Vlad's main channel ruclips.net/user/VladVexlervideos Support Vlad's work on Patreon! www.patreon.com/vladvexler Support Vlad via PayPal www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB
So Dr-99.99% - you have higher approval ratings in this community than Kim-Jong-Un has in his! (Maybe that wasn't the most flattering way to compliment you on being generally liked, and not a measure of like for like, but still...)
well, it's a sign and annoying price of your growing influence - even if g-analytics metrics are blind to it (like g-scholar is blind to the most of existing research). That saying I would stress we that should have in mind: not every troll is an idiot or 'bot' and not every genuine moron is a troll by that sole virtue of brain leak. One should never underestimate the power of genuine human stupidity especially if married with also genune malice, so often directionless and random. Best, and good health a. PS there is no 'ethics on this platform', or rather - the only ethos applicable is 'what appears to attract the $ for the G'.
On channel statistics: I feel quite bad now (though not knowing, how YT works), as I have the feeling I might be among the 0,6% that don't give your videos a like... I have followed your channels since day one of the full scale invasion, relieved that I found a trustworthy source, but was never signed in to YT, as I am quite data paranoid (I have never been on social media and protect my privacy with all available means, like firewall, VPN, ...). I only joined YT on August 1st, 2023, at at time that media in my country and my close circle became increasingly "fatigued" with Ukraine's fight for (all our) freedom. Only then I felt the urge to engage more visible than I had done so far, "invisibly" helping displaced people directly, writing to my government representatives, providing financial support to Ukraine, ... So I joined YT with the only aim to support channels like yours with "likes" and comments. Until today, I very often watch your videos when logged out and only sign in once a day to put all the "likes" and comments to the channels that I support. This might of course "destroy" your statistics. Perhaps you can let us know, if this "spoils" your numbers; I am more than happy to change my habit, if that changes something for you. Lots of love and listen to you soon!
As always, thanks so much for your clarity and intelligence. Here in the US, 2 issues that really drive the simmering crazy rage are growing inequality of income and wealth, and the growing pressure on white guys who never intended for ‘democracy’ to mean sharing power with women and non-white and/or non-Christian members of our communities. Russia is happy to pile on, but we are facing some inevitable inflection points that were set in motion by our racial history and the legacy of neoliberalism.
Before I fled here, I sometimes posted in the comment section of a big mainstream left-progressive leaning media/news company. The Russian trolls all had the same kind of name, too classic German first name plus number, but what was more funny, they all seemed to have the same working-hours, so they were easy to recognize. But the moderation was more difficult to handle: If you criticized an article in a respectful way, sticking to all community guidelies, maybe added sources - your comment often wasn’t published. If you disagreed in a hooligan-way, without arguments, your comment was published. This distorted the picture the readers got of their political opponents dramatically. (A few other regulars told me, I made a test, and true, all of my disagreeing troll-comments got through, but most of my disagreeing with reasons comments were deleted.)
I was reading an article about this last week, where someone was saying that he was monitoring them with software and watching accounts that were heavily suspicious, and that if you watch them closely over time you can just watch the hours that they appear and then stop posting and match it up perfectly with the work hours in Russia. Western Russian time zones specifically. Like they don’t even attempt to hide it. Because why would you? I bet you could even experiment with this personally, and find highly suspicious accounts on RUclips, or Twitter, or Reddit, etc. and then watch them over a few days, and pay close attention to the specific hours they post, and then yeah.
You used to be able to view trolls other comment on the channels, YT has made that harder. They don't police it and they take away tools we have to identify them ourselves. I really don't understand these big social media.companies and it's becoming aparent they don't have our best interests at heart anymore.
A curious thought here ? We now have a fairly good education system in the developed world ! - if so then surely crazy one dimensional uninformed biased malicious comments should be non existent ! I understand how the Israel Palestine situation might be challenging and lead to a kinda moral and philosophical exhaustion and frustration to put it mildly ! My input here is really simple " be an intellectual " as you can always expect a sophisticated challenging topic to elicit a passionate response but Trolls and Propagandists are simply not intellectuals ! They elicit a non intellectual response ! Ukraine has a great advantage - it's difficult to make any kind of political moral or ethical case for the Russians or Putin ! Mr Netanyahu well lets just say I listening to hear what you might say !
All the love to taiwan from germany, yea we have some chinese influence here too, not only trolling but also in academics and economy, all the respect cant imagine how much crap you guys have to put up with!
@@janronschke7525 Thanks. Yes, it’s pretty painful. And all sounds like Nazi propaganda - calling upon our race, our culture., our history…. same old story, different time.
I think Vlad might be picking the wrong word when he says that Trump isn't a Russian 'asset'. Trump probably isn't a Russian spy ...but if Putin thinks Trump significantly benefits Russia, it would be fair to say that Trump is an 'asset'.
I agree, the difference between an agent and an asset. I doubt Trump is a Russian agent, but there are pretty strong indications he is a Russian asset.
Russian troll forms do exist. They are a significant part of Russian strategy. Covert influence campaigns targeted at both extreme left and extreme right are alarmingly effective.
I personally believe they are WAY more effective than we’re aware of. I do not think it takes a ton of effort or numbers to tilt the conversation online. And a ton of people have very shallow political sophistication with things like Middle East politics, Ukraine, American political machinations, etc… so you don’t need to crack a huge nut to materially move groups of people in the direction you want. The key is relentlessness and also discipline and absolutely hammering talking points constantly. Keeping it tight and keep pushing it constantly, like an industrial lathe. 24 hours a day, in shifts.
@@lylewalker5681it's absolutely effective! I KNOW when I'm arguing with a troll and it still causes stress and depression... mostly because it seems like few people understand the gravity of the situation.
I read an analysis that showed that around 2015 the Russian trolls were playing both sides, taking extreme right and extreme left positions. The main goal was to stir up trouble and get Americans mad at each other. So probably the BEST thing we as normal citizens can do to counter Russian trolls is to show each other some grace and kindness online, and if thats not emotionally possible then just dont engage and log off.
Yes! Russian trolls were caught doing exactly that, including trying to stir racial animosity, posting things aimed at getting blacks to hate whites, and vice-versa. The American public and the West are vastly underestimating the scope and effect of Putin's covert operation that is aimed at undermining entire countries.
Regarding 'troll' blocking: 100% the right decision 👍 Your criteria for identifying who to block, whether bot or not, is very fair. I believe it will not hurt anyone acting reasonably and sincerely. The type of behaviour you outlined is, at best, someone indulging in very unhealthy conduct at the expense of civil discourse. Noone needs it. I wish more channels would set some standards for their comments.
RyanMcbeth should get a deal distributing Cyabra softare for anti-Kremlin vloggers and posters as a charity. We should start a campaign, and one against YT guideline and script/algorithm on the side. I've seen obvious troll threads sorted on top of comments, nearly all of them appear first even when in vast minority compared to any possible engagement or chronological way of sorting. I suspect a saboteur group working directly inside YT lately, targetting Ukraine, Israel and Western POV in general. If we knew what's going on in social medias, we would probably leave making our opinions based on what we see. Hybrid warfare of informational kind is the greatest weapon of today's autocracies by far.
I think of all the comment sections on RUclips this one is probably the most innoculated against political trolling. If the algorithm is promoting your videos to different people I think in general that is a great positive for discussions on your channel
I agree with you, it's like a Vlad vaccine against tankieness. Unfortunately they also tend to comment without seeing the video in full, or sometimes at all. And there's no vaccine for that.
I don’t pretend to know how RUclips algorithms work. But I am beginning to suspect there is an IQ filter, so people are only directed to Vlad’s channel if they have an IQ greater than room temperature. Perhaps that is what saves Vlad’s channel from wall-to-wall troll infestations. Eighteen months ago, I was signing up to every pro-Ukraine channel which the algorithm sent my way. But I was never offered Vlad’s channel, possibly because I failed the IQ test. I heard about it from another RUclipsr, and, even then, it wasn’t easy to find Vlad’s little cubbyhole on the Internet. I am very glad that I had the persistence to find my way here. So maybe - just maybe - the trolls are not quite so agile or diligent. That said, I have a serious question for Vlad. I take your metaphor of a RUclips clip concerning mushrooms. But I wonder: how can any comment about the topic of mushrooms be deemed “inorganic”?
It's your search history. I watch nerdy video essays a lot and was blessed that when I - like you looking for pro-ukrainian channels when the war started - got recommended Vlad the first days of the invasion and have felt blessed to have this subscription
@@anthonymorris2276 " I am beginning to suspect there is an IQ filter, so people are only directed to Vlad’s channel if they have an IQ greater than room temperature." That sadly fails to explain how I ended up here upon RUclips recommendations 😔
Thanks for your intelligent commentary. I am a 77year old, child refugee from 1956 musician in the past and suffering from MS. I am amazed by your resilience in spite of health problems and thankful that you are part of a group of people who bring sense and empathy to a world tbat is ever more troubled and upsetting to me, at the end of my life. Thank you.
I wonder if people like this (I know a few) got excluded from social situations, and knew this was why, if it would be a positive influence on them if they chose to consciously find a way to avoid doing this so they could be reincluded.
@@DacianRider Yes, education is what comes to mind. But honestly, I don't really understand what is wrong with those people. I consciously use anger to mitigate fear, but I don't think that is what they do.
Thank you Vlad for these wise reflections. Your democratic values always shine forth in your rationality. Your work is a serious source of sanity and empathy in these dark times, I'd say. Many thanks!
Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦, KremBots! A troll or is a bot who is either working for the Kremlin or knows what they’re saying are lies (whatever country they’re from).
When you look at the homogeneity of the troll narratives, it's clear that it's not their thoughts. And they secretly know that the Putin "brand" is sinking.
@@dkudlayway to ahistorically pull things apart. The term was coined as a Ukrainian nationalist phrase before there were nazis and long before any Jews were killed at banin yar. You might not be a kremlin troll, but you sure quack like one.
I love your channel. I love the way you express your thoughts, the long pauses, the reflection, the deep thinking and moral compass you share. I love the way you call us your ‘beautiful community.’❤
I haven’t seen this. I argued above that good faith dialogue was the appropriate test but if the trolls are getting this sophisticated that may not be possible.
I am a doctor, and I tend to view a lot of things through a medical lens. Russian infowar reminds me opportunistic diseases: things that you do not tend to see in healthy patients, but when the patient has an existing complaint it weakens their system enough that these other diseases can gain a foothold to capitalise on their already unhealthy state. Russian infowar seems to operate in much the same way, exploiting existing domestic problems seeking to inflame them, rather than initiating the “disease”. I agree that it’s unwise to see any domestic problem as exclusively a product of Russian interference, but I’m absolutely alive to the possibility of their exacerbating them.
Reassuring to hear you talk about the lack of moral leadership on Israel/Palestine - I have been feeling very unsettled by this, as I guess have many others.
I have too and it's a very hot topic in my circles and I'm seeing a lot of uncomfortable politicians dropping the ball on this including my favorite one. They seem to be making all this up as they go along without sufficient reflection or solid long term strategy.
While everyone else is deciding who is a Russian troll and who is not, I just want to stake my claim as one of the 1000 club. I never miss a video, even when they interrupt my work, I stop and watch. I also want to say how grateful I am to you Vlad for speaking objectively on the subject of Israel/Palestine and Hamas. It is a very complicated situation with a multitude of variables. Watching what is happening to the citizens of Gaza has taken me back to the first Holocaust video I saw in my high school German class. I literally wept out loud and then burried my head in my arms because I was incapable of understanding how any human being could be so cruel to another. This Beautiful Community is one of great empathy and I dare say, with a bit more going on intellectually. For me personally, I really needed to hear from a trusted source, in order to allow myself permission to feel all that I was feeling, in spite of everyone else's opinions. As a former RN, I appreciate a place where I can come for a source of checks and balances about my own levels of empathy which can be exceptionally high, as well as my own bias and prejudices. Sometimes, although very seldom, I don't always agree with you Vlad, but I love that you promote one's own development of opinions and political morals, whilst giving us the guidance of how to do that without being destructive to others. I am forever grateful for all I have learned, continue to learn and will learn in the future because of your BEAUTIFUL COMMUNITY. THANK YOU VLAD!
