Special Interest GRoups Hire Poor and Students to Astroturf Internet Forums

[JimBowie1958]

An old but still controvercial topic, how multi-millionares like George Soros hire this nations poor and students to astroturf websites like this one.

First on the astroturfing topic:

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent | George Monbiot | Environment | theguardian.com

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent

The tobacco industry does it, the US Air Force clearly wants to ... astroturfing – the use of sophisticated software to drown out real people on web forums – is on the rise. How do we stop it?...

Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren't what they seem.

The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns that create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there's a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them.

After I wrote about online astroturfing in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them.

Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. ...

Emails obtained by political hackers from a US cyber-security firm called HBGary Federal suggest that a remarkable technological armoury is being deployed to drown out the voices of real people.

As the Daily Kos has reported, the emails show that:

• Companies now use "persona management software", which multiplies the efforts of each astroturfer, creating the impression that there's major support for what a corporation or government is trying to do.

• This software creates all the online furniture a real person would possess: a name, email accounts, web pages and social media. In other words, it automatically generates what look like authentic profiles, making it hard to tell the difference between a virtual robot and a real commentator.

• Fake accounts can be kept updated by automatically reposting or linking to content generated elsewhere, reinforcing the impression that the account holders are real and active.

• Human astroturfers can then be assigned these "pre-aged" accounts to create a back story, suggesting that they've been busy linking and retweeting for months. No one would suspect that they came onto the scene for the first time a moment ago, for the sole purpose of attacking an article on climate science or arguing against new controls on salt in junk food.

• With some clever use of social media, astroturfers can, in the security firm's words, "make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise … There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to fictitious personas."...

So the 'person' you think is reasonable on an issue, might be the sock puppet that you hate from a different 'person', but both controlled by the same user. They can present you with a sympathetic right hand while using what you told it to be lambasted by the other hand.

Mpw while the Guardian only complained about 'corporate' astroturfing, Malkin here gives some data on the libtard astroturfing:

Michelle Malkin | Who?s funding the Obamacare Astroturf campaign? «

On Thursday, a national “grass-roots” coalition called “Health Care for America Now (HCAN)” will march on Capitol Hill to demand universal health care. The ground troops won’t have to march very far. HCAN, you see, is no heartland network. It is headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C. – smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.

In fact, 1825 K Street is Ground Zero for a plethora of “progressive” groups subsidized by anti-war, anti-Republican, Big Nanny special interests. Around Washington, the office complex is known as “The Other K Street.” The Washington Post noted in 2007 that “ts most prominent tenants form an abbreviated who’s who of well-funded allies of the Democratic Party… Big money from unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as the Internet-fueled MoveOn, has provided groups like those at 1825 K Street the wherewithal to mount huge campaigns.”

MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate’s financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn; the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank); and the Campaign for America’s Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).

HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by Atlantic Philanthropies – a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: Notorious Democrat donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling shady subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites. By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose “Progressive Future” youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clipboards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamcare.

And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-riddled SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients’ rights) and Obama’s old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now....

So astroturfing is don't on bot the left and right extremes, but what I am trying to get people to realize is that the behavior of these astroturfers is what is most important.

If some astroturf puppet carries on a reasonable discussion with me, then I don't care, really, what they say as long as they are being sincere and adding fact and good thought to the discussion.

What it killing internet discussion on sites like this and causing people to flee to redit and other media is the astroturfing that is nothing but a waste of everyones time.

I have repeatedly seen discussions coming to a consensus on one topic or another, only to then see the whole discussion derailed by some sock-troll who wants to bury the good discussion around post 100 while he and his multi-puppet accounts makes stupid and deliberately false statements for the next 2,000 posts. They know that the typical reader will read the first page or two, skip to the end and try to get an idea if the thread is worth reading. They thus accomplish their goal without ever really contributing to the discussion by fouling the thread with their nonsense so that no one will want to bother reading it.

To the folks running this website, I hope you realize that such troll accounts are killing message boards such as this. Seriously.

I hope you are zealously enforcing the rules against multiple accounts for the same user, because the way some of these people write, many of them do appear to be socks.

 

[LoneLaugher]

An old but still controvercial topic, how multi-millionares like George Soros hire this nations poor and students to astroturf websites like this one.

First on the astroturfing topic:

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent | George Monbiot | Environment | theguardian.com

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent

The tobacco industry does it, the US Air Force clearly wants to ... astroturfing – the use of sophisticated software to drown out real people on web forums – is on the rise. How do we stop it?...

Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren't what they seem.

The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns that create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there's a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them.

After I wrote about online astroturfing in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them.

Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. ...

Emails obtained by political hackers from a US cyber-security firm called HBGary Federal suggest that a remarkable technological armoury is being deployed to drown out the voices of real people.

As the Daily Kos has reported, the emails show that:

• Companies now use "persona management software", which multiplies the efforts of each astroturfer, creating the impression that there's major support for what a corporation or government is trying to do.

• This software creates all the online furniture a real person would possess: a name, email accounts, web pages and social media. In other words, it automatically generates what look like authentic profiles, making it hard to tell the difference between a virtual robot and a real commentator.

• Fake accounts can be kept updated by automatically reposting or linking to content generated elsewhere, reinforcing the impression that the account holders are real and active.

• Human astroturfers can then be assigned these "pre-aged" accounts to create a back story, suggesting that they've been busy linking and retweeting for months. No one would suspect that they came onto the scene for the first time a moment ago, for the sole purpose of attacking an article on climate science or arguing against new controls on salt in junk food.

• With some clever use of social media, astroturfers can, in the security firm's words, "make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise … There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to fictitious personas."...

So the 'person' you think is reasonable on an issue, might be the sock puppet that you hate from a different 'person', but both controlled by the same user. They can present you with a sympathetic right hand while using what you told it to be lambasted by the other hand.

Mpw while the Guardian only complained about 'corporate' astroturfing, Malkin here gives some data on the libtard astroturfing:

Michelle Malkin | Who?s funding the Obamacare Astroturf campaign? «

On Thursday, a national “grass-roots” coalition called “Health Care for America Now (HCAN)” will march on Capitol Hill to demand universal health care. The ground troops won’t have to march very far. HCAN, you see, is no heartland network. It is headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C. – smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.

In fact, 1825 K Street is Ground Zero for a plethora of “progressive” groups subsidized by anti-war, anti-Republican, Big Nanny special interests. Around Washington, the office complex is known as “The Other K Street.” The Washington Post noted in 2007 that “ts most prominent tenants form an abbreviated who’s who of well-funded allies of the Democratic Party… Big money from unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as the Internet-fueled MoveOn, has provided groups like those at 1825 K Street the wherewithal to mount huge campaigns.”

MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate’s financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn; the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank); and the Campaign for America’s Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).

HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by Atlantic Philanthropies – a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: Notorious Democrat donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling shady subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites. By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose “Progressive Future” youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clipboards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamcare.

And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-riddled SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients’ rights) and Obama’s old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now....

So astroturfing is don't on bot the left and right extremes, but what I am trying to get people to realize is that the behavior of these astroturfers is what is most important.

If some astroturf puppet carries on a reasonable discussion with me, then I don't care, really, what they say as long as they are being sincere and adding fact and good thought to the discussion.

What it killing internet discussion on sites like this and causing people to flee to redit and other media is the astroturfing that is nothing but a waste of everyones time.

I have repeatedly seen discussions coming to a consensus on one topic or another, only to then see the whole discussion derailed by some sock-troll who wants to bury the good discussion around post 100 while he and his multi-puppet accounts makes stupid and deliberately false statements for the next 2,000 posts. They know that the typical reader will read the first page or two, skip to the end and try to get an idea if the thread is worth reading. They thus accomplish their goal without ever really contributing to the discussion by fouling the thread with their nonsense so that no one will want to bother reading it.

To the folks running this website, I hope you realize that such troll accounts are killing message boards such as this. Seriously.

I hope you are zealously enforcing the rules against multiple accounts for the same user, because the way some of these people write, many of them do appear to be socks.

Hey man! Why you tryin' to rain on my parade? I'm like.....seven different people on here.

Thanks so much for all the thanks and pos rep, by the way. You rock!

 

[JimBowie1958]

An old but still controvercial topic, how multi-millionares like George Soros hire this nations poor and students to astroturf websites like this one.

First on the astroturfing topic:

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent | George Monbiot | Environment | theguardian.com

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent

The tobacco industry does it, the US Air Force clearly wants to ... astroturfing – the use of sophisticated software to drown out real people on web forums – is on the rise. How do we stop it?...

Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren't what they seem.

The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns that create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there's a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them.

After I wrote about online astroturfing in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them.

Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. ...

Emails obtained by political hackers from a US cyber-security firm called HBGary Federal suggest that a remarkable technological armoury is being deployed to drown out the voices of real people.

