Pro-Clinton Super PAC Caught Spending $1 Million On Social Media Trolls (usuncut.com) 429
An anonymous reader quotes a report from US Uncut: A Super PAC headed by a longtime Clinton operative is spending $1 million to hire online trolls to "correct" Bernie Sanders' supporters on social media. Correct The Record (CTR), which is operated by Clinton attack dog and new owner of Blue Nation Review David Brock, launched a new initiative this week called "Barrier Breakers 2016" for the purpose of debating supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders -- or "Bernie Bros," as they're referred to in Correct the Record's press official release -- on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms. The "Barrier Breakers" will also publicly thank Hillary Clinton's superdelegates and fans for supporting her campaign. The paid trolls are professional communicators, coming from public relations and media backgrounds. "The task force staff's backgrounds are as diverse as the community they will be engaging with and include former reporters, bloggers, public affairs specialists, designers, Ready for Hillary alumni, and Hillary super fans who have led groups similar to those with which the task force will organize," CTR stated.
Even better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Even better... (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like you need corrected!
Hillary Clinton fought to tie the minimum wage to future increases in congressional salaries. Hillary Clinton repeatedly introduced the Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act to bind future salary increases for Congress to mandatory increases in the federal minimum wage. Under the provisions of the legislation, the federal minimum wage would be “automatically increased” by “a percentage equal to the percentage by which the annual rate of pay for Members of Congress increased for such year” Speaking to the importance of her bill, Senator Clinton said, “We can no longer stand by and regularly give ourselves a pay increase while denying a minimum wage increase to help the more than 7 million men and women working hard across this nation. At a time when working families are struggling to put food on the table, it’s critically important that we here in Washington do something. If Members of Congress need an annual cost of living adjustment, then certainly the lowest-paid members of our society do too.”
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Looks like the 'pro trolls' and sycophant ass-kissers have /. on their todo list as well.
Maybe a good start to be corrected is where did the six billion dollars that are missing from Hillary's State Department go? And why where favors given to foreign governments who gave to the Bill and Hillary so-called charity. You know, the charity that gives almost nothing to charities. Huh-uh.
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Perfect cover for Congress to vote themselves wage increases: they're doing it for the people! Absolutely brilliant!
So if the minimum wage goes from $7.50 per hour to $15.00 per hour that would mean doubling the salaries of Congress people. Congress people get substantially richer, and congress does it by spending other people's money for them.
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Sorry to be the one to break this to you, but they give free money to just about every country in the world, including the most unsavory ones.
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. . .and Americans still, allegedly, starve.
Haven't seen much indication of that at the local Wal-Mart, however. . . .
Re:Even better... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet she doesn't support the $15/hr minimum wage.
And yet, that is still a better argument to vote for Hillary than any of her supporters gave at the caucus I attended. I was actually wanting to hear some good, reasoned arguments for Hillary as I can't find any on the internet. Instead, I got "Hillary as president would be empowering for women" multiple times. Now, some of those were pretty good speeches and I wouldn't ignore that as something like a tiebreaker, but as another (naturalized) caucus goer stated, "That's what I thought when I voted for Maggie in the 80's".
It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:5, Interesting)
There does need to be some kind of reform when it comes to campaigns and financing and all of that, but it is very difficult to do. See, we have this thing called the First Amendment. Finding the right set of rules that respect the First Amendment, and yet helps prevent money from completely dominating an election cycle, is not an easy thing.
That said...
I would like to note that Bernie Sanders (note that I am not endorsing him) doesn't have a war chest even close to what Clinton has, and if it weren't for the super delegate system, he would be very close to winning the nomination. Or what about Trump (also not endorsing him)? Sure, he's rich, but he hasn't spent much money at all on ads or these kinds of organizations - he doesn't need to, he gets more free news coverage than anyone else, by far.
So it seems that money isn't everything if you have a popular message. Maybe we don't need these rules and laws which spawn these special organizations after all. Maybe all of these campaign finance laws are just there to stop the outsider types from having as good a chance.
Maybe.
It isn't an easy problem to solve and you'll never make everyone happy.
Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:4, Insightful)
The 'money doesn't always work' argument is a favorite excuse of Republicans - as part of a 'it's not really a problem", "democrats raise money too", and "in any case, what can we do about it" rationalization of a system that they know favors them. And it favors them if only because it pushes all non-money centric issues off of center stage. "Both parties are able to raise lots of money" is part of the problem - not a reason it's not a problem.
Yes, it doesn't always work in high profile contests like Presidential elections, where the media pay enough attention - and can be manipulated into getting your message out for you. And where bad politicians are on such constant display that they're unable to hide their unattractive sides.
But in lower-level elections, money can make a huge difference. Republicans don't control the majority of statehouses by accident - or by popularity. When the public (and the media) are not paying attention, money can easily put you over the top.
Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:4, Insightful)
So when the voters choose Democrats, they're doing the right thing, but when they choose Republicans, it's because they're not paying attention or were somehow duped? Got it.
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But in lower-level elections, money can make a huge difference. Republicans don't control the majority of statehouses by accident - or by popularity. When the public (and the media) are not paying attention, money can easily put you over the top.
I think that actually when people aren't distracted by the media and celebrities, and can focus on the real issues, the Republican message actually wins out. That's why they dominate at the state level.
Re: It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:2)
Change the election rulings, each candidate may use 1 million dollar for campaigning, then run a first election in all states simultaneously, pick out the top 2 candidates and run a second election. Same election rules in all states, no elector voting to make every vote count. Run all this in 30 days.
No party politics when electing president.
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If you want to avoid party politics, do away with the electoral college and go with a simpler popular vote.
Oh wait that'll never pass because it would take away the unreasonable amount of power that smaller (swing) states currently have in the presidential election.
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That was something that was needed a long time ago, but in the modern society where information is passed on within milliseconds and people are able to move that's no longer a major issue. Election of a president should be concerning the whole population, and a 2-stage election should be sufficient to sift out the most interesting candidates.
A limit on how much that can be spent would also allow those that can't spend as much to be able to be heard.
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What you call "unreasonable amount of power that smaller states have" is what the founding fathers called "equal representation in a Federal Republic."
Because that's what the United States is - a Republic.
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Considering the ceiling of 1 million it's not much compared to how much that's spent on campaigns today. And if the campaigning is limited in time to 30 days, then 14 days election process it would be less hassle.
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I wouldn't have so much of a problem with people like the Kochs buying political speech if the messages they published were clearly indicated to have been paid for by them.
To tie this back to "freedom of the press", when WaPo publishes some crappy opinion piece, I *know* where it's coming from, and that it's an editorial. It clearly says so when I read it.
If the Kochs want to buy ads on TV, and those ads clearly say "paid for by KochsPAC" or whatever, that's fine.
The problem is when they misrepresent thems
Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:4, Insightful)
helps prevent money from completely dominating an election cycle
Yes, it was disgusting how the Super PACs were able to just buy the Republican nomination for Jeb Bush. Just like they bought the presidency for Mitt Romney. Something must be done, since obviously the voters are too stupid to think for themselves.
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and if it weren't for the super delegate system, he would be very close to winning the nomination.
Sanders is behind Clinton in pledged delegates, 1,428 to 1,189 [ap.org]. There's no way to spin that as "Sanders is close to winning"; Clinton is undeniably closer.
If you eliminated unpledged delegates entirely, Clinton's target would be 2,113; she'd need less than 700 of the remaining 1,646 delegates to win.
The only way Sanders could achieve a win would be for him to inspire the superdelegates to change their minds between now and the election. He's hoping somehow to thread the needle, denying her a majority of the
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There does need to be some kind of reform when it comes to campaigns and financing and all of that, but it is very difficult to do. See, we have this thing called the First Amendment. Finding the right set of rules that respect the First Amendment, and yet helps prevent money from completely dominating an election cycle, is not an easy thing.
Though I heard an interesting claim that it isn't the money during elections but the lobbyists between elections basically volunteering to do all the work who are the real problem.
Though I think the super PACs are still a major issue.
That said...
I would like to note that Bernie Sanders (note that I am not endorsing him) doesn't have a war chest even close to what Clinton has, and if it weren't for the super delegate system, he would be very close to winning the nomination.
Not even close, in fact at this point one of Sanders' campaign managers is arguing that even if Sanders is losing the pledged delegate count that the superdelegates should give him the nomination [realclearpolitics.com].
