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Truthy Project Uncovers Political Astroturfing On Twitter

An anonymous reader writes with a follow-up to the launch of the Truthy Project we discussed last month. "Tens of thousands of tweets this election season have turned out to be automated messages generated by employees of political campaigns, Indiana University researchers have found. Quoting: 'In one case, a network of nine Twitter accounts, all created within 13 minutes of one another, sent out 929 messages in about two hours as replies to real account holders in the hopes that these users would retweet the messages. The fake accounts were probably controlled by a script that randomly picked a Twitter user to reply to, and a message and a Web link to include. Although Twitter shut the accounts down soon after, the messages still reached 61,732 users.'"

4 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Really? by geekoid · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    It's worse then the epople who get elected, far worse. In most cases there not that bad at all. I suspect the regulation regarding disclosure are why.

    It's the other groups that are the worst. The ones not directly affiliated with the politicians. Those people are the worst. A bunch of Zealots who think because things didn't got they way they want, the system is 'broken'.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  2. All the way to the insane asylum. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    a.k.a. The Senate

    Thankfully the Dems had a cakewalk because those tea party crazies nominated a fool. NOT!

    Rand by 10+.

    AND Rand was to the LEFT of the dem on the drug war and the war war.

    Rand will be a fine principled senator. Just like his dad in the house. The question will be what can he accomplish. But the nonsense of the parent is little more than team red team blue nonsense.

    Go Rand.

    1. Re:All the way to the insane asylum. by istartedi · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Yeah, I can't wait for the money supply to be controlled by international gold traders and/or mining cartels.

      We won't have any economic crises after that.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  3. Afro-American Racism Against Whites and Asians by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    During the election, about 95% of African-Americans voted for Barack Hussein Obama due solely to the color of his skin. See the exit-polling data by CNN.

    Note the voting pattern of Hispanics, Asian-Americans, etc. These non-Black minorities serve as a measurement of African-American racism against Whites (and other non-Black folks). Neither Barack Hussein Obama nor John McCain is Hispanic or Asian. So, Hispanics and Asian-Americans used only non-racial criteria in selecting a candidate and, hence, serve as the reference by which we detect a racist voting pattern. Only about 65% of Hispanics and Asian-Americans supported Obama. In other words, a maximum of 65% support by any ethnic or racial group for either McCain or Obama is not racist and, hence, is acceptable. (A maximum of 65% for McCain is okay. So, European-American support at 55% for McCain is well below this threshold and, hence, is not racist.)

    If African-Americans were not racist, then at most 65% of them would have supported Obama. At that level of support, McCain would have won the presidential race.

    At this point, African-American supremacists (and apologists) claim that African-Americans voted for Obama because he (1) is a member of the Democratic party and (2) supports its ideals. That claim is an outright lie. Look at the exit-polling data for the Democratic primaries. Consider the case of North Carolina. Again, about 95% of African-Americans voted for him and against Hillary Clinton. Both Clinton and Obama are Democrats, and their official political positions on the campaign trail were nearly identical. Yet, 95% of African-Americans voted for Obama and against Hillary Clinton. Why? African-Americans supported Obama due solely to the color of his skin.

    Here is the bottom line. Barack Hussein Obama does not represent mainstream America. He won the election due to the racist voting pattern exhibited by African-Americans.

    African-Americans have established that expressing "racial pride" by voting on the basis of skin color is 100% acceptable. Neither the "Wall Street Journal" nor the "New York Times" complained about this racist behavior. Therefore, in future elections, please feel free to express your racial pride by voting on the basis of skin color. Feel free to vote for the non-Black candidates and against the Black candidates if you are not African-American. You need not defend your actions in any way. Voting on the basis of skin color is quite acceptable by today's moral standard.