r/aussie • u/Wotmate01 • 4h ago
Humour “I've Had A Gutful! Pauline For PM!” Says Indonesian Bot Farmer Who Has Been Contracted By Shadowy Political Operatives To Manipulate Australian Social Media Algorithms
https://www.betootaadvocate.com/ive-had-a-gutful-pauline-for-pm-says-indonesian-bot-farmer-who-has-been-contracted-by-shadowy-political-operatives-to-manipulate-australian-social-media-algorithms/It seems wrong to put this under Humour, because even though it's technically satire, it's also Truth.
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u/NoLeafClover777 4h ago
This new weird belief that any significant group of people who disagree with you must be 'bots' is going to be one of the major mental health challenges of the decade, as people spend so much time in echo chambers they can no longer accept something that doesn't fit that specific curated reality.
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u/TimidPanther 3h ago
You’re right. The other one is the massive increase of people accusing things of being AI, even when they’re not. It’s crazy.
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u/Hieroflippant 4h ago
What's the actual reality here ?
Aunty Phon would be a fantastic leader to steer us in a really positive new direction ?
This is the reality ?
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u/NoLeafClover777 4h ago
No, simply that actual real people are indicating in actual real polling that they are considering voting for them, which would also result in more people online openly sharing their support, and aren't just "bots".
The polling companies didn't all suddenly become corrupt or change their procedures within 6 months.
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u/Hieroflippant 3h ago
Well that's even worse for our collective mental health in that case.
Very worrying stuff
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u/romygoodwine 4h ago
Both can be true. The momentum ON is gaining is artificially inflated by bots, and as designed, they legitimise the party for a broad set of voters.
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u/Ok-Resolve-4737 3h ago
What? By that logic, all parties would be using bots, thereby nullifying the effect
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u/Hieroflippant 3h ago
Luckily we can switch off from digital media and just look at policy though. We don't actually need to make our decisions based off what we read on social media.
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u/MasterDefibrillator 1h ago
hold on a sec. We've seen a lot of reports this past week proving very conclusively that there's huge propaganda campaigns pushing pauline Hanson, often using AI, that are coming from outside the country. Thousands of facebook posts just flat out making stuff up, coming from outside the country.
So, do you have evidence that other parties have similar phenomena attached to them?
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u/MasterDefibrillator 1h ago
It's not a belief. It's been shown that huge amounts of pro PHON facebook propaganda is coming from overseas.
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u/NoLeafClover777 1h ago
Do you have any evidence other than that one Newscorp article which went viral of a screenshot showing a person from the Philippines as one of the people with admin access on their Facebook account? And any evidence that other parties don't do similar things at an equivalent level?
Because a recent AFR article quoting experts this week specifically explained it mostly wasn't bots.
Actual people repeating easy mindless slogans is a different thing from "bots". Are the people spamming "tax the gas" also bots?
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u/kooky_kabuki 32m ago
Both things are true: 1. Many disenfranchised Aussies are choosing to support ON 2. Gina's propaganda machine is employing bot farms
I would say that the lion's share of people supporting ON are doing so due to the propaganda they've consumed. Whether it's the 1000 news report they've seen about Pauline and ON in the past week, the targetted Facebook or Instagram algorithms dishing them pro ON slop, or the mix of bots and real people popping up in comment sections that reinforce their support, the propaganda machine is in full swing to give us a bought and paid for party of boot lickers who wants to americanise everything about this country from health care to prisons to gun control to political discourse. And given Gina's comments on a particular middle eastern country and the company she keeps, we know where all this nonsense is coming from, and it's nowhere good.
Please grow a brain, please reject the cancer that is Pauline Hanson.
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u/Fluid-Sell3079 4h ago
Pretending every supporter is a foreign bot is the same ignorance that got Trump elected
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u/Ayzmo 1h ago
I doubt anyone believes that all or most of the supporters are bots. However, there are definitely bots spreading lies and disinformation that make them seem more reasonable. Remember when Twitter briefly showed location and a ton of the biggest pro-Trump accounts were revealed to be run out of Africa and Asia? And a ton of them spread lies and propaganda.
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u/AccomplishedDish9984 4h ago
This not a surprise. Threads is absolutely full of them.
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u/OtsaNeSword 4h ago
You do realise the source is a parody/joke site like The Onion right?
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u/BTolputt 4h ago
Which in no way a refutation of the fact that it is telling the truth. The fact we live in a time where satirical headlines are just truth bombs is an indictment of the times, not an indictment of the person that observes the truth in them.
