I think you may be underestimating 2 things, just from my previous experience.
First, unless you are using sophisticated AI and behavioral data mining practices, you are not able to spot current bot activity. It is nearly undetectable from human activity by standard systems (ip address, browser fingerprinting, JavaScript systems, etc.). I know this because I worked in a space dealing with this. Google developed the tools to catch a lot of it, but does not disclose how they work. Their success at this is also why they now control most online advertising avenues. I know HN is small, and it may not be within your budgets for such systems, but perhaps there’s someone in the space willing to lend a hand?
Second, a lot of this comes from non bot traffic, and regular user accounts. Even regular users on other services have admitted being paid by various “advertising agencies” to post or comment on certain topics.
And I do get that HN is not the size of Facebook or Twitter, and so the issues are not the same. However, again, HN reaches some of the brightest minds in an important field of the US economy, so it’s not exactly an unimportant target.
Anyways, if you see my comment history you’ll notice I’m extremely skeptical and science minded. I appreciate and applaud your need for hard evidence, which I can’t offer since I don’t have all the data.
I do have experience with this stuff though, and on top of that, if you’ve gotten several thousand requests for recent investigation, I wouldn’t be so quick to chalk it all up to increased divisions in society. In fact it certainly is part of it, since that’s the whole point. It’s a feedback loop.
Thanks for taking the time reading this and replying. I do appreciate it.
First, unless you are using sophisticated AI and behavioral data mining practices, you are not able to spot current bot activity. It is nearly undetectable from human activity by standard systems (ip address, browser fingerprinting, JavaScript systems, etc.). I know this because I worked in a space dealing with this. Google developed the tools to catch a lot of it, but does not disclose how they work. Their success at this is also why they now control most online advertising avenues. I know HN is small, and it may not be within your budgets for such systems, but perhaps there’s someone in the space willing to lend a hand?
Second, a lot of this comes from non bot traffic, and regular user accounts. Even regular users on other services have admitted being paid by various “advertising agencies” to post or comment on certain topics.
And I do get that HN is not the size of Facebook or Twitter, and so the issues are not the same. However, again, HN reaches some of the brightest minds in an important field of the US economy, so it’s not exactly an unimportant target.
Anyways, if you see my comment history you’ll notice I’m extremely skeptical and science minded. I appreciate and applaud your need for hard evidence, which I can’t offer since I don’t have all the data.
I do have experience with this stuff though, and on top of that, if you’ve gotten several thousand requests for recent investigation, I wouldn’t be so quick to chalk it all up to increased divisions in society. In fact it certainly is part of it, since that’s the whole point. It’s a feedback loop.
Thanks for taking the time reading this and replying. I do appreciate it.