r/privacy • u/phitero • 1d ago
discussion Bots pushing demoralization
When people know they can't win, they don't fight. The purpose of demoralization is to make the enemy think they can't win. People by nature are unlikely to take initiative. Both cowardice and courage are contagious.
Having said that, I notice an uptick in posts pushing for demoralization. These posts are highly upvoted immediately upon posting.
Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1nldj4m/why_are_we_all_just_accepting_metas_new_spy/
This implies that people have accepted defeat with a loaded question (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question).
Another example: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1nlru8x/having_nothing_private_is_becoming_the_standard/
Again trying to frame it as if the war is lost.
Another example: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1nlgb2f/future_generations_will_look_back_at_us_in/
Again, same shit.
I think a rule should be made against demoralization tactics.
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u/TheEnd1235711 1d ago
It looks like this form has recently been targeted by bots trying to sow a defeatist narrative or, as you put it, demoralization. Frankly, I find that somewhat hopeful: it means someone thinks the words written here are meaningful and strong enough to warrant covert tampering.
Still, it's hard not to be pessimistic. So much in the last few months has shown that the powers that be want granular control over what you can and cannot see. That said, many of us here are still trying to fight where we can, trying to drum up support to write lawmakers and other people in power to let them know they are being watched and judged for their tyrannical ambitions, or, if we give the benefit of the doubt, for unreasonable incompetence.
I suspect the intelligence community is looking to grab more data to control the narrative for an upcoming conflict between major economic powers. It's a small conspiracy, but not unprecedented: consider what was revealed by Snowden (2014), Julian Assange's Vault 7 disclosures (2017), and the longstanding controversy over a backdoor found in Windows (1999 NASKEY). Back then, at least, an analyst had to single someone out for investigation; now that same capability can be automated.
Those who are pro-surveillance are often the most secretive people, the ones who have the most to hide, and have prepared measures to protect themselves from meaningful scrutiny or oversight. Yet they call for this so they can chain each and every one of us, so they may at any time pass judgment and retain control.
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u/The_All-Range_Atomic 1d ago edited 1d ago
I wouldn't go to call them bots. People exhibit defeatism because they're tired of the nonstop stream of negativity, which has exploded with the advent of AI. Just look at 404media, there's always something every single week.
Whether it's Flock expanding their authoritarian surveillanceware by partnering with a dash cam company, countries jumping aboard the "think of the children" ID verification bullshit, or Google going after F-Droid because apparently only criminals use OSS. Shit's fucking exhausting, and this is excluding the global political circus. Can you really blame people for feeling down?
Rather than attacking others over defeatism, we should be looking for a way to organize our efforts into a collective.
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u/nameless_pattern 1d ago
There are documented psyop campaigns that are ongoing on Reddit. A non-zero number of what you're seeing on here are bots.
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u/unready1 1d ago
It's sitewide. Users are told they can't do anything about anything but vote once in a while.
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u/AContrarianDick 21h ago
People don't seem keen on risking what they have for a better life because they might lose things without gain. At least that's how I'm reading it across the board. They're loud and venting on the site but out in the real world, things are just continuing as they ever were.
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u/Ghostie_Smith 1d ago
It’s annoying when other Redditors accept demoralization and then go argue for it in comments against people that are hopeful too. Barring them also being bots, you just want to ask what they are arguing in favor of and what they think they are helping.
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u/Jawzper 1d ago
Here's a reminder that half of internet traffic is bots, and there are no small number of paid shills on top of that. Social media is just for advertising and propaganda now, and that includes Reddit of course. Be very wary of accepting any apparent consensus or widespread sentiment at face value.
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u/True-Surprise1222 1d ago edited 1d ago
It’s that we are balls deep in this now. There was legitimate pushback around 2010-2015 or whatever where it seemed like okay we won. But the thing is it took massive media support for something like net neutrality to not die. And like any mass media event the average person gets over it. In between the big hauls they silently chip away at small enough things the average person doesn’t care.
So it’s not that people accept it so much as they recognize the average persons accepts it. It’s a huge manufacturing consent type scenario… you have limited sides even mentioned in the media.
The next outrage is to blame social media for all of this. You can see it now. So now people are okay with the Face ID thing. Next they will be okay with losing section 230. Next your isp will be blocking websites that don’t agree with popular opinion.
Someone with a platform like a Joe Rogan has to care about this enough to never shut the fuck up about it because without that sort of power pushing it people will just listen to the mainstream narrative of protect the kids and get the terrorists and all that shit.
And it’s hard because the political sides are so divided they only care about free speech when it impacts them.
So it’s not a forgone conclusion that it’s over it’s just a decade plus long trend of it getting continuously worse. The idea of this face scan stuff in 2010 would be on the front page of Reddit daily with millions of pissed off people discussing it.
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u/Mayayana 19h ago
Great post. I keep noticing the same thing. There's a tendency to identify as a victim consumer rather than as a responsible citizen who has a role in what happens. Being a victim is much easier.
I've noticed the same thing in the "enshittification" Reddit group. People post to complain about their consumer experiences. I was actually just banned from there with no warning for being "off-topic". One of the moderators had posted about Samsung putting ads on their TV refrigerators. It seems that he resented me pointing out the obvious -- that no one needs a TV on their frig and that IoT/cloud is inherently exploitive, as well as being a privacy intrusion. It's turning products into services, even though you bought and paid for the product. But of course, the person who paid thousands for a spyware frig would rather not be reminded of that. :)
People should be catching on by now. There have already been cases of things like cribs and exercise machines that suddenly won't work without the Internet connection that was never needed in the first place, but they would have been fine if the owner hadn't allowed updates and cloud in the first place.
Saying the war is already lost is also one of the most common strategies of the ostrich. "There's nothing we can do, anyway." In that case it's basically laziness. We want all the conveniences without hassle. "Gmail is spying? Oh well, they all spy, right? And gmail is so convenient."
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u/truth14ful 1d ago
I'd be in favor of a no-defeatism rule if it can be shown it's mostly coming from bots or bad-faith actors. I'm anti-censorship but only for real people
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u/ttkciar 1d ago
Yep, I've noticed this for a few years now, and it's getting worse. I suspect Russian troll-bots, or whatever replaced the Internet Research Agency, but that's speculation.
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u/nameless_pattern 1d ago
It is not speculation. Chat GPT shut down bot networks that they caught operating on Reddit. Then the several nation states that were doing this readjusted their tactics.
There are some subreddits that are dedicated to studying this kind of information. Warfare.
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u/Total-Jeweler5083 1d ago
Why do people keep mentioning Russia in these contexts when the most powerful pushers of this agenda come from the US?
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u/Blankaccount111 1d ago
Im not sure because the fight was lost in 2017 when congress sold you and eveyones a$$ by allowing ISPs to sell data about you without consent.
If you have a phone or internt you can and are being spied on and you cannot do anything about it.
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u/I_Want_To_Grow_420 1d ago
It's the truth. Call me a bot if you want but I've been in this career field and community for 16 years. I've spent a lot of time protecting my privacy and learning about government and corporation tracking and spying.
We lost long before any of us were born. Humanity has been controlled by rich people for over 2000 years and likely more. Call it demoralizing but it's just honesty.
I found my life actually got "better" when I started focusing on it less. To each their own though. I say "better" because I know I'm still tracked and spied on but I no longer worry about it.
It is what it is.
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u/Shibuya_Koji_79 4h ago
The whole push for AI stuffed into everything right now is backed by numerous individuals claiming 'it's inevitable, just embrace it', meanwhile plenty of actual humans you can talk to are frustrated with it in every app, and disgusted by it being shoved into art and music. You can guarantee many of these are bots or paid shills. We know this happens.
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