Either way I think Sanders has been out-raising Clinton for a while based on small
Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:5, Insightful)
"The press" in "freedom of speech and the press" isn't just some guy from the 1940s with a "Press" card stuck in his hatband.
It is literaly the freedom to use a printing press -- the mass production of speech for distribution.
Kings of old would regulate or outlaw printing presses as a backdoor method of controlling speech...against them, the people in power.
You are seeking to tromp on the mdern version of this, TV, radio, and now Internet advertising.
You say "too much money!" On what basis? Because some senators whined 15 years ago that they disliked making so many phone calls? This isn't even about that.
This is some nebulous concept of "too much money" severed from any influence via donations to candidates.
The correct response to speech is more speech, not censorship of presses, the mechanical means of mass production of speech.
NO MORE DIVINE RIGHTS OF KINGS!
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I follow your point and agree for the most part in theory. In practice it's a little different.
What I see happening is some agents are using their freedom of speech/the press to suppress others freedom of speech/the press, e.g. if Government Politician A uses influence with Media Corporation X to make sure Hope to Be Government Politician B doesn't have a platform to employ their freedom of speech/the press, then that is an implicit suppression of the freedom of the speech/press by Government Politician A.
Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct. Citizens United isn't the root problem. The real problem is the corruption system that is currently in place works around the normal patterns of bribery. In Congress today, favors are granted long before the bribes are paid. Congressmen give away favors to corporations freely, secure in the knowledge that someone with lots of money will hire them as a lobbyist or consultant after they retire. Because this system is so successful, it encourages extra bonus corruption - if a Congressman grants favors to 10 companies, the chances are pretty good that one of the 10 will hire him. If he grants favors to 100 companies, he can be sure of it.
What we need from Congress is accountability. Keep tabs of votes that favor corporations, organizations, or special interests. After retiring from Congress, keep track of ex-members who go into lobbying or somehow get paid by organizations that received favorable laws while they were in office, and nullify their votes on the legislation after the fact. If the number of nullified votes drops the count below whatever majority was required to pass them, nullify the laws. If you voted in favor of three or more laws that were later nullified through this act, you win a felony corruption charge.
If you're a congressman who wants to retire with confidence in your voting record, you have a couple of safe paths: you can always recuse yourself from the votes that would favor big corporations; or you can retire on a minimum wage job as a fry cook.
Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for (Score:4, Interesting)
Pitch it to the Sunlight Foundation. I think they'd give you a grant and a lot of better-structured data to start with.
All Discussion Formums are Vulnerable (Score:5, Insightful)
The pseudo-anonymity of discussion forums like Slashdot, Disqus, or any of the other platforms make them fundamentally vulnerable to paid trolling. I usually assume that many of the posts written on hot-button discussions about issues such as politics or global warming are made by paid trolls. There is a percentage of the readership of forums that believes that all of the posts are made by disinterested citizens; that is the market for such paid trolling. Paying posters gives the appearance of legitimacy to the propaganda they put out. If there is a large readership for a particular forum, then paying posters to post is likely to be a relatively inexpensive means of reaching large numbers of readers. Its expense can be reduced by having single posters create posts under different user names, and across different forums. A single poster could create many hundreds of posts per day, reaching tens or hundreds of thousands of readers. I simply don't trust much of what I read on these forums.
Re:All Discussion Formums are Vulnerable (Score:4, Interesting)
I completely disagree, but with caveats.
The problem with forums like Slashdot is that they allow completely anonymous postings, rather than pseudo-anonymous posting (the "Anonymous Coward"). Anyone can post as AC here, any time. The system tries to limit this to an extent with time delays, but that only helps so much.
Any forum that allows anonymous posting has this problem: paid shills can post there any there's no way to tell they're a shill.
*True* pseudo-anonymous forums are a little different. They require you to have an account, and better ones allow you to see how old that account is. On Slashdot, we can infer this from the UID number: the lower it is, the older the account is. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you explicitly how old the account it, like some forums do. Over on HackerNews, there's two notifications for this: you can click on a username and see a page that says exactly how old that account is, and also if the account is new (I'm not sure what the threshold is), that username will show up in green in the comment section. With a system like that, you can tell quickly who's more likely to be a shill. Someone with a 6-year-old account is not likely to be a shill for some current political candidate or issue.
