Sep 27, 2022·edited Sep 27, 2022Liked by Winston Smith
Bot Farms have popped up in the pop culture sphere this week. 'Bot Sentinel', a firm hired by Amber Heard (Johnny Depp's ex) and Meghan Markle (prince Harry's partner) both suggested to be mid range narcissists desperate to shape public perception. 'Bot Sentinel' has created questionable reports to get critics of their clients; character assassinated, doxxed and deplatformed and some suggest they run a bot farm as part of the service.
'Bot Sentinel', released a report picked up by the Rolling Stone, in it overstating negative comments from youtuber 'That Umbrella Guy' who covered the Depp vs Heard case. A few lawyers who also covered the case on youtube pointed out the flaws in 'Bot Sentinels' report. The owner of Bot Sentinel then began going after the lawyers. He got to 'Nate the Lawyer' a youtuber, ex cop, ex prosecutor and law lecturer. It got nasty and Nate is suing owner of Bot Senitinel for defamation - Nate crowdfunded $30,000 for retainer in less than a week.
Bot Senitinels activity goes against social media's terms, but they seem empowered because they work for the 'right people'. As this is someone in the US, pop culture (not political), involving youtubers+lawyers - the discovery and progress on this case could be revealing.
Great article, hope my ramble is not a distraction.
Great article, I have just finished reading The Image by Daniel Boorstin after reading this quote from the book somewhere.
The American citizen lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than its original. We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories to the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.
It is amazing this book written in 1962 predicts how technology would be able to supplant reality itself.
Technology..... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it. Max Frisch
That's a great quote - describes the decontextualised, disembodied and totally abstracted perception of the world we have come to accept. This observation from 1962 describes perfectly the left hemisphere bias (if you read some of my psych posts) that we have been slipping into for the past 200 odd years.
Thanks O'Brien/Winston. Or is it Winston/O'Brien? Is O'Brien a simulacra of Winston? Whichever, this is a great in-depth analysis that opened up a world I hadn't fully grasped. I knew it was happening, but the clear exposé made it all the more tangible. Beneath the intangible lies the tangible, the acts of people pullings strings, running bot farms and the like. The photos of the bot farms were indeed a wake up.
I've seen one, a huge facility, that had been shut down - so only the racks and cables were left - but must have had thousands of phones. No idea how they manage that many bots in a single facility.
It's O'Brien (I can't take credit for his pieces) but he refuses to come onto the platform to engage - he's frighteningly disciplined with where he places his attention - unusual for a young chap, but would be nice to see more of it.
So consequently I'm left to answer any questions, or at least give my opinion (difficult sometimes when I'm not the one who has delved into the topic).
Some fifteen years back there was some "studies" emerging around the introduction of the smart phone into physical interactions. One that struck me at the time was how this particular technology appeared to be a massive sink hole on empathy. Such that one needn't be using the phone while having lunch with a friend to register a decline in empathy. Merely the visible presence on the table was enough.
Now, it's easy to doubt these studies, if for no other reason than !Science! is on house arrest indefinitely, except that anyone paying attention over the last decade can plainly see that not just empathy, but the full spectrum of dehumanizing and anti-socializing effects has been completely internalized at an astounding pace. Particularly the young.
What if we tracked the emergence and adoption of smart phone usage then specifically at new mothers. Would it map with a rise in "ADD/ADHD" and "spectrum" disorders in their children some years later? I'm just an artist, but having watched a lot of mothers in those early i-phone years fully ignore their babies in favor of their phones across all types of situations, I could easily paint that outcome.
And so the dynamic nature of human social development means that these sink-holes of things like empathy do not just leave a vacancy but instead result in malformations and distortions. Skyrocketing narcissism, for example. The ubiquitous and constant access to social media is a brilliant - happenstance or not, cognitive priming tool for a massive inversion of physical reality aka Truth aka Normal aka Natural Law.
