[FeeTinesAMady]

This statement is the most upvoted piece of propaganda I've ever seen on Hacker News. I think the shills that Greenwald told us all about are all over HN too.

There's no point in praising anything the NSA does unless you are perfectly happy with them destroying security for the entire world and spying on everybody at all. The NSA has the power to blackmail politicians and run the country. They lied to congress. They are a completely rogue agency. And you praise them!

[ForHackernews]

You need to pick your battles. Nobody is going to listen to your serious concerns about NSA overreach if you're freaking out any time the NSA does anything at all. If you hope to rein in the NSA, impose real oversight, and limit its power, you're going to have to start by acknowledging that "shut down all US intelligence agencies" is not a real policy proposal and not everyone who thinks the NSA has some legitimate role to play in US security is a paid government shill.

[qnr]

Yep, it is exactly the same rhetoric, word for word as used in other NSA-praising comments on HN. Posted by a 1-year old account that had exactly 1 comment in their history until today.

[aunty_helen]

It's a shame HN doesn't auto-minimize the sub-comments once they get to a certain size and depth to make it easier to view other OPs. I often find that the first comment dominates the tone of the discussion about an article making it an easy target for astroturfing campaigns like this one.

To your point, I read the OP and thought to myself that it seemed very familiar, I then checked the details on the user account and feel reasonably confident in thinking that it is a targeted attack. It's just sad that it worked so well.

[dsuth]

Do you have links to support this?

[cryptoz]

I'm not making any accusations, but here's a start:

> To be fair here, the NSA should very well be doing these things, for the purpose of attacking other states.

from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8905559

from googling: "this is what the nsa should be doing" site:news.ycombinator.com

[LLWM]

That's not exactly the same wording, and there are many expressions of the same sentiment in different words. Why insist on believing that this is some nefarious conspiracy rather than the simpler explanation that some - perhaps even many - people sincerely believe that it's acceptable for governments to perform espionage?

[walod]

It's not propaganda, it's a reasonable observation about the NSA's duties, and it's not meant to tell the whole story. The conspiracy types need to tone down a bit so that a thought-out and nuanced discussion can take place. You're just ranting and throwing Alex Jones and Greenwald buzzwords around, disabling any real insight.

[FeeTinesAMady]

But the pro-government shills ARE here. That's not paranoia, that's fact, unless you think they'd target Reddit only for some reason, which makes no sense. So why can't we talk about them? If we don't face up to the reality of this kind of propaganda, we won't be able to have proper discussions about important topics like this one.

As the other responder to me pointed out, this account had ONE post to its name almost a year ago before the post I responded to today. I don't think they got their money's worth out of this one due to how easy it was to spot, but all the other ones upvoting it are earning their pay.

[Confusion]

Given how many people simply are pro-government, do they even need shills?

[krapp]

Fine. The shills are here, and you're free to accuse people you don't agree with of being puppets of the government, as you have.

What does doing so actually accomplish, besides spreading FUD?

[FeeTinesAMady]

You think I am accusing him of being a shill because I don't agree with him? Have you seen his posting history? That's pretty much the definition of a shill who isn't trying very hard. Much more dangerous are the ones who actually make normal posts on stories throughout the year and only turn on the propaganda when the discussion turns to the NSA and government activities. Those ones you can't detect.

I don't understand why you're more upset with me for pointing out propaganda than the propaganda machine itself.

[krapp]

Because your evidence that yeahyeah is a shill is circumstantial at best, and sowing doubt by invoking an intangible enemy within whose only observable property is disagreement with some orthodoxy is itself blatant propagandism.

And even a cursory glance throughout this thread would reveal that it isn't exactly brimming over with warm and fuzzy feelings about the US, so I don't know what it is you're worried about. This pervasive shilling you claim is happening here doesn't seem to be working.

You may be right. You may very well be right. But you're not accomplishing anything except signaling to people that if they think too hard about certain points of view, then they're just being stooges. You can argue against it without stooping to the same tactics you're accusing others of.

[FeeTinesAMady]

What kind of evidence do you expect to find?

I'm not attacking someone just because of his opinion, nor am I advocating that. I'm calling out a shill. Look at the facts. One post before today. A pro-NSA post that reads like rhetoric. This post is voted up to the very top comment of the discussion, DESPITE the lack of "warm and fuzzy feelings about the US". Now, in a conversation where the sentiment is so anti-NSA, why do you think this has so many upvotes? That's evidence of rigged voting. That he has failed to sway opinion here does not at all mean that he isn't a shill.

That's enough evidence to convict.

Look, here's an article where you can start reading about these kind of psyops: http://ultraculture.org/blog/2014/02/26/reddit-shills-tried-... Discussion forums like this one need to be aware of this sort of thing going on. We have to talk about it. We have to try and point out people whose job it is to steer conversations to their liking. It is the right of a free people to associate and freely converse with their peers and make up their own minds free of malicious interference and cointelpro. If government agents actively manipulate public opinion in favor of them, and the public opinion is different from what it otherwise would be, then there is no democracy. That is wrong.

What can we do, when there's no proof? We can use our brains and examine the evidence. We can call out obvious shills to try and stem the tide. That is what I am advocating for. We should point out obvious shills so that discussions have more of a chance at reaching their natural conclusions. You seem to be advocating that we do nothing at all, and that is what I disagree with.

[LLWM]

It's also the definition of someone who doesn't want to be attacked by expressing their opinions with an account tied to their real identity.

[antocv]

> thought-out and nuanced discussion can take place

Everyone who doesnt agree with me and my statements isnt thought-out and nuanced and modern and polite in discussions.

[XorNot]

And what looks like apathy can also just be a sign your argument isn't as compelling as you think it is.

[dsuth]

> There's no point in praising anything the NSA does unless you are perfectly happy with them destroying security for the entire world and spying on everybody at all.

That is a ridiculously absolutist statement. Do you really stand by this? It's not possible that some things the NSA does are good and beneficial, because other aspects of that organisation are questionable?

I'm sorry, but your entire post comes off as very partisan - and quoting Greenwald plays into this as well. Hell, I am left-leaning by nature, but I've had to unfollow him on twitter recently, as he portrays everything in the worst, most dramatic light possible. Don't get caught up on the hate train.

[FeeTinesAMady]

Any sort of praise or tacit approval for the NSA reduces people's anger towards them. Any reduction of anger towards them helps breed complacency. This is why they would make a post like this at all. People need to be mad at them in order to want change badly enough.

[plorg]

This is a big story about cyberespionage. It comes out of Kaspersky Labs, a Russian company and hardly a front for the NSA. It would be surprising if the story _didn't_ make the front page, and it would be surprising to me if in a forum which prides itself on serious discussion no one would make the comment that heads this thread.

That such a comment would be the most popular suggests nothing about psyops involvement unless you assume such an opinion doesn't exist in the theater in which the conversation takes place. The suggestion of such manipulation is useless without evidence, and is therefore not an actionable accusation. It assumes by default bad faith on the part of those who disagree with you and makes actual discussion difficult or impossible.

Furthermore, such an accusation is as much of a sideshow as any manipulation you're alleging.

If, rather than making wild assumptions, you made actual counter-arguments (as many are doing above), you might convince others of what you believe to be true, and you might bring those who once disagreed with you to join in the fight on your side.