Pro-Clinton Super PAC Caught Spending $1 Million On Social Media Trolls (usuncut.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from US Uncut: A Super PAC headed by a longtime Clinton operative is spending $1 million to hire online trolls to "correct" Bernie Sanders' supporters on social media. Correct The Record (CTR), which is operated by Clinton attack dog and new owner of Blue Nation Review David Brock, launched a new initiative this week called "Barrier Breakers 2016" for the purpose of debating supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders -- or "Bernie Bros," as they're referred to in Correct the Record's press official release -- on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms. The "Barrier Breakers" will also publicly thank Hillary Clinton's superdelegates and fans for supporting her campaign. The paid trolls are professional communicators, coming from public relations and media backgrounds. "The task force staff's backgrounds are as diverse as the community they will be engaging with and include former reporters, bloggers, public affairs specialists, designers, Ready for Hillary alumni, and Hillary super fans who have led groups similar to those with which the task force will organize," CTR stated.

Comments

Even better...

[Type44Q]

Even better if the trolls themselves could be outed, especially the higher-profile ones...

Re:Even better...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like you need corrected!

Hillary Clinton fought to tie the minimum wage to future increases in congressional salaries. Hillary Clinton repeatedly introduced the Standing with Minimum Wage Earners Act to bind future salary increases for Congress to mandatory increases in the federal minimum wage. Under the provisions of the legislation, the federal minimum wage would be “automatically increased” by “a percentage equal to the percentage by which the annual rate of pay for Members of Congress increased for such year” Speaking to the importance of her bill, Senator Clinton said, “We can no longer stand by and regularly give ourselves a pay increase while denying a minimum wage increase to help the more than 7 million men and women working hard across this nation. At a time when working families are struggling to put food on the table, it’s critically important that we here in Washington do something. If Members of Congress need an annual cost of living adjustment, then certainly the lowest-paid members of our society do too.”

Re:Even better...

[painandgreed]

And yet she doesn't support the $15/hr minimum wage.

And yet, that is still a better argument to vote for Hillary than any of her supporters gave at the caucus I attended. I was actually wanting to hear some good, reasoned arguments for Hillary as I can't find any on the internet. Instead, I got "Hillary as president would be empowering for women" multiple times. Now, some of those were pretty good speeches and I wouldn't ignore that as something like a tiebreaker, but as another (naturalized) caucus goer stated, "That's what I thought when I voted for Maggie in the 80's".

It doesn't matter what party you vote for

[PrescriptionWarning]

All Super PACs are terrible and need to be outlawed, they are just ridiculous.

Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for

[KermodeBear]

There does need to be some kind of reform when it comes to campaigns and financing and all of that, but it is very difficult to do. See, we have this thing called the First Amendment. Finding the right set of rules that respect the First Amendment, and yet helps prevent money from completely dominating an election cycle, is not an easy thing.

That said...

I would like to note that Bernie Sanders (note that I am not endorsing him) doesn't have a war chest even close to what Clinton has, and if it weren't for the super delegate system, he would be very close to winning the nomination. Or what about Trump (also not endorsing him)? Sure, he's rich, but he hasn't spent much money at all on ads or these kinds of organizations - he doesn't need to, he gets more free news coverage than anyone else, by far.

So it seems that money isn't everything if you have a popular message. Maybe we don't need these rules and laws which spawn these special organizations after all. Maybe all of these campaign finance laws are just there to stop the outsider types from having as good a chance.

Maybe.

It isn't an easy problem to solve and you'll never make everyone happy.

Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for

[Rob Y.]

The 'money doesn't always work' argument is a favorite excuse of Republicans - as part of a 'it's not really a problem", "democrats raise money too", and "in any case, what can we do about it" rationalization of a system that they know favors them. And it favors them if only because it pushes all non-money centric issues off of center stage. "Both parties are able to raise lots of money" is part of the problem - not a reason it's not a problem.