On a lot of more general forums (like Disqus forums powering many regular blogs and news sites), there doesn't appear to be any way to tell how old an account is, so those are likely filled with paid shills.
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I wouldn't include /. due to the moderation system in place. While still possible to abuse, it would require a coordinated effort to not only post something but to come back with separate accounts to mod that post up and keep it at a high level.
Even if it was a paid post, if interesting and factual, why shouldn't it get modded up?
Disclaimer: I am not a paid poster for /.
If I ran a PR company that specializes in paid trolling, and I wanted to troll slashdot, I would build up various accounts that could be used for posting comments. Such accounts would have a posting history, and would build up moderation points over time. If I owned, say, one hundred or more accounts, I would be likely to have access to many moderation points. I could have an automated system that would be aware of what accounts had moderation points to spend. I could then have one or two of my paid tro
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Unfortunately for you, the First Amendment allows for the freedom of association.
Under your proposed changes, the EFF, NRA, Heritage Foundation, NOW, AARP, etc. would also be tossed out - political organizations that existed long before Citizens United. Also, where do you draw the line? Are unions now banned from directing their membership which candidates and issues are important to the unions? How do you draw that line in legal language?
These are just some of the many issues that come about when you st
Trolls? (Score:2)
If they restrict themselves to posting factual information they are bots, not trolls
History lesson (Score:3, Informative)
Mmmmm not quite... (Score:5, Informative)
Easy way to get mod points, but just because Rush Limbaugh said it, doesn't make it true.
Goebbels actually thought propaganda should be truthful.
It is perhaps comforting to thinking of the Nazis as evil in every way, but the true evil comes from how they trusted the system in which they worked without question.
Fake Quotations [ihr.org]
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It seems like the "true evil" was shoving millions of Jews into gas chambers and ovens.
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No. The true evil was how the system worked. If you care to read up on it, there was no holocaust as such until 1942, which is 9 years after the Nazis got into power.
The holocaust was a direct consequence of how the third Reich was built and ruled. It was based on aggression, fear, intolerance, religious faith in the infallible leader and unquestioning obedience, and from there it could only snowball into utter inhumanity.
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If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
Thus Whitewater and any number of other scandals around the Clintons that never go away yet neither are they ever backed up with real hard actionable evidence.
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Do you even know what Whitewater was?
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Yes, quite well actually. Whereas I bet all you know is whatever republican points you were told. Let's start with the most glaring omission from the GOP version of events. Something they almost never tell you: Clinton lost money in Whitewater.
You think that omission is accidental? If yes, there's a bridge I like to sell you
Sadly, the norm (Score:5, Insightful)
Astroturfing has become something of the norm over the past 5 years; I've seen a huge spike in it on the various forums out there. Everything from MS's products ( Windows 8/10 trolls are somewhat infamous ) to politicians to celebrities.
Welcome to the future. I wanted flying cars, got this.
I want a redo.
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The social media sites need to start giving more visibility to a poster's reputation... not just the number of digits in their UID, but something that visibly shows the depth of their posting history, general consensus of the validity of their old posts, etc. I think the visibility for new/unproven members is fine the way it is, but a comment should readily show when the poster is new, or has an astroturfy history.
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Google continuously battles this with pagerank, and it is an arms race, but the major sites are currently back at the flinging rocks stage, they haven't even advanced to carrying shields.
Re:Sadly, the norm (Score:4, Insightful)
That would put a monetary value on each account which is related to it's standing within whatever forum, and the money being flung about in the presidential campaign is a lot more than most people would ever see. Do you have a price that you'd sell a social media account for?
Sure, any account purchased like that would quickly lose any credibility but it would have a short window of usefulness.
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And, this would make astroturfing astronomically more expensive than it is today - which it should be.
Time was, major networks might refuse to air a false, libelous, or overly inflammatory ad (maybe not so much anymore), they acted as a filter for the worst of the misinformation.
Today's social networks seem to rank a step below old yellow journalism in the integrity dimensions.
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That would just lead to more groupthink.
How about instead, we get in the habit of considering the logic of a post, and checking its facts ourselves (not just checking things we disagree with).
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Now you're trying to train the world to think, I'm just trying to make it easier to check the biases of opinions that are presented.
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Microsoft doesn't have to pay "trolls" to tout Windows 10. It really is better! I switch back from Mac to Windows 10.
