Posted by e_daigle 12/15/2025
I don’t take any offense , but I do have high standards for this forum and cringe comments make me less likely to hang out here
The turning point was smartphones. No, they don't clandestinely listen to the audio, or smuggle tower locations of unimportant people. But (all of our) behavior changes when we rely on an app and give up those other liberties because app. Some social engineering was required for mass adoption thereof, and most of us here are acquainted with the analytical means to concentrate delivering that. Half of our society has weaknesses that we euphemize as "gaming habits" or "addictive personalities". Maybe they know it; I'm not down here haughtily scoffing that they cannot know it.
China and Russia and North Korea don't show those weaknesses because those people are down in the mines. The powers learned social engineering within their closed societies, not in our open societies. They promote a nation and a people unified with one personality. The United States and similar freedom exponents have to contend with attracting the world's talent by explicitly tolerating any personality. At least for now
Definitely, because I never said they weren’t and certainly don’t believe that — I know too many smart conservatives for that. That’s a big part of the problem: smart people can put a lot of effort into constructing rationalizations so when they’re immersed in a culture where political correctness trumps objectivity they’ll construct elaborate narratives to support the ideologically useful outcome.
The relevance to security is that these people are more vulnerable because they can’t tell charlatans who appear to be on their side apart from people who actually know what they’re talking about. There are tons of right-leaning people in tech but as we saw with election fraud claims, the competent ones know it’s risky to contradict the narrative and stay quiet rather than being accused of being RINOs. It’s similar to how things like MLM scams spread in religious communities if you have experience with that, where things usually have to get pretty bad before someone is willing to criticize a friendly member of their congregation.
For every example of Maga group think, I can think of an example of Obamaphile group think.
And if the contrarian / doubtful end of the spectrum ( all elites are nefarious) is bad, doesn't that imply that the gullible / trusting end of the spectrum (all elites & academics are benevolent) is also bad?
The roles are just a mirror of each other. You're just picking sides -- which is how things usually operate.
They are labeled MAGA, and they are as real as any widespread social movement could be. If your point is that social movements don't really exist as a "material" entity, then we are just arguing semantics.
I suppose I'm falling for the trolling right now.
EDIT: I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that OP was referring to individual "Africans and Indians" from the US. I suppose it does make some sense if we are talking about organised action from foreign powers.
It doesn't even have to be organized.
Ragebait gets clicks. X pays out for engagement. (https://help.x.com/en/using-x/creator-revenue-sharing) The amounts are low by US standards, but nice pay by developing world standards. Thus, a cottage industry of fake accounts arises, without needing nation-scale organization behind it.
Afaik X is the only social media service that does this so far.
Such a simple feature that has a major quality of life improvement.
Facebook has had it for years.
There really is no privacy concern to list the country of a user. I don't know why FB has to qualify it just for large pages only.
But my response was directed towards "indians cosplaying as patriotic americans".
I'm on the fence when it comes to paying people for posts, but that wasn't really the heart of the statement.
Elon may not be _intending_ to pay foreigners to cosplay as patriotic Americans.
However, X pays people based on engagement. A number of people outside the USA have figured out that if they post outrageous shit to Americans, they get engagement -- and therefore earn money. So in fact, Elon _is_ paying foreigners to cosplay as Americans, but it might not have been what he meant to do.
Many are easy to spot. All the people with giant "Make America Great Again" flags in their front yard or attached to their lifted pickup trucks. The people in my neighborhood who have their Christmas light decor as a giant sign of "TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING". Funny how they complain about the leftists killing Christmas by removing Christ but they went from having a nativity scene to having TRUMP take up their holiday decorations.
This org? Over the top patriotic branding (FREEDOM chat, logo is an eagle, etc). They make a point to be on Truth Social. On their Truth Social profile they have interviews on Breitbart and similar right-leaning people, including Laura Trump. Their brand Truth Social page constantly complaining about SOCIALISM.
If you're not seeing the MAGA alignment of this chat platform you're just not looking very hard.
There is no need to be honest to a Trump voter. Honesty is work and they will believe nonsense anyway.
Your point stood fine without this. It might make sense for a different audience but this audience understands all of that.
Did it? Mentioning MAGA is smear? The app's intended audience is pretty clear.
But where I really disagree is promoting whataboutism. Anyone is free to submit stories about the foibles of the left or right, but what we don't need dualing whatabouts for every issue raised.
Lying is bad.
It's on the site. and If you don't think I'm in the security industry, LOL
Please let us know who you are affiliated with!
You know the claims that a P0 vuln being patched after a month as "fast".
If it took me a month to patch a data leak vulnerability on a web app, I'd resign, and probably retire... That's an embarrassing timeline, and the people involved should feel bad.
He makes it sound he's on some sort of a mission...like the users of the messaging app ( which I have never heard of before until today ) should face some sort of backlash for their own political views opposite of him....which is amusing to say the least as Canadians seem to have permanently marked conservatives, not just in their own country but all over the world as "MAGA".
also I'd appreciate if we can keep politics out which just detracts focus on technical end of things
This is an app specifically built for a specific political group, a group that is wreaking havoc on our science and technology. "MAGA" has become the go-to term for a global movement, because there is a global alt-right movement to undo progress and dominate others into their world view.
It's going to be a part of HN like it was the first go around. Being apolitical is how political groups like this come to power.
They want us to _not talk_ about what they are doing so we _remain ignorant of each other_ think about what they are doing, so they can get away with more
You want constant ideological battles to end, and the answer is... do nothing?
They have the megaphone. If you want to take it away, we have to talk to each other about it so they start marginalizing their posts and opinions. MAGA is the poster child for the Overton shift, it's not going back any amount without effort
If it consistently happens more often for any given political faction, then it's still not an ideological statement, just a realization that not every political direction has an equal commitment to facts and reality.
So, mostly, I'd like the alt-stupids to not take over.