As the Daily Kos has reported, the emails show that:

• Companies now use "persona management software", which multiplies the efforts of each astroturfer, creating the impression that there's major support for what a corporation or government is trying to do.

• This software creates all the online furniture a real person would possess: a name, email accounts, web pages and social media. In other words, it automatically generates what look like authentic profiles, making it hard to tell the difference between a virtual robot and a real commentator.

• Fake accounts can be kept updated by automatically reposting or linking to content generated elsewhere, reinforcing the impression that the account holders are real and active.

• Human astroturfers can then be assigned these "pre-aged" accounts to create a back story, suggesting that they've been busy linking and retweeting for months. No one would suspect that they came onto the scene for the first time a moment ago, for the sole purpose of attacking an article on climate science or arguing against new controls on salt in junk food.

• With some clever use of social media, astroturfers can, in the security firm's words, "make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise … There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to fictitious personas."...

So the 'person' you think is reasonable on an issue, might be the sock puppet that you hate from a different 'person', but both controlled by the same user. They can present you with a sympathetic right hand while using what you told it to be lambasted by the other hand.

Mpw while the Guardian only complained about 'corporate' astroturfing, Malkin here gives some data on the libtard astroturfing:

Michelle Malkin | Who?s funding the Obamacare Astroturf campaign? «

On Thursday, a national “grass-roots” coalition called “Health Care for America Now (HCAN)” will march on Capitol Hill to demand universal health care. The ground troops won’t have to march very far. HCAN, you see, is no heartland network. It is headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C. – smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.

In fact, 1825 K Street is Ground Zero for a plethora of “progressive” groups subsidized by anti-war, anti-Republican, Big Nanny special interests. Around Washington, the office complex is known as “The Other K Street.” The Washington Post noted in 2007 that “ts most prominent tenants form an abbreviated who’s who of well-funded allies of the Democratic Party… Big money from unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as the Internet-fueled MoveOn, has provided groups like those at 1825 K Street the wherewithal to mount huge campaigns.”

MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate’s financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn; the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank); and the Campaign for America’s Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).

HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by Atlantic Philanthropies – a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: Notorious Democrat donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling shady subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites. By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose “Progressive Future” youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clipboards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamcare.

And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-riddled SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients’ rights) and Obama’s old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now....

So astroturfing is don't on bot the left and right extremes, but what I am trying to get people to realize is that the behavior of these astroturfers is what is most important.

If some astroturf puppet carries on a reasonable discussion with me, then I don't care, really, what they say as long as they are being sincere and adding fact and good thought to the discussion.

What it killing internet discussion on sites like this and causing people to flee to redit and other media is the astroturfing that is nothing but a waste of everyones time.

I have repeatedly seen discussions coming to a consensus on one topic or another, only to then see the whole discussion derailed by some sock-troll who wants to bury the good discussion around post 100 while he and his multi-puppet accounts makes stupid and deliberately false statements for the next 2,000 posts. They know that the typical reader will read the first page or two, skip to the end and try to get an idea if the thread is worth reading. They thus accomplish their goal without ever really contributing to the discussion by fouling the thread with their nonsense so that no one will want to bother reading it.

To the folks running this website, I hope you realize that such troll accounts are killing message boards such as this. Seriously.

I hope you are zealously enforcing the rules against multiple accounts for the same user, because the way some of these people write, many of them do appear to be socks.

Hey man! Why you tryin' to rain on my parade? I'm like.....seven different people on here.

Thanks so much for all the thanks and pos rep, by the way. You rock!

Lol, now that was actually funny.

 

[SteadyMercury]

I believe the closest to a bot we have on here is clearly novasteve, at least if you try to identify it by narrowness of scope for the subject matter and thread start to actual meaningful participation ratio.

But even that doesn't make sense unless there is an Anti-Tranny-League somewhere paying him. ATL Stooge!

 

[iamwhatiseem]

TDM was obviously more than one person...we all saw numerous occasions of "her" posting consistently for more than 24 hours straight.
There is a new one here recently that is suspicious to me. Posting at least once an hour from noon till past 4am.

 

[editec]

Odd that I have never heard about these job opportunities.

 

[SteadyMercury]

Odd that I have never heard about these job opportunities.

Check with novasteve, maybe he can get you a gig spamming for the Anti-Tranny-League. I hear the ATL even has a pension plan.

 

[JakeStarkey]

I certainly agree with Jim Bowie's "To the folks running this website, I hope you realize that such troll accounts are killing message boards such as this. Seriously. // I hope you are zealously enforcing the rules against multiple accounts for the same user, because the way some of these people write, many of them do appear to be socks."

