Is it possible that corporate shills could be on Freenode? Seems ridiculous... reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thisseemsridiculous · 2016-06-27 21:45 Hi, I've used Freenode for many years and I've noticed of the past few there seems to be people acting in line with the idea of a paid corporate shill. This seems strange that they would be preaching to a bunch of late-night IRC nerds who have no life (like myself), which is why I dismissed the idea. However I've seen behaviors that are no different than the shill news story or the shill blog comment. Google seems to be heavily promoted by a number of individuals, to the point that someone told me that being logged into Google 24/7 is "secure". Google promotions happen frequently and formulaically in #firefox, where regular anonymous visitors complain about Firefox and promise to switch to Chrome before leaving the channel. At one point I talked to someone in a libertarian channel who claimed to work for (or retired from, don't remember) an energy company, and insisted that fracking produces residual amounts of petroleum and thus would also lower gas prices to pre-9/11 levels. Another situation in my life happened to involve the defense of M$ and the MAFIAA. The issue at hand was whether or not the MAFIAA and other disreputable powers could corrupt the "living standard" of HTML5 as time progresses. The users in the channel insisted that the "living standard" could only make major changes if there was a patent infringement claims. As for Microsoft's shady record, they had "changed their ways" when it came to standards and compatibility. On a side note, the same users also claimed that despite being around for years, all XHTML had inherent bugs, including every Web site using it. Three weeks after this chat: EME. I always dismissed this as ridiculous. Why would corporations waste money preaching to the few no-life nerds like ourselves at 3 AM when there are plenty of married people with children and full time jobs who read news/blog posts (including their comments) and can be influenced that way. Can anyone shed more light on the subject please? Because this makes no sense and I can't find anywhere to ask. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ThisIsMyRedditVoice · 2016-06-27 22:10 I see your new throw away account so I'll use my own freshly made one too. > Google promotions happen frequently and formulaically in #firefox, where regular anonymous visitors complain about Firefox and promise to switch to Chrome before leaving the channel. That's.. that's not really a promotion. That's more like "*Firefox won't implement changes I want and expect so I'll tell them I'm leaving for Chrome. That'll make them take me seriously.*" That doesn't work. > At one point I talked to someone in a libertarian channel .... and [they] insisted that fracking produces residual amounts of petroleum and thus would also lower gas prices to pre-9/11 levels. Sounds like a troll. Someone who joins channels and communities purely to get a rise out of the constituents. Though, sometimes users from other political backgrounds join another for a proper debate/discussion. This doesn't sound like a troll from your example but I assure you most who do this are trolls. > Why would corporations waste money preaching to the few no-life nerds like ourselves at 3 AM Because the world doesn't have one time zone. 3am for us is 10am for someone else. Also, as an admin on a messaging forum community we see a bulk of our spam topics and posts spike during the early morning hours when most of us are asleep. The same is true in IRC. A largely American channel is likely to be asleep at 3a and thus these users can loiter in the channels longer, spreading the companies advertisements before getting kicked/banned compared to doing the same thing during our work/wake hours. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FlosCarmeli · 2016-06-28 01:29 You've been watching too much Mr. Robot. :D ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blueskin · 2016-06-28 18:04 > That's more like "Firefox won't implement changes I want and expect so I'll tell them I'm leaving for Chrome. That'll make them take me seriously." That doesn't work. This. They are making the mistake of thinking Mozilla care about their users, something they stopped doing circa 2010 when they adopted "fuck you, you'll do it our way now". ---------------------------------------------------------------------- zer0t3ch · 2016-07-01 09:12 Whether or not they care about their collective userbase, they definitely don't care about one user. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dcnblues · 2016-07-02 20:30 I don't know. Jeb Bush was a game-changer. It used to be that over a hundred million dollars of TV ads would get you results. He got zip (1%-3%). It's hard not to imagine that budgets to change public opinion aren't moving to fake Internet shill accounts... I'm also very skeptical about Bill Gates' PR rehab (which has been a total and stunning success on Reddit).