Re:How to hack Hacker News (and consistently hit the front p...
by ouid on Monday May 15, 2023 @12:06PM
(#35950459)
A shill is anyone who lends credibility to a con (or more modernly, PR) by claiming to believe it themselves. This can be witting or unwitting, but if what you're doing is repeating PR, even if its because you believe it, you're a shill.
In fact, a grifter prefers their shills to be defending them in good faith. The basic currency of a con is confidence. This is easier to wield if you don't have to pretend.
Unfortunately for moderation efforts, the test for whether or not someone is unwittingly repeating PR is not easy to moderate, or, by extension, automate the moderation of. But it is a problem of equal importance to the "bad faith" shills because the effect on the conversation is somewhere between identical and worse.
If theres no way to accuse someone of uncritically repeating the lies of, say, Apple, then you will select for people in your conversations who are unwittingly repeating the lies of Apple.
In fact, a grifter prefers their shills to be defending them in good faith. The basic currency of a con is confidence. This is easier to wield if you don't have to pretend.
Unfortunately for moderation efforts, the test for whether or not someone is unwittingly repeating PR is not easy to moderate, or, by extension, automate the moderation of. But it is a problem of equal importance to the "bad faith" shills because the effect on the conversation is somewhere between identical and worse.
If theres no way to accuse someone of uncritically repeating the lies of, say, Apple, then you will select for people in your conversations who are unwittingly repeating the lies of Apple.