Slashdot Mirror
Dirty Tricks? Look-Alike Websites Lure Congressional Donors
First time accepted submitter AdamnSelene writes "Forbes reports on a National Republican Congressional Committee sanctioned campaign worthy of the NSA: fake candidate websites that use identical or similar pictures and color schemes to solicit donations to defeat the Democratic candidate. The Tampa Bay Times reports that the NRCC initially refused to refund the contribution from a Tampa Bay doctor who caught onto the scam, and he had to contact his credit card company to challenge the charges. The National Journal reports that the NRCC-sponsored effort may run afoul of Federal Election Commission regulations, though it expects that the bipartisan FEC will be toothless when it comes to enforcement. However, I have to wonder whether this is finally a good enough reason to use the DMCA and file take-down notices against the faux websites. Perhaps the candidates could solve this themselves, and get a judgement for copyright infringement so absurdly large that it puts the NRCC out of business?" Some sites along these lines might be dirtier than the ones here illustrated, which seem to fit pretty well into the broad world of snarky and cutting political ads; Dr. Ray Bellamy, the Tampa Bay donor mentioned above, intended to give money to candidate Alex Sink, but evidently didn't notice this line in bold print, just above the "Donate" button: "Make a contribution today to help defeat Alex Sink and candidates like her." Note that, as the Tampa Bay Times' article mentions, this kind of site isn't limited to Republicans, either.
At least the Slashdot beta site fooled no-one.
What do GNOME 3, Windows 8, Firefox and Slashdot all have in common?
They're all software systems that have been ruined thanks to half-assed, hipster-inspired UI "redesigns" that alienated nearly all of the existing users, without actually bringing in any new users, while at the same time making said software virtually unusable.
The outcome of these disasters hasn't been a total loss, however. It has actually resulted in a new rule-of-thumb for UI design. A UI designer merely needs to ask himself or herself one simple question when analyzing a design: "Would a hipster approve of this design?"
If the answer is "Yes", then the design is inherently flawed and should be thrown out immediately, much like should happen to the Slashdot beta site. If the answer is "No", then the UI designer is on the right track. If there's one thing that's guaranteed in the UI design world, it's that the more hipsters hate your UI, the more effective and efficient it is to use for the majority of people.
Another poster points out that there's a sucker born every minute. The ultimate object in politics is to WIN. Stop acting surprised if one party or another engages in devious activity to reach that goal. It's been happening for thousands of years. It's never going to stop. Wash away your political views and you'll see they all do it, to one degree or another. Our perceptions of who's doing it 'more' are a major part of how we see the world, politically.
1. Massively under-fund education 2. Take advantage of the under-educated masses 3. Profit
If it can be shown that was your intent, you are committing fraud too. Enjoy your stay in club-fed.
Except that the final decision on a charge back is made by the bank issuing the card. They have EVERY reason to keep their customer happy, and NO reason to give a crap about the merchant. The merchant has little recourse unless the card was either physically swiped and a signature provided, or they can show confirmation of delivery of goods at the customer's billing address. In this case, they have neither.
If you are going to whip out the credit card to spend a little money, take a little time to read all the text on the page. It was in large type that it was a donation to defeat the candidate. How many times in the past have we seen cute, cleaver and obscene assaults on congressional candidates on the Internet? Just google Santorum.
If you like your fake congressional candidate website, you can keep your fake congressional candidate website. Its political speech.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Forbes reports on a National Republican Congressional Committee sanctioned campaign worthy of the NSA
I get that we don't like the NSA around here, but why are we bringing it up when discussing an article that has nothing to do with anything the NSA does? What's the thinking process? "Hrm, this scam is slimy. Oh hey! The NSA is slimy too!"
Am I missing something?
There is a not so small difference between parody and impersonation. The illegal practice here is not to imitate what someone else did. What's illegal about it is the intent. It's not meant as a parody, to showcase some fallacies or shortcomings of the person or organization parodied, or to make fun of them. It's meant as impersonation to make people believe that they are who they are impersonating.
The "basic" intent may be the same in both, parody and impersonation. The intent may in both cases be to harm the reputation of a person or organization, or to impede their ability to gather supporters. The difference is that the parody tries to convince, the impersonation tries to trick.
Convincing people with arguments, i.e. a parody, that someone is a "bad person" is a good thing, because it leaves the decision whether they want to believe the parodist to the person being addressed. Impersonating does the same by tricking people who want to support someone into doing the opposite. I guess it ain't hard to see why this is not a "morally ok" (and hopefully not legally ok, either) practice.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
From the summary: 'Dr. Ray Bellamy, the Tampa Bay donor mentioned above, intended to give money to candidate Alex Sink, but evidently didn't notice this line in bold print, just above the "Donate" button: "Make a contribution today to help defeat Alex Sink and candidates like her."'
Is this how you want your doctor reading the physicians desk reference?
If you look at the web site or the photos in the article it's pretty hard to miss that one is contributing to "help defeat Alex Sink."
Yep, let's start protecting ourselves from more than just the fine print. Let's protect ourselves from the bolded headlines also. A little reading comprehension may have helped the good doctor realize just what he was doing.
For the record i do think what they were doing wrong and should be slapped down for it. I am just disagreeing with using the 'copyright angle' to deal with it, as its a bad direction to take, with long term bad consequences for the concept of free-speech.
Also i didn't mean to say they were engaging in parody, just that political parody will be one of the casualties if we go down this road. My fault if i didn't make that clear enough.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Oh, you poor, poor Christians. Whatever will you do when we win the war on Christmas, and conifers are entirely outlawed, and you can't decorate your pagan trees anymore?
altslashdot.org is where there is some planning going on...
What I think is particularly interesting is that people think this is the behavior of just one political party.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Here in Canada we seem to be going to the American system of elections and it is the right wing Conservative Party that is leading the way with attack ads, dirty tricks, now gutting the election officials because they feel being called out every time they break the law is partisan even though it is them breaking or skimming the edge of the law.
So far the center and left have resisted dropping to the same level but as it has been shown that attack ads do work. even if total lies as it seems to be human to pay more attention to bad stuff I'm sure the center and left will be doing the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism