I’m glad I’m not the only one - the article is sensationalistic garbage, just some rando’s blog.
Comment on [deleted]
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
This article doesn’t really seem to validate it’s headline. I was eager to learn more about the methodology and how to better detect corporate content, but I was disappointed that they apparently just made the leap from the claim that 15% of popular subs host a non zero amount of corporate manipulation to the claim that this represents the fraction of total content.
I’m not saying this to dispute how much of the total content is corporate bots. I’m just pointing this out because I actually care about the quality of statistical claims and data science, and I hate to see my ideological allies either misusing data because they’re dumb or because they don’t have a commitment to truth.
cygnus@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
cibbecker@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
We need morr people with your kind of diligence.
rumba@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Yeah, the number is bullshit. I left before AI was truly reasonable and it was flush with corporate fanboys and vote manipulation, paid or not. Also it certainly wasn’t 15% of the subscribers, depending on the sub it might have been more or less of the active participants. Popular subs about products, hobbies, or software seemed to have a LOT of this product is just really great where for the most part noone is going to push their affinity for one corporate product over another.
MangoCats@feddit.it 3 days ago
I actually care about the quality of statistical claims and data science
Then you’ve gotta be having a really bad time trying to analyze subjective data about posts in internet forums with basically zero positive identification of the authors.
Even if the authors bothered to “drill down” and check the posting history of each and every message author in a studied forum, that can be (and undoubtably frequently is) faked with boilerplate AI spam type generic responses all over a bunch of generic forums just to manufacture “validity” for the intended “high value” posts in the target areas.
If this sounds far-fetched, remember that over 20 years ago there were “gold farmers” playing WoW in China for the sole purpose of “earning” in-game value through repetitive play. Literally thousands of WoW accounts were banned just months after the game launched due to obvious farming activity.
All kinds of organizations pay for all kinds of advertising to “shape public opinion” on all kinds of topics. Only a small fraction of that advertising money gets dumped into traditional high profile channels like 30 second Superbowl spots.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yeah the article is pretty trash.
15% of the top subs contain corporate propaganda becomes “15% of the subs are compromised”, “compromised” means something more than “contains propaganda” to me.