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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 Sunday May 08 2016, @08:49PM
The sad part was until I pointed out it was a classic corporate troll right out of the PsyOps playbook? It had already reached a +3 rating and had pretty much killed all discussion of the subject at hand which was a crooked politician.
This is what makes that kind of shit really dangerous, and why i truly believe a reputation system for ACs is required, because people just don't seem to understand how easy it is to signaljam any and all discussion with just a bit of psychology. You post as AC, so nobody can see your history of doing this shit, you pick one of the many topics that don't have jack shit to do with TFA that often cause flamewars, and you post something insulting designed to start a fight....it really is THAT easy and because so many people think "Hur hur hur, stupid governments/politicians/corps spending millions on PsyOps online, they will NEVER affect me hur hur hur" it can be as blatant as the one I cited and they NEVER pick up on it until someone actually points out "You are being played".
Now that social media is taking the place of the press this is something we REALLY need to be mindful of, remember these groups aren't spending millions of dollars just to put out a couple tweets, their goal is to completely derail any discussion that isn't propaganda beneficial to their "brand". This is big business now, as I linked to you have fricking governments employing thousands to do nothing but troll forums and social media and signaljam and push agitprop, which is why this is so insidious as just like every protest now you have to wonder "is that other person an agent for the ones we are rallying against here to wreck shit?". Lucky for us at this point they do tend to follow playbooks, in the future? Its gonna be ever harder to separate real person from wrecker.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.