Not that you should, but you really should be paying very clear attention to exactly what ruZZia is doing to Ukraine and its citizens. It takes what was done in the holocaust and throws it on steroids (just not with so many people at once). The depravity and absolute evil they are doing to people would floor you (and then some). A ‘less graphic’ example (it’s really not) of one citizen picked up off the streets of Kherson and stuffed into a van (and taken to an impromptu torture/interrogation/detention center) spoken by another resident who managed to get let go is that after the pistol whipping and beatings, then electrocution, then tasering, then genital manipulation, to then cutting off one’s hand, boiling it and making them eat it, they’re then made to dig their own grave and then shot in the head a bunch of times while still holding the shovel with their one hand… It only gets worse from here, and has been happening for almost a decade now in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, and only expanded like wildfire throughout the territories occupied since the start of the full scale invasion. The little bit that the average Joe public heard or saw about Bucha and Irpin is occurring en masse in every single town and village right to this day - with mass gravesites in every single one of them.
Trolling is not only happening on the comments level. [Maybe they have been here previously too but] Lately I am seeing some videos about “Corruption in Ukraine, what’s been done about it” “Where are your tax dollars going in Ukraine,” “Zelensky’s corruption exposed” etc, etc. More and more of this stuff.
Whilst this may be far removed from a philosophical observation, I am moved to state that the fact that you are attracting trolls, means you must be doing something right. Your videos are refreshingly different to everything else I frequently consume on RUclips - I trust you will continue to produce essential, erudite, enlightening content, with renewed vigour! Oh and Illegitimi non carborundum. Jim.
I am not abandoning the community, but my physical health challenges have made my mental health more fragile as well. I don't know how to explain to people why they should care about others, and that politics that costs lives shouldn't be treated like a sports franchise. I am in despair that I will never accomplish anything positive, but I want to listen to try to grope my way forward to communicate better.
I get what you mean. It seems so obvious that one should care about human life, that you never really question why. A YTer that I’ve found useful to listen to on this subject is Matt Dilahunty talking about secular morality and the thinking behind it. I’d recommend his personal channel rather than his debating, that may not be to everyone’s tastes.
I totally understand that feeling of despair and not well myself. I think that those of us who come to this channel to stay sane are doing a service by just staying sane ourselves. That alone helps those around us and we can only try to communicate what we can and what we have learned here but we have no control over how they listen.
Vlad thanks for taking additional measures to remove the "cut and paste trolls". While I have mostly stopped commenting I enjoy seeing a lively debate in the comment section. I've had the experience of having "someone at work" coming after me in the comments section here and on the main channel. The criteria you talked about for banning people sounds generous and very reasonable.
I would go, in addition to what you said, so far that making claims that someone is Russian troll/asset just because we disagree with them reduces seriousness of problem of real Russian assets. It probably makes it even easier for some to accept Russian lies of we act like that
Im one of the subscribers here, a part of the community if you will, thats supporting ukraine 100%, and supporting Isral side against Muslims, not 100% but more than 60% pro Israel. The way I see it is that even though, current Israeli government is on the dark side, not to use stronger word, Israel as a state and society is much more humane than the muslims. If I would to conduct my self according to high morals standards of, for example Budha or Jesus or Jainism... I woudnt be able to justify Israeli actions because I should turn the other cheek when hit, so Israel should as well. In that scenario Israel would cease to exist. The opposite of this aproach would be commplete ethic cleansing of Gaza. So in reality there is no exact moral compass, but just subjective feeling of compromise between these two absolutes. I think that Israel is able to accept secular people, but muslim side isnt, so I have to support that more secular and humane side to win a war as long it is more humane than the other
Vlad, your measured response to this annoying phenomenon is quite rational.It's a dilemma faced by social media moderators.Some small RUclipsrs have started considering it a rite of arrival. Personally I've considered trolling as posting outlandish material in order to provoke, instead of airing an opinion,sometimes working in pairs. I've also discovered potential professionals often have trouble translating the contexts of "na", especially when posing as Americans.Seems like the amount of actual organic pro Russian trolls is in proportion to the conditions on the battlefield.Just a personal observation.Many thanks,🌻& 🌞.
I wonder to what extent these trolls who leave 10-15 comments to the same video are actually helping or hurting the video in regard to the RUclips algorithm. 🤔
My sense is that comments matter less than most people think, algorithmically. But they matter very much for community building. So my thought here is just not to spoil the experience for regulars, especially on Chat!
I find your untangling of moral ethics and how to clarify my thinking about it invaluable right now in light of what’s currently happening. I’d like more of an in-depth video about this because we are seeing some horrific stuff on social media lately. It’s not easy to put in place buffers, especially as a mum and a child psychologist, my empathy is in overdrive. Thankyou Vlad
There are so many "trolls" out there. From different kinds. Many people need a voice for their frustration. These people are still human and must be recognized. Russian trolls are bots. Withot individual purposes.
Its pretty obvious that not all trolls are bots. There is an army of people paid to monitor all channels and comments and find ways to engage people in dialogue with the aim of inserting as many propaganda statements into the conversation as possible before the person realises they've been had. It needs to be tailored to the person they are addressing in order for the statements to be inserted and appear natural, while goading them to respond and provide an even bigger platform for their performance. They also need to identify your weak spots. These people are trained in psychology in much the same way as a salesman. They need to be able to spot any potential wavering in your thought process and exploit it to the fullest.
Another thoughtful video. I think you've given trolls/spammers/whatever more thought and consideration than they deserve, but it won't stop them feeling like victims when you ban them. Good luck with it all.
Comments like I've been hearing along the lines of "anyone who goes to a music festival in a warzone had it coming" really haunt me. I cannot understand how people can feel and think this way. It's so profoundly inhumane, unempathetic and outright brutal.
Thanks Vlad. You have been kind to the trolls. Feel free to pull on the trollslayer boots sometimes. Let's go for the 100% like ratio. A magical way of removing trolls would not remove all conflict and disagreement in democratic societies. I don't say that anyone who disagrees with me is a troll. I do say that trolls exist. I don't mind exchanging views with a person who does not share my views, provided it is respectful and relevant. For me, trolls are characterised by destructive comments which are off topic (not organic, as you say). Troll effluvia are often mere assertions or questions with no explanation, nuance or justification. Another indicator is that several trolls comment in quick succession, agreeing with each other. Also, the same IDs sometimes appear on multiple recent videos around the same time. Re Ukraine, we need to prepare ourselves for a longer haul than we hoped. But the cause remains just, the West is still working up to full production capacity and Ukrainians continue to fight hard. It's not a movie or video game so we could not expect a happy resolution at a predictable point. Even after Ukraine's victory, the global backwash will persist for years. The consumer kindergarten of the last 30 years in the West did not prepare us for this, so we just have to grow to match the demands of the times. Ukraine will win.
Regarding the lack of moral leadership in condemning Hamas while holding Israel accountable for pulverizing Gaza with no strategy, I think the western world (and perhaps especially Europe) has tied itself into a knot. We have set the moral bar so very high for ourselves, and with ourselves we include the democratic world with Israel but not dictatorships including Hamas. So we're outraged when "we" do or say something that isn't perfectly universalist and selfless and also harmonizes with the norms and rules we set up after WW2. But when dictatorships do such things, we often just shrug our shoulders, because what can we do, what can we expect? Certainly we don't do huge manifestations against e.g. the devastating Saudi-Iranian proxy war in Yemen. Anyway, so when Israel responds to Hamas, as it must (or democracy will break in another way), it cannot articulate a strategy nor honestly and directly articulate its tactics. Because we won't tolerate overtly lowering the moral bar we set. But we want to tolerate it, because the bar is arguably set too high, so we're complicit by playing along or looking away - we don't hold them accountable. We want to have the cake and eat it too. For instance, Israel has pursued ethnic cleansing i the west bank and might want to pursue ethnic cleansing also in Gaza, forcing displacement. This is unacceptable yet in some senses appealing, so we look away for as long as we can. (How many know how many were displaced in the British' partition of India, and what the excess mortality was for that process?) Same with immigration and some other things: We set the bar high after WW2, but our systems won't hold for the world's changed demographics and ease of travel. So what do we do? We can't honestly articulate a strategy in many western countries, so we introduce half-measures that go in the general direction we want without articulating the strategy much less the problem clearly, leaving the policies inefficient, leaving a lot of people in limbo, with false hopes, unclear conditions or on very dangerous boats on the Mediterranean. This paralysis of discourse and strategy creates a big window of opportunity for political actors who come from not-so-good subcultures, where the taboos don't exist. They jump in before mainstream figures do, and suddenly we find that the former own the house.
Kindof the onesided argument, which makes us good because we win the wars, while makes them bad, because they lose them. Well there were a lot of great countries and exceptional democracies which lost the fight against abhorrent tyrannies, because in the battlefield thers no democracy, who has the better weapons and tactics, or superior numbers wins.
I agree 100%! I rarely comment because i feel inadequately knowledgeable to express a thoughtful opinion. I may get there one day! However, this environment that you have created here literally sustains my sanity and fragile tranquility. I am deeply appreciative!
The way most people deal with trolls is actually disrespectful, but then again, the real trolls I have seen are much less respectful. Disagreement is healthy IF it's done with full regard to really acknowledging the other point of view. Being disagreeable just to provoke a response is immature and, for me, says more about them. I leave the discussion. It's not surprising that Vlad has only removed 3, 4 people. In fact this channel is one of the few that isn't filled with insulting behaviours. Thank you to all who comment, and Vlad himself.
Some trolls are unresponsive to civilized, argued comments and keep on and on with the same idea indifferent of the arguments brought up in discussion. Either they are very simple, low IQ, or just do this to provoke heated responses. Either way, it is futile to discuss with them, but for the sake of other people that might be inclined to believe their lies.
“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” --Garry Kasparov That's why you shouldn't engage a botski. They'll go silent when you debunk them, but they've already pasted the same talking point in a dozen other places.
Have just been insulting Vivek Ramaswamy ( Ignoramus supreme, presidential candidate - so low has the bar for public office fallen in America , and a troll you wouldn't like to meet under a dark bridge at night. He repeats like a parrot the Kremlins talking points) on Denys' channel , and I must say I feel much better now.
Hi Vlad. I’m sorry and even a little ashamed to admit I struggle to get through a full Vlad Vexler video in one sitting. I’ve always been the guy who changes the blown lightbulb while the residents association is meeting to appoint a committee to debate what to do about the dark stairwell. I’ve been known to shout, “Oh for Gods sake stop talking and DO something.” But, when I look at Netanyahu “Doing something “, I need help to cope with it. I resolved not to look at it, having seen similar things in the 1980s and been traumatised by them, but it’s unavoidable. I can’t turn on the tv without seeing it. I’m aware I’m venting, when I rant at someone who can’t see a problem with how that’s going, but it’s genuinely helpful to me, even if it doesn’t convince the other person. Why that’s relevant here is, I sometimes come across different people expressing similar (usually racist, or anti semitic, or anti Islam) views and I give similar replies to each of them. People don’t get notified about replies to other people’s comments, even if they are similar, so if I want to be sure my response is received by the person that has provoked it, I need to reply to them. I’m not a troll. I just believe firing a weapon at a group of young children cannot be justified, no matter who or what is hiding behind them. Walking into London city center, wearing a black overcoat and a little black hat is not justification for violence, though I do beg you, please don’t do that while our TVs are showing the distressing scenes they currently are! When I find comments that support such behaviour, or even simply regard it as acceptable, I can’t help myself. Long rambling comment, the gist of which is, please don’t kick me out if I repeat myself. I’m trying to, if not prevent the advocating of unacceptable behaviour, at least present an alternative option to those receiving it. If you’re still with me, thank you!
@@VladVexlerChat He even posted a community post about it. But if you want to look more into it, I don't know for RUclips, but I know that for Twitter they used to publish (do they still? IDK...) the stats for account creations per country. Generally you can see big spikes in account creations from Russia whenever something big is going on.
I don't feel much need to morally ground myself. I might dislike what Netanyahu is doing, yet I despise the political taxi Islamism gets to ride even more.