The manipulation of what to think, is the other shoe. Most people are already trapped in the conditioning of how to think.
Now what happens when the entire culture looks to these devices and the various curated chambers, removed from physical reality, to provide not just venues in which analogs of human social interaction can be played out but literal marching orders for what to think? Was there a tipping point when those venues replaced real life? Is there a going back or is this all part of the great divide, the great reckoning for our very souls?
Having never been on the socials or into the devices much at all, affords one a particularly keen sense of these changes. And it can lead to very dark thoughts of our future. So indeed, the inversion - and indeed the war on Natural Law, for me is what the good book is all about: your soul.
I've had a conversation with a clinical psychologist who does research in early childhood development and that picture of the young mother completely captivated by her phone rather than her baby is/will have devastating knock on effects with subsequent generations. Our social future is/will be looking very different than it has for thousands of years.
A lot of times you see these accounts pushing the narrative only reaching the already hypnotized.
This system is actually quite inefficient because the people in the middle should be the target, but the creativity of the propaganda has declined considerably. The people in power have become lazy.
That's why you see the tweet storms of the same exact message (with slightly different wording) to push jabs or masks etc...
It's so obvious to everyone but the hard line believers.
This propaganda is failing, because like the mass media, it caters to the extremists who will always support the "current thing".
I'll add another funny that I noticed in contrasting the history of propaganda.
The creativity of propaganda has decreased. Why? Because they got away with a lot and then got lazy. Also, their own creative team (most likely left brained and propagandized) end up being ineffective in relating to the everyday people. That's why they had to force a mandate, because most people were not getting the shots based on their propaganda and social proof.
Sometimes I wonder if most of this so called influence of bots was low and has been going lower, as they robotically repeat the same messages... no more creativity needed for a monopoly haha
Without actually researching it, I'd say Substack is much more difficult to game with bots than say Reddit or Twitter because of the nature of the content - often long-form and deep writing. Some treat Substack like they would Twitter or Facebook, but the majority are writing longer, more thoughtful pieces and the discussions would require a much more sophisticated AI to manipulate in the comments sections than I think we have right now.
Excellent article, but why do you leave Facebook out of it? Facebook has at least as much reach as Twitter, much more so than Reddit, and has been actively involved in research on user manipulation and user addiction - plus it has been shown to have close ties to the US government and its national security state.
I'd say because O'Brien has nothing to do with Facebook and probably didn't research in that direction. But you are right, it's in the same boat - all the social media platforms are.
I'm certain that sophisticated AI bots are being used to shape opinion on all significant social media sites. Then it gets reinforced by actual paid agents, and the bandwagon effect snares some weak-minded normies on top of that.
I'd say you are right. O'Brien has had a focus on Reddit probably because that's what he grew up on (he's only in his mid 20s) but it's not hard to imagine that all social media platforms are under some form of bot manipulation - probably even this one.
This one is harder to game b/c it leans hard into "long form" responses which are harder for bots to engage in (AFAIKT they typically give short "button push" responses, either to repeat simple regime messaging, or to irritate the human so as to keep them engaged and waste their time).
These fuckers are toast, they know it, and as soon as enough of us know it, it's over. Then onto the hard work of rebuilding.
Great article! I got banned from the Royals subreddit because I dared state that Whit Merrifield almost certainly knew of somebody who had a serious adverse reaction to the vaccine! Now I use it for video game news only.
Brilliant analysis, thanks.
Bot Farms have popped up in the pop culture sphere this week. 'Bot Sentinel', a firm hired by Amber Heard (Johnny Depp's ex) and Meghan Markle (prince Harry's partner) both suggested to be mid range narcissists desperate to shape public perception. 'Bot Sentinel' has created questionable reports to get critics of their clients; character assassinated, doxxed and deplatformed and some suggest they run a bot farm as part of the service.
