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Current Affairs published an in-depth editorial on recent revelations about a $1 million astroturfng campaign by Correct the Record:
Astroturfing makes me angry. It should make you angry. It should make you fucking well see red. It's marketing evolved into something incredibly scary, sophisticated, and evil. It's essentially thought warfare, or psychological warfare, which takes away much of what was supposed to make the internet a new and beautiful frontier of communication. Worse yet, if you actually identify and approach these operatives, they'll gaslight you and deny that they are such an operative. These are people who are paid to psychologically abuse you. Do you get this? It's an ugly and evil thing, and not only does it take away our ability to take information and fact at face value, but it takes away our ability to take opinions, feelings, and personal stances at face value as sincere and legitimate.
takyon: For some additional context, "Hillary-supporting super PAC invests $1 million to hit back at online Clinton critics":
Correct the Record, a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton's bid to become US president, has promised to invest more than $1 million to respond to users criticizing its candidate on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and other social media services. The super PAC says its new "Barrier Breakers digital task force" will to respond "quickly and forcefully to negative attacks and false narratives found online," in addition to thanking major supporters and "committed superdelegates" directly.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 26 2016, @10:23AM
Dude I'm from Bill's home state, we know ALL about the bodies...but how many of the general public know? Again this is PsyOps 101, keep nasty questions out of the mainstream as much as possible and use words like "nutter" and "conspiracy theory" to cover up the few that slip out...but the nice thing about the Internet is you can get a groundswell going with frankly very little effort. As much as I hate the org I have to give that 15 year old girl with BLM credit, by simply bringing up her "brought to heel" comments on camera she forced the issue into the limelight and its frankly STILL going, just a couple weeks back Bill was on camera trying to defend her remarks because others picked it up and REFUSE to let it die!
Maybe its because I'm a child of the 70s, when we saw a US president toppled by people refusing to accept his corruption and illegal acts, but I've seen enough these past few years to know that we don't HAVE to buy the bullshit, we don't HAVE to accept the lies they are pushing as truth, but it requires actually fighting back and refusing to let them control the conversations!
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Reziac on Wednesday April 27 2016, @04:54AM
The current problem is that frequently the "groundswell" itself was astroturfed. A great many "activists" do it for a living. At this point there's no good way to distinguish. My solution is to regard "groundswells" with the same suspicion as any other "movement" until I'm completely sure who and what motivations are behind it.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.