@reasonedandinformed - Calling you out as a CTR bot operator
@kingkongwaswrong
This sub is filled with CTR bots.
I have figured out how they work. It's not so easy to explain, feel free to ask questions, you might have to re-read this a few times before you can go "ahh haa". I will break it up into three parts.
First, I will present a very obvious example The thread in question can be seen here:
The actual post content is questionable, but that is another matter. I believe bots can attach to non-CTR posts as well, so the content of the OP does not matter so much for my case here. You can read my comments on the actual post content here (sort by 'bottom' and my comment is most downvoated, lol)
So... the CTR original poster - 'reasonedandinformed' (classic appeal to authority psyop) posts. Then presses "play" for a bot conversation to get comments up, and walks away.
Open this screencap now so you can follow my logic...
https://sli.mg/N3vPmY
Problem is in this instance, one of the comments at the start (Evidenceforthings) was complaining about an earlier comment (lawfag123) being downvoted, when the comment in question was not actually downvoted. Several legit human accounts (fireabend, onegin) noticed this and replied. @fireabend even posted a screencap here https://sli.mg/xjXUYj A glitch in the matrix was observed. I saw this myself a few hours after these other guys noticed.
And who comes along to explain the glitch? Not any of the alleged bot posters that the questioners where actually addressing, but the human supervisor account, the OP - reasonedandinformed. The explaination was that one of the 'bots' was not refering to a voat post, but one from reddit/self. Complete BS excuse.
Second: How the bots work
The CTR strategy is this; they have sets of prewritten 'conversations' between the bot accounts, a real person has to hit the 'play' button, and also monitor it for any non-bot activity that they can later respond to if needed. When the original post is from CTR, the conversation makes sense, it is related to the original post.
But when the OP is from a real person and CTR does not have a response written up already, they play something semi-related, probably find something from keywords or in line with one of their strategies (strategy examples: disinfo, racist violent redneck, conspiricy nutter, sexist men, bible basher etc.). This results in a post with entire threads of conversation only tentatively related to the OP. It looks strange. Here is an example; https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1476125 The post is about the CIA planning a coup on Donald Trump to cover up pizzagate. The top reply, and replies to that reply are about 'Jesus' and do not relate to the original post at all. Another glitch in the CTR bot matrix.
Third topic... The controlled overthrow of LegionWill
I have had my eye on LegionWill for some time. I started by simply calling this account out (where is your source.. etc), then eventually gathered a big list of BS he posted. CTR was watching and could see I was going to destroy him. In the back of my mind I thought they would 'throw him under the bus' in order to maintain credibility of their bot army.
I wrote up a well sourced post why LegionWill is a CTR shill, and posted it on one of his threads https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1473609/7142307 . Immediately, another account came in to support me https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1473609/7143128. I even replied to this saying how amazing the timing was, and that it makes it look like we are coordinating. This account was 'reasonedandinformed'. Reasonedandinformed was controlled opposition. They helped me by providing proof of a forged screenshot of kingkongwaswrong on reddit. They had the screenshot because they made the screenshot. All of a sudden it looked like the whole 'community' was on my side. Exactly what I was expecting from a controlled opposition bot army. So I made a new post here hinting at that, titled "LegionWill thrown under the bus by his own shill army" - https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1474104
After LegionWill was gone, it was almost like he was still there. Posts on 'hot' had all the hallmarks of his postings. But the posts were now made under username 'reasonedandinformed'. They are just as poorly sourced rubbish as LegionWill was posting before, and upvoated like crazy.
In summary, I believe this sub is infested with bots. And the only way I think we can beat them is to figure out who the legitimate accounts are, not who the shills are, because there are far too many shills.
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saltminetimes ago
In a way, as long as the shills don't overwhelm and downvote important posts, it doesn't matter that there are shills. Here's why: the fact is you can't really trust anyone. Period. You can only trust your own critical thinking and reasoning. As long as you don't take everything other people say as gospel, and you pick out the parts that don't add up, it should be fine. Some people say "trust but verify." but I prefer "doubt and verify." Obviously shills giving misinformation slow things down, but if people remain critical, over the long haul they can't stop people from figuring out what's bs and what's accurate.
Edit: I just thought of something: Do bots ever correct typos? Presumably bots would gather words from actual posts and so might occasionally use misspellings etc., but I doubt they would be programmed to later edit and correct their mistakes. So, and I'm not sure about this, but I think if someone has never edited one of their own posts after the 2-3 minute shadow edit time frame, then they are most likely a bot. just a thought.
Millennial_Falcon ago
It's a problem because not everyone is the greatest at critical thinking. A certain amount of people will be fooled by the disinformation and take it and run with it. Then the media will use it to as "proof" of the "fake news" narrative.
DuffBeer4Me ago
you just replied to a bot. :(
Millennial_Falcon ago
What makes you think he's a bot?
saltminetimes ago
Like I said, who needs shills...