True. But that conflict is a breeding ground for political islam. Because it just shows the vacousness of the "rules based world order", so was the iraq invasion and bombing of libya. U.S used its VETO in united nations dozens of times to prevent israel from being held responsible for its actions. So, this conflict highlights and magnifies the hypocrisy of it all. This is exactly what putin said in now famous berlin 2007 speech, if the "rules based order" is applied only when it is convenient and useful, then it makes "rules based order" a phony. if "ruled based world order" is phony, then people will try to destroy it.
@@saimbhat6243I think we need to get used to the fact that we don’t have ”equality in the eyes of the law” for nations. There is no entity to enforce such thinking. So even those nations who profess to support the ”Rules based order” will not act to enforce those rules if it conflicts with their national interest. They will often use words to ”strongly condemn” or similar but won’t act. That is hypocritical, but perfectly understandable - there is no god-given rule that says a nation has to set aside its national interest and instead enforce the rules based order.
@@shepberryhill4912 Your account is suspiciously fresh, but Vlad seems to like you for some reason. First of all, they don't, they get shushed by the UN into letting terrorists lob their rockets at Israeli citizens. Second, if such a thing happened, it wouldn't cause too much of a problem for the world, you see, unlike the Islamists, Israel is not advocating for the return of the stone age.
This is really serious problem also in Poland, social media are trolled by Russians since years, EU needs an information firewall which could protect democracies against Russian influence. Trolls should be held accountable for what they are doing.
@@BigHenFor Google has not enough view and control over this issue. This is huge problem to solve that would require all social media to cooperate to fight Russians trollls.
While I kind of fundamentally agree with what you are saying, how do you legislate for people who are not paid in a St Petersburg troll farm, but are native to a country and still support Russia? I think Vlad’s often repeated point is that in a democracy you have to accept and listen and engage with all points, provided they are honestly held. But I know I am sitting in a warm room in the UK and not a cold trench in Ukraine. So I do understand this is not universal guidance.
@@tomaszcodaszsolution is pretty easy and profitable. Verified accounts with anonymous user names... small fee and some extra features and content, like occasional free movies as a reward.... Users (all of them) can then turn off comments and content from unverified accounts and 99% of troll comments are gone for anyone who opts for that. It would be a massive hurdle for Russia to register and verify 1000s of accounts everyday and they would be easier to detect and delete... RUclips would be much safer and people who know they may be held accountable and even have a small amount of money at stake will just behave better.
I am wondering if we really need to make any distinction between a true russian troll and ”others” who fling around pro-russian misinformation or lies. Does it really matter if they are paid to do this or not?
@@MsZeeZedTo clarify - as it is exceedingly hard to distinguish the two from eachother don’t we have to deal with them in the comment section in the same way?
The distinction is really between e.g. a Trump voter, who shouldn’t be seen as a Russian troll, and the behaviour of someone who sees themselves as fighting for the Kremlin in an info war.
@@VladVexlerChatYes, agree. But…my point is still valid: As we cannot for sure distinguish between the two categories (at least not in youtubes comment section) the point of trying to distinguish, and thereby treating them differently, is not there.
Our 'community' if im permitted to phrase it in this way, is unique. Posts i suspect to be trolls may not be trolls. Posts that i believe to be genuine may not be? Something that I have learned watching Vlad's channels is listen and try to understand their points and where they are coming from. Sometimes agreement with their argument(s) isn't logical or I just dont agee. None the less as a participant in community's I do try to understand. Believe that Vlad and moderators do a good job, and dont believe trolls are a threat but a nusance much like an alpha in a discussion. Politics tends to be an irrational fuction of discourse. It used to that politicians refrained playing with matches and gasoline... The question is how to reduce the 4 most flammable ingredients in public life; gasoline, matches, media and politicians???? In Canada we are witnessing the radicalism of the conservatives (many flavors to choose). Im 68, and worried. I won't bore you with Canadian issue's, but everything is distilled down to one line quips, similar to other democracies. No longer is it about long term strategies, or any strategy at all. its about short term political advantage no matter the consequences. Canada has issues of greying population, shirking middle class, growing wealthy & super wealthy class(s) and growing poor class. Belive we're only a short time before the current US experience will take over.
Vlad, Interesting to hear some if your behind the curtain stats. 99% likes very impressive! It’s also a reminder to us to not get carried away with engaging with the trolls who present an outsized prescence compared to their true size. Kinda like those inflatable sumo wrestler costumes with a teeny tiny man inside. I see a lot of very dubious (fascist, racist) comments on Times Radio on certain topics. Just have to remember it’s the little twerps shouting hard and not actually representative.
When I made an appearance on a Scandinavian public TV programme, some of the comments in some platforms, were 95% toxic. But they only represented a very small fraction of the audience. Comments can be misleading.
@@VladVexlerChat sounds like an opportunity for YT et al to introduce some kind of visual indicator. Like a itsy bitsy teeny weeny winky that reduces in size depending how unrepresentative a persons comment is. I accept my idea may need a little working up before it’s a full PowerPoint proposal.
I think the Israel/Palestine news reports is where most of the trolls went for a while. I heard another channel describe troll-like activity was nearly absent since that conflict began... so they were off making hay while they could and are now slowly retuning to their usual haunts. They are pretty obvious most of the time and if we occasionally mistake someone who is simply obnoxious or desperate for attention for a paid propagandist, it really doesn't do any harm if they find themselves escorted out of the discussion 😂
When I react (wich is not often,) I curse them out in my local dialect. Only to never look back at the "discussion" again. Leave them something to think about in some cases.
First video of yours thats made me cringe in disagreement in how you approached the topic. Troll farms can have and have had, huge implications in some respects. And should not be treated with such flippant attitude. Also the absolutes? Is your ego overflowing a little perhaps? Troll farms play a role in disinformation distribution. Which can have wide ranging effects on a population. This is something that has been a subject of deep study by many. It is not trivial. Maybe on your channel. But these farms can audience capture creators to influence content direction. Change public discourse. Increase issues in uptake of crucial programs to protect a population. Increase racial tension, and even lead to mass targeted murder/attacks etc. Troll farms can also play a roll in increases viewer confidence in a conclusion that is inherently wrong or outright bs.
True, leads to death and destruction when exposing uneducated audiences. Jacob Zuma trolls during the massive looting spree in Kwazulu-Natal perfect example. Needless to say, he was a pootin stooge.
TBH, try sending that to Google or X, and see what response you get. One must be pragmatic. Drama only burns up oxygen, which starves people's brains. Vlad is one man, and he does what he can. He cannot stop bot farms or trolls any more than you can cut a slice of cheese out of the moon. All he can do is keep telling what he knows, to the best of his knowledge, to be the truth. And you know what? There are lots of people on both sides that don't like that. There always is in any dispute. But, it's the best way to fight the lies, and the manipulation. It's the only way. That's what I come for.
I agree it's a major problem that gets under-represented. I was just thinking about this yesterday. I used to celebrate how the internet was the first mass media that allowed many-to-many communication. Radio, TV, and to a lesser extent newspaper are one-to-many media sources, and I used to sing the praises of the internet as being a fully-democratized media source. That golden age lasted maybe a decade. Now, with bots swarming the comments informed by human-sounding AI chatbots, human voices are being drowned out by corporate and nationalistic propaganda, and in a much more subtle way than overt advertisements. The many-to-many is quickly normalizing back to a one-to-many mode of media distribution.
Keep talking vlad, in as much as we as humans can, i really appreciate your conciousness and energy u put into talking about these things in a way that gently navigates around our tendancies to harden and to continue the cycles of combatitive suffering of our human condition. Hope that wasnt to crazy and my point has been understood ❤
Brevity was never your strong point, Vlad. You've revised your policy. As before, sharing a different viewpoint, even if it clashes with yours, is not only acceptable, but also beneficial for democracy. However, to combat the firehose of Russian propaganda, from now on, you will ban anyone who floods the comments section like a Russian troll,, whether they are one or not. I'm delighted. If RUclips could do the same, that would be wonderful.
Regarding the failure of moral leadership in the West, the American diplomatic corp has something called a "dissent channel", where anyone in-house can offer criticism and correction to anyone else in-house. Some of that recently leaked. Apparently the diplomats on the ground (the private diplomats who actually talk with other countries) are livid about how the public diplomats (those who state US policy to the press) are misrepresenting the stance of the USA, making it appear that we're okay with crimes committed by both sides in the Middle Eastern conflict. We are not. Our policies are not. We are applying every pressure we can, on both sides, to stop the targeting of civilians, allow in humanitarian aid, etc. But it's being played down in public, and it shouldn't be.
Absolutely!!!! I am in Ethiopia and I know people working for the USA embassy and they are not at all as they are portrait in certain media. Their "meddeling" is actually the attempt to help! They are working hours and hours, because they are really really concerned about people. And they are doing this, despite being blamed for all problems.
I wonder if comments can be removed for being *too* organic? Comments which are so organic, they are like the metaphorical rotting detritus fed upon by tiny isopods 💩🤔
Funny, I just commented this on a recent vid of yours, Vlad (“the russkie bots seem to have just discovered your channel” or something to that effect). Well, congratulations: if they’re trolling you that means they fear you.
6:21 the real Russian troll army would do that with dozens of different accounts. A few different viewpoints repeated over and over again by separate accounts.
Strange question (more out of curiosity than anything else), but will you apply the same rule to comments you don't deem anti-Russian or even pro Ukranian/Israel.
It’s very true, I’ve completely avoided the events in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, I’m a little older then Vlad and it just seems an endless cycle that’s painful to discuss in person never mind online. And I can’t see an end to it, it’s feels like Israel has too much power to meaningfully engage in a two state solution and so this will go on and on.
I guess everyone has seen that a two state solution will never come. Now the question is: How could a common state look like that offers a maximum of fairness for all sides? After all, any religion (or the absence thereof) should be able to live in any country without ever being perturbed. However, no religion should claim special privileges. This will bring a lot of narcissistic disappointment for many but this is what growing up is about.
@AndreasDelleske its very tough, I've just finished listening ing to Ben Shapiro talk at the Oxford University students union and at the end felt that he was in the same situation as someone who waves a Palestinian flag shouting for pogroms. He would hook a questioner in as soon as the two state solution was mentioned, "OK, where's Palestine," when the the inevitable answer comes up something like, "the British mandate" he'd say, "which part if it? The response, "all of it," and he'd retort, "all of it, ok, now I see you're advocating for the complete destruction of Israel, if that's your position its pointless to engage any further." This might be great for winning US news show battles of wit, but it doesn't help to solve the issue, to try and somehow heal the 100 + years of bad decisions and bad blood. I studied the conflict as a history undergraduate 20 years ago, but the more I read, the more torn I became; eventually, I became wildly pro-Istael just to assuage the cofnitive dissonance. I was young ,stupid, hadn't seen enough to really shape my worldview but now, after serving in Afghistan half a lifetime ago, having a family, things change and I wanted to ask him, "Ben, just imagine you're an Arab, an illiterate farmer your wife and 5 children, you're happy, you might even have a radio in your small dwelling, the situation has been dicey but you've stayed out of things, when you hear shots and all hell breaks loose. Most people are unarmed, the attackers are shooting indiscriminately, and small fires break out. As you grab your family to leave, you send them away with a friend who has a vehicle. Thank God, but there is no room left. You tell the invaders you are unarmed and hear a variety of languages in response, only one sounds familiar though. You notice that some of the armed men look different to the usual Semitic Jews you're used to encountering in the land, a few even have light hair and are almost as white as Britush soldiers when they are newly landed from their frozen shores. You're about to ask what they want when one raises his weapon and fires, leaving the question forever unanswered. THat's what happened at the village of Deir Yasin, Ben; not an isolated incident but one of the better known, where European born Jews survived the Shoah, came home to find that their former neighbours had stolen all their belongings and wouldn't leave their housees that their families had lived in for 5 generations. They managed to catch ships to Palestine which at the time was crying out Jewish survivors to build the state Israel. The journey ultimately led to attacking Pakestinian Arab villages, over 400 in total, where the population was evicted or had received prior warning and fled. In a few, massacres were perpetrated in order to encourage surrounding settlements to make tracks. The result speaks for itself however, a territorial split avoided and UN 242 left moot. No return to land evacuated by Arabs. Ben, war is hell and might usually equals right but can you square the circle above, the idea of a European Jews newly arrived nothing to their names, their jobs? To force Arab families who had lived in these villages for centuries to leave, permanently, and occupy their residences. In other words, do to them exactly what SOMEONE ELSE did to you? However it's characterised, Israel's borders were defined by terror, and both peoples have paid for it since. One people more than the other. Wow, that was long, ok, yeah, our fault (the West) as well as Zionist zealots, also the Arab nations surrounding, their failt too, but pretend the Hamas attacks were somehow worse than similar crimes perpetrated by Israel is laughable. The planners of the Deir Yasin operations included a future Prime Minister and all were pardoned of any crimes once it became clear the strategy was working beyond all expectations, and that the West wasn't put off by a few razed villages, having been so brutalised recently by the war. OK Ben, over to you
@@jamesgornall5731 I love your comment, my grandfather didn’t get home in WW2 until 1947 when the British Army left Palestine where they were defending themselves and Palestinians from the terrorist groups you mentioned. What Hamas did was evil and they fail everyday Palestinians but they weren’t created in a vacuum, violence begets violence and there is no hope until that violence stops.
