Author Topic: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots  (Read 6205 times)

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Offline Askold

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Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« on: October 02, 2018, 03:11:57 pm »
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/02/star-wars-the-last-jedi-rian-johnson-abuse-politically-motivated-russian-trolls?CMP=fb_gu

Yes, this does sound silly but they actually studied this. They've got data and stuff on this.

Quote
Morten Bay, a research fellow at the University of Southern California (USC), analysed Twitter activity about the film and concluded that more than 50% of posts are by “bots, trolls/sockpuppets or political activists using the debate to propagate political messages supporting extreme rightwing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality. A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls.”

Sure, that still leaves some people who really were upset with the films but as usual, the stupidsphere of the Internet was easily pushed into repeating Russian propaganda (This time the purpose was likely just to make people in USA upset and divided even more than usual.) and harassing people.
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Offline ironbite

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #1 on: October 02, 2018, 07:37:02 pm »
And why would Russians be interested in fanning the flames of hatred?  Why it's a very simple reason.

Ironbite-divide the US voter base.

Offline The_Queen

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #2 on: October 02, 2018, 09:42:07 pm »
And why would Russians be interested in fanning the flames of hatred?  Why it's a very simple reason.

Ironbite-divide the US voter base.

I read somewhere that Putin has grandiose visions of a divided America, embattled in a four-way civil war. I fear more the reality of partisan-driven political stalemate, but okay.
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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2018, 09:51:54 pm »
Huh, isn't that a thing? Even nerd rage is a tool of power nowadays. What a time to be alive.

Offline Kanzenkankaku

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #4 on: December 09, 2018, 04:35:22 am »
You know we live in the most clownshoes timeline when actual international agents care about peoples opinions on the political implications of a space wild western film franchise about the struggles of dudes who get their hands lopped off by heatswords.

Offline Askold

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #5 on: December 09, 2018, 05:31:24 am »
Decades ago Soviet spies used conspiracies to sow dissent and distrust in USA. They infiltrated conspiracy theorist groups and spread claims and falsified evidence of the US government being behind JFK assassination.

...Nowadays they do the same by telling nerds that they should hate girls in movies and games.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline niam2023

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2018, 04:39:54 pm »
Russian Agent: Next I will get them angry about the political implications of censorship in the Goblin Slayer anime. I am a very serious agent provocateur.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #7 on: December 10, 2018, 01:37:34 am »
The crazy part is that their current methods are more effective than the old ones.

People who thought that the US government is killing US presidents didn't do much good but angry nerds who hate women are an internet army that harasses people non-stop and votes for foreign agents just to piss off "Libtards."
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline Chaos Undivided

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2019, 07:28:23 pm »
Homie, I'm gonna be blunt: this study doesn't prove jack shit. And I'm gonna tell you why.

Morten Bay started by taking a sample tweets addressed directly to Rian Johnson about TLJ. He divided the tweets into positive and negative ones. Then he exclusively examined the negative ones to categorize them. So far, nothing too bad. One could ask if his sample was the most representative, but there isn't really anything that would ruin the study's credibility.

That comes next.

Bay grouped the tweets into three categories: politically motivated, trolls/Russians/bots, and real angry fans. How did he identify members of the first group? He looked at their tweet history and saw if they ever used the terms "Trump" or "SJW". Yeah, really. Tweeting about certain topics is enough to brush somebody off as politically motivated.

To identify members of the second group, Bay used post frequency, retweet rate, other tweet content, and command of English. For the record, this is considered an example of a troll tweet:

Quote from: @MarcoSo94862885
So, now explain why Mark Hamil didn't like Luje in TLJ?

Yes, understandable typos are used as evidence of trolling. I have trouble remembering how to spell some surnames, and "k" and "j" are right next to each other on the keyboard. Not to mention that he himself made a typo:

Quote from: Morten Bay
The simplicity and brevity of the language, as well as the fact that this purported Star Wars fan doesn’t spell “Hamill” or “Luke” correctly, are all indicators that raises suspicions.

Should we assume Bay's a Russian troll because he made a mistake in subject-verb agreement? I say no. Nor should we assume it of people who misspell names. But even assuming he's right, how many people did he determine were bots or trolls?

Quote from: Morten Bay
Using the Botometer mentioned in the Method section, 11 out of the of 206 accounts expressing negative sentiments were identified as bots. I identified 33 of the 206 negative accounts as trolls and/or sock puppets.

Only 44. And of those 44, he determined that only 16 were Russian:

Quote from: Morten Bay
16 of these 33 troll/sock puppet accounts appear to be Russian trolls, or at least possess several of the Russian troll characteristics presented above.

In other words, the study determined that less than 10% of the negative tweets were by Russian bots. So even taking the study at face value, Russia played only a minor role in the backlash.

This study ain't worth the bandwidth it takes up, except maybe as an object lesson in what not to do. For the record, I'm a transport inspector with no formal training in this stuff, so when I can find such glaring flaws in his methodology, something is wrong.

If you liked TLJ, fine. Nothing wrong with that. I got better things to worry about than other peoples' taste in movies. Just don't try and say there aren't legit reasons to dislike it.
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Offline niam2023

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2019, 10:09:05 pm »
The backlash primarily came from literal human garbage that has no business in prominence.

But then, we've dealt with guys who carry water for salty, bigoted nerdwads before.
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Offline Chaos Undivided

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2019, 10:30:33 pm »
The backlash primarily came from literal human garbage that has no business in prominence.

But then, we've dealt with guys who carry water for salty, bigoted nerdwads before.

Do you think there are legitimate reasons to dislike TLJ or not?
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Offline Cloud3514

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #11 on: January 09, 2019, 10:42:56 pm »
Of course there are. I have a friend who doesn't like it despite agreeing that the fanboy backlash (and the idiotic reasons for hating it) is alt-right horseshit. Hell, despite overall enjoying it, I personally see it as a massive step down from The Force Awakens (which, fun fact, is my second favorite Star Wars movie after The Empire Strikes Back).
« Last Edit: January 10, 2019, 12:10:02 am by Cloud3514 »
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Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2019, 12:03:05 am »
The backlash primarily came from literal human garbage that has no business in prominence.

But then, we've dealt with guys who carry water for salty, bigoted nerdwads before.

Do you think there are legitimate reasons to dislike TLJ or not?

Do bears shit in the woods?

The problem was never with people who just didn't care for the film, for whatver reason.  It was with the psychotic cunts that can't keep from trying to skull-fuck people over social media because there's black people doing something other than dying five minutes in.  Always has been, always will be.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #13 on: January 10, 2019, 01:40:19 am »
It's one thing to not like a film. It's another thing to not like a film because you think seeing women and non-whites as main characters is "cultural marxism" or sending death/rape threats to actors because you didn't like the role they played.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!

Offline niam2023

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Re: Much of the TLJ hatred was by Russian bots
« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2019, 05:52:06 am »
When you dislike this film, you just need to make it clear you're not a part of the chodes that dislike it because black people exist in it.
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