General Discussion
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MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Beware of the bots, they creep
And leap and glide and slide
Across the floor
Right through the door
And all around the wall
A splotch, a blotch
Be careful of the bots!
Apologies to Burt Bacharach - maybe...
TheBlackAdder
(28,211 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,211 posts).
A few present themselves as liberal defenders, but take extremes and are inflexible.
Their posts have subtle backhanded slaps imbedded within them that stoke Democratic divisions.
Keep an eye out for them.
It's like those stereograms, once you know what to look for and how, the images pop out. I have stereogram generating software, but I don't feel like cranking it up now, so I'll just link to some common ones from the outside.
.
Nitram
(22,877 posts)rhino and an elephant.
I could never decode those things
Nitram
(22,877 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,323 posts)MAGAts.
malaise
(269,157 posts)and spreading just as fast
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)Yah think!
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)It is dangerous work in dark places, but somebody has to do it ...
malaise
(269,157 posts)JCanete
(5,272 posts)SaschaHM
(2,897 posts)JCanete
(5,272 posts)Hekate
(90,793 posts)JCanete
(5,272 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)0) Important: Too much suspicion can be damaging for the community, but some amount of looking and checking could be useful.
1) Signed up within the last 12 months. Probably a surge of them in July, October, and January. Many (perhaps most) of members joining are quite legitimate (reference point 0 above).
2) High post count in a short time. 900 posts in 90 days is an average of 10 posts, day in day out. Note that members who are simply active can post at that rate. 15 years x 365 days = 5475 days. Highest post count I've seen is over 180,000, which is more than 30 posts per day, day in, day out, for 15 years. So perhaps the poster is merely active. (ref pt 0)
2b) High post counts can be jacked up with a lot of no-content non-political posts to non-political forums here, or lots of "+1" and "Yes I hate Trump too", especially in early stages of an account's life when flying under the radar is most valuable.
3) The goal of bots or bot-driven accounts is to be divisive and shit-disturbers. There was probably a lot of it going around and around both sides of the Bernie-Hillary nomination struggle and postmortems. (ref pt 0)
4) Operators might take two sides of an issue and amplify a controversy.
5) They often use concern trolling: "This {candidate's policy / party action / media personality} looks kind of bad from the outside. Do you think so too?" "The party's inaction on this issue is worrying me." ... and so on.
6) Some threads seem to have an unusually high proportion of posters with attributes matching pts 1 and 2.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,036 posts)In this case it had 72 posts since it joined in October 2016, but its use of RW terminology got me suspicious. Since it only had 72 posts, I think it was an amateur. Name not mentioned in public here.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141790431#post58
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=9153127
suffragette
(12,232 posts)d_r
(6,907 posts)billh58
(6,635 posts)today. Makes one wonder if the increase in bots following the Trumpster on Twitter has any connection...
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)malaise
(269,157 posts)No bot would ask that
pangaia
(24,324 posts)I mean I am not even aware of having seen a bot post!
Am I this dumb?
Is there hope?
Am I actually a bot...and don't know it?
malaise
(269,157 posts)What we know is there are bots everywhere these days
Greybnk48
(10,176 posts)Thanks for the heads up!
Hekate
(90,793 posts)canetoad
(17,183 posts)Are you watching on TV?