'Bot Sentinel', released a report picked up by the Rolling Stone, in it overstating negative comments from youtuber 'That Umbrella Guy' who covered the Depp vs Heard case. A few lawyers who also covered the case on youtube pointed out the flaws in 'Bot Sentinels' report. The owner of Bot Sentinel then began going after the lawyers. He got to 'Nate the Lawyer' a youtuber, ex cop, ex prosecutor and law lecturer. It got nasty and Nate is suing owner of Bot Senitinel for defamation - Nate crowdfunded $30,000 for retainer in less than a week.
Bot Senitinels activity goes against social media's terms, but they seem empowered because they work for the 'right people'. As this is someone in the US, pop culture (not political), involving youtubers+lawyers - the discovery and progress on this case could be revealing.
Great article, hope my ramble is not a distraction.
Very interesting!
Great article, I have just finished reading The Image by Daniel Boorstin after reading this quote from the book somewhere.
The American citizen lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than its original. We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories to the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.
It is amazing this book written in 1962 predicts how technology would be able to supplant reality itself.
Technology..... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it. Max Frisch
That's a great quote - describes the decontextualised, disembodied and totally abstracted perception of the world we have come to accept. This observation from 1962 describes perfectly the left hemisphere bias (if you read some of my psych posts) that we have been slipping into for the past 200 odd years.
Wow, I am not even sure now if I am not a bot. Great work.
Well, you haven't subscribed to my sub yet, so odds favor you still occupy the meatsack.
You might be a next-gen bot who's self-aware ;-)
Thanks O'Brien/Winston. Or is it Winston/O'Brien? Is O'Brien a simulacra of Winston? Whichever, this is a great in-depth analysis that opened up a world I hadn't fully grasped. I knew it was happening, but the clear exposé made it all the more tangible. Beneath the intangible lies the tangible, the acts of people pullings strings, running bot farms and the like. The photos of the bot farms were indeed a wake up.
Yes bot farm photos grotesque.
Imagine what these would like like at scale in corporate deployment.
I've seen one, a huge facility, that had been shut down - so only the racks and cables were left - but must have had thousands of phones. No idea how they manage that many bots in a single facility.
It's O'Brien (I can't take credit for his pieces) but he refuses to come onto the platform to engage - he's frighteningly disciplined with where he places his attention - unusual for a young chap, but would be nice to see more of it.
So consequently I'm left to answer any questions, or at least give my opinion (difficult sometimes when I'm not the one who has delved into the topic).
Excellent article!! Thanks! Now I know why Delamer Duverus guided me not to get involved in social media except when He tells me.
۞
So is GETTR. Well over 60% bots, Chinese bots, no less.
Know nothing about GETTR (apart from it's existence), so that's interesting, not surprising, and of course - CCP sponsored bots!
Some fifteen years back there was some "studies" emerging around the introduction of the smart phone into physical interactions. One that struck me at the time was how this particular technology appeared to be a massive sink hole on empathy. Such that one needn't be using the phone while having lunch with a friend to register a decline in empathy. Merely the visible presence on the table was enough.
Now, it's easy to doubt these studies, if for no other reason than !Science! is on house arrest indefinitely, except that anyone paying attention over the last decade can plainly see that not just empathy, but the full spectrum of dehumanizing and anti-socializing effects has been completely internalized at an astounding pace. Particularly the young.
What if we tracked the emergence and adoption of smart phone usage then specifically at new mothers. Would it map with a rise in "ADD/ADHD" and "spectrum" disorders in their children some years later? I'm just an artist, but having watched a lot of mothers in those early i-phone years fully ignore their babies in favor of their phones across all types of situations, I could easily paint that outcome.
And so the dynamic nature of human social development means that these sink-holes of things like empathy do not just leave a vacancy but instead result in malformations and distortions. Skyrocketing narcissism, for example. The ubiquitous and constant access to social media is a brilliant - happenstance or not, cognitive priming tool for a massive inversion of physical reality aka Truth aka Normal aka Natural Law.
The manipulation of what to think, is the other shoe. Most people are already trapped in the conditioning of how to think.
