We banned that account a long time ago, but having taken a quick look I see no reason why you would call that a state propaganda account, other than (1) it expressed strong views that you strongly disagree with, and (2) that always makes a post more likely to seem fake, disingenuous, etc.
From my point of view, there's no evidence for this. Doesn't mean it wasn't true, of course, but in the absence of evidence I would go with the simpler explanation, which we know for a fact happens all the time: there are a lot of people who feel strongly about the topic and share the opinions this account was stating (just as there are on the opposing side).
I also don't think your theory is consistent with all the other posts that account made about everything from Photoshop to Javascript floats to package managers to whether rms is autistic, OpenBSD, and so on. Of course one can argue that this just proves how clever the state propagandists are, and how good at covering their tracks, but this line of reasoning ends up getting pretty absurd.
The fact is that HN has, and has had for years, very many commenters articulating these same opinions, sometimes within the site guidleines and sometimes not, and just the same is true of commenters articulating opposing positions. I don't see any difference between the comments people single out as examples of putative astroturfing and the others. Moreover there's nothing in the private data we have that would change this picture significantly. On the contrary, all the evidence points in the other direction: real users with strong feelings and therefore strong opinions.
This kind of thing is exactly why we have that guideline that asks users not to post accusations of astroturfing, foreign agenting and so on, but rather to contact us privately. We're not saying these things don't exist—but the odds that you (I don't mean you personally, of course, but everyone in this situation) are reading-in something that isn't there are orders of magnitude higher.
Dang, I would appreciate a reply, since you kind of skirted around my main point, which is that pro-Israel accounts have been posting copy-pasted verbatim-identical talking points going back all the way to at least 2014. Multiple accounts are literally posting the same word-for-word replies, but we're supposed to pretend that it's impossible for state actors to run influence operations on HN. How?
You've given me one link so far, and I gave you an in-depth reply. That's not "skirting around" and it's not telling you to "pretend" (as if such a thing would work). If you want me to engage with you seriously, you should omit such swipes. Writing in-depth responses to these questions is extremely time-consuming, and that means taking time away from the other 50,000 things we're overwhelmed with. I'm not going to keep doing this if you signal that you're unwilling to accept an answer you don't already agree with.
It is common on open internet forums (like HN) for people to become convinced that they're surrounded by enemies, and eventually that the mods are in cahoots with their enemies - because the alternative is to believe the simpler-but-more-painful theory that other legit users sincerely and strongly disagree with them. I've written about this many times (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098).
arrived at the same "Please, no simplified propaganda on HN" phrasing when they're coming from separate accounts within a short period of time. You've written a lot of text, but so far you still haven't answered how these two pro-Israel accounts ended up posting the exact same phrasing if they're not sockpuppets. I'm not sure how I can make it any more clear.
This is so absurd that I can hardly spell out how absurd it is.
(1) You didn't link to those two posts, only one of them (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48900528). Now you're complaining that I "still haven't answered" a question you didn't ask in the first place.
(2) Are you seriously asking me to tell you why 2 comments from 12 years ago happened to use the same turn of phrase? How should I know? Perhaps one saw the other say it and repeated it.
(3) The fact that you have to go back to 2014 to even pose your question is self-refuting. If this were a serious issue, you'd have no difficulty supplying recent examples.
I linked to a discussion thread linking to the other post. My point is that Hasbara has been active on HN for a long time and you're turning a blind eye to it. On other sites you will frequently see their sockpuppets posting the same verbatim-identical talking points, and they were sloppier about parroting the same lines on HN back then. They have a major presence here, and you need to stop pretending that they don't exist. Hasbara is a civilian-state fusion that enlists regular Israelis to shill for the government while making smalltalk on the side to appear organic.
@dang I don't understand why we're talking about some random posts from 12 years ago.
I made a very simple point in the comments here - the headline and article make extraordinary, shocking claims that are not supported by the text of the legislation. For this I get accused of being a sock puppet or a paid foreign agent, despite the fact that I rarely comment on this topic, have a long comment history on a variety of topics, and didn't even say anything in support of Israel, I simply pointed out that the premise of the article is not just incorrect, but laughably so.
I would also like to point out that other comments in this thread include references to 1950s propaganda about Jews controlling the US government, references to how people who support this legislation are "Epstein-bought politicians" and other anti-semitic (not anti-Israel) trash. The far-right 1950s US politician quoted elsewhere in these comments was not anti-Israel - Israel barely existed at that time - he was just an old-fashioned Jew-baiter of a kind that was common in that era (he's mostly remembered for his McCarthyist campaigns against celebrities, but that's another story).
This article is just a new version of those ancient "a secret cabal of Jews control the world" conspiracy theories. The legislation is the equivalent of, say, an HN-funded company signing an MOU with a university to collaborate on R&D. Nobody would describe that as a "merger" between the company and the university. To go from "the DOD will appoint someone in it's vast bureaucracy to supervise research collaborations with Israel" to "the entire vast US and Israeli militaries will merge into one" is absurd and you only get there if you're primed to see the world through this conspiracy-tinted lens.
Do people unfairly conflate legitimate criticism of Israeli actions with anti-semitism? Sure, but then you look at a post like this and commenters are immediately jumping to how the US has been a "puppet state" of the Jews for "generations" (to quote another commenter), and then any pushback is immediately attacked as illegitimate, paid shilling.
Why would multiple accounts make the same very specific "Please no simplified propaganda on HN" quip if they weren't collaborating somehow? How could multiple accounts arrive at that same exact phrasing if they weren't controlled by the same person or group of people? I honestly can't think of another rational explanation.
From my point of view, there's no evidence for this. Doesn't mean it wasn't true, of course, but in the absence of evidence I would go with the simpler explanation, which we know for a fact happens all the time: there are a lot of people who feel strongly about the topic and share the opinions this account was stating (just as there are on the opposing side).
I also don't think your theory is consistent with all the other posts that account made about everything from Photoshop to Javascript floats to package managers to whether rms is autistic, OpenBSD, and so on. Of course one can argue that this just proves how clever the state propagandists are, and how good at covering their tracks, but this line of reasoning ends up getting pretty absurd.
The fact is that HN has, and has had for years, very many commenters articulating these same opinions, sometimes within the site guidleines and sometimes not, and just the same is true of commenters articulating opposing positions. I don't see any difference between the comments people single out as examples of putative astroturfing and the others. Moreover there's nothing in the private data we have that would change this picture significantly. On the contrary, all the evidence points in the other direction: real users with strong feelings and therefore strong opinions.
This kind of thing is exactly why we have that guideline that asks users not to post accusations of astroturfing, foreign agenting and so on, but rather to contact us privately. We're not saying these things don't exist—but the odds that you (I don't mean you personally, of course, but everyone in this situation) are reading-in something that isn't there are orders of magnitude higher.