Yes, it doesn't always work in high profile contests like Presidential elections, where the media pay enough attention - and can be manipulated into getting your message out for you. And where bad politicians are on such constant display that they're unable to hide their unattractive sides.

But in lower-level elections, money can make a huge difference. Republicans don't control the majority of statehouses by accident - or by popularity. When the public (and the media) are not paying attention, money can easily put you over the top.

Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for

[Anonymous Coward]

So when the voters choose Democrats, they're doing the right thing, but when they choose Republicans, it's because they're not paying attention or were somehow duped? Got it.

Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"The press" in "freedom of speech and the press" isn't just some guy from the 1940s with a "Press" card stuck in his hatband.

It is literaly the freedom to use a printing press -- the mass production of speech for distribution.

Kings of old would regulate or outlaw printing presses as a backdoor method of controlling speech...against them, the people in power.

You are seeking to tromp on the mdern version of this, TV, radio, and now Internet advertising.

You say "too much money!" On what basis? Because some senators whined 15 years ago that they disliked making so many phone calls? This isn't even about that.

This is some nebulous concept of "too much money" severed from any influence via donations to candidates.

The correct response to speech is more speech, not censorship of presses, the mechanical means of mass production of speech.

NO MORE DIVINE RIGHTS OF KINGS!

Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for

[plover]

Correct. Citizens United isn't the root problem. The real problem is the corruption system that is currently in place works around the normal patterns of bribery. In Congress today, favors are granted long before the bribes are paid. Congressmen give away favors to corporations freely, secure in the knowledge that someone with lots of money will hire them as a lobbyist or consultant after they retire. Because this system is so successful, it encourages extra bonus corruption - if a Congressman grants favors to 10 companies, the chances are pretty good that one of the 10 will hire him. If he grants favors to 100 companies, he can be sure of it.

What we need from Congress is accountability. Keep tabs of votes that favor corporations, organizations, or special interests. After retiring from Congress, keep track of ex-members who go into lobbying or somehow get paid by organizations that received favorable laws while they were in office, and nullify their votes on the legislation after the fact. If the number of nullified votes drops the count below whatever majority was required to pass them, nullify the laws. If you voted in favor of three or more laws that were later nullified through this act, you win a felony corruption charge.

If you're a congressman who wants to retire with confidence in your voting record, you have a couple of safe paths: you can always recuse yourself from the votes that would favor big corporations; or you can retire on a minimum wage job as a fry cook.

Re:It doesn't matter what party you vote for

[q4Fry]

Pitch it to the Sunlight Foundation. I think they'd give you a grant and a lot of better-structured data to start with.

Sadly, the norm

[grasshoppa]

Astroturfing has become something of the norm over the past 5 years; I've seen a huge spike in it on the various forums out there. Everything from MS's products ( Windows 8/10 trolls are somewhat infamous ) to politicians to celebrities.

Welcome to the future. I wanted flying cars, got this.

I want a redo.

Re:Sadly, the norm

[grasshoppa]

I normally won't respond to ACs, but this one is interesting so I'm going to use it as a teaching example.

Note the implication that I called out the windows astroturfers because I dislike windows 8/10. Now read my original post; do I ever mention my opinion of windows? This is the tell; the AC is trying to take control of the narrative, framing it in a way to discredit the comment and undermine my position. It also serves to change the nature of the discussion from that of astroturfing to the more familiar "windows 8/10 hate" that is subjective and thus, easily distractable.

Of course, to those of us similarly trained, it's a dead give away to the previously mentioned astroturfing. That they're posting as AC means it's a "hit and run"; they only care about knocking down the point I made, and not actually using their "own" reputation.

So... shills is actually a real thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* and here I thought that people accusing one another of being a shill in online discussions was just people being dicks.

But I guess it is a real thing - now when someone blindly claims climate change is fake or evolution is a communist plot, or Bernie Sanders wants to destroy America, I will have to consider two alternatives? Either they are just ignorant idiots or they are paid to spread lies. I'm not sure what depresses me more.