Now what happens when the entire culture looks to these devices and the various curated chambers, removed from physical reality, to provide not just venues in which analogs of human social interaction can be played out but literal marching orders for what to think? Was there a tipping point when those venues replaced real life? Is there a going back or is this all part of the great divide, the great reckoning for our very souls?
Having never been on the socials or into the devices much at all, affords one a particularly keen sense of these changes. And it can lead to very dark thoughts of our future. So indeed, the inversion - and indeed the war on Natural Law, for me is what the good book is all about: your soul.
I've had a conversation with a clinical psychologist who does research in early childhood development and that picture of the young mother completely captivated by her phone rather than her baby is/will have devastating knock on effects with subsequent generations. Our social future is/will be looking very different than it has for thousands of years.
A lot of times you see these accounts pushing the narrative only reaching the already hypnotized.
This system is actually quite inefficient because the people in the middle should be the target, but the creativity of the propaganda has declined considerably. The people in power have become lazy.
That's why you see the tweet storms of the same exact message (with slightly different wording) to push jabs or masks etc...
It's so obvious to everyone but the hard line believers.
This propaganda is failing, because like the mass media, it caters to the extremists who will always support the "current thing".
THAT is an encouraging observation - I do hope that becomes even more the case and people bloody well wake up!
I'll add another funny that I noticed in contrasting the history of propaganda.
The creativity of propaganda has decreased. Why? Because they got away with a lot and then got lazy. Also, their own creative team (most likely left brained and propagandized) end up being ineffective in relating to the everyday people. That's why they had to force a mandate, because most people were not getting the shots based on their propaganda and social proof.
Sometimes I wonder if most of this so called influence of bots was low and has been going lower, as they robotically repeat the same messages... no more creativity needed for a monopoly haha
I was waiting for you to analyse Substack.
Maybe next week.
Without actually researching it, I'd say Substack is much more difficult to game with bots than say Reddit or Twitter because of the nature of the content - often long-form and deep writing. Some treat Substack like they would Twitter or Facebook, but the majority are writing longer, more thoughtful pieces and the discussions would require a much more sophisticated AI to manipulate in the comments sections than I think we have right now.
I bought a paid subscription because your content is really, really good. Thank you for the thoughtful posts you are doing, or guesting.
Thanks so much Matt - that means so much to me! Really appreciate your support.
Excellent article, but why do you leave Facebook out of it? Facebook has at least as much reach as Twitter, much more so than Reddit, and has been actively involved in research on user manipulation and user addiction - plus it has been shown to have close ties to the US government and its national security state.
I'd say because O'Brien has nothing to do with Facebook and probably didn't research in that direction. But you are right, it's in the same boat - all the social media platforms are.
Good analysis, will be linking today @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
How soon before you add Substack to the list as well!!!
I'm certain that sophisticated AI bots are being used to shape opinion on all significant social media sites. Then it gets reinforced by actual paid agents, and the bandwagon effect snares some weak-minded normies on top of that.
I'd say you are right. O'Brien has had a focus on Reddit probably because that's what he grew up on (he's only in his mid 20s) but it's not hard to imagine that all social media platforms are under some form of bot manipulation - probably even this one.
This one is harder to game b/c it leans hard into "long form" responses which are harder for bots to engage in (AFAIKT they typically give short "button push" responses, either to repeat simple regime messaging, or to irritate the human so as to keep them engaged and waste their time).
These fuckers are toast, they know it, and as soon as enough of us know it, it's over. Then onto the hard work of rebuilding.
BTW, If you know of anyone suffering vaccine damage, I'm keeping a log of possible remedies here: https://davenarby.substack.com/p/covid-19-vaccine-damage-repair-protocol cheers and press on
Great article! I got banned from the Royals subreddit because I dared state that Whit Merrifield almost certainly knew of somebody who had a serious adverse reaction to the vaccine! Now I use it for video game news only.