The government figured out sockpuppet managment but not "persona management".

[dreamnightwind]

208. I'd say it clearly already exists

This is one use of technology that should not ever have been explored, there is no legitimate purpose to such technology, IMO.

I can see how it seems interesting from a technical standpoint. Also interesting would be an effort to identify its persona wherever they appear. Some kind of automated tree analysis to identify cohorts, then you need some way to distinguish real cohorts from false ones. I'd think that real cohorts would have a more diverse body of posts and probably more thought-out, conversational posting styles, though that would not necessarily be the case.

You'd need to work up a large number of possible indicators of sock-puppetry, a Bayesian approach I think it's called, and score the persona across all of them, since no one way would be certain to identify it. In the end, the decision should be made by a human but I'm fascinated by the idea of automated software that would flag likely trolls using the known techniques we have learned about so far, and hopefully adapting it as the propaganists improve their methodology. I have to focus my time looking for employment, not sure if I'm the person to tackle this, but it would be a real interesting and challenging project, and a very good thing if it worked, hmm. Maybe we could crowd-source this project somehow.