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Oh, the current generation of windows astroturfers are hilarious though. Their schtick seems to be that Gates & Co. are a little disruptive startup or otherwise a bit player. and a dislike of their products is purely an artifact of ignorance and lack of exposure. The only reason I would dislike windows/bing/xbox/whatever is that I've never been exposed to it. And if I would *JUST* try out all these amazing features (All of which, of course, are entirely new and innovative ideas and not at all in any
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I don't think it could ever get any worse than when the ZuneHD came out. You would have thought it was dipped in 24 carat gold the way they were going on and on about it. And the Kin phones. If I recall, the Facebook page for it had something like 500,000 "friends" and they sold what, like, a few hundred total?
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You get a redo every 4 years or so. You always waste it and elect the biggest douchebags, and they seem to be evolving into ever more extreme forms in response.
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I can't say you're wrong. Of course, the belief that we actually have a choice is amusing; who selects our options, after all?
Scott Adams does a pretty good job explaining this; far better than I could at any rate. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1... [dilbert.com]
Re: Sadly, the norm (Score:3)
You forgot Systemd trolls.
Re:Sadly, the norm (Score:5, Insightful)
I normally won't respond to ACs, but this one is interesting so I'm going to use it as a teaching example.
Note the implication that I called out the windows astroturfers because I dislike windows 8/10. Now read my original post; do I ever mention my opinion of windows? This is the tell; the AC is trying to take control of the narrative, framing it in a way to discredit the comment and undermine my position. It also serves to change the nature of the discussion from that of astroturfing to the more familiar "windows 8/10 hate" that is subjective and thus, easily distractable.
Of course, to those of us similarly trained, it's a dead give away to the previously mentioned astroturfing. That they're posting as AC means it's a "hit and run"; they only care about knocking down the point I made, and not actually using their "own" reputation.
So... shills is actually a real thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
*sigh* and here I thought that people accusing one another of being a shill in online discussions was just people being dicks.
But I guess it is a real thing - now when someone blindly claims climate change is fake or evolution is a communist plot, or Bernie Sanders wants to destroy America, I will have to consider two alternatives? Either they are just ignorant idiots or they are paid to spread lies. I'm not sure what depresses me more.
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We need a "Insightful and depressing" mod :(
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Re:So... shills is actually a real thing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: So... shills is actually a real thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I think that Cruz is worse than Hillary, but this is the weakest field for at least a century, maybe ever.
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I'm a Sanders supporter, but there's no way in hell I could vote for a blustering bully, braggart, and liar who tried to use eminent domain to evict a widow from her home so he could make a shitload of money... then there's Cruz, a real nut job.
I don't think Hillary will be a good POTUS, but then, I thought the same about her husband and voted against him in his first term, but he did a good job so I voted for him in the re-election. With Hillary I can at least be hopeful, but I'm sure a Trump or Cruz presi
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Sad to say it's been a real thing for a long time. You can't even trust Wikipedia articles about large corporations or major politicians since the odds are decent that they're being continuously whitewashed by an organized and widely distributed group of paid shills.
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It's not like fuckwits and liars are a new thing. In 5000 BC you would have heard the same complaints.
This is the same exact world that you lived in during your most idealistic and hopeful moments. Don't get depressed; just hate them and occasionally fight them. Eternal vigilance is the deal you signed up for, and it's not that bad of deal. Most people have something worse going on.
In other news... (Score:2, Interesting)
There seems to be a concerted effort to talk about David Brock and his machinations. There was a clip on the David Pakman show where they basically said he wasn't *really* liberal - which is pretty funny considering all of the Democractic PACs he runs.
Anyways, this smells an awful lot like a Sanders-backed astroturfing campaign focusing on Brock's own astroturfing campaigns. // Not a Hillary fan at all // Nor Sanders, but he, at least, seems like a decent guy
Re: In other news... (Score:2)
Bernie is a grumpy old man but for a politician he's reasonably honest about where he stands.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think the Democratic party is liberal? More liberal than the Republicans maybe, but over the last few decades liberal values have almost completely vanished from the American political spectrum as Democrats have moved hard to a centrist position, while Republicans have scrambled toward extremism in order to continue to distinguish themselves from the Democrats.
