will arrive soon for text. What then?