Re:So... shills is actually a real thing...

[tom229]

Hillary is far and away the worst choice in the entire race. She has a very public track record of lies, corruption, and elitism. She is closely followed by Ted Cruz for the same reasons. It's astonishing to me that more people simply don't pay attention to the past.

Re: So... shills is actually a real thing...

[Z00L00K]

Personally I think that Cruz is worse than Hillary, but this is the weakest field for at least a century, maybe ever.

Re: Only $1 million?

[Altus]

This is why we need to raise the minimum wage. Professional trolls need to be able to feed their families too and it should cost people more to spread (mis)information on the internet.

Mmmmm not quite...

[DumbSwede]

Easy way to get mod points, but just because Rush Limbaugh said it, doesn't make it true.

Goebbels actually thought propaganda should be truthful.
It is perhaps comforting to thinking of the Nazis as evil in every way, but the true evil comes from how they trusted the system in which they worked without question.

Fake Quotations

Caught?

[SirSlud]

Funny wording there. How are you "caught" via a press release?

Re: Only $1 million?

[smooth wombat]

These are communications majors who make $10/HR at McDonald's, not senior developers making 150k.

And yet the communication majors will be producing something relatively more worthwhile than the drivel we continually see coming out of these developers.

Re:They are doing the same in Brazil

[lgw]

There is a similar group doing the same thing in Brazil to help in the coup against President Dilma. The only difference is that Brazilians trolls are really easy to be identified by the stupidity and nonsense of their comments.

Well played, sir troll.

For those not following Brazilian politics, Brazil has been plagued by corruption scandals and economic woes, leading to not a literal coup, but a supermajority vote by the Brazilian House to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, which means it moves to the Senate for confirmation, then an actual trial. It's an emotionally charged issue (some representatives actually burst into song during the impeachment proceedings), but being resolved peacefully.

Re: Only $1 million?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> something relatively more worthwhile

Found the English major. Also found why they can't get that job making more than $10/hour.

Hillary Supporters End Game?

[0100010001010011]

I have to question what Clinton supporters' endgame is. I've heard everything from "Not a true democrat" (It's true, I'm an independent), "Blue no matter what" (um no, I'll evaluate everything in play), to worse. Do they all forget that this is the primary? So you've not only pissed me off and alienated me and you're going to want me to vote for your candidate in November?

Keep it up and wonder why Hillary loses to candidate X in November because of all those "Not real democrats" decided not to deal with the "real" democrat.

Insufficent Funds

[T.E.D.]

I like Bernie himself, and even a lot of his proposals. But you could spend $1 Billion, and not even make a good start on correcting all the misconceptions his supporters are tweeting.

Re:In other news...

[Immerman]

What makes you think the Democratic party is liberal? More liberal than the Republicans maybe, but over the last few decades liberal values have almost completely vanished from the American political spectrum as Democrats have moved hard to a centrist position, while Republicans have scrambled toward extremism in order to continue to distinguish themselves from the Democrats.

All Discussion Formums are Vulnerable

[catchblue22]

The pseudo-anonymity of discussion forums like Slashdot, Disqus, or any of the other platforms make them fundamentally vulnerable to paid trolling. I usually assume that many of the posts written on hot-button discussions about issues such as politics or global warming are made by paid trolls. There is a percentage of the readership of forums that believes that all of the posts are made by disinterested citizens; that is the market for such paid trolling. Paying posters gives the appearance of legitimacy to the propaganda they put out. If there is a large readership for a particular forum, then paying posters to post is likely to be a relatively inexpensive means of reaching large numbers of readers. Its expense can be reduced by having single posters create posts under different user names, and across different forums. A single poster could create many hundreds of posts per day, reaching tens or hundreds of thousands of readers. I simply don't trust much of what I read on these forums.