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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.
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.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
*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.
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.
Love sees no species.
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.”
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.
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.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
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.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)