[mike_hearn]

Please be aware that a lot of stories about bots on social media are themselves misinformation. If you trace them back to the sources you arrive at academic papers that are just intellectually fraudulent in various ways, like they misrepresent their data or they are identifying real westerners as Russian bots. I did some deep dives on this topic back in 2017-2018 or so:

https://blog.plan99.net/did-russian-bots-impact-brexit-ad66f...

https://blog.plan99.net/fake-science-part-ii-bots-that-are-n...

Also, a lot of stories on Russia are or were plain old western misinformation, long predating Ukraine:

https://blog.plan99.net/правда-6e24757a67ba

So it's very important to be careful when making claims about "influencing elections" because there's such a long history of false claims from western sources, amplified by western media, of which the outlets you've cited are prime offenders unfortunately.

[benterix]

As this subject is interesting to me, I decided to read one of your articles to understand where you are coming from. And I came across this part[0]:

> The cited evidence is two men who joined the Lithuanian Rifleman’s Union, an organisation with a stable membership of around 10,000 people (0.3% of the population). ... The article presents no data or other evidence to suggest behavioural changes in the Lithuanian population: the anecdote of two people is generalised to the entire country.

So I checked the article and it says:

> "We are growing dramatically in numbers. Three years ago we had 50 people in Vilnius - now we have 3,000."

and then:

> Some 4,000 troops are being shipped out to the region - with 1,000 German soldiers allocated to Lithuania.

So while I believe your engagement in bot detection is genuine and you can offer some useful insights into how some bot detection platform are broken, as for the field reporting, forgive me but I still trust more traditional journalists than you, in spite of living on this Earth long enough to realize everything is imperfect.

[0] https://blog.plan99.net/правда-6e24757a67ba

[mike_hearn]

The part about the troops isn't relevant given that it's a story about a civilian militia and troops is a reference to a professional army. Still, it looks like you're right about the recruiting. This was written seven years ago, guess I didn't spot the quote about their growth. I'll remove that story and add a note to the bottom. There will still be 15 examples which is plenty to make the point, especially as that's the least important example.

> I still trust more traditional journalists than you

By all means, trust who you want! But bear in mind you could easily check these examples because there are links and sources for everything, something journalists often don't provide. For example, the Reuters story in the parent post about "Peace Data" doesn't seem to have any links at all.

[montjoy]

I want to believe you but now I have to trust your claims over what the NYT, etc are publishing. In order to do that I not only need to follow your sources but the original sources that NYT etc define to ensure they are the same. I also have to make my own conclusions about the data to see if I agree with anyone’s analysis. Frankly it’s too much to do when all I want is a few dopamine hits in the middle of the night before I can fall asleep again.

[stevenAthompson]

> In order to do that I not only need to follow your sources but the original sources that NYT etc define to ensure they are the same.

To put an even finer point in it, they're asking us to believe their blog posts over numerous large media outlets, and even above (presumably) peer reviewed research.

Anyone capable of understanding the issue of misinformation should see why that's a terrible idea, and why we shouldn't be encouraging that kind of behavior.

[montjoy]

Right. The other thing is that the parent claims to be an insider which is great- I love that perspective. However, as outsiders maybe the researchers did the best they could with what data was available to them. After reading the blog article it seems like the main thing the researchers may have had wrong is the margin of error. I don’t have a huge problem with that since science is supposed to get more accurate over time as refinements come in.

Perhaps it would have been better if the blog writer had approached the researchers and said, “Hey I read your paper. I have insider knowledge and I’d like to help you refine your model.”

[mistermann]

Herein lies the problem.

[benterix]

Hi Mike, so I'm watching what is happening in the misinformation are right now and while I don't disagree some people might have gotten some details wrong, somebody - or at least quite a lot of somebodys - is parroting the same statements that come from Kremlin on a mass scale. Some of these statements are completely untrue, many contains bits of real information mixed with false statements. I don't know who is behind these and I will never have a proof, but ignoring this massive phenomena will get us nowhere.

Specifically, what gets me worried is not the subset that is related to making Westerners averse to supporting Ukraine but many subtle and not so subtle attempts at sowing discord using the divisions already present in our society. This really works extremely well and we're super-weak when faced with these.

[mistermann]

Does it bother you if it is domestic media and politicians sowing discord?

How do you figure all of this stuff out anyways, do you have a massive spreadsheet or model of some kind? But then, those can inventory stories, but they typically don't help much with whether the stories are true, assuming that matters.

[benterix]

Yes, domestic media and politicians sowing discord bothers me as much, also because it is done in cold blood - for money and power, respectively.

I only focus on fragments of reality I'm familiar with. E.g. I have a few friends in Russia and Ukraine and it's interesting to compare what's reported in the media with first-hand accounts (which can also be biased BTW). As for the rest, I'm humble enough to admit I don't know and may never know the complete truth.

[mike_hearn]

Do you have any specific examples of claims that worry you?

[skhunted]

The Russian claim that Ukrainians are Nazis. This claim is based off of members of right wing paramilitary organizations that fight Russian occupation. Of course if such a broad generalization could be made based on a few people then would also claim that Russia are themselves Nazis based off of Prigoshin’s SS tattoos.

One can find numerous examples of right leaning Americans repeating the claim that Ukrainians are Nazis. These same people are intellectually immune to applying the same reasoning when confronted by similar evidence of Russian Nazism.

[skhunted]

It’s obvious that there are misinformation campaigns coming from Russia and China directed at Americans and others. That people suddenly no longer believe in the efficacy of the polio vaccine and other nonsense is evidence of the power of disinformation campaigns. Since they are effective, easy to do, and cheap it’s clear that all major state actors will engage in such things.