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Comments (46)

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  haunter
  Next one to look out for: 2026 Hungary. Fidesz is basically a russian backdoor in the EU and they will do everything to stay in power.https://telex.hu/english/2025/12/11/most-hungarians-fear-rus...They are also doing everything to bypass the no-political-ads-on-facebook ban https://telex.hu/english/2025/10/29/despite-the-ban-fidesz-c...
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  charcircuit
  Just the price of the account doesn't mean much alone. The other important factor is how easily the account can get (shadow)banned from the region you are trying to influence. And for the price given we just know it's account. We don't know how sketchy it appears to the provider.Not all accounts are created equal. For example a verified US account will be cheaper than a verified Japan account because Japan has stricter regulations around phone numbers. And then if you don't have a Japan account you might not be able to reach a potential Japanese audience due to not only antitrust of the platform, but also features that use geolocation for relevance.
• romaaeterna
  The people most susceptible to consensus mirage are, by the very nature of the beast, the ones least aware of it happening to themselves. Any opinion that you find yourself praised for by any of the groups in your social circle is infinitely suspect.
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  sejje
  Do we have solid evidence that these accounts actually change votes?
• RickJWagner
  Interesting. How to counteract these online imposters?
• jsnell
  The _Science_ paper linked is paywalled, is anyone aware of a preprint?I find it a bit curious that they've chosen to use SMS verifications as a proxy for the difficulty of creating an account, when there are similar marketplaces for selling the actual end product of bulk-created accounts. Was there some issue with that kind of data? SMS verification is just one part of the anti-bulk account puzzle, for both the attacker and defender.
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  Nasrudith
  The conclusion that an account being cheap is the problem as a reason for regulation is a disturbingly wrong-headed on multiple levels. It essentially says. "If only superpowers can use it would be a-okay!". A monopoly on manipulation is a bad thing for the same reasons allowing only incumbents to run political ads would be.
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  lysace
  I have witnessed obvious and systematic synthetic upvotes of HN posts. Over and over. I don't think the site has enough protections in place.Maybe have YC invest in some startups combatting this using machine learning?(Given the focus of HN it's typically some product being pushed, though. Not a politician.)
• ivape
  I am utterly terrified of elections finally. I didn't expect that to be in my timeline. The masses are really crazy.
• gyrate
  [dead]
• stefantalpalaru
  [dead]
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  dehrmann
  When Citizens United was a big deal, I was torn over the premise of the concern for election integrity. Ideally, voters would make rational, informed decisions. They'd see ads, but know they all have an agenda, so they'd do their own research and come to a conclusion. Worrying about biased or inaccurate noise influencing elections means you think people can't be trusted to vote. Which might be true, and if it is, it's a bigger problem than corporate speech and fake accounts.
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  alecco
  Hacked voting machines are a problem... unless our guys do it.Fake online accounts are a problem... unless our guys do it.Totalitarian measures like persecuting people for social media posts and forcing digital id are a problem... unless our guys are in power.It was a good run for democracy. What was it, 200 years? I wonder comes is next. Techno-feudalism? Well, I'm sure it won't be a problem as long as it's our guys.