Too many fake current affairs posts on MN

I’ve been called a bot, a shill, a liar even (for saying I used to be a Labour Party member). They just can’t countenance people not agreeing with them. Laughable if their idols weren’t in power.

Pretty sure there are social disrupters who may well be sponsored or supported by foreign governments and dodgy organisations posting quite a lot. Probably more than 10 years ago, because MN is more famous and the world is more unstable and many governments and organisations benefit from social instability elsewhere in the world - and the current state of the world means they need all the help they can get

Quite possible we are now at the stage where AI can post and learn from the responses how best to manipulate the audience. This will greatly increase the amount of dodgy stuff as it doesn't need a human in the loop

Not necessarily posting on or about politics but Things that make people feel dissatisfied with their lives - any post that treats a 150k plus salary as normal and struggling makes me suspicious ( actually think there are far fewer or those households than those with a DH into cycling or golf or other "too outing" hobbies )

. not saying it doesn't happen IRL and that's the rub - for any one "bot" post there could be one real one and the aim of any bot is to have a surprising amount of believability

Within politics I think you have always seen that far right communicate differently to many other segments of society and are happier to post aggressively ; the far right are currently gaining ground across Europe because they usually do when times get rough. So they will appear more on here naturally. And I think the things that drive that trend to the right ( very natural and instinctive responses to difficult times ) are at odds with the kind of discussion and debate that many of us prefer

This is a good one for the poster going on about ‘shills’ in pp

You are 100% correct. There is a posse of usernames that are clearly political shills.

I have never shouted 'bot' 😁 but when there are posters who just repeatedly post untruths with no attempt at discussion it does start to get a bit wearing.

💯

Mumsnet politics is so out of touch with real life

This was clearly shown on the threads about the removal of the Winter Fuel Allowance.

Justifying the removal because their parents don't need it, and yet failing to see those on a basic full state pension -of which this disproportionately affects women- do need it.

Agree with that.

It's not so much the varied views but the posters that keep shouting 'bots' -no discussion, just endless repetition of 'bots'

I don't remember all this fuss about astroturfing bots on the constant anti-Tory threads when they were in government but dare to criticise Labour and all hell breaks loose. The Labour propaganda points like '£22 billion black hole' are laughable. There's so much misinformation on Labour threads, such as the way people cling to the Jay report, along with the desperate tooth and nail defence of policies that would rightly see the Tories shredded up one side and down the other if they did something a tenth as bad. Mumsnet politics is so out of touch with real life, probably because it's so middle-class and liking Labour is seen as a luxury personality type.

When some woke up this morning, it was either “I must accept labour may have mismanaged things and people are angry” or “Labour can’t do wrong ever so it must be them, must be bots, etc… not our fault, we are Labour, how could we ever be wrong?”

This thread looks indeed like desperate believers clutching at straws to maintain their beliefs and keep their collective momentum: everyone is a bot, everyone is far right, it’s a deliberate attack, look they use words that are used by other people, that’s a sign they’re in cahoots…

People who are more attuned to critical thinking, free expression, tolerance, diversity don’t go into such tantrums because they realise a lot faster their views may be wrong when reality hits them in the face.

When you got to deny reality to such an extent and with such despair, you are probably wrong.

It's not so much the varied views but the actual lies being posted by new posters, and the posters who just keep repeating 'facts' - no discussion, just endless repetition of 'facts'.

The Russian incident was an example of the 'other ways of targeting' that I mentioned in response to you bringing them up, rather than a bot.

@QuimCarrey Someone with a Russian background or even a pro-Russian agent might post misiniformation to Mumsnet but a bot would have to automate the whole registration or name-changing process and they couldn't post very often. Why bother for something you're not doing often and have to tailor and even then according to you the results are a bit shit? Easier to have a person do it.

Evidence of what? You think I'm a bot? If that's what you think, spell it out.
Yes I did have a 'quick google' as it was 1am ffs! You should try it before you attack next time. I heard about the poll on the radio so i knew it existed, and it does. Why are you so nasty every time you post?

https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/what-is-a-bot/

@QuimCarrey I was actually thinking about another thread which was very anti-Labour and I couldn't be arsed to change. Doesn't matter to me if it's anti-Labour - replace by whatever other politIcs you like including pro-Labour. I'd still like to know what is a "bot"?

It’s voting intention, there’s a long thread on it covering the poll

Few days ago saw 2 posters on the same thread espousing the German neo-Nazi AfD

Never seen anything like that before in donkeys years on mumsnet

Seems doubtful that they were 'disillusioned Labour voters'

No reason to think they were 'bots' either just a new variety of poster

It's interesting that you jumped to frame this as being specific to just one party political perspective. Nothing in my post either said or implied that. As I said, this isn't a new thing!

Bots are non-human. Other ways of targeting websites like MN also exist, yes. Some of it is at the less worrying end, like staff of political parties floating policy ideas on here (I know of one person who used to do this on a regular basis!).

Some of it is deliberate misinformation. I remember seeing a post that was obviously intended to sow discord about the constitutional arrangements of the UK when Boris Johnson was hospitalised. It had a distinctly Russian sounding use of language.

A quick Google? Again proving the points made on here. You don't really care and yet you care enough to put some tenuous comment about it on here. You're doing a great job of providing evidence for what the OP said.

You don’t think Labour repeat phrases?

It really is odd how one party think this site is reserved for positive posts for them

Indeed 😂 And not just reading but posting.

I would guess mostly paid campaigners, possibly using A.I. to generate posts. Not sure if that qualifies as a “bot”.