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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 Phoenix666 on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:26PM
I believe you. The "I'm gonna pick up my ball and go home" talk is a buzz-kill, though. Stuff that people don't like gets past the safeguards sometimes. The editors are only human, and do far more work than most of us to keep the place going. (you, too, developers, many props to you guys) They take a lot of flak for this kind of thing, and get far too little appreciation for the good job they do 99% of the time.
The best thing to do to make the site better is not to complain, but to pitch in. That could mean submitting good articles, or joining the ranks of the editors. More editors means more attention can be paid to submitted stories.
Maybe you don't have time to do those things, but positive energy and kind words don't take any time at all and are worth their weight in platinum.
Washington DC delenda est.