Caught? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny wording there. How are you "caught" via a press release?
You know what I always say about twitter... (Score:2)
FUCK Twitter!!!!!!
what about the Bernie Bros, themselves ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to say that real ones don't exist, but I've long been skeptical about the super-misogynistic Bernie Bros and (without getting overly conspiratorial) they've just felt false-flag to me.
Reading this makes me wonder if I wasn't just being silly thinking that.
Regardless of that and whether or not it has anything to do with the story, I follow a few pro-Clinton people who seem to have an almost clinical compulsion to attacking Bernie (ironically typically about how negative he and his supporters are)
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Not to say that real ones don't exist, but I've long been skeptical about the super-misogynistic Bernie Bros and (without getting overly conspiratorial) they've just felt false-flag to me.
Don't forget racist. You can't follow a black or Hispanic person or who tweets about politics and supports someone other than Bernie (or even one who supports nobody at all) without being regularly treated to watching them get buried under racist tweets from Sanders "supporters".
Its a tempting thought that the BernieBros are some clever Republican astroturfing, but there are just too many of them for it to be that. Face it, the calls are coming from inside the house.
Hillary Supporters End Game? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to question what Clinton supporters' endgame is. I've heard everything from "Not a true democrat" (It's true, I'm an independent), "Blue no matter what" (um no, I'll evaluate everything in play), to worse. Do they all forget that this is the primary? So you've not only pissed me off and alienated me and you're going to want me to vote for your candidate in November?
Keep it up and wonder why Hillary loses to candidate X in November because of all those "Not real democrats" decided not to deal with the "real" democrat.
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I worry also that people vastly underestimate how much Rs dislike/hate Hillary
It's not hard to imagine Donnie v Hillary where people get out to vote against Hillary (and down-ticket candidates) while the ones who would have voted for Bernie stay home or if they do get out, they don't vote for her.
Way too many people are way too certain that there is no way Donnie will have a chance, and I fear they're shooting themselves, the country, and the world in the foot because of that.
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Hillary has little chance winning in November anyway given that we're just finishing 8 years with a D president at a time when most people are not happy. She's promising more of the same while being less inspiring and with a poor track record of achievements.
Insufficent Funds (Score:5, Insightful)
I like Bernie himself, and even a lot of his proposals. But you could spend $1 Billion, and not even make a good start on correcting all the misconceptions his supporters are tweeting.
Seems like some small scale trolling (Score:2)
I wonder where they're posting? (Score:3)
I don't really doubt the veracity of the article. But I wonder where these Hillary trolls are posting their astroturf? I sure don't see it on any of my feeds. I get a whole lot of Bernie's supporters trolling me (Presumably for free?) with their Hillary is Satan/Hitler spam than I see attacks on Bernie.
Don't get me wrong, I do plan to vote for the guy, at least in my state's primary. But his "Bros" are really starting to piss me off. And if he doesn't capture the nomination, I certainly won't sit at home and pout with a "I didn't get my way so the country can just BURN. Whaaaaa...) attitude in November like they say they will. Hillary may not be my ideal choice, but she's a damn sight better than Trump or Cruz.
Goodness gracious (Score:2)
Goodness gracious, I'm SO shocked. BRB, got to run to my fainting couch.
Good for Them! (Score:2)
Hell, I've been doing it for free.
Bern Bros on the internet are almost all completely full of shit. I'm glad to hear somebody is mounting an organized response.
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The only difference is that Brazilians trolls are really easy to be identified by the stupidity and nonsense of their comments.
So they're actual Hillary supporters then?
Re:They are doing the same in Brazil (Score:5, Informative)
There is a similar group doing the same thing in Brazil to help in the coup against President Dilma. The only difference is that Brazilians trolls are really easy to be identified by the stupidity and nonsense of their comments.
Well played, sir troll.
For those not following Brazilian politics, Brazil has been plagued by corruption scandals and economic woes, leading to not a literal coup, but a supermajority vote by the Brazilian House to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, which means it moves to the Senate for confirmation, then an actual trial. It's an emotionally charged issue (some representatives actually burst into song during the impeachment proceedings), but being resolved peacefully.
