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posted by takyon on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-my-hundred-million-cents dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday April 28 2016, @06:11PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Thursday April 28 2016, @06:11PM (#338576) Homepage Journal

    Body language is good at conveying emotion, but that's all. Body language won't explain microbiology or cosmology, only words and maths will do that.

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
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  • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday May 02 2016, @10:22AM

    by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday May 02 2016, @10:22AM (#340175)

    Body language won't explain microbiology or cosmology, only words and maths will do

    Pictures help, graphs, cell diagrams, charts.

    And sometimes having someone point to what they're talking about as they run through demonstrations and examples.

    --
    "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe