So, There Were Paid Trolls After All...

[Bajo_cero2]

http://www.perfil.com/mobile/?nota=/contenidos/2016/03/26/noticia_0052.html

 

[joeschmoe1920]

http://www.perfil.co...ticia_0052.html

Never mind. Happy Easter!

 

[rrptownley]

When Lanata's show uncovered the last administration's paid twitter army, they did so by showing the appropriated profile pictures of the fake accounts, contents of hundreds of tweets, a testimony from Lucas Carrasco (who had been offered the job of running the "K call centres") and a hidden camera from inside of one of the "militant" tweet and facebook message workshops.

What do the Perfil and the preceding La Politica Online articles mention as sources? Circumstance, cooincidence — not a single photo, testimony or fact proving that the PRO's communications office uses fake accounts or trolls.

Meanwhile everyday I see swarms of fake accounts attacking Macri on the Buenos Aires Herald's Facebook page and on many twitter accounts — all of which have been directly commented on and proven on these very forums.
Any such behaviour from the PRO — not that I'm discounting that they are susceptible to such behaviour — has never been proven with factual evidence.

So fuck off with your Perfil article, you dreadful little Kirchnerite







(That was my yearly-use of the F word on these forums, I apologize but only regret that it has been exhausted so early into 2016)

 

[ben]

Couple of points:
1) The amount of likes the preceding post got is reflective of the number of people who likely popped in here, clicked the link, and who thought "this crap is not a joke??" immediately followed by "screw this, I'm not going there".
2) I'm really only interested in this issue as to bajo personally, from an anthropological standpoint.

You take an Argentine, educated, of by-no-means-substandard intelligence, as can be readily seen when he is discussing any subject except politics. He speaks a very decent English, appears more or less well read (ignorance of North Korea notwithstanding), and presumably is familiar with foreign media. You give him an absolutely unsourced, quote-free (except for one admission of guilt for an unnamed government employee), example-free, piece of propaganda masquerading as journalism.

BRIEF INTERPOLATION REGARDING SHODDINESS OF PROFESSED 'JOURNALISM'
Serious thought experiment: Take not a top-tier publication such as the NYT, WSJ or the like, but something a bit lower down the food chain, a bit more tabloidy - say, the New York Post. Imagine them posting something as thinly-sourced, non-sourced to be precise.

With links, which project the impression that the anchor text is supported by the linked source, actually linking to similar puff-pieces or barely-related articles - for example, about how both Macri's and Scioli's campaigns used social media. (Relevance to paid government trolls? Precisely zero. By the way, both Matias-or-whatever-his-handle-is-today and bajo have shown complete mastery of the link-to-nowhere technique). Literally turtles all the way down.

Take a doozy like this, have it published in the New York Post, and sit back and wait for the merciless mockery that would come from all corners.
END INTERPOLATION.

Back to reality here, this crap, the written equivalent of a Roberto Navarro rant, gets published, and nobody bats an eye. And bajo finds it fit to draw our attention to it.

The only explanations I can find are:

1) That bajo knows his work well, but otherwise simply a moron, or at least an absolute philistine who skipped Logic 101.
I discount this possibility; I find it unsupported by the evidence.
2) That bajo is deliberately trolling. As unpleasant as this explanation is, it is far less implausible than the previous one; it is, in fact virtually the only one.
3) That Argentine life somehow manages to make otherwise sane people lose their minds, and accept - and dish out, to boot - anything, including total crap that stands up to no scrutiny whatsoever, as 'support' for their chosen position.

I personally tended towards (3), but bajo is simply too smart actually believe the shit he's peddling here. I think that really (2) is the only possible explanation. Paid or not (and I'm pretty sure that not), bajo is undoubtedly trolling.

 

[citygirl]

Ben - I'm not sure. I actually think #3 is more likely. I have a few good friends who are very pro K. Well-educated. Have been exposed to other cultures (i.e., not totally insular). But honestly, they parrot this kind of stuff that has zero basis in fact without an ounce of awareness. And if you point out the issues with what they are saying - all you get back is an attack on Macri. It's..bizarre.

 

[Noesdeayer]

citygirl and Ben :
it is exactly that,"bizarre"..The lunatic fringe here has always been (at least since I came in 1979) "una franja re,re bizarra" . The really sad thing is not so much that they say it,because many of them delude themselves into thinking that they are being like the European social-democrats they believe themselves to be a L.A. extension of., but they in truth BELIEVE it.
This is the true intellectual tragedy.This belief is a total socio-economic non-sequitor and they can't seem to grasp that
It stares them right in the face daily and they just don't,or maybe,out of egocentrism, refuse to, get it.

 

[RichardP]

Somebody once said "if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will come to believe it..."

I suppose this could be true for small lies as well.

 

[Rich One]

Ben - I'm not sure. I actually think #3 is more likely. I have a few good friends who are very pro K. Well-educated. Have been exposed to other cultures (i.e., not totally insular). But honestly, they parrot this kind of stuff that has zero basis in fact without an ounce of awareness. And if you point out the issues with what they are saying - all you get back is an attack on Macri. It's..bizarre.

Citygirl - Once again this is the Argentine Syndrome discussed here so much..."I Vos" its a knee jerk reaction at all levels it never fails...!!

 

[Noesdeayer]

Rich One:
i understand that the Argentine Syndrome is something like,let's say,"chopping off your nose to spite your face".
But what do you mean by " I Vos" being a" knee jerk reaction at all levels it never fails" ?

 

[Rich One]

Rich One:
i understand that the Argentine Syndrome is something like,let's say,"chopping off your nose to spite your face".
But what do you mean by " I Vos" being a" knee jerk reaction at all levels it never fails" ?

Its something that never fails .... maybe at the kiosko or elsewhere or like City girl said .... you mention something about the Kirchneristas and they retort immediately And what About Macri....! Which means Y Vos haces lo mismo. O Uds. hacen lo mismo..!

It's summarized in the saying "Y Como andamos por casa"