Originally trolls were people trying to make mad one or more persons on the internet JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT. When this (technological?) term got to mass media, it was misinterpreted (as lot of tech words, like hacker) as something necessarily political, and even worse, as organized people who are paid to fight for someone else's cause. And that's not a troll, it's something a lot older than media, social networks, the web or the internet; that's a MERCENARY.
Like to dislike ratio doesn't suggest much anymore. Most people did NOT dislike a video just to let the creator privately know that they didn't enjoy the video. So I wouldn't use the like to dislike ratio as a way to see the ratio between people liking the video or not liking it. Many people wouldn't even bother clicking it because they don't even want to help the creator, they just want to let people know (why) they don't like something.
Vlad, I just want to tell you that I can't even begin to explain how much I appreciate your calming ethical expression. You keep me sane in these difficult times.
OK Vlad, I want to make sure I understand what you consider and "egregious russian propaganda talking point". If I were to leave a comment that I truly believe that Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov demonstrated FAR more musical prowess than, say, someone like Franz Schubert, and additionally his Snow Maiden and Scheherazade were far more musically competent and supportive of the motherland than ol' Gretchen, spinning her western based lies and influence. Would that be sufficient to "boot me off" the channel? Sorry, I can't seem to locate my 'tongue in cheek' emoji.
What you posted in jest a lot would say with a straigh face. You seem to be unaware we live in post-parody times. Hou donr seem ro be aware that no matter how ridiculous a thing you can come up with to be a deliberate parody, there a lot outhere who would believe in it with great conviction. The world is now in full Poe's Law.
Thanks, always prioritize your health....we can handle the trolls 🤣 The comment sections on your channels are much higher quality than other places on RUclips. Here the vast majority of commentors are polite and give educated responses... that's probably why trolls stick out so much. Also many commentors are regulars...so it's easy to notice when it's a troll or bot. 🤣
Aren't those called salt flowers or something? Or desert ? Those nice crystalline structures that forms in some places. Sometimes they can look like mushrooms.
Hi there, Vlad and fellow viewers. I'm Kenny)) I want to say that this is a brilliant and calm corner of my known world where I find peace and growth, and one of a handful of backgrounds I listen to when cooking or prepping to head out. So thank you very much, your voice is incredibly calming and loving. Rarely do I ever post comments anywhere but Vlad's comment on the lack and exhaustion of empathy for the tragedies of war and suffering in the world motivated me as I have been struggling to even begin to cope with all the horrendous acts we do to each other as humans with all the news coming in by the hour. And horrifyingly, earlier in the month I found that not only have I lost my capacity for empathy, but there seems to be a part of me that is finding a cruel glee in seeing people suffer which most likely led to countless deaths. In a conversation with a close friend on this particular matter, there seem to be a couple underlying themes or triggers for such reactions from me. As I am a mechanical engineer by training and my friend no better as he is in IR, the best I can do is to roughly identify the emotions and they appear to be of "vengeance, appreciation of straightforward violence, equal retaliation, and anxiety over uncertainty or waiting". Without diving too deep into my own background, it is responsible for me to say that I am pretty familiar with anxiety and fear in life as an active reservist in the midst of a hotspot for global tension, but this is quite an alien new find for me as I did not believe myself to be capable of such malice towards complete strangers. Due to my own personal interest in such matters, I find myself friends with an extensive range of people on the political spectrum, while they are brilliant fun as friends and counselors on particular political views or national character, they are also incredibly steadfast on what they believe to be right and just and will go to unfathomable lengths to convince others. As you can imagine that is very stressful, though I do find joy and admiration in listening and learning from them I have had to ask them to give me some quiet time for the last week or so as the previously mentioned issue was found one evening while watching the news. I don't know what I am trying to get from saying all this as I am still processing it myself. Probably just as a guide to my thinking process, I suppose. Hope all is well for everyone. Clear skies and warm suns.
Hi Kenny! It happens to me, too. The loss of empathy, I mean. I am very angry, and I don't know yet, how much of this anger is here to hedge my growing anxiety, and how much of it is real unproductive anger...
@@JuliaMRichter@ juliarichter6987 The loss of direction for all the super-pressured frustration is a key part of the reaction to a world where world-shattering events are delivered with sensationalistic articles every other breakfast I suppose. But I am of the opinion that all energy can do good with clear guidance regardless of their origin. Most definitely just an idealistic view of things as they never work out in life. What I do find helpful though is to find curiosity and humor in the flux of emotions. It is very nice to know that someone else is in the same casket as I am XD Can't wait for the first snow of the year)) blessings
As usual, I learned something... I am one of those that work odd hours and then have to binge-watch to catch up. I had noticed an up tick of the same comment repeated / nested under other comments shortly after "stalemate" became the headline and most recent 'reaction du jour. I like your example of such people as 'workers' in the process they use. For me, it is work just to come up with a mostly intelligent comment or question, something I noticed seemed lacking in the repeated / nested comments. Thanks as always Vlad. edit - I noticed this across many Ukraine supporting sites, not just here.
We should of course add duplicity, denigration, denial and dozens of other D-words. A relatively new observation is hateful misogyny, but I digress ...
Thanks Vlad, as a moderator of another channel who sees these types of things on a regular basis, this was a good review of how to properly judge these cases. Moderation is a difficult task, and I certainly don’t do a perfect job of it. It’s always good to hear what you have to say about it, as it helps me reevaluate my own methods. Also, I have a simple suggestion regarding moderation which may be helpful to you in light of the current issue. It’s something that’s worked quite well on the channel I moderate, and I’m happy to share it with you privately. Please let me know if you’re interested.
Hey Spencer. Who is it that makes certain commitments unseeable? I notice all the time that there will be a number of replies to a comment but not all of them can be seen. And I also know that comments I make are disappeared. Is this done by moderators, RUclips, people report the comments as being offensive...? Have a good day! Mark
@@markbryant4641 Hi Mark. When you see a number of comments where only some of them display, that is always done by RUclips’s filtering algorithms. If the channel creator or moderators remove the comments, they will be completely removed and the number goes down respectively. The somewhat frustrating thing is that sometimes RUclips filters out problematic comments, but the way they do it prevents moderators from properly removing the comments. So the people on that thread can still see the problematic comments. RUclips has stepped up their automatic filtering in the last few months, which is wreaking havoc on a number of channels. I believe some of this has been done to address complaints about scammers and spammers (which have been less of a problem on the channel I moderate lately, gratefully), as well as trolls and violent comments. But the problem is that they’re not always good at differentiating truly problematic comments from benign comments. So your problem is not unique- many people have found the algorithm to be overly sensitive. I’ve even had some of my comments removed when I was trying to explain things to people, and I know the channel owner has even had some of her comments deleted. And we have no recourse to correct the issue. Personally, I think RUclips should give moderators and content ultimate say (within certain bounds) to the content creator for how their individual channel is handled, and they should have the ability to review the results of automatic filtering and correct issues with it. But that is not the case. Additionally, I believe the automatic filtering mechanisms are susceptible to false reporting. I think they learn from patterns of reported comments, so all it takes is false reporting from organized groups such as troll farms to train the algorithm to remove non-problematic comments. I personally believe this is a tactic they use to try to sabotage pro-Ukrainian channels. The advice I give to people struggling with this issue is to make a habit of copying your comments into another file before submitting them, so if they get automatically deleted you can alter it slightly and repost it. I caution against spamming or against trying to repost the same comment repeatedly if RUclips has filtered it out for one reason or another. I have known of people getting a timeout for doing such things. Best of luck to you, I hope that helps somewhat.
Unfortunately the slight insults you cast toward the Russian trolls in this message went right over their heads. Russian Trolls haven't the capacity to understand the level of intelligence you possess.
Vlad's main channel
ruclips.net/user/VladVexlervideos
Support Vlad's work on Patreon!
www.patreon.com/vladvexler
Support Vlad via PayPal
www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB
So Dr-99.99% - you have higher approval ratings in this community than Kim-Jong-Un has in his! (Maybe that wasn't the most flattering way to compliment you on being generally liked, and not a measure of like for like, but still...)
Russian trolls help promote channels via the RUclips algorithms.
Your channels might get a massive boost. 🤟
❤️
well, it's a sign and annoying price of your growing influence - even if g-analytics metrics are blind to it (like g-scholar is blind to the most of existing research).
That saying I would stress we that should have in mind: not every troll is an idiot or 'bot' and not every genuine moron is a troll by that sole virtue of brain leak. One should never underestimate the power of genuine human stupidity especially if married with also genune malice, so often directionless and random.
Best, and good health
a.
PS
there is no 'ethics on this platform', or rather - the only ethos applicable is 'what appears to attract the $ for the G'.
On channel statistics: I feel quite bad now (though not knowing, how YT works), as I have the feeling I might be among the 0,6% that don't give your videos a like... I have followed your channels since day one of the full scale invasion, relieved that I found a trustworthy source, but was never signed in to YT, as I am quite data paranoid (I have never been on social media and protect my privacy with all available means, like firewall, VPN, ...). I only joined YT on August 1st, 2023, at at time that media in my country and my close circle became increasingly "fatigued" with Ukraine's fight for (all our) freedom. Only then I felt the urge to engage more visible than I had done so far, "invisibly" helping displaced people directly, writing to my government representatives, providing financial support to Ukraine, ... So I joined YT with the only aim to support channels like yours with "likes" and comments. Until today, I very often watch your videos when logged out and only sign in once a day to put all the "likes" and comments to the channels that I support. This might of course "destroy" your statistics. Perhaps you can let us know, if this "spoils" your numbers; I am more than happy to change my habit, if that changes something for you. Lots of love and listen to you soon!
You're the only Russian troll I need Vlad.
And we love him anyway ❤
What about Konstantin Kisin?
@@some_phantom2599 yes. not a pubint; but, born in Russia, raised in Russia, lived in U.S.A., and returned to Russia. So yes
Vlad is more of a genius warmhearted Shakesoearian jester.
He is a Ukrainian Jew. Just stop.
I am beautiful and I am here to be cultivated.
Thank you for being beautiful.
Thank you Vlad. 🕊️
As always, thanks so much for your clarity and intelligence. Here in the US, 2 issues that really drive the simmering crazy rage are growing inequality of income and wealth, and the growing pressure on white guys who never intended for ‘democracy’ to mean sharing power with women and non-white and/or non-Christian members of our communities. Russia is happy to pile on, but we are facing some inevitable inflection points that were set in motion by our racial history and the legacy of neoliberalism.
Before I fled here, I sometimes posted in the comment section of a big mainstream left-progressive leaning media/news company.
The Russian trolls all had the same kind of name, too classic German first name plus number, but what was more funny, they all seemed to have the same working-hours, so they were easy to recognize.
But the moderation was more difficult to handle:
If you criticized an article in a respectful way, sticking to all community guidelies, maybe added sources - your comment often wasn’t published.
If you disagreed in a hooligan-way, without arguments, your comment was published.
This distorted the picture the readers got of their political opponents dramatically.
(A few other regulars told me, I made a test, and true, all of my disagreeing troll-comments got through, but most of my disagreeing with reasons comments were deleted.)
I was reading an article about this last week, where someone was saying that he was monitoring them with software and watching accounts that were heavily suspicious, and that if you watch them closely over time you can just watch the hours that they appear and then stop posting and match it up perfectly with the work hours in Russia. Western Russian time zones specifically. Like they don’t even attempt to hide it. Because why would you?
