[rkomorn]

> as though by an algorithm

How can you tell the difference between an algorithm and topics genuinely being consistently unpopular, though?

> Would anyone be surprised if the agencies are themselves running bots, algorithms and accounts to affect visibility of discourse on threads like these?

On HN specifically? Yeah.

On actually popular platforms? No.

[direwolf20]

I run a HN voting algorithm and opinion manipulation system across a few hundred accounts - only a few on any individual post. I use residential proxies to prevent correlation. The account I'm using right now to confess this to you is one that's already been burned.

Downvoting this comment is funny, because it's a burned account anyway, so not hurting me, and you want less people to know this fact about HN?

[alwa]

Do you represent an agency?

[Karrot_Kream]

Try it, it's really not that hard. I feel bad saying this and I don't do anything like this anymore but I did make a few accounts behind residential IPs that posted HN popular sentiments on topics that were actually factually incorrect and got a lot of upvotes pretty quickly. I stopped because I felt icky with how corrosive the whole thing could end up being. This was a while ago so not sure if new user sign up has become more difficult.

It turns out that open web forums are mostly emotional places and often the most inflammatory or in group opinions rise to the top. With that knowledge, manipulation isn't that tough.

[alwa]

Your experience makes sense to me, and it feels like just the sort of hacker-ethos tinkering that brings a smile to a lot of faces around here, mine included. Complete with the thrill of discovering that kind of power, then the “ick” factor catching up with you, and you deciding to stop.

Reminds me of rougher-and-readier days, when everything about online discourse felt more self-evidently… what’s the word… contingent? Provisional? Local? Playful, game-like, made-up? Afforded the seriousness of pub banter, rather than any kind of indicator of some broader Truth.

I think my point—which I apologize for putting a little snidely—echoed @rkomorn’s: I completely accept that you or “agencies” can manipulate HN’s proudly old-school mechanics. I just feel like our hangout here is less important in the scheme of things than we’d like to imagine it to be. At least to the sort of agencies who do that kind of work. They could, but why?

[Karrot_Kream]

Oh yes I agree. I doubt the big agencies are doing much here just because I don't think this forum is that "useful", it's not really an input into any big state or corporate actor's decision making that's worth paying attention to. I just think it's fairly easy to game this forum and I suspect it is absolutely being gamed by interest groups of individuals who want certain opinions to be more prominent.

I've been on Discords that have told their users to go and brigade HN threads to express their opinions. But these have been petty things like politics and programming language flamewars (two examples I've witnessed.)

[direwolf20]

How do you think the agencies and corporate suits got everyone to prefer MIT over GPL? It was all astroturfed.

[rkomorn]

Not sure what your point is?