HACKER Q&A
📣 jacquesm

Proof of targeted campaigns to dominate HN?


Hello there, Hacker News. I have a theory: that HN is now large enough to warrant a targeted attack by paid operators in order to influence the discussion. I've seen quite a bit of circumstantial evidence for this over the last period but what I'd love to see is some hard proof. If there is anybody who has worked on the offensive side of such an operation I'd love to see a leak of the playbook that goes with attacking a website like Hacker News, what strategies are in play, how accounts are used to re-inforce each other and so on.

Any takers? Oh, and it goes without saying that any accounts that flag this 'Ask HN' will be in line for extra scrutiny ;)

  👤 News-Dog Accepted Answer ✓
Set 'showdead:' option to 'yes' in your profile, and click apply,

you will see some of the posts that the Mods have to deal with.

👤 WalterGR
I don’t know about paid operators, but I’ve seen ongoing activity that certainly looks like brigading, starting circa 2018.

Paid or not, I’m definitely interested in the topic.

👤 rich_sasha
I suspect there aren't campaigns specialising in HN, but targeting internet communities is an enormous field. Commercially it's a big thing (influencers, paying people to post reviews etc. etc.).

Non-commercially it must be a thing too (not sure what you're alluding to).

Then if someone's area of interest gets traction on HN, then surely HN is targeted too.

👤 brudgers
IMO, there are institutions for which failing to attempt influence would constitute negligence.

At scale, it's just another website.

Edit: e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30673950

👤 wolverine876
Disinformation and other propaganda campaigns are possibly the most important issue in our industry and societies - they are transforming cultures, and not in a way anyone likes, and threatening freedom and democracy - and yet we can't talk about them here, where it's possibly one of the most important places to discuss them. It's the almost the only thing you can't talk about on HN; it's the Emporer's New Clothes - we must agree to deny the reality we all see.

Propaganda, as I understand it, is not meant to persuade but to disrupt, to paralyze, to prevent functioning: Some people are diverted from the reality by the falsehoods, others are divided, and it makes discusion seemingly impossible - just like disucssion of public affairs in the US right now. Just like discussion of propaganda on HN - the propaganda campaigns have arguably shut down discussion of themselves - they operate but we must pretend they aren't. They've succeeded (so far).

That's not to discount efforts dang has made to deal with them - it's a tough, tough job, and who knows what HN would look like without dang's efforts. I don't want to imagine. But forbidding discussion of it is what the propagandists seek (again, as I understand it).

The solution IMHO is not a blanket ban, but to ban the techniques of propaganda: Inflammatory language (including exaggeration), unsupported claims, non-specific claims (college students are wasting their money - which students? on what?), etc. Create a higher standard for inflammatory topics: Non-inflammatory language, non-intolerent, make specific claims, support what you say, maybe more. Then we can talk about propaganda too.