I bet you could even experiment with this personally, and find highly suspicious accounts on RUclips, or Twitter, or Reddit, etc. and then watch them over a few days, and pay close attention to the specific hours they post, and then yeah.
You used to be able to view trolls other comment on the channels, YT has made that harder.
They don't police it and they take away tools we have to identify them ourselves.
I really don't understand these big social media.companies and it's becoming aparent they don't have our best interests at heart anymore.
They've become pro-money.
They are quite articulate and very skilled in the dialectic.....hmmm nah 🤭.
My favourite russian troll is Maxim Katz, Vlad is my 2nd favourite ❤
Both are Jews)
@@EvgeniyYakushev-m2ulike Einstein or Jesus I like them too
Katz is a russian propagandist
Question, do you do all your videos on your own? (Including editing and stuff).
Russian Troll.
Pro Russia Troll.
Russian state Troll.
And meeeee. Viva Brexit!
Not 100% clear on all the terminology.
Is a Bot a machine generated Troll.
A curious thought here ? We now have a fairly good education system in the developed world ! - if so then surely crazy one dimensional uninformed biased malicious comments should be non existent !
I understand how the Israel Palestine situation might be challenging and lead to a kinda moral and philosophical exhaustion and frustration to put it mildly !
My input here is really simple " be an intellectual " as you can always expect a sophisticated challenging topic to elicit a passionate response but Trolls and Propagandists are simply not intellectuals ! They elicit a non intellectual response !
Ukraine has a great advantage - it's difficult to make any kind of political moral or ethical case for the Russians or Putin !
Mr Netanyahu well lets just say I listening to hear what you might say !
Here in Taiwan, we have to put up with Chinese AND Russian trolls. You’re lucky.
YIKES!! stay strong 💪
At least, maybe if the Russian trolls try writing in broken Mandarin you can laugh.. 😅
All the love to taiwan from germany, yea we have some chinese influence here too, not only trolling but also in academics and economy, all the respect cant imagine how much crap you guys have to put up with!
@@janronschke7525 Thanks. Yes, it’s pretty painful. And all sounds like Nazi propaganda - calling upon our race, our culture., our history…. same old story, different time.
@@wordscapes5690 Aye man. Your answer contains a deep wisdome in my view! All tyranny from the dawn of time behaved and felt the same!
I think Vlad might be picking the wrong word when he says that Trump isn't a Russian 'asset'.
Trump probably isn't a Russian spy ...but if Putin thinks Trump significantly benefits Russia, it would be fair to say that Trump is an 'asset'.
I agree, the difference between an agent and an asset. I doubt Trump is a Russian agent, but there are pretty strong indications he is a Russian asset.
Russian troll forms do exist. They are a significant part of Russian strategy. Covert influence campaigns targeted at both extreme left and extreme right are alarmingly effective.
I personally believe they are WAY more effective than we’re aware of. I do not think it takes a ton of effort or numbers to tilt the conversation online. And a ton of people have very shallow political sophistication with things like Middle East politics, Ukraine, American political machinations, etc… so you don’t need to crack a huge nut to materially move groups of people in the direction you want.
The key is relentlessness and also discipline and absolutely hammering talking points constantly. Keeping it tight and keep pushing it constantly, like an industrial lathe. 24 hours a day, in shifts.
I wish more people had critical thinking powers to understand when they are being bombarded with nonsense.
@@lylewalker5681 Look up "Cambridge Analytica", the Russian operation that pushed the UK into Brexit.
@@lylewalker5681it's absolutely effective! I KNOW when I'm arguing with a troll and it still causes stress and depression...
mostly because it seems like few people understand the gravity of the situation.
I read an analysis that showed that around 2015 the Russian trolls were playing both sides, taking extreme right and extreme left positions. The main goal was to stir up trouble and get Americans mad at each other. So probably the BEST thing we as normal citizens can do to counter Russian trolls is to show each other some grace and kindness online, and if thats not emotionally possible then just dont engage and log off.
Spot on.
Yes! Russian trolls were caught doing exactly that, including trying to stir racial animosity, posting things aimed at getting blacks to hate whites, and vice-versa. The American public and the West are vastly underestimating the scope and effect of Putin's covert operation that is aimed at undermining entire countries.
Regarding 'troll' blocking:
100% the right decision 👍
Your criteria for identifying who to block, whether bot or not, is very fair. I believe it will not hurt anyone acting reasonably and sincerely.
The type of behaviour you outlined is, at best, someone indulging in very unhealthy conduct at the expense of civil discourse. Noone needs it.
I wish more channels would set some standards for their comments.
RyanMcbeth should get a deal distributing Cyabra softare for anti-Kremlin vloggers and posters as a charity. We should start a campaign, and one against YT guideline and script/algorithm on the side. I've seen obvious troll threads sorted on top of comments, nearly all of them appear first even when in vast minority compared to any possible engagement or chronological way of sorting. I suspect a saboteur group working directly inside YT lately, targetting Ukraine, Israel and Western POV in general. If we knew what's going on in social medias, we would probably leave making our opinions based on what we see. Hybrid warfare of informational kind is the greatest weapon of today's autocracies by far.
I think of all the comment sections on RUclips this one is probably the most innoculated against political trolling. If the algorithm is promoting your videos to different people I think in general that is a great positive for discussions on your channel
I agree with you, it's like a Vlad vaccine against tankieness. Unfortunately they also tend to comment without seeing the video in full, or sometimes at all. And there's no vaccine for that.
I don’t pretend to know how RUclips algorithms work. But I am beginning to suspect there is an IQ filter, so people are only directed to Vlad’s channel if they have an IQ greater than room temperature. Perhaps that is what saves Vlad’s channel from wall-to-wall troll infestations.
Eighteen months ago, I was signing up to every pro-Ukraine channel which the algorithm sent my way. But I was never offered Vlad’s channel, possibly because I failed the IQ test. I heard about it from another RUclipsr, and, even then, it wasn’t easy to find Vlad’s little cubbyhole on the Internet. I am very glad that I had the persistence to find my way here. So maybe - just maybe - the trolls are not quite so agile or diligent.
That said, I have a serious question for Vlad. I take your metaphor of a RUclips clip concerning mushrooms. But I wonder: how can any comment about the topic of mushrooms be deemed “inorganic”?
It's your search history. I watch nerdy video essays a lot and was blessed that when I - like you looking for pro-ukrainian channels when the war started - got recommended Vlad the first days of the invasion and have felt blessed to have this subscription
@@anthonymorris2276 " I am beginning to suspect there is an IQ filter, so people are only directed to Vlad’s channel if they have an IQ greater than room temperature."
That sadly fails to explain how I ended up here upon RUclips recommendations 😔
@@johanmetreus1268
At least in my case, I guess it depends whether you measure room temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit.
Thanks for your intelligent commentary. I am a 77year old, child refugee from 1956 musician in the past and suffering from MS. I am amazed by your resilience in spite of health problems and thankful that you are part of a group of people who bring sense and empathy to a world tbat is ever more troubled and upsetting to me, at the end of my life. Thank you.
You are extraordinary - thank you so much for being here and gentle wishes to your body.
What a wonderful comment. Sending love your way ❤️
May you know grace within yourself 🙏❤️🙏
The saddest thing is that I've met people in real life who act, and say the same things that trolls described by you do.
Exactly, I always hope they are trolls, not sentinent beings.
they bit the wrong end of the hook... sadly. same here. lots of anger and a lack of education tend to do that.
I wonder if people like this (I know a few) got excluded from social situations, and knew this was why, if it would be a positive influence on them if they chose to consciously find a way to avoid doing this so they could be reincluded.
me too
@@DacianRider Yes, education is what comes to mind. But honestly, I don't really understand what is wrong with those people. I consciously use anger to mitigate fear, but I don't think that is what they do.
Thank you Vlad for these wise reflections. Your democratic values always shine forth in your rationality. Your work is a serious source of sanity and empathy in these dark times, I'd say. Many thanks!
Slava Ukraine 🇺🇦, KremBots!
A troll or is a bot who is either working for the Kremlin or knows what they’re saying are lies (whatever country they’re from).
When you look at the homogeneity of the troll narratives, it's clear that it's not their thoughts. And they secretly know that the Putin "brand" is sinking.
That is a slogan jews at Babi Yar heard before they died. You might not be a neo-nazi but congratulations, now you quack like one.
@@dkudlayway to ahistorically pull things apart. The term was coined as a Ukrainian nationalist phrase before there were nazis and long before any Jews were killed at banin yar. You might not be a kremlin troll, but you sure quack like one.
Hope you take it as a compliment Vlad! The Russian trolls should be worried about your analysis!!
Totally. And I feel hopeful over Ukraine when I see them. Annoying though they are.
I love your channel. I love the way you express your thoughts, the long pauses, the reflection, the deep thinking and moral compass you share. I love the way you call us your ‘beautiful community.’❤
Those could have been my words too, if I hadn't read then here first.
The most insidious strategy I've seen in Russian trolling is reasoned argument based on entirely fake premises. It's like regular advertising.
I haven’t seen this. I argued above that good faith dialogue was the appropriate test but if the trolls are getting this sophisticated that may not be possible.
Vlad..all these things that you do which some may consider as "not wise" for your channel, is PRECISELY why many of us respect and follow you. ❤
Thank you so much. Yes, we try to swim against the current!
Thanks Vlad. I amsorry to hear you have had a tougher than usual health period. I hope you are on an upturn.
Love and blessings to you.
I am a doctor, and I tend to view a lot of things through a medical lens. Russian infowar reminds me opportunistic diseases: things that you do not tend to see in healthy patients, but when the patient has an existing complaint it weakens their system enough that these other diseases can gain a foothold to capitalise on their already unhealthy state. Russian infowar seems to operate in much the same way, exploiting existing domestic problems seeking to inflame them, rather than initiating the “disease”.
I agree that it’s unwise to see any domestic problem as exclusively a product of Russian interference, but I’m absolutely alive to the possibility of their exacerbating them.
Very good analogy
Reassuring to hear you talk about the lack of moral leadership on Israel/Palestine - I have been feeling very unsettled by this, as I guess have many others.
I have too and it's a very hot topic in my circles and I'm seeing a lot of uncomfortable politicians dropping the ball on this including my favorite one. They seem to be making all this up as they go along without sufficient reflection or solid long term strategy.
The troll farm serfs are panicking about the inevitable prospect of their IT exemptions being canceled.
In the end, the real Russian trolls were the friends we made along the way.
* fiends
my favourite part of the video is when Vlad said "It's Vladin time" and then vladed all over the audience, truly one of the moments of all time
@@MsZeeZedHahahahah
@@igorbednarski8048best part
This is brilliant on several levels.
While everyone else is deciding who is a Russian troll and who is not, I just want to stake my claim as one of the 1000 club. I never miss a video, even when they interrupt my work, I stop and watch. I also want to say how grateful I am to you Vlad for speaking objectively on the subject of Israel/Palestine and Hamas. It is a very complicated situation with a multitude of variables. Watching what is happening to the citizens of Gaza has taken me back to the first Holocaust video I saw in my high school German class. I literally wept out loud and then burried my head in my arms because I was incapable of understanding how any human being could be so cruel to another. This Beautiful Community is one of great empathy and I dare say, with a bit more going on intellectually. For me personally, I really needed to hear from a trusted source, in order to allow myself permission to feel all that I was feeling, in spite of everyone else's opinions. As a former RN, I appreciate a place where I can come for a source of checks and balances about my own levels of empathy which can be exceptionally high, as well as my own bias and prejudices. Sometimes, although very seldom, I don't always agree with you Vlad, but I love that you promote one's own development of opinions and political morals, whilst giving us the guidance of how to do that without being destructive to others. I am forever grateful for all I have learned, continue to learn and will learn in the future because of your BEAUTIFUL COMMUNITY. THANK YOU VLAD!
Not that you should, but you really should be paying very clear attention to exactly what ruZZia is doing to Ukraine and its citizens. It takes what was done in the holocaust and throws it on steroids (just not with so many people at once). The depravity and absolute evil they are doing to people would floor you (and then some).
