https://archive.is/a9NsW
FWIW if anything, the top message indicates political involvement. @srayzie, builderanon/heru and Kevdude had that whole major episode of drama (not going to rehash that here). Kevdude did mention concern over @crensch becoming owner of GA 'just in time upcoming 2020 election'. Some of the really aggressive reddit GA users that were snarky to @puttitout talked about how that site would bring 300,000 users to voat (one now wonders how many alts people used there too). A lot of politics discussed by Builderanon/heru (as per srayzie messages) about how big an audience could result/be influenced by the project he came up with, and Kevdude gave a character reference for.
Like I said fwiw. Many of the GA users are active on twitter etc, so the spread of influence (in the sense of social media) may be broader than just looking at it as near 14,000 subscibers.
FWIW if anything, the top message indicates political involvement.
I think Voat has always had indirect political involvement. It's a competitor for Reddit, which makes it a corporate target.
GA has a lot of issues. Most of which are the fact that the people who haven't been run off are now outnumbered by the people paid to be there, if you identify and pay attention to the top posters.
if you identify and pay attention to the top posters.
I think you've already identified at least one. I believe the odds are pretty good that if you and I came up with a short list of who we thought might be paid to be there, or are there for other reasons (i.e. disingenuous), we'd have similar lists. Also that same group has likely been on voat for some time imho.
the people who haven't been run off are now outnumbered by the people paid to be there
That appears to be a trend on voat, but that too is just my opinion. I base it on something I noticed, but you had pointed it out as well, on how so many users end up sounding the same in a scripted way, different from people who, even when they agree on a lot, sound genuine. It makes voat less engaging for genuine users (for myself at any rate) when conversations are so scripted sounding (regardless of sub).
When I first engaged sguevar I was already convinced that PV was a venue for SBBH (to be clear I'm not claiming everyone on there is disingenuous), so it didn't take that long to see that the sguevar MO was to distract using bureaucratic, mind numbing dissertations that amounted to little in the way of meaningful content. That type of vapid persona is easier to recognize when you see that the main purpose is to take up a lot of real estate and waste people's time, while claiming to be seeking solutions.
When I saw some too clever by half (plain dumb) mind games and twisting words (said or even unsaid lol) to completely mischaracterize the context of my comments it was clear that it was a troll (and paid a penny per word jk) And then with all the attention seeking hand waving and attempts to reengage me to address those fabricated wrongs only confirmed my conclusion. Same thing happening to you, but some of that was hand waving at me I think.
so it didn't take that long to see that the sguevar MO was to distract using bureaucratic, mind numbing dissertations that amounted to little in the way of meaningful content.
Spot on. Distract and confuse.
When I saw some too clever by half (plain dumb) mind games and twisting words (said or even unsaid lol) to completely mischaracterize the context of my comments it was clear that it was a troll
This is demonstrated in this very thread, where he disregards any questions which illustrate where he's lying and wherever these situations exist so do massive downvotes for no reason.
@sguevar is extremely transparent. I figured he would sperg out like WhiteRonin prior to me being forced to disengage. I was wrong.
It is spent on containment, so the ideas don't spread to other places.
Anthropologically this is just silly.
In the current form of the Internet, there will always be a dark seedy underbelly. It's pointless to squash it online through various means when you are an organization powerful enough to just backdoor CP or SWAT people to death if you want to eliminate them.
Real power wouldn't play such childish and ineffective games.
I wouldn't describe Media Matters as real power, but the containment strategy is well established. the best example is when they banned /b/ on 4chan. What happened was that all of those users ended up flooding the other boards, creating a tremendous amount of work.
It was a lot more efficient to bring the /b/ board back and moderate the insanity from a central location.
If you are an Internet shill who is being paid to contain a specific political issue, this is the best way to do it. If you silence it, there will be a backlash. If you slowly push users away, many will drop off and the more persistent ones will go to where they can sperg unfettered.
You let them have that place, then you insert flat earth, moon landing stuff, a ton of racism and now the "normies" can't associate with a truth/free speech movement that seeks to expose high level corruption.
/r/The_Donald was always a containment board and the screws have been slowly tightening since the beginning. From the beginning, I was banned for talking about Ruben Vardanyan, who is the smoking gun for Russian collusion by Democrats. His money trail proves the whole media narrative incorrect and blows the Mueller report out of the water. It is very curious that they wouldn't have that type of information stickied.
You let them have that place, then you insert flat earth, moon landing stuff, a ton of racism and now the "normies" can't associate with a truth/free speech movement that seeks to expose high level corruption.
Now this was interesting to think about. Do you have a slightly more specific example of this?
4chan's /b/, /r/conspiracy and godlikeproductions come to mind as the most obvious examples. Reddit uses "Megathreads" to contain discussions, as well. Sometimes, this makes sense, but often it is the easiest way to contain an uncomfortable topic in /r/politics.
It looks like Urban Dictionary already has /r/The_Donald in mind in its definition.
A place to put threads for irritating users while still respecting their freedom to have discussions, it could be a clubhouse or a quarantine.
q: Do you want to talk about Trump?
a: No, go back to your Containment Board!
Your initial instincts are, of course, correct, when it comes to the numbers game. If a community gets large enough, be it on the Internet or irl... like a church, it becomes a target. The concentration makes it cost effective to sway the people. When you find an influencer you can buy off, then it is an easy decision.
But what happens when that group fractures? It is an inevitability.
That is what the tension centered strategies help with. If you plan for fracturing of groups, you are already prepared for taking over the splintered factions and are ready with pre-determined influencers to guide those factions.
Before the Internet, Tavistock already studied all kinds of containment strategies. Before the term "containment board" was used, the term "attractive prison" was used in studies of organizational paradoxes.
Once you have been lured to an "attractive prison" to address a problem, a new, opposite problem is introduced and you are now stuck in a prison dealing with a new problem while forgetting about the old one.
An attractive prison also provides an opportunity to bombard people with strange and new information to trigger cognitive dissonance, which puts people in a primed psychological state to change their mind about something. The founder of the "Children of God" cult specialized in this tactic where he would agitate and then convert.
Basically, all cults are attractive prisons. They promise a higher truth amidst an obviously dishonest environment, then feed followers with fiction. Despite the fictitiousness, these tactics are wildly effective.
view the rest of the comments →
virge ago
Why bother? Voat Alexa ratings put the population <10,000.
That's a lot of money spent for nothing.
kestrel9 ago
https://voat.co/v/ProtectVoat/3269742/19120131/10#19120131
https://archive.is/a9NsW FWIW if anything, the top message indicates political involvement. @srayzie, builderanon/heru and Kevdude had that whole major episode of drama (not going to rehash that here). Kevdude did mention concern over @crensch becoming owner of GA 'just in time upcoming 2020 election'. Some of the really aggressive reddit GA users that were snarky to @puttitout talked about how that site would bring 300,000 users to voat (one now wonders how many alts people used there too). A lot of politics discussed by Builderanon/heru (as per srayzie messages) about how big an audience could result/be influenced by the project he came up with, and Kevdude gave a character reference for.
Like I said fwiw. Many of the GA users are active on twitter etc, so the spread of influence (in the sense of social media) may be broader than just looking at it as near 14,000 subscibers.
virge ago
I think Voat has always had indirect political involvement. It's a competitor for Reddit, which makes it a corporate target.
GA has a lot of issues. Most of which are the fact that the people who haven't been run off are now outnumbered by the people paid to be there, if you identify and pay attention to the top posters.
kestrel9 ago
I think you've already identified at least one. I believe the odds are pretty good that if you and I came up with a short list of who we thought might be paid to be there, or are there for other reasons (i.e. disingenuous), we'd have similar lists. Also that same group has likely been on voat for some time imho.
That appears to be a trend on voat, but that too is just my opinion. I base it on something I noticed, but you had pointed it out as well, on how so many users end up sounding the same in a scripted way, different from people who, even when they agree on a lot, sound genuine. It makes voat less engaging for genuine users (for myself at any rate) when conversations are so scripted sounding (regardless of sub).
virge ago
I'll be completely honest, sguevar got me. I legitimately thought they were a real personality.