 

[JimBowie1958]

I believe the closest to a bot we have on here is clearly novasteve, at least if you try to identify it by narrowness of scope for the subject matter and thread start to actual meaningful participation ratio.

But even that doesn't make sense unless there is an Anti-Tranny-League somewhere paying him. ATL Stooge!

lol, I think we have a lot more than that, but I am not going to name any names.

Just look at all the people that make one sentence responses all the time that have no facts or thought behind them at all and I think you can figure it out pretty damned quick.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Odd that I have never heard about these job opportunities.

You wanna make minimum wage?

Besides, I don't think they solicit among the public, because the job slot can be embarrassing to the employer.

 

[JimBowie1958]

TDM was obviously more than one person...we all saw numerous occasions of "her" posting consistently for more than 24 hours straight.
There is a new one here recently that is suspicious to me. Posting at least once an hour from noon till past 4am.

Yeah, that is another characteristic, I would imagine, since these people work in shifts.

But it is all too easy to set up arbitrary and random hours the bot accounts are available to evade this tell.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I certainly agree with Jim Bowie's "To the folks running this website, I hope you realize that such troll accounts are killing message boards such as this. Seriously. // I hope you are zealously enforcing the rules against multiple accounts for the same user, because the way some of these people write, many of them do appear to be socks."

lol, clever Jake the Fake.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I believe the closest to a bot we have on here is clearly novasteve, at least if you try to identify it by narrowness of scope for the subject matter and thread start to actual meaningful participation ratio.

But even that doesn't make sense unless there is an Anti-Tranny-League somewhere paying him. ATL Stooge!

Bot or not, Novasteve at least posts some interesting material and defends his pov with some facts and reason usually.

That is more than I can say for a lot of folks.

 

[blastoff]

Anyone frequenting boards like this during recent presidential elections have witnessed this. People showing up 6 or so months out that constantly pound the lefty agenda right up to election day and then poof they're gone. Off to the next low wage job that fits their limited 'skills.'

 

[Impenitent]

An old but still controvercial topic, how multi-millionares like George Soros hire this nations poor and students to astroturf websites like this one.

First on the astroturfing topic:

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent | George Monbiot | Environment | theguardian.com

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent

The tobacco industry does it, the US Air Force clearly wants to ... astroturfing – the use of sophisticated software to drown out real people on web forums – is on the rise. How do we stop it?...

Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren't what they seem.

The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns that create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there's a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them.

After I wrote about online astroturfing in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them.

Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. ...

Emails obtained by political hackers from a US cyber-security firm called HBGary Federal suggest that a remarkable technological armoury is being deployed to drown out the voices of real people.

As the Daily Kos has reported, the emails show that:

• Companies now use "persona management software", which multiplies the efforts of each astroturfer, creating the impression that there's major support for what a corporation or government is trying to do.

• This software creates all the online furniture a real person would possess: a name, email accounts, web pages and social media. In other words, it automatically generates what look like authentic profiles, making it hard to tell the difference between a virtual robot and a real commentator.

• Fake accounts can be kept updated by automatically reposting or linking to content generated elsewhere, reinforcing the impression that the account holders are real and active.

• Human astroturfers can then be assigned these "pre-aged" accounts to create a back story, suggesting that they've been busy linking and retweeting for months. No one would suspect that they came onto the scene for the first time a moment ago, for the sole purpose of attacking an article on climate science or arguing against new controls on salt in junk food.

• With some clever use of social media, astroturfers can, in the security firm's words, "make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise … There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to fictitious personas."...

So the 'person' you think is reasonable on an issue, might be the sock puppet that you hate from a different 'person', but both controlled by the same user. They can present you with a sympathetic right hand while using what you told it to be lambasted by the other hand.

Mpw while the Guardian only complained about 'corporate' astroturfing, Malkin here gives some data on the libtard astroturfing:

Michelle Malkin | Who?s funding the Obamacare Astroturf campaign? «

On Thursday, a national “grass-roots” coalition called “Health Care for America Now (HCAN)” will march on Capitol Hill to demand universal health care. The ground troops won’t have to march very far. HCAN, you see, is no heartland network. It is headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C. – smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land.

In fact, 1825 K Street is Ground Zero for a plethora of “progressive” groups subsidized by anti-war, anti-Republican, Big Nanny special interests. Around Washington, the office complex is known as “The Other K Street.” The Washington Post noted in 2007 that “ts most prominent tenants form an abbreviated who’s who of well-funded allies of the Democratic Party… Big money from unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, as well as the Internet-fueled MoveOn, has provided groups like those at 1825 K Street the wherewithal to mount huge campaigns.”

