ATS has been infiltrated and infested with western establishment-paid shills...?

a reply to: MessageforAll

You're right. People do forget to quickly.
I remember reading a thread like this before, and given the links you just posted... This isn't new news, let alone a conspiracy...

How do you counter it? Continue speaking truth.

I've watched and waited a bit before tossing an opinion in for this one, but I think a major thing is being missed in the discussion.

First, I'll say I've heard the rumors about paid posters and I've read the headlines in MSM about campaign budgets or media focus on 'social media'. I've yet to see a legitimate "$$ for your posting!" job and I've never actually met a person who was paid a penny for it in the context of user generated content like this. I certainly know some column writers and copy writers for other sites. They write under a byline and it's not the same thing, of course.

The main thing tho? ATS is a truly international site! I think folks forget what gives ATS some of it's special sauce for being so interesting. It's easy to do I suppose, since accent rarely carries across text and (AHEM..fellow Americans..) bi-lingual to speak English isn't that rare.

Heck, I have friends here in a half dozen European spots, Russia, Bahrain, a couple in Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Kenya, South Africa and New Zealand. (Whew! .. I hadn't really thought about it until starting to type..and let's just say it goes on.. lol)

The point being though, with a site that really has the international variety for members, there will always be people on opposite sides, IMO. There are honest to goodness communists, anarchists, capitalists, doomers and chronically happy people. All here together...and someone always looks a little shilly to someone else by sheer extreme of beliefs.

That's just my personal two carrots into the blender of shills, chills and thrills.

a reply to: SalientSkivvy

How to counter? Don't get upset and don't interact.
If their mission is to derail a thread, don't post back, let them be, like that small annoying kid who's yanking your chain but aren't allowed to hit because it's just a kid and your this old geezer. Well you understand lol.

a reply to: GeminiSky

You can do whatever you think best for the good of the thread. To my best recollection, I have responded to one member previously in one discussion who took umbrage with something I said and then accused me of "being a shill" based on my user statistics.

If you think you want to "call me out" or that you have something to "call me out on" go ahead ... I think it'd be boring as heck to most readers here ...

... but I'm certainly not intimidated by your implicit threat ... in fact, I think it's funny, and not just a little bit school-yard.

But as taking time out to attack another member in this regard is against T&C, I'd suggest you get over it and move on.

I'm no shill, or informant, or infiltrator, or whatever.

I just don't buy all the BS.

originally posted by: MessageforAll
a reply to: SalientSkivvy

How to counter? Don't get upset and don't interact.
If their mission is to derail a thread, don't post back, let them be, like that small annoying kid who's yanking your chain but aren't allowed to hit because it's just a kid and your this old geezer. Well you understand lol.

I do the opposite..quite amusing really..

GS

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: GeminiSky

You can do whatever you think best for the good of the thread. To my best recollection, I have responded to one member previously in one discussion who took umbrage with something I said and then accused me of "being a shill" based on my user statistics.

If you think you want to "call me out" or that you have something to "call me out on" go ahead ... I think it'd be boring as heck to most readers here ...

... but I'm certainly not intimidated by your implicit threat ... in fact, I think it's funny, and not just a little bit school-yard.

But as taking time out to attack another member in this regard is against T&C, I'd suggest you get over it and move on.

I'm no shill, or informant, or infiltrator, or whatever.

I just don't buy all the BS.

Highly amusing. If you are as boring as you say I will not investigate further. Cheers.

GS

a reply to: GeminiSky

Funny coming from a man who's signature says *** don't feed thetroll's***
I get it you think your smarter then a spook, you think you'l outwit the code, what ever. In fact by doing so you are doing half their work. Making the environment hostile and helping to keep a thread of track.

Just my opinion no beef.

I have a problem with a pattern i've noticed pertaining to this very discussion.

Every site that i've seen it on seems to have their blinkers firmly in place, im sure it's just human nature to think "not us".. but when i see it blanketed over the net i have to ponder the wisdom of such a mindset.. as it could well be the Achilles heel in all this.

everyone thinks their not important enough, or big enough to have a team assigned to a board/s with persona software jockeys running fully controlled discussions like proxy cowboys.

They are everywhere, what started as a sneaky way of damage control for shifty corporations has exploded into a world wherein you cannot just take anybody's word for anything unless you know them personally.. it worked so good in PR it was taken up by many more branches. and now it's in everything.

We.. are an easy target, we are open to opinion and like to build our own using all the little pieces of fact we may find laying discarded over the net.. put enough convincing red herring's out there and you can mold that opinion from the start.. we loose. before we even start digging.. we're just wading in smelly fish now.

a reply to: MessageforAll

You should probably do a little more research on the "propaganda bill"....

Controversy has swirled around the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act since it passed mark-up as an amendment to the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act on May 18. The bill is now before the Senate. The Smith-Mundt Act, which established public diplomacy and international broadcasting as activities of the U.S. government, has been in force since 1948. One of its provisions prohibits U.S. citizens from accessing the public diplomacy products of the U.S. government, whether in print or on the airwaves. The purpose of this provision was to prevent domestic government propagandizing. Yet, in an age when global news and information flows are available 24/7 in print, on the airwaves, and online, this prohibition has become an anachronism. Critics on the left and right alike have charged that modernizing the Smith-Mundt Act will lift the floodgates for U.S. government propaganda aimed at U.S. citizens. Not so. Rather, the amended act will force greater government transparency and accountability and it will allow Americans insights into what Washington is communicating to audiences around the world.

www.heritage.org...

a reply to: AlphaHawk


CHILL!!!! BURN the witch!, you corrected me so you must be a chill!!!!