A ‘less graphic’ example (it’s really not) of one citizen picked up off the streets of Kherson and stuffed into a van (and taken to an impromptu torture/interrogation/detention center) spoken by another resident who managed to get let go is that after the pistol whipping and beatings, then electrocution, then tasering, then genital manipulation, to then cutting off one’s hand, boiling it and making them eat it, they’re then made to dig their own grave and then shot in the head a bunch of times while still holding the shovel with their one hand…
It only gets worse from here, and has been happening for almost a decade now in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, and only expanded like wildfire throughout the territories occupied since the start of the full scale invasion. The little bit that the average Joe public heard or saw about Bucha and Irpin is occurring en masse in every single town and village right to this day - with mass gravesites in every single one of them.
That's exactly what a Russian troll would say! I pull your leg! ♥
Hear! Hear!
You’re a chat gpt troll. What woman shows their face on RUclips lmao
Your words made my day - big gratitude your way!!!!!
I love listen to you when I get off work.
Keeps me sane, and reminds me to be a gentler person.
Lots of love. ❤
Trolling is not only happening on the comments level.
[Maybe they have been here previously too but] Lately I am seeing some videos about “Corruption in Ukraine, what’s been done about it” “Where are your tax dollars going in Ukraine,” “Zelensky’s corruption exposed” etc, etc. More and more of this stuff.
I really like to watch your content. It's very psychologically stabilizing in the face of everything happening.
Whilst this may be far removed from a philosophical observation, I am moved to state that the fact that you are attracting trolls, means you must be doing something right.
Your videos are refreshingly different to everything else I frequently consume on RUclips - I trust you will continue to produce essential, erudite, enlightening content, with renewed vigour!
Oh and Illegitimi non carborundum.
Jim.
I.n.c.?
I am not abandoning the community, but my physical health challenges have made my mental health more fragile as well. I don't know how to explain to people why they should care about others, and that politics that costs lives shouldn't be treated like a sports franchise. I am in despair that I will never accomplish anything positive, but I want to listen to try to grope my way forward to communicate better.
You are not alone my friend, I often feel the same way. I know my time is short and there is still much to do.
I get what you mean. It seems so obvious that one should care about human life, that you never really question why. A YTer that I’ve found useful to listen to on this subject is Matt Dilahunty talking about secular morality and the thinking behind it. I’d recommend his personal channel rather than his debating, that may not be to everyone’s tastes.
I totally understand that feeling of despair and not well myself. I think that those of us who come to this channel to stay sane are doing a service by just staying sane ourselves. That alone helps those around us and we can only try to communicate what we can and what we have learned here but we have no control over how they listen.
Vlad thanks for taking additional measures to remove the "cut and paste trolls". While I have mostly stopped commenting I enjoy seeing a lively debate in the comment section. I've had the experience of having "someone at work" coming after me in the comments section here and on the main channel. The criteria you talked about for banning people sounds generous and very reasonable.
I would go, in addition to what you said, so far that making claims that someone is Russian troll/asset just because we disagree with them reduces seriousness of problem of real Russian assets. It probably makes it even easier for some to accept Russian lies of we act like that
When they post “what about Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya?” To almost everything I usually ask “what about those 4 countries?”
And who started a war first in Afghanistan in 1979 ??!!
@@apsoypike1956Excellent riposte. I will unashamedly steal that for personal use.
@@ennediend2865should we go back to the original invaders, the Britts?
@@h2didenkovwhat about the Mongols 😂
@h2didenkov what about the Greeks, Don't forget Alexander the Great 😉👍
Im one of the subscribers here, a part of the community if you will, thats supporting ukraine 100%, and supporting Isral side against Muslims, not 100% but more than 60% pro Israel.
The way I see it is that even though, current Israeli government is on the dark side, not to use stronger word, Israel as a state and society is much more humane than the muslims.
If I would to conduct my self according to high morals standards of, for example Budha or Jesus or Jainism... I woudnt be able to justify Israeli actions because I should turn the other cheek when hit, so Israel should as well.
In that scenario Israel would cease to exist.
The opposite of this aproach would be commplete ethic cleansing of Gaza.
So in reality there is no exact moral compass, but just subjective feeling of compromise between these two absolutes.
I think that Israel is able to accept secular people, but muslim side isnt, so I have to support that more secular and humane side to win a war as long it is more humane than the other
Found myself broadly reaching the same conclusion.
Vlad, your measured response to this annoying phenomenon is quite rational.It's a dilemma faced by social media moderators.Some small RUclipsrs have started considering it a rite of arrival. Personally I've considered trolling as posting outlandish material in order to provoke, instead of airing an opinion,sometimes working in pairs. I've also discovered potential professionals often have trouble translating the contexts of "na", especially when posing as Americans.Seems like the amount of actual organic pro Russian trolls is in proportion to the conditions on the battlefield.Just a personal observation.Many thanks,🌻& 🌞.
I wonder to what extent these trolls who leave 10-15 comments to the same video are actually helping or hurting the video in regard to the RUclips algorithm. 🤔
My sense is that comments matter less than most people think, algorithmically. But they matter very much for community building. So my thought here is just not to spoil the experience for regulars, especially on Chat!
I find your untangling of moral ethics and how to clarify my thinking about it invaluable right now in light of what’s currently happening. I’d like more of an in-depth video about this because we are seeing some horrific stuff on social media lately. It’s not easy to put in place buffers, especially as a mum and a child psychologist, my empathy is in overdrive. Thankyou Vlad
There are so many "trolls" out there. From different kinds. Many people need a
voice for their frustration. These people are still human and must be recognized. Russian trolls are bots. Withot individual purposes.
Its pretty obvious that not all trolls are bots. There is an army of people paid to monitor all channels and comments and find ways to engage people in dialogue with the aim of inserting as many propaganda statements into the conversation as possible before the person realises they've been had. It needs to be tailored to the person they are addressing in order for the statements to be inserted and appear natural, while goading them to respond and provide an even bigger platform for their performance. They also need to identify your weak spots. These people are trained in psychology in much the same way as a salesman. They need to be able to spot any potential wavering in your thought process and exploit it to the fullest.
Another thoughtful video. I think you've given trolls/spammers/whatever more thought and consideration than they deserve, but it won't stop them feeling like victims when you ban them. Good luck with it all.
The antidote to troll is to scroll. I find myself relying on this "extreme skill" more and more.
And report.
I like that these "trolls" are being triggered by what is being said about their terrorist buddies.
By 'terrorist buddies' you mean Israel, yes?
Just what we needed, Another spin on the 'russian troll' narrative
10/10 thumbnail face
Comments like I've been hearing along the lines of "anyone who goes to a music festival in a warzone had it coming" really haunt me. I cannot understand how people can feel and think this way. It's so profoundly inhumane, unempathetic and outright brutal.
Yes, it’s extremely upsetting to even hear that kind of language expressed.
Thanks Vlad. You have been kind to the trolls. Feel free to pull on the trollslayer boots sometimes. Let's go for the 100% like ratio. A magical way of removing trolls would not remove all conflict and disagreement in democratic societies. I don't say that anyone who disagrees with me is a troll. I do say that trolls exist. I don't mind exchanging views with a person who does not share my views, provided it is respectful and relevant. For me, trolls are characterised by destructive comments which are off topic (not organic, as you say). Troll effluvia are often mere assertions or questions with no explanation, nuance or justification. Another indicator is that several trolls comment in quick succession, agreeing with each other. Also, the same IDs sometimes appear on multiple recent videos around the same time. Re Ukraine, we need to prepare ourselves for a longer haul than we hoped. But the cause remains just, the West is still working up to full production capacity and Ukrainians continue to fight hard. It's not a movie or video game so we could not expect a happy resolution at a predictable point. Even after Ukraine's victory, the global backwash will persist for years. The consumer kindergarten of the last 30 years in the West did not prepare us for this, so we just have to grow to match the demands of the times. Ukraine will win.
Regarding the lack of moral leadership in condemning Hamas while holding Israel accountable for pulverizing Gaza with no strategy, I think the western world (and perhaps especially Europe) has tied itself into a knot. We have set the moral bar so very high for ourselves, and with ourselves we include the democratic world with Israel but not dictatorships including Hamas. So we're outraged when "we" do or say something that isn't perfectly universalist and selfless and also harmonizes with the norms and rules we set up after WW2. But when dictatorships do such things, we often just shrug our shoulders, because what can we do, what can we expect? Certainly we don't do huge manifestations against e.g. the devastating Saudi-Iranian proxy war in Yemen.
Anyway, so when Israel responds to Hamas, as it must (or democracy will break in another way), it cannot articulate a strategy nor honestly and directly articulate its tactics. Because we won't tolerate overtly lowering the moral bar we set. But we want to tolerate it, because the bar is arguably set too high, so we're complicit by playing along or looking away - we don't hold them accountable. We want to have the cake and eat it too. For instance, Israel has pursued ethnic cleansing i the west bank and might want to pursue ethnic cleansing also in Gaza, forcing displacement. This is unacceptable yet in some senses appealing, so we look away for as long as we can. (How many know how many were displaced in the British' partition of India, and what the excess mortality was for that process?)
Same with immigration and some other things: We set the bar high after WW2, but our systems won't hold for the world's changed demographics and ease of travel. So what do we do? We can't honestly articulate a strategy in many western countries, so we introduce half-measures that go in the general direction we want without articulating the strategy much less the problem clearly, leaving the policies inefficient, leaving a lot of people in limbo, with false hopes, unclear conditions or on very dangerous boats on the Mediterranean.
This paralysis of discourse and strategy creates a big window of opportunity for political actors who come from not-so-good subcultures, where the taboos don't exist. They jump in before mainstream figures do, and suddenly we find that the former own the house.
Kindof the onesided argument, which makes us good because we win the wars, while makes them bad, because they lose them. Well there were a lot of great countries and exceptional democracies which lost the fight against abhorrent tyrannies, because in the battlefield thers no democracy, who has the better weapons and tactics, or superior numbers wins.
I agree 100%! I rarely comment because i feel inadequately knowledgeable to express a thoughtful opinion. I may get there one day! However, this environment that you have created here literally sustains my sanity and fragile tranquility. I am deeply appreciative!
The way most people deal with trolls is actually disrespectful, but then again, the real trolls I have seen are much less respectful.
Disagreement is healthy IF it's done with full regard to really acknowledging the other point of view.
Being disagreeable just to provoke a response is immature and, for me, says more about them.
I leave the discussion.
It's not surprising that Vlad has only removed 3, 4 people. In fact this channel is one of the few that isn't filled with insulting behaviours.
Thank you to all who comment, and Vlad himself.
Some trolls are unresponsive to civilized, argued comments and keep on and on with the same idea indifferent of the arguments brought up in discussion. Either they are very simple, low IQ, or just do this to provoke heated responses. Either way, it is futile to discuss with them, but for the sake of other people that might be inclined to believe their lies.
“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
--Garry Kasparov
That's why you shouldn't engage a botski. They'll go silent when you debunk them, but they've already pasted the same talking point in a dozen other places.
Have just been insulting Vivek Ramaswamy ( Ignoramus supreme, presidential candidate - so low has the bar for public office fallen in America , and a troll you wouldn't like to meet under a dark bridge at night. He repeats like a parrot the Kremlins talking points) on Denys' channel , and I must say I feel much better now.
Hi Vlad.
I’m sorry and even a little ashamed to admit I struggle to get through a full Vlad Vexler video in one sitting. I’ve always been the guy who changes the blown lightbulb while the residents association is meeting to appoint a committee to debate what to do about the dark stairwell.
I’ve been known to shout, “Oh for Gods sake stop talking and DO something.”
But, when I look at Netanyahu “Doing something “, I need help to cope with it. I resolved not to look at it, having seen similar things in the 1980s and been traumatised by them, but it’s unavoidable. I can’t turn on the tv without seeing it. I’m aware I’m venting, when I rant at someone who can’t see a problem with how that’s going, but it’s genuinely helpful to me, even if it doesn’t convince the other person.
