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by hypeit 828 days ago
How is it a botnet? Apple isn't going to allow botnet like behavior in any app it approves in the app store.
2 comments
ceejayoz 828 days ago
The humans it feeds content into are the botnet.

For example, it's alleged that Russia promoted competing rallies on both sides of the political divide in the US in hopes of sowing discord in 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency#Ralli...

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hypeit 828 days ago
A human is not a bot. In addition to being dehumanizing, it removes agency to say that.
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ceejayoz 828 days ago
Pretending large groups of humans can't possibly be influenced to do things is lunacy.

We do weird things in crowds even without intentional propaganda at play. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.add8091

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bluefishinit 828 days ago
That's not a "botnet" though, advertising does the same thing. We don't call the people buying things they've been marketed a "botnet".
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ambicapter 828 days ago
There's definitely areas of advertising that are banned/controlled so that comparison seems more damning than beneficial (e.g. alcohol to minors, medication in any country other than the US
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ceejayoz 828 days ago
It needn't be a perfect comparison to be a useful one.
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bluefishinit 828 days ago
It's not useful though. I actually think it's very cool that TikTok got a bunch of young people to contact their representatives. If this ban goes through, the political blowback is going to be extreme. It will be like the Streisand effect x100,000,000.
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butlike 827 days ago
Just capitalism slaves :P
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butlike 827 days ago
I'm a human, and I identify as a "bot," so there.
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rjmunro 828 days ago
Didn't they already, in effect, DDOS the congress telephone system?
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hypeit 828 days ago
No, they did however increase engagement in democracy in a very dramatic fashion. More people making demands from their government is a good thing.
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j_maffe 828 days ago
When they're deliberately coordinated by foreign states with malicious intent? When the demands become more and more extreme towards the opposing side?
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bluefishinit 828 days ago
Opposing this ban isn't "malicious intent" lots of people think it's an infringement upon their rights for the US government to decide what they can and cannot see.
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