No seriously, i'l have a look. ty.

originally posted by: MessageforAll
a reply to: GeminiSky

Funny coming from a man who's signature says *** don't feed thetroll's***
I get it you think your smarter then a spook, you think you'l outwit the code, what ever. In fact by doing so you are doing half their work. Making the environment hostile and helping to keep a thread of track.

Just my opinion

no beef.

Yes i think that signature is very outdated I have grown as a person and refuse to take crap like this lying down.

GS

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

I wish I could share that view. Perhaps you are right.

I do know of an Air Force intel project that is supposed to essentially use intel personal to troll online forums and influence opinion and discredit leaked classified information. No way I can verify this and I believe that project is classified so if it does exist I shouldn't know about it.

It is not just military. Companies like Monsanto will monitor forums and attempt to discredit the anti-GMO crowd and promote their product.

An international site like this will have all different view points no doubt but there are times when I feel like I'm under attack and I've seen it with other posters too.

It is the posters who mis-quote your posts, spin what you post, and an attempt to discredit what you post or you in general that bother me. I know I have some wild ideas so I expect a lot of disagreement, just every so often I feel like I am in a debate with a bunch of shills.

So ... with that out of the way ...

The OP makes it sound like there's only "one true religion" here at ATS ... believers in all the various conspiracy theories, adherents to the anti-government, anti-establishment, neo-libertarian if not downright anarchistic politics, etc. etc.

I joined because of the diversity of material here and the strong adherence to the idea of "Deny Ignorance." I admired the almost academic/scientific approach that the board owners seemed to be insisting on ...

And, I'd be the first to cop to being a bit more moderate/liberal than the average member here. I understand that, expect it, and accept it. But it seems to me, of late, that the balance has shifted, as opposed to or perhaps more exactly, in contradistinction to what the OP is seeing, to more posters fostering the "right-wing" ideology outlined by the OP.

Perhaps it's just human nature to assume that They are Here and out to get Us?

EDIT: I took that striked portion out because that's merely my own bias showing.

a reply to: MessageforAll

The problem with these bills is that the way they're written makes it so hard to actually get the point of what they're about.

If the above isn't straight forward enough, the gist is that in 1948, the gov made it so US citizens couldn't access international diplomatic correspondences...such a thing is redundant in today's world, with internet and the like, information is global now so they updated it to correspond with today's technology.

So in theory, like the article says, it should make things more transparent...

a reply to: jrod

I do know of an Air Force intel project that is supposed to essentially use intel personal to troll online forums and influence opinion and discredit leaked classified information. No way I can verify this and I believe that project is classified so if it does exist I shouldn't know about it.

Not saying such a thing doesn't exist but there is a particular thread that says the contrary..

www.abovetopsecret.com...

That thread was started in 2007.

7 years later, as in a couple of months ago, that particular project was finally officially announced.

The Airforce intel on that was 100% accurate.

a reply to: AlphaHawk

Hope i'm not derailing the thread, but in "theory " a lot of things should work properly, seldom they do. And adding words like transparent in the mixture.... In Europe it's the most common used term by politicians. Transparency.

Thanks for the clarification though.

I can assure you all that if there were a paid shill on ATS it would be one of us owners first. If not me then Bill or Abe or Stephen... You always want the ownership in on the gig or the trolls you hire are subject to having their threads removed and that leaves you with a big fat ZERO ROI, not good.

Now since we know none of my partners or I would ever be financially satiated by the pittance they would offer for such a thing combined with the fact we are ethical men with a deep love for ATS, I'd have to say bollocks to this theory.

Even if a few lackeys are "paid shills" they are so low rent as to not be relevant much less matter. That brings us back to ZERO ROI and that just doesn't fly.

People who disagree or are passionate about a point are just that, people who want to be heard just like YOU.

a reply to: jrod

It is the posters who mis-quote your posts, spin what you post, and an attempt to discredit what you post or you in general that bother me. I know I have some wild ideas so I expect a lot of disagreement, just every so often I feel like I am in a debate with a bunch of shills.

Well, I hear what you're saying and I have no idea about formal government intelligence efforts across the net. That wouldn't be a shill and I'd think, would never be obvious, either. Just a professional doing a job. I'm going to bet the line between work and goof is a carefully watched one where the job is literally goofing off, for all outward appearances. The idea being, there would have to be some real benefit to it.

I can see that to bombard CNN and Fox. It's happened too. I can see short, topic heavy periods of time where public opinion in a quick campaign would matter somehow? The conspiracy community strikes me as the least likely to go the pied piper route and just follow something, which only adds to the question of how much would be gained to justify the time? There are much more promising fields to work for hearts and minds, I'd think?

I had a problem believing in the shill agenda

That was till i noticed that most anti gun post the poster did not list where they were from.

Then i found a lot of anti Israel post also did not list the area they were from.

Then i started checking on some of the more strange people that posted.

I went back to there posting history and found they had a history of posting in patterns

And a few of these were just plain trolling

a reply to: Springer

Hi Springer, what about the flipside?

People from other conspiracy sites, for example, coming here to try and sway a subject?

I understand that you probably can't say much about it if true, but are you open to that possibility?