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They are watching all possible forums to post lies if they find someone trying to describe what is happening. Who accuses me of being a troll ignores the detail that the process is happening illegally by not having a justification, under Brazilian law impeachment proceedings can only occur in response to the crimes committed by the President (which did not happen). He also omits to you the fact that Congress is completely corrupt, you may have seen the circus that they did in t
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Probably not, but there's plenty of dislike in the US for Brazil's leftwing government, with plenty of attacking [washingtonpost.com] propaganda [washingtonpost.com] by US political pundits. The last time a coup happen in Brazil it was directly [gwu.edu] supported [oup.com] by the US. Combine that with the fact that the current president (the one they're trying to impeach) was tortured by US and UK-trained torturers [theguardian.com], it's not that far-fetched to assume that some US citizens are also involved in these trolling campaigns (but again, I doubt it's the case for this Igw gu
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Well played, sir troll.
For those not following Brazilian politics, Brazil has been plagued by corruption scandals and economic woes, leading to not a literal coup, but a supermajority vote by the Brazilian House to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, which means it moves to the Senate for confirmation, then an actual trial. It's an emotionally charged issue (some representatives actually burst into song during the impeachment proceedings), but being resolved peacefully.
It's quite a bit more complicated [theintercept.com] than that.
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You forgot to mention that while corruption scandals were in all parties, they affected most of the guys who are impeaching the president.
Also, the president is not involved in any corruption issue, so the scandals did trigger the impeachment, but they are not the cause or excuse for it. They accuse her of misreporting public finances, not a crime, just something they don't like.
Re: Only $1 million? (Score:2)
Re: Only $1 million? (Score:5, Funny)
This is why we need to raise the minimum wage. Professional trolls need to be able to feed their families too and it should cost people more to spread (mis)information on the internet.
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Generally speaking things that are "Funny" are best when they don't include an explanation.
Re: Only $1 million? (Score:5, Funny)
And yet the communication majors will be producing something relatively more worthwhile than the drivel we continually see coming out of these developers.
Re: Only $1 million? (Score:5, Funny)
Found the English major. Also found why they can't get that job making more than $10/hour.
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Like the mess I and my team have to clean up every day because of the negative value created by developers?
Having us clean up their mess is not creating value because it takes time away from us by not allowing us to do the things which need to be done. Instead, we have to spend our time finding ways around the cruft developers have created or explaining to people why the latest and greatest software has less fu
Re:Only $1 million? (Score:4, Interesting)
That was kind of my thought too. On the other hand, that's probably $1M more than her camp thought they'd be spending in the primaries a year ago. (A year ago, I if someone told me that some white guy would run up a 42% vote against the coronation candidate in her "home" state during the Democratic primary I would have either called them nuts or predicted the guy was Cuomo.)
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I kind of remember that the paid shills for Bernie were being paid by Karl Rove - back at the time when they thought Bernie was a non-entity, but could be useful in helping muddy Hillary. Not sure if Bernie has paid shills any more, but there sure is a lot of ugly vitriol on social media coming from Bernie 'supporters'. This may be the Tea Party effect - where shady backers got the ball rolling, but tapped into a reservoir of genuine ugliness that was waiting to be gathered into a 'movement'. You may not
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True, the president has no legislative power, but he has immense executive power, as much as congress will let him get away with, through both unilaterally appointing people to a wide range of powerful positions, and issuing executive orders that have the force of law in the absence of legislative censure. And with congress being as... ineffective as it has been in recent years, that censure is rarely wielded.
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I assume English is a second language to you, since you obviously don't understand the meaning of "shill". ALL shills are paid! If you're not getting paid, you're NOT a shill.
Look it up, son.
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You're not supposed to point out that the president doesn't have as much power as the public thinks the position has and spoil the illusion.
Re:They are called opinion influencers on payrolls (Score:4, Insightful)
Using reddit as some kind of indicator is, uh .. well, that's quite a little bubble you're living in.
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Reddit is a much bigger bubble than Slashdot, the last time I have checked. I have at least two bubbles to choose from.
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What on earth does that have to do with anything? A sample based on reddit users as an indicator of the general US electorate is moronic, completely independent of anything else.
I can't even picture your line of reasoning.
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Did fucking APK just make a complaint about sockpuppets when he himself is a fucking shill sockpuppet beyond shill sockpuppets?
The pure fucking irony.
Hey, whipslash, I thought you were getting rid of this fucktard.