Why that’s relevant here is, I sometimes come across different people expressing similar (usually racist, or anti semitic, or anti Islam) views and I give similar replies to each of them. People don’t get notified about replies to other people’s comments, even if they are similar, so if I want to be sure my response is received by the person that has provoked it, I need to reply to them. I’m not a troll. I just believe firing a weapon at a group of young children cannot be justified, no matter who or what is hiding behind them. Walking into London city center, wearing a black overcoat and a little black hat is not justification for violence, though I do beg you, please don’t do that while our TVs are showing the distressing scenes they currently are!
When I find comments that support such behaviour, or even simply regard it as acceptable, I can’t help myself.
Long rambling comment, the gist of which is, please don’t kick me out if I repeat myself.
I’m trying to, if not prevent the advocating of unacceptable behaviour, at least present an alternative option to those receiving it.
If you’re still with me, thank you!
It’s normal to stop looking at a screen
if only I could remove comments that are un-organic, repetitive, thoughtless slogans when they's said in person.
The channel "Professor Gerdes Explains" also noticed this a couple of days ago.
Interesting!
@@VladVexlerChat He even posted a community post about it.
But if you want to look more into it, I don't know for RUclips, but I know that for Twitter they used to publish (do they still? IDK...) the stats for account creations per country.
Generally you can see big spikes in account creations from Russia whenever something big is going on.
You seem to always hit the nail on the head. I am still learning and appreciate your work. Thank you Vlad
I don't feel much need to morally ground myself. I might dislike what Netanyahu is doing, yet I despise the political taxi Islamism gets to ride even more.
GIGO
True. But that conflict is a breeding ground for political islam. Because it just shows the vacousness of the "rules based world order", so was the iraq invasion and bombing of libya.
U.S used its VETO in united nations dozens of times to prevent israel from being held responsible for its actions. So, this conflict highlights and magnifies the hypocrisy of it all. This is exactly what putin said in now famous berlin 2007 speech, if the "rules based order" is applied only when it is convenient and useful, then it makes "rules based order" a phony.
if "ruled based world order" is phony, then people will try to destroy it.
@@saimbhat6243I think we need to get used to the fact that we don’t have ”equality in the eyes of the law” for nations. There is no entity to enforce such thinking.
So even those nations who profess to support the ”Rules based order” will not act to enforce those rules if it conflicts with their national interest. They will often use words to ”strongly condemn” or similar but won’t act. That is hypocritical, but perfectly understandable - there is no god-given rule that says a nation has to set aside its national interest and instead enforce the rules based order.
And yet you ignore the political limousine Israel gets while it commits war crimes....
@@shepberryhill4912 Your account is suspiciously fresh, but Vlad seems to like you for some reason.
First of all, they don't, they get shushed by the UN into letting terrorists lob their rockets at Israeli citizens.
Second, if such a thing happened, it wouldn't cause too much of a problem for the world, you see, unlike the Islamists, Israel is not advocating for the return of the stone age.
Imagine if russians put their effort into creative pursuits.. Shame.
Ahh,Vlad you know you have truly arrived when the trolls get you in their sights🎉 Congratulations are in order❤
My view too. Successful channels get trolled a lot.
This is really serious problem also in Poland, social media are trolled by Russians since years, EU needs an information firewall which could protect democracies against Russian influence. Trolls should be held accountable for what they are doing.
More like they should force Google et al to actually do something about it. It seems like they're going throught the motions.
@@BigHenFor Google has not enough view and control over this issue. This is huge problem to solve that would require all social media to cooperate to fight Russians trollls.
While I kind of fundamentally agree with what you are saying, how do you legislate for people who are not paid in a St Petersburg troll farm, but are native to a country and still support Russia?
I think Vlad’s often repeated point is that in a democracy you have to accept and listen and engage with all points, provided they are honestly held.
But I know I am sitting in a warm room in the UK and not a cold trench in Ukraine. So I do understand this is not universal guidance.
@@tomaszcodaszsolution is pretty easy and profitable. Verified accounts with anonymous user names... small fee and some extra features and content, like occasional free movies as a reward....
Users (all of them) can then turn off comments and content from unverified accounts and 99% of troll comments are gone for anyone who opts for that.
It would be a massive hurdle for Russia to register and verify 1000s of accounts everyday and they would be easier to detect and delete... RUclips would be much safer and people who know they may be held accountable and even have a small amount of money at stake will just behave better.
@@ianlighting100Legislate - no. Proactively moderate - maybe
I am wondering if we really need to make any distinction between a true russian troll and ”others” who fling around pro-russian misinformation or lies. Does it really matter if they are paid to do this or not?
Yes it does, because those “paid” bots are from fake accounts and should be removed by TOS.
@@MsZeeZedTo clarify - as it is exceedingly hard to distinguish the two from eachother don’t we have to deal with them in the comment section in the same way?
The distinction is really between e.g. a Trump voter, who shouldn’t be seen as a Russian troll, and the behaviour of someone who sees themselves as fighting for the Kremlin in an info war.
I love the expression "useful idiot" (as I can relate, being an useful idiot at times myself (not concerning Russia/Ukraine, I hope))
@@VladVexlerChatYes, agree. But…my point is still valid: As we cannot for sure distinguish between the two categories (at least not in youtubes comment section) the point of trying to distinguish, and thereby treating them differently, is not there.
Hi Vlad, wishing the best for your health.
woah vlad...I hope my chronic intellectual biases don't ever come across as repetitive propaganda... yikes!
There is even one running for President in America.
Our 'community' if im permitted to phrase it in this way, is unique.
Posts i suspect to be trolls may not be trolls. Posts that i believe to be genuine may not be?
Something that I have learned watching Vlad's channels is listen and try to understand their points and where they are coming from.
Sometimes agreement with their argument(s) isn't logical or I just dont agee.
None the less as a participant in community's I do try to understand.
Believe that Vlad and moderators do a good job, and dont believe trolls are a threat but a nusance much like an alpha in a discussion.
Politics tends to be an irrational fuction of discourse. It used to that politicians refrained playing with matches and gasoline...
The question is how to reduce the 4 most flammable ingredients in public life; gasoline, matches, media and politicians????
In Canada we are witnessing the radicalism of the conservatives (many flavors to choose). Im 68, and worried. I won't bore you with Canadian issue's, but everything is distilled down to one line quips, similar to other democracies. No longer is it about long term strategies, or any strategy at all. its about short term political advantage no matter the consequences. Canada has issues of greying population, shirking middle class, growing wealthy & super wealthy class(s) and growing poor class. Belive we're only a short time before the current US experience will take over.
This Canadian agrees with you. I’m even older and find it distressing!
Vlad, Interesting to hear some if your behind the curtain stats. 99% likes very impressive!
It’s also a reminder to us to not get carried away with engaging with the trolls who present an outsized prescence compared to their true size. Kinda like those inflatable sumo wrestler costumes with a teeny tiny man inside.
I see a lot of very dubious (fascist, racist) comments on Times Radio on certain topics. Just have to remember it’s the little twerps shouting hard and not actually representative.
When I made an appearance on a Scandinavian public TV programme, some of the comments in some platforms, were 95% toxic. But they only represented a very small fraction of the audience. Comments can be misleading.
@@VladVexlerChat sounds like an opportunity for YT et al to introduce some kind of visual indicator. Like a itsy bitsy teeny weeny winky that reduces in size depending how unrepresentative a persons comment is. I accept my idea may need a little working up before it’s a full PowerPoint proposal.
@@ianlighting100Don't stop. Also consider every copy paste post reduces the size of it.
I think the Israel/Palestine news reports is where most of the trolls went for a while. I heard another channel describe troll-like activity was nearly absent since that conflict began... so they were off making hay while they could and are now slowly retuning to their usual haunts.
They are pretty obvious most of the time and if we occasionally mistake someone who is simply obnoxious or desperate for attention for a paid propagandist, it really doesn't do any harm if they find themselves escorted out of the discussion 😂
When I react (wich is not often,) I curse them out in my local dialect. Only to never look back at the "discussion" again. Leave them something to think about in some cases.
First video of yours thats made me cringe in disagreement in how you approached the topic. Troll farms can have and have had, huge implications in some respects. And should not be treated with such flippant attitude. Also the absolutes? Is your ego overflowing a little perhaps? Troll farms play a role in disinformation distribution. Which can have wide ranging effects on a population. This is something that has been a subject of deep study by many. It is not trivial. Maybe on your channel. But these farms can audience capture creators to influence content direction. Change public discourse. Increase issues in uptake of crucial programs to protect a population. Increase racial tension, and even lead to mass targeted murder/attacks etc. Troll farms can also play a roll in increases viewer confidence in a conclusion that is inherently wrong or outright bs.
True, leads to death and destruction when exposing uneducated audiences. Jacob Zuma trolls during the massive looting spree in Kwazulu-Natal perfect example. Needless to say, he was a pootin stooge.
TBH, try sending that to Google or X, and see what response you get. One must be pragmatic. Drama only burns up oxygen, which starves people's brains.
Vlad is one man, and he does what he can. He cannot stop bot farms or trolls any more than you can cut a slice of cheese out of the moon. All he can do is keep telling what he knows, to the best of his knowledge, to be the truth.
And you know what? There are lots of people on both sides that don't like that. There always is in any dispute. But, it's the best way to fight the lies, and the manipulation. It's the only way. That's what I come for.
I agree it's a major problem that gets under-represented. I was just thinking about this yesterday. I used to celebrate how the internet was the first mass media that allowed many-to-many communication. Radio, TV, and to a lesser extent newspaper are one-to-many media sources, and I used to sing the praises of the internet as being a fully-democratized media source. That golden age lasted maybe a decade. Now, with bots swarming the comments informed by human-sounding AI chatbots, human voices are being drowned out by corporate and nationalistic propaganda, and in a much more subtle way than overt advertisements. The many-to-many is quickly normalizing back to a one-to-many mode of media distribution.
Keep talking vlad, in as much as we as humans can, i really appreciate your conciousness and energy u put into talking about these things in a way that gently navigates around our tendancies to harden and to continue the cycles of combatitive suffering of our human condition. Hope that wasnt to crazy and my point has been understood ❤
Brevity was never your strong point, Vlad.
You've revised your policy. As before, sharing a different viewpoint, even if it clashes with yours, is not only acceptable, but also beneficial for democracy. However, to combat the firehose of Russian propaganda, from now on, you will ban anyone who floods the comments section like a Russian troll,, whether they are one or not.
I'm delighted. If RUclips could do the same, that would be wonderful.
The Three Billy Goats Gruff know how to deal with trolls :)
Regarding the failure of moral leadership in the West, the American diplomatic corp has something called a "dissent channel", where anyone in-house can offer criticism and correction to anyone else in-house. Some of that recently leaked. Apparently the diplomats on the ground (the private diplomats who actually talk with other countries) are livid about how the public diplomats (those who state US policy to the press) are misrepresenting the stance of the USA, making it appear that we're okay with crimes committed by both sides in the Middle Eastern conflict. We are not. Our policies are not. We are applying every pressure we can, on both sides, to stop the targeting of civilians, allow in humanitarian aid, etc. But it's being played down in public, and it shouldn't be.
Absolutely!!!! I am in Ethiopia and I know people working for the USA embassy and they are not at all as they are portrait in certain media. Their "meddeling" is actually the attempt to help! They are working hours and hours, because they are really really concerned about people. And they are doing this, despite being blamed for all problems.
Your sense making is crucial.
Thank you!
I wonder if comments can be removed for being *too* organic? Comments which are so organic, they are like the metaphorical rotting detritus fed upon by tiny isopods 💩🤔
Funny, I just commented this on a recent vid of yours, Vlad (“the russkie bots seem to have just discovered your channel” or something to that effect).
Well, congratulations: if they’re trolling you that means they fear you.
Kremlin’s Gremlins
6:21 the real Russian troll army would do that with dozens of different accounts. A few different viewpoints repeated over and over again by separate accounts.
Strange question (more out of curiosity than anything else), but will you apply the same rule to comments you don't deem anti-Russian or even pro Ukranian/Israel.
It’s very true, I’ve completely avoided the events in Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, I’m a little older then Vlad and it just seems an endless cycle that’s painful to discuss in person never mind online. And I can’t see an end to it, it’s feels like Israel has too much power to meaningfully engage in a two state solution and so this will go on and on.
I guess everyone has seen that a two state solution will never come. Now the question is: How could a common state look like that offers a maximum of fairness for all sides? After all, any religion (or the absence thereof) should be able to live in any country without ever being perturbed.