So much typing, all to distract. What a waste of a good mind.
kestrel9 ago
When I first engaged sguevar I was already convinced that PV was a venue for SBBH (to be clear I'm not claiming everyone on there is disingenuous), so it didn't take that long to see that the sguevar MO was to distract using bureaucratic, mind numbing dissertations that amounted to little in the way of meaningful content. That type of vapid persona is easier to recognize when you see that the main purpose is to take up a lot of real estate and waste people's time, while claiming to be seeking solutions.
When I saw some too clever by half (plain dumb) mind games and twisting words (said or even unsaid lol) to completely mischaracterize the context of my comments it was clear that it was a troll (and paid a penny per word jk) And then with all the attention seeking hand waving and attempts to reengage me to address those fabricated wrongs only confirmed my conclusion. Same thing happening to you, but some of that was hand waving at me I think.
virge ago
Spot on. Distract and confuse.
This is demonstrated in this very thread, where he disregards any questions which illustrate where he's lying and wherever these situations exist so do massive downvotes for no reason.
@sguevar is extremely transparent. I figured he would sperg out like WhiteRonin prior to me being forced to disengage. I was wrong.
thewebofslime ago
It is spent on containment, so the ideas don't spread to other places.
virge ago
Anthropologically this is just silly.
In the current form of the Internet, there will always be a dark seedy underbelly. It's pointless to squash it online through various means when you are an organization powerful enough to just backdoor CP or SWAT people to death if you want to eliminate them.
Real power wouldn't play such childish and ineffective games.
thewebofslime ago
I wouldn't describe Media Matters as real power, but the containment strategy is well established. the best example is when they banned /b/ on 4chan. What happened was that all of those users ended up flooding the other boards, creating a tremendous amount of work.
It was a lot more efficient to bring the /b/ board back and moderate the insanity from a central location.
If you are an Internet shill who is being paid to contain a specific political issue, this is the best way to do it. If you silence it, there will be a backlash. If you slowly push users away, many will drop off and the more persistent ones will go to where they can sperg unfettered.
You let them have that place, then you insert flat earth, moon landing stuff, a ton of racism and now the "normies" can't associate with a truth/free speech movement that seeks to expose high level corruption.
/r/The_Donald was always a containment board and the screws have been slowly tightening since the beginning. From the beginning, I was banned for talking about Ruben Vardanyan, who is the smoking gun for Russian collusion by Democrats. His money trail proves the whole media narrative incorrect and blows the Mueller report out of the water. It is very curious that they wouldn't have that type of information stickied.
virge ago
Now this was interesting to think about. Do you have a slightly more specific example of this?
thewebofslime ago
4chan's /b/, /r/conspiracy and godlikeproductions come to mind as the most obvious examples. Reddit uses "Megathreads" to contain discussions, as well. Sometimes, this makes sense, but often it is the easiest way to contain an uncomfortable topic in /r/politics.
It looks like Urban Dictionary already has /r/The_Donald in mind in its definition.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Containment%20Board
Your initial instincts are, of course, correct, when it comes to the numbers game. If a community gets large enough, be it on the Internet or irl... like a church, it becomes a target. The concentration makes it cost effective to sway the people. When you find an influencer you can buy off, then it is an easy decision.
But what happens when that group fractures? It is an inevitability.
That is what the tension centered strategies help with. If you plan for fracturing of groups, you are already prepared for taking over the splintered factions and are ready with pre-determined influencers to guide those factions.
Before the Internet, Tavistock already studied all kinds of containment strategies. Before the term "containment board" was used, the term "attractive prison" was used in studies of organizational paradoxes.
Once you have been lured to an "attractive prison" to address a problem, a new, opposite problem is introduced and you are now stuck in a prison dealing with a new problem while forgetting about the old one.
An attractive prison also provides an opportunity to bombard people with strange and new information to trigger cognitive dissonance, which puts people in a primed psychological state to change their mind about something. The founder of the "Children of God" cult specialized in this tactic where he would agitate and then convert.
Basically, all cults are attractive prisons. They promise a higher truth amidst an obviously dishonest environment, then feed followers with fiction. Despite the fictitiousness, these tactics are wildly effective.