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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday September 28 2016, @03:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the stuffing-the-ballot-box dept.

You may be getting trolled right now without even knowing it.

Donald Trump supporters artificially manipulated the results of online polls to create a false narrative that the Republican nominee won the first presidential debate on Monday night.

The efforts originated from users of the pro-Trump Reddit community r/The_Donald and 4chan messaged boards, which bombarded around 70 polls, including those launched by Time, Fortune, and CNBC.

In this latest incarnation, multiple Reddit users enlisted the Trump-supporting masses on r/The_Donald, which has over 200,000 subscribers, by posting dozens of online polls that are vulnerable to vote brigading, bots, and other forms of manipulation that make these non-scientific surveys notoriously unreliable.

Polls that were not open to public voting consistently put Clinton ahead of Trump. In a flash poll by Public Policy Polling, Clinton led Trump 51 to 40. A CNN/ORC poll conducted immediately following the debate found significantly stronger support for Clinton, who topped Trump 62 to 27.

http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/trump-clinton-debate-online-polls-4chan-the-donald/


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Wednesday September 28 2016, @03:57AM

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday September 28 2016, @03:57AM (#407180)

    Biased hacks with press credentials are pointing and shrieking at Internet trolls out gaming them at rigging the news to steer the all important "Narrative."

    Everybody with a perch on a shouting head show carefully explained how Trump winning every online poll after the pre-primary debates didn't mean anything and he was sure to lose once actual voters weighed in. Especially those horrid Drudge polls, only a moron believed those!

    No, Trump never achieved Drudge level majorities at the ballot box but all that enthusiasm did translate into healthy wins and the nomination. We will know more about this one in a week, until then it is all just spin to push the speaker's narrative. All sides do it, guess it can't really be helped. The key is to keep destroying the DNC/Media lie that they are two different entities and constantly hammer the reality that they ARE just spinning for their team.

    The greatest lie the Devil ever told was that he didn't exist. The greatest lie the media tells us is that they do.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:47AM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:47AM (#407223) Journal

    Until several hours after the vote, Mitt Romney really thought he had won the 2012 election. Refused to concede. He was surrounded by people who were convinced that the polls with the best reputations for accuracy were unsound and biased in favor of the Democrats. They were using their own picked polls that they had convinced themselves were superior. But they and their "corrected" polls were wrong, and the best polls were right.

    They really drank the Kool-Aid on that one. If that was an isolated incident, it wouldn't be so bad. But no, that's just one small piece of a gigantic whole. If the Republicans are ever going to regain their reputation for being the party who takes reality more seriously than Democrats, they have to stop pulling stunts like that. Get their heads out of the dark mud of conspiracy theories and woolly thinking in which no one has any idea what's correct, and admit the smashingly obvious fact that science works. No, there is not a giant liberal conspiracy to scare the public into funding climate scientists with a massive propaganda campaign that Global Warming is real and a problem. Global Warming really is real, and caused by our CO2 emissions, and will cause massive problems if we don't make any changes. Republicans have got to stop denying reality. Remember how the Democrats were routinely mocked for being bleeding heart liberals? How the Democrats were the impractical ones who didn't get the darker parts of human nature? The Democrats tried a War on Poverty and it was an abysmal failure, and why? Because simply throwing money at the poor doesn't work too well. But so long as the Republicans keep making blithering idiots of themselves, those facts will be drowned out by the blizzard of misinformation and propaganda that passes for conservative thinking these days. And that's a real shame. Democrats need balance, and the Republicans aren't up to the job, have declined and degenerated to the point they can't even maintain an appearance of seriousness. Who but idiots could possibly take Trump seriously? He's at best a protest candidate, attractive to Republicans who are so fed up with the status quo in the party that they would rather nominate a nut than put up with any more of the same old crap.

    Most frustrating of all are the glaring issues neither major party will touch, and the corruption. The US military is ridiculously huge, because everyone is so scared of terrorists, Commies, Muslims, narcos, pirates, or whatever other bad guy label is handy. Our crumbling, crowded, aging highways kill far more citizens, but that doesn't get near the love and cash the military gets. The way we talk, if a terrorist blows up one bridge, we might trash their whole nation in return, but if a truck accidentally takes out that same bridge, or after years of neglect it collapses under the weight of rush hour traffic, that's just "shit happens". Then there's the abysmal handling of the housing bubble that burst in 2007. Have no doubt that Obama and the Democrats won election in 2008 because the Republicans handled Wall Street crime so badly and corruptly. But what do the Democrats do about Wall Street? Not much. Take cash, same as the Republicans did.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Wednesday September 28 2016, @06:26AM

      by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday September 28 2016, @06:26AM (#407237)

      Global Warming really is real

      Yea, sure. And Jesus saves, Scientology is the straight dope, etc. Just happen to have this [anonymousconservative.com] is another tab. Have fun with the link as as, but do click through to the more mainstream referenced article if you don't like alt-right thoughts... Wouldn't want you too triggered.

      He's at best a protest candidate, attractive to Republicans who are so fed up

      By my reckoning Trump represents something far better. The death of the Republican Party, a death long overdue. And with luck the passing of Conservatism into the wilderness, having failed to Conserve anything of note going all the way back to Burke this too is overdue. Choosing whether to lose quickly or slowly is not much of a choice. Actually moving the ball in a different direction sounds like a far better option than a constant prevent defense.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:33PM (#407529)

        I'm trying to work away from outrage so I can see the humor behind your thinking. If you want to shake up the system, vote third party so that it becomes a reality. When two parties take all the power, the third will play to the people's desires just to get back in the game. The fact that you think Trump will kill off the republicans, or really shake up anything except our foreign policy, is so ludicrous I don't know what to really say. I used to be more outraged by the weird and almost willful ignorance regarding Trump, but for my own peace of mind I'm trying to just see the humorous side of this whole mess.

        • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:45PM

          by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:45PM (#407582)

          Trump need do nothing, it has already happened. Raise your hand if you think the rift between the Trump "MAGA" folks, the Alt-Right, the traditional conservatives and the #NeverTrump forces can be healed, regardless what happens in Nov. The foundational compromise that the current Republican "Washington Generals" Party was built upon has been shattered beyond repair. Something new must now arise, something that will probably incorporate a couple of the factions but with entirely new priorities, goals and strategy.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:55PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:55PM (#407585)

            Extract puppet #1, replace with puppet #2, rebrand with a new compassionate message and unite against the damn socialists.

            SHABAM, republicans are back in business. People will be angry, but only a small fraction will retain that anger as the political drama unfolds and the politicians promise to "fix" everything. Little did you know that "fix" means corrupt.

            And hey, I'm bipartisan here, fuck the dems too for the same shady bullshit. Until we get a third party we stand zero chance of making a difference. Then it will be quickly corrupted by ideological spies and/or good ol' brainwashing propaganda. We need to fix the systemic issues, and these pissing matches between reps and dems has shit all to do with it.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:33AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @07:33AM (#407262)

      If the Republicans want to win they need to move towards the center. Jettison:

      -- the religious nuts - teaching creationism as science is nuts.
      -- the gun nuts -- agree on a sensible gun policy that ban assault rifles and large magazines
      -- the fossil fuel nuts -- oil will be around for a long time but they don't need to make it so easy. Global warming is a fact and changing the composition of the atmosphere can't be good.
      -- the abortion nuts -- that ship sailed and shouldn't return as the majority of Americans have expressed.
      -- my way or the highway -- you will never get everything you want. Compromise.
      -- war on drugs -- marijuana is coming and it is Better than alcohol
      -- war on immigration -- these are your future voters, embrace them, they are not bad people.

      Move towards:

      --fiscal conservatism -- but pay for what you buy. If you want a war, raise taxes to pay for it.
      -- sensible health care -- nobody should die or suffer because they don't have money
      -- making sure corporations a act responsibly -- I see them as sharks eating the little people.
      -- narrowing the difference between rich and poor -- we need classes, but a growing gap didn't work out so well for the French in 1789, or the Russians in 1917. The one percent's can't spend what they have now, and don't need more.
      -- a sensible education system -- everybody doesn't need to be college educated, but this country needs to be smarter overall. Learning a trade should be easier.

      And don't be so mean

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:55AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:55AM (#407306)

        -- the religious nuts
        -- the gun nuts
        -- the fossil fuel nuts
        -- the abortion nuts

        And don't be so mean

        Okay.

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @03:06PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @03:06PM (#407423)

        FU, socialist. You idiots think you are going to be able to destroy america without bloodshed? You can't steal enough to prepare enough to get away with it. All the bootlickers who are supporting this attempt will be eradicated as the moles they are.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:03PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:03PM (#407611)

        Now, Bernard, remember what we talked about.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @02:30AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29 2016, @02:30AM (#407714)

        Really well summarized, completely agree.

        Until they start on this list, I don't see myself ever voting Republican. It sucks, because I am as pro government reduction as they come.

        At the end of the day the government's job is basic protection & facilitation of commerce the country.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @02:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @02:52PM (#407417)

      > He was surrounded by people who were convinced that the polls with the best reputations for accuracy were unsound and biased in favor of the Democrats.

      That shit is happening again, exactly the same as a before. Literally the same.

      There were people dedicated to "unskewing the polls" for romney and now they are unskewing the polls for trump. [rightwingwatch.org]

      Its like political fan-fiction.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:00PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 28 2016, @09:00PM (#407608)

      The only poll that matters is the survey of voting machine programmers.