[Article] What Do Paid Upvotes Mean For The Future of Government Propaganda Programs That Target Social Media?

You may not have realised, but many of the posts on social media sites are posted by paid employees of companies and even governments who present themselves as private individuals. Several governments have already been exposed as running significant programs of propaganda and manipulation through Facebook and elsewhere.. Could it be that paying for posts will only make this worse?

If you've ever engaged in discussing political or scientific topics online that are in any way controversial (as I have for years) then you will be familiar with posters who use all manner of techniques to distract and generally inject message of little or no value - or who even outright attack you with no substantial reason or evidence for doing so. As my previous guide to identifying internet trolls made clear, there are a huge variety of deliberately designed trolling tactics in use by paid 'professionals', who have the intent of disrupting online discussion and basically warping reality to their preferred versions.

China, Israel and Britain - Among others

It is highly likely that most nation states are to some extent involved in this already, but here are a small selection of examples that are known about publicly:

Israel pays students to fight 'anti-semitism' and to make the government look 'good' (better than it would do without paying people to help them):

China allegedly employs half a million people called the 'Fifty Cent army', who are a group of Internet commentators who get paid to leave fake comments on news articles and social media. They allegedly get paid 50 cents of yuan for every post.

Britain also admits to having a military division that does similar.

What Does the Addition of Paid Posting Mean for this Situation?

As someone who runs my own social network, I use many of the existing social networks to keep up with their features and changes. In that process, along with sharing helpful content, I have noticed a repeating trend: New sites tend to initially be filled with more honest, open minded and intelligent posters and posts - which then gradually get diluted more and more as new members join. Eventually, they reach the point where Youtube and Facebook have reached where a high percentage of comments are just pointless or abusive or even criminal. Some of this effect is probably just due to early adopters tending to be the more aware and intelligent in society (so kudos to you, fellow steemian!) - but some of this is due to the organised propaganda teams mentioned earlier.

I am wondering whether a paid posting scenario like steemit will result in in improvement or a worsening of the situation here. I can see a situation where it becomes much more financially viable for propaganda teams to operate in such an environment - since they would otherwise have only limited funds available. However, I can also see that by making the ability to earn money from posting, it becomes possible for people who may otherwise have gotten involved in propaganda teams to instead just post from home about things that are more helpful/truthful.

I really don't know what the outcome will be at this point, but I remain vigilant! Maybe Steemit's Reputation system is enough to deal with the problem?

Got comments?

If you have any thoughts, feedback or inspired ideas on how to change the situation for the better then let me know in the comments below. Thanks!

Wishing you well,
Ura Soul

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