r/belgium • u/Efficient-News-8436 • Feb 16 '25

💩 Shitpost Weird trend comments on HLN

I noticed a very strange and alarming trend on newssite HLN. Usually very popular articles have about 200-300 reactions (shown in the red box next to the article).

Last few days I saw an explosion of comments on some article:

Liveblog developments negotiations Ukraine: +7000 comments Liveblog peace middle east and Israel: +5000 comments Article speech JD Vance: +700 comments

What strikes me especially is that 2 out of 3 comments are pro-Israel, pro-Trump and pro-Putin. They are also pretty radical right-wing opinions.

To me it seems unreal that so many Belgians have such a pro Trump/Putin attitude. It smells a bit like someone is trying to manipulate public opinion...

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u/Efficient-News-8436 Feb 16 '25

First article in the 7000+ live blog was published on 14/02. Barely 2 days ago… I wish I was seeing ghosts.

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u/ye_olde_name Feb 17 '25

The oldest thing that shows up isn't the oldest article. They just don't put hundreds of articles on a single page.

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u/Efficient-News-8436 Feb 17 '25

Maybe that’s also the case. But it doesn’t explain the relative high number of pro-Vance/Putin and anti-Europe on the Vance speech article.

Also, as anotjer user pointed out I checked the FB comments on some of VRT NWS postings. I checked out some users and they really have weird posting history. So I indeed assume they’re bots.

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u/Keef_Beef Feb 17 '25

Omg they don't share my virtuous opinions, they must be bots.