However, no religion should claim special privileges. This will bring a lot of narcissistic disappointment for many but this is what growing up is about.
@AndreasDelleske its very tough, I've just finished listening ing to Ben Shapiro talk at the Oxford University students union and at the end felt that he was in the same situation as someone who waves a Palestinian flag shouting for pogroms. He would hook a questioner in as soon as the two state solution was mentioned, "OK, where's Palestine," when the the inevitable answer comes up something like, "the British mandate" he'd say, "which part if it? The response, "all of it," and he'd retort, "all of it, ok, now I see you're advocating for the complete destruction of Israel, if that's your position its pointless to engage any further." This might be great for winning US news show battles of wit, but it doesn't help to solve the issue, to try and somehow heal the 100 + years of bad decisions and bad blood. I studied the conflict as a history undergraduate 20 years ago, but the more I read, the more torn I became; eventually, I became wildly pro-Istael just to assuage the cofnitive dissonance. I was young ,stupid, hadn't seen enough to really shape my worldview but now, after serving in Afghistan half a lifetime ago, having a family, things change and I wanted to ask him, "Ben, just imagine you're an Arab, an illiterate farmer your wife and 5 children, you're happy, you might even have a radio in your small dwelling, the situation has been dicey but you've stayed out of things, when you hear shots and all hell breaks loose. Most people are unarmed, the attackers are shooting indiscriminately, and small fires break out. As you grab your family to leave, you send them away with a friend who has a vehicle. Thank God, but there is no room left. You tell the invaders you are unarmed and hear a variety of languages in response, only one sounds familiar though. You notice that some of the armed men look different to the usual Semitic Jews you're used to encountering in the land, a few even have light hair and are almost as white as Britush soldiers when they are newly landed from their frozen shores. You're about to ask what they want when one raises his weapon and fires, leaving the question forever unanswered. THat's what happened at the village of Deir Yasin, Ben; not an isolated incident but one of the better known, where European born Jews survived the Shoah, came home to find that their former neighbours had stolen all their belongings and wouldn't leave their housees that their families had lived in for 5 generations. They managed to catch ships to Palestine which at the time was crying out Jewish survivors to build the state Israel. The journey ultimately led to attacking Pakestinian Arab villages, over 400 in total, where the population was evicted or had received prior warning and fled. In a few, massacres were perpetrated in order to encourage surrounding settlements to make tracks. The result speaks for itself however, a territorial split avoided and UN 242 left moot. No return to land evacuated by Arabs. Ben, war is hell and might usually equals right but can you square the circle above, the idea of a European Jews newly arrived nothing to their names, their jobs? To force Arab families who had lived in these villages for centuries to leave, permanently, and occupy their residences. In other words, do to them exactly what SOMEONE ELSE did to you? However it's characterised, Israel's borders were defined by terror, and both peoples have paid for it since. One people more than the other.
Wow, that was long, ok, yeah, our fault (the West) as well as Zionist zealots, also the Arab nations surrounding, their failt too, but pretend the Hamas attacks were somehow worse than similar crimes perpetrated by Israel is laughable. The planners of the Deir Yasin operations included a future Prime Minister and all were pardoned of any crimes once it became clear the strategy was working beyond all expectations, and that the West wasn't put off by a few razed villages, having been so brutalised recently by the war.
OK Ben, over to you
@@jamesgornall5731 I love your comment, my grandfather didn’t get home in WW2 until 1947 when the British Army left Palestine where they were defending themselves and Palestinians from the terrorist groups you mentioned. What Hamas did was evil and they fail everyday Palestinians but they weren’t created in a vacuum, violence begets violence and there is no hope until that violence stops.
@@jamesgornall5731 There are millions of individual stories. In what way does this constitute a fair government?
Вот и до тебя эти вурдолаки добрались, видимо хорошо, качественно ты делаешь свою работу. Так держать Влад!
They're everywhere. Every channel covering the Trump testimony yesterday was entirely flooded with Russian trolls.
Originally trolls were people trying to make mad one or more persons on the internet JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT.
When this (technological?) term got to mass media, it was misinterpreted (as lot of tech words, like hacker) as something necessarily political, and even worse, as organized people who are paid to fight for someone else's cause. And that's not a troll, it's something a lot older than media, social networks, the web or the internet; that's a MERCENARY.
Like to dislike ratio doesn't suggest much anymore. Most people did NOT dislike a video just to let the creator privately know that they didn't enjoy the video.
So I wouldn't use the like to dislike ratio as a way to see the ratio between people liking the video or not liking it. Many people wouldn't even bother clicking it because they don't even want to help the creator, they just want to let people know (why) they don't like something.
Vlad, I just want to tell you that I can't even begin to explain how much I appreciate your calming ethical expression. You keep me sane in these difficult times.
OK Vlad, I want to make sure I understand what you consider and "egregious russian propaganda talking point". If I were to leave a comment that I truly believe that Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov demonstrated FAR more musical prowess than, say, someone like Franz Schubert, and additionally his Snow Maiden and Scheherazade were far more musically competent and supportive of the motherland than ol' Gretchen, spinning her western based lies and influence. Would that be sufficient to "boot me off" the channel?
Sorry, I can't seem to locate my 'tongue in cheek' emoji.
What you posted in jest a lot would say with a straigh face. You seem to be unaware we live in post-parody times. Hou donr seem ro be aware that no matter how ridiculous a thing you can come up with to be a deliberate parody, there a lot outhere who would believe in it with great conviction. The world is now in full Poe's Law.
Thanks, always prioritize your health....we can handle the trolls 🤣 The comment sections on your channels are much higher quality than other places on RUclips. Here the vast majority of commentors are polite and give educated responses... that's probably why trolls stick out so much. Also many commentors are regulars...so it's easy to notice when it's a troll or bot. 🤣
The copypasta gives it away (pasta it on x)
ban all inorganic mushrooms I say.
Aren't those called salt flowers or something? Or desert ? Those nice crystalline structures that forms in some places. Sometimes they can look like mushrooms.
Im too stupidn to understand this one^^
They're here. Among us.
sus! 😂
Is it ok to make comments when i'm at work?
most frequent Putin troll sentence of the african department " russia has the right to defend itself "
Awesome, fully agree 👍
Hi there, Vlad and fellow viewers. I'm Kenny))
I want to say that this is a brilliant and calm corner of my known world where I find peace and growth, and one of a handful of backgrounds I listen to when cooking or prepping to head out. So thank you very much, your voice is incredibly calming and loving.
Rarely do I ever post comments anywhere but Vlad's comment on the lack and exhaustion of empathy for the tragedies of war and suffering in the world motivated me as I have been struggling to even begin to cope with all the horrendous acts we do to each other as humans with all the news coming in by the hour. And horrifyingly, earlier in the month I found that not only have I lost my capacity for empathy, but there seems to be a part of me that is finding a cruel glee in seeing people suffer which most likely led to countless deaths.
In a conversation with a close friend on this particular matter, there seem to be a couple underlying themes or triggers for such reactions from me. As I am a mechanical engineer by training and my friend no better as he is in IR, the best I can do is to roughly identify the emotions and they appear to be of "vengeance, appreciation of straightforward violence, equal retaliation, and anxiety over uncertainty or waiting".
Without diving too deep into my own background, it is responsible for me to say that I am pretty familiar with anxiety and fear in life as an active reservist in the midst of a hotspot for global tension, but this is quite an alien new find for me as I did not believe myself to be capable of such malice towards complete strangers. Due to my own personal interest in such matters, I find myself friends with an extensive range of people on the political spectrum, while they are brilliant fun as friends and counselors on particular political views or national character, they are also incredibly steadfast on what they believe to be right and just and will go to unfathomable lengths to convince others. As you can imagine that is very stressful, though I do find joy and admiration in listening and learning from them I have had to ask them to give me some quiet time for the last week or so as the previously mentioned issue was found one evening while watching the news.
I don't know what I am trying to get from saying all this as I am still processing it myself. Probably just as a guide to my thinking process, I suppose.
Hope all is well for everyone.
Clear skies and warm suns.
Hi Kenny! It happens to me, too. The loss of empathy, I mean. I am very angry, and I don't know yet, how much of this anger is here to hedge my growing anxiety, and how much of it is real unproductive anger...
@@JuliaMRichter@ juliarichter6987 The loss of direction for all the super-pressured frustration is a key part of the reaction to a world where world-shattering events are delivered with sensationalistic articles every other breakfast I suppose. But I am of the opinion that all energy can do good with clear guidance regardless of their origin. Most definitely just an idealistic view of things as they never work out in life. What I do find helpful though is to find curiosity and humor in the flux of emotions.
It is very nice to know that someone else is in the same casket as I am XD
Can't wait for the first snow of the year))
blessings
As usual, I learned something... I am one of those that work odd hours and then have to binge-watch to catch up. I had noticed an up tick of the same comment repeated / nested under other comments shortly after "stalemate" became the headline and most recent 'reaction du jour. I like your example of such people as 'workers' in the process they use. For me, it is work just to come up with a mostly intelligent comment or question, something I noticed seemed lacking in the repeated / nested comments. Thanks as always Vlad. edit - I noticed this across many Ukraine supporting sites, not just here.
When it looks like deception, walks like deflection and talks like defamation it's probably ... Dmitri.
If it ducks like a quack…
We should of course add duplicity, denigration, denial and dozens of other D-words. A relatively new observation is hateful misogyny, but I digress ...
If it smells like shit ,it's shit
Thanks Vlad, as a moderator of another channel who sees these types of things on a regular basis, this was a good review of how to properly judge these cases. Moderation is a difficult task, and I certainly don’t do a perfect job of it. It’s always good to hear what you have to say about it, as it helps me reevaluate my own methods.
Also, I have a simple suggestion regarding moderation which may be helpful to you in light of the current issue. It’s something that’s worked quite well on the channel I moderate, and I’m happy to share it with you privately. Please let me know if you’re interested.
Hey Spencer.
Who is it that makes certain commitments unseeable?
I notice all the time that there will be a number of replies to a comment but not all of them can be seen.
And I also know that comments I make are disappeared.
Is this done by moderators, RUclips, people report the comments as being offensive...?
Have a good day!
Mark
@@markbryant4641 Hi Mark. When you see a number of comments where only some of them display, that is always done by RUclips’s filtering algorithms. If the channel creator or moderators remove the comments, they will be completely removed and the number goes down respectively. The somewhat frustrating thing is that sometimes RUclips filters out problematic comments, but the way they do it prevents moderators from properly removing the comments. So the people on that thread can still see the problematic comments.
RUclips has stepped up their automatic filtering in the last few months, which is wreaking havoc on a number of channels. I believe some of this has been done to address complaints about scammers and spammers (which have been less of a problem on the channel I moderate lately, gratefully), as well as trolls and violent comments. But the problem is that they’re not always good at differentiating truly problematic comments from benign comments. So your problem is not unique- many people have found the algorithm to be overly sensitive. I’ve even had some of my comments removed when I was trying to explain things to people, and I know the channel owner has even had some of her comments deleted. And we have no recourse to correct the issue. Personally, I think RUclips should give moderators and content ultimate say (within certain bounds) to the content creator for how their individual channel is handled, and they should have the ability to review the results of automatic filtering and correct issues with it. But that is not the case.
Additionally, I believe the automatic filtering mechanisms are susceptible to false reporting. I think they learn from patterns of reported comments, so all it takes is false reporting from organized groups such as troll farms to train the algorithm to remove non-problematic comments. I personally believe this is a tactic they use to try to sabotage pro-Ukrainian channels.
The advice I give to people struggling with this issue is to make a habit of copying your comments into another file before submitting them, so if they get automatically deleted you can alter it slightly and repost it. I caution against spamming or against trying to repost the same comment repeatedly if RUclips has filtered it out for one reason or another. I have known of people getting a timeout for doing such things.
Best of luck to you, I hope that helps somewhat.
Unfortunately the slight insults you cast toward the Russian trolls in this message went right over their heads. Russian Trolls haven't the capacity to understand the level of intelligence you possess.
Or any level of intelligence for that matter.
I am so happy that you speak of the Gaza situation too!
I am genuinely surprised that, in the mushroom-preparation video analogy, we were not trolling a video made by poor Ricky 😂