I find it a bit curious that they've chosen to use SMS verifications as a proxy for the difficulty of creating an account, when there are similar marketplaces for selling the actual end product of bulk-created accounts. Was there some issue with that kind of data? SMS verification is just one part of the anti-bulk account puzzle, for both the attacker and defender.
Maybe have YC invest in some startups combatting this using machine learning?
(Given the focus of HN it's typically some product being pushed, though. Not a politician.)
Fake online accounts are a problem... unless our guys do it.
Totalitarian measures like persecuting people for social media posts and forcing digital id are a problem... unless our guys are in power.
It was a good run for democracy. What was it, 200 years? I wonder comes is next. Techno-feudalism? Well, I'm sure it won't be a problem as long as it's our guys.
That out of the way, if the post were about ballot stuffing by the Democrats with irrefutable evidence like I've seen, would you feel exactly the same way? Rhetorical question. I hope you can come out of the mind-spell and recognize evil for being evil whoever does it. Not just thinking evil can only be done by "the other people".
Note: I'm not even American and dislike both political parties. Same in EU, I deeply dislike the EU self-appointed caste, but I also deeply dislike the new right parties. And don't get me started with UK... So I think I'm reasonably un-biased with regards to those false dichotomies.
That's incredible. You're not even American, and have seen irrefutable evidence of "the Democrats" participating in blatant electoral fraud? Why haven't you shared this? There's no shortage of literal billionaires who'd reward you handsomely for such proof!
Beyond this, why I constantly make fun of "both-sides!" guys is because they tend to ignore degree. To a vegetarian, eating hamburgers is wrong (some might even call it evil). But you'd be hard-pressed to find one who'd consider hambuger-eaters and murderers basically the same. You'd rightfully consider someone with such beliefs insane. Between murderers and hamburger eaters, one is considerably worse than the other.
Rant aside, I'm curious where you pin the start of this.
It just couldn't be exploited effectively until now. Thanks, Mark and Elon.
But also, that bug is why our government was initially set up with the structure it was. And why you'll occasionally see complaints about parts of the structure being "undemocratic".
Are you saying until Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022 there were no effective election interference problems?
This is a classic playbook in U.S. politics. Conservative media gins up a conspiracy theory (e.g., Hollywood is biased, universities are biased, mainstream media is biased, social media is biased, etc. etc.) and then they use these imaginary foes as justification for actual retribution. There was no purposeful and systematic bias at Twitter under Jack Dorsey (himself, a pretty conservative character, having backed Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr in the past election, both of whom both now work in the Trump administration).
* Athenian Democracy (c. 508–322 BCE)
* Roman Republic (c. 509–27 BCE)
* Dutch Republic (c. 1500?)
* French and American Revolutions and constitutional monarchies (c. 1770-ish-present?)> forcing digital id are a problem... unless our guys are in power.
Digital government ID based mandatory auth, properly implemented or not (read: anon via zk vs. tracking), does not "properly remediate" [0] this issue. You'd limit identity forgery to those who administrate identities in the first place.
[0] if that is even possible, which I find questionable
The political parties I've voted for (all across the board) have never felt to me like "our guys". They simply felt like the most sane option at the time.
Not everyone sinks into political tribalism.
I simply want a sane democratic voting process.
And I find first past the post voting to be insane. It seems that a country is then doomed into having a 2 party system.
From a CS course called distributed systems, we know that if you only have a single source of failure, that's a vulnerability right there. A 2 party system can be a single source of failure if one of the two political parties is corrupted and gains too much power. To be fair, that could also happen when there are 20+ parties, but it is less likely.
And also Idiocracy. This one is becoming more relevant. In all countries and all races.
America being what it is, with endless Voting Rights Act lawsuits required to keep the southern states running vaguely fair elections, it was impossible to get a bipartisan consensus that elections should actually be fair. And so the system deteriorates.
If they hack voting machines, they're not my guys, friend.
I think a minimum pricing on accounts, even if it's just a buck or two on most social media sites would do very little to hinder genuine participation but probably eliminate or render transparent most political manipulation.
Arguably the primary reason nobody does it is because it would reveal how fake their stats are and how little value there actually is in it
And one might ask why we don't want to protect ours more.
Not all accounts are created equal. For example a verified US account will be cheaper than a verified Japan account because Japan has stricter regulations around phone numbers. And then if you don't have a Japan account you might not be able to reach a potential Japanese audience due to not only antitrust of the platform, but also features that use geolocation for relevance.
haunter•2h ago
https://telex.hu/english/2025/12/11/most-hungarians-fear-rus...
They are also doing everything to bypass the no-political-ads-on-facebook ban https://telex.hu/english/2025/10/29/despite-the-ban-fidesz-c...
spiderfarmer•1h ago
an0malous•1h ago
flipgimble•41m ago
reactordev•39m ago
nathanaldensr•54m ago
amitav1•33m ago
earthnail•6m ago
I find it crazy that we accept this madness on social media.
mettamage•1h ago
I think it's quite unfortunate as it will mean that Hungary will become less pro EU, simply because the really pro EU people (that are also highly educated) seem to be going out of the country according to my anecdata. It's n = 2 to be fair, but I think it's enough for it to warrant some more research since I am simply stumbling across this group of people, I'm not actively seeking it out.