MoveOn, of course, is the recreational political vehicle of radical liberal sugar daddy George Soros. The magnate’s financial fingerprints are all over the HCAN coalition, which includes MoveOn; the action fund of the Center for American Progress (a Soros think tank); and the Campaign for America’s Future (a pro-welfare state lobbying outfit).

HCAN has a $40 million budget, with $10 million pitched in by Atlantic Philanthropies – a Bermuda-based organization fronted by Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche. Also in the money mix: Notorious Democrat donors Herb and Marion Sandler, the left-wing moguls who made billions selling shady subprime mortgages and helped Soros fund his vast network of left-wing activist satellites. By their side is billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, whose “Progressive Future” youth group has dispatched clueless volunteers armed with clipboards and literature bashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to scare up support for Obamcare.

And two more left-wing heavyweights joining the HCAN parade: the corruption-riddled SEIU (which has battled numerous embezzlement scandals among its chapters across the country while crusading for consumer and patients’ rights) and Obama’s old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now....

So astroturfing is don't on bot the left and right extremes, but what I am trying to get people to realize is that the behavior of these astroturfers is what is most important.

If some astroturf puppet carries on a reasonable discussion with me, then I don't care, really, what they say as long as they are being sincere and adding fact and good thought to the discussion.

What it killing internet discussion on sites like this and causing people to flee to redit and other media is the astroturfing that is nothing but a waste of everyones time.

I have repeatedly seen discussions coming to a consensus on one topic or another, only to then see the whole discussion derailed by some sock-troll who wants to bury the good discussion around post 100 while he and his multi-puppet accounts makes stupid and deliberately false statements for the next 2,000 posts. They know that the typical reader will read the first page or two, skip to the end and try to get an idea if the thread is worth reading. They thus accomplish their goal without ever really contributing to the discussion by fouling the thread with their nonsense so that no one will want to bother reading it.

To the folks running this website, I hope you realize that such troll accounts are killing message boards such as this. Seriously.

I hope you are zealously enforcing the rules against multiple accounts for the same user, because the way some of these people write, many of them do appear to be socks.

Steve Doocy, is that you?

LA Times

 

[rightwinger]

Why is this considered news?

I have been paid to post on this board for four years. Why would anyone post here for free?

 

[rightwinger]

Actually, if you bother to check

JakeStarkey, redean and myself all came to the board on the same day. We are the same person posting on different accounts. Keeps you busy but the money is good

 

[RKMBrown]

Anyone frequenting boards like this during recent presidential elections have witnessed this. People showing up 6 or so months out that constantly pound the lefty agenda right up to election day and then poof they're gone. Off to the next low wage job that fits their limited 'skills.'

To be fair, elections usually increase my engagement level in political discussions.

 

[RKMBrown]

The ones that make me suspicious are the ones that have but a few posts in their history on random topics, then boom they are creating threads and posting stuff out of left field supporting particular candidates, particular political issues up for vote. Then you call em out asking why they appear to be a paid worker for "___" because they have posted __, ___, and ___ in apparent support of the ___. They get all squirmy, maybe have some "other" recent poster vouch for them then they pretty much disappear. I think those are the paid ones.

Folks like PMZ, that just trash threads, hell no one would pay anyone for the crap he posts. Would they? Those are likely just unpaid drones who have an agenda to get freebies so are trashing anyone and anything that gets in their way. They are paid by the federal government through welfare, but probably not a member of an ACORN like organization, well unless they are getting really bad workers... heh.

 

[JimBowie1958]

The ones that make me suspicious are the ones that have but a few posts in their history on random topics, then boom they are creating threads and posting stuff out of left field supporting particular candidates, particular political issues up for vote. Then you call em out asking why they appear to be a paid worker for "___" because they have posted __, ___, and ___ in apparent support of the ___. They get all squirmy, maybe have some "other" recent poster vouch for them then they pretty much disappear. I think those are the paid ones.

Folks like PMZ, that just trash threads, hell no one would pay anyone for the crap he posts. Would they? Those are likely just unpaid drones who have an agenda to get freebies so are trashing anyone and anything that gets in their way. They are paid by the federal government through welfare, but probably not a member of an ACORN like organization, well unless they are getting really bad workers... heh.

Yeah, the astroturfers will pay them to troll hostile websites and opposition message threads in more neutral forums.