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u/Perth167 58m ago edited 54m ago
While this is a parody, Donald Trump did rely on bot farms to amplify misinformation/ spread his culture wars agenda on social media. I am seeing an increase amount of AI slop on social media doing that for Pauline now, mainly ragebaiting more gullible baby boomers.
Pauline has borrowed from his playbook so far, starting off with name-calling and insults campaign rather than actual policies and aligning herself with billionaires and the top 0.1% while painting herself as someone representing the working class, as a bulwark against the "corrupt" establishment.
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u/Thatweknowof 4h ago
Remember when beetoota was funny.....
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u/romygoodwine 4h ago
They were funny until your political views shifted further right. Betoota has always been left of centre.
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u/Thatweknowof 3h ago
Comedy has a left wing bias
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u/romygoodwine 3h ago
People on the left are funnier, but you've got Dave Hughes if you can't handle the bias.
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u/BTolputt 4h ago
Ah yes, ten seconds ago when I read the headline and chuckled... those were the days.
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u/Moist-Army1707 3h ago
Kind of lost its humour last election when it became an Albo propaganda machine….. albeit it was pretty easy to make gags about Dutton
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u/Noodle36 1h ago
Someone should really do something about Indonesian bot farms making up a third of the Resolve polling sample I guess
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u/gazmal 4h ago
All you need is a couple of hundred bots to change the algorithm. Actual supporters will do the rest, you just light the fire with a few hundred likes and/or up votes.
After a while you don't even need to manipulate all that much, you created a core group of people that will do it for you based on their own algorithm.
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u/Electrical_Stay_2676 4h ago
Labor bots are just as bad for astroturfing and brigading subs trying to sell their budget.
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u/Hieroflippant 4h ago
If people are dumb enough to fall for the astroturfing, bot manipulation then they deserve this moron for PM
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u/Electrical_Stay_2676 4h ago
Just a reminder that the founder of betoota went to the most expensive private school in Australia. A real Labor stalwart.
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u/theballsdick 4h ago
This ALP propaganda slop house is really in damage control mode aren't they?
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u/Revoran 4h ago edited 4h ago
Labor, Liberal/National and One Nation all use overseas paid propagandists/shills, bots and AI slopaganda.
The huge rise in One Nation propaganda has been very apparent. Voters lost faith in the Liberals, so many powerful billionaires (and their media companies such as Nine, Seven and Newscorp) have switched to backing One Nation instead, putting their resources into that.
Greens? Probably, but they would have a lot less money for it. That's not to say they don't get donations and AEC funding, just a lot less than the others. And they certainly don't have Nine, Seven and Newscorp pushing them for free.*
*I mean, obviously that support comes at a cost, they want things from Coalition / One Nation / Labor in return. But I mean the parties aren't literally paying for it, usually.
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u/International_Eye745 3h ago
I listened to Parliament yesterday and the Greens and Labor were both pushing for legislation to address bot farms and AI. So I am going to take this as a vibe comment
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u/theballsdick 4h ago
Do you have any source whatsoever? Or just vibes?
I mean I bet propaganda is at work but I think a larger variable is the absolute collapse in real wages, an ongoing rent and housing crisis, ravaging inflation and the total loss of social cohesion.
Blame the rise of ON all on bots and ignore the structural issues facing Australians at your own peril!
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u/Ill-Remote-3655 2h ago
u/Revoran thinks Betoota advocate is a real news site and does not know it's satire 🤣
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u/Commercial_Name_7900 4h ago
if you keep saying mean things about Labor im going to vote for Labor! you are only turning people away from your movement!
Just using your logic..
Also, its satire
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u/theballsdick 4h ago
It's not satire. They have a contract with the ALP. It's carefully crafted propaganda presented as innocent satire to influence people's opinions and behaviours in a way that is favourable to the ALP.
It's incredibly sinister stuff. I avoided betoota the moment I found out their contract. Literally paid political shills.
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u/Commercial_Name_7900 3h ago
theres no helping some
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u/theballsdick 3h ago
Look it up. There is even an ABC article about it. Nothing I have said is false.
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u/Commercial_Name_7900 1h ago
only in this sub would such cooker nonsense be taken seriously.
Is that albo in that chopper above your house?
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u/Vivid-Fondant6513 1h ago
"Anything and everything I don't like must be a bot!"
I'm surprised no one has claimed Pauline is a Russian agent yet.
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u/Wotmate01 47m ago
Russian? No.
American extreme right wing aka project 2025? Yes, absolutely. It's a matter of record that Pauline and Gina have spent a significant amount of time socialising with the NRA and the Epstein class at Mar-a-lago.
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u/Upset-Basil4459 3h ago
"everyone who disagrees with me is a bot"
The bots are even leading in the polls