Spooky talk: Astroturfing and The Coli.

Saka

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Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participant(s).

It is a self evident truth that in the age of the internet and social media, public opinion is of paramount importance, and the manipulation of this opinion is akin to an art or a craft. When carried out diligently; it is invisible, undetected by the skeptical faculties of the human mind, masquerading among the digital sea of faceless personas as authentic, one of us.

Proponents and pawns of those who fear the free exchange of ideas; unfiltered and unnavigated among "the mob" (as they see us) will attempt to smear views similar to this one with ad hominems (such as the material of my hat) to distract and disorient from any meaningful discussion.

excerpt from an ex-Clinton astroturfer:

The real problem for me started around the end of September and the beginning of October, when there was a change of direction from the team leader again. Apparently, the higher-ups in the firm caught wind of an impending spending splurge by the Clinton campaign that month and wanted to put up an impressive display. We received very specific instructions about how and what to post, and I was aghast at what I saw. It was a complete change in tone and approach, and it was extremely nasty in character. We changed from advocates to hatchet men, and it left a very bad taste in my mouth.

Just to give you an idea, here are some of the guidelines for our posting in October:

1) Sexism. This was the biggest one we were supposed to push. We had to smear Bernie as misogynistic and out-of-touch with modern sensibilities. He was to be characterized as “an old white male relic that believed women enjoyed being gang raped”. Anyone who tried to object to this characterization would be repeatedly slammed as sexist until they went away or people lost interest.

2) Racism. We were instructed to hammer home how Bernie supporters were all privileged white students that had no idea how the world worked. We had to tout Hillary’s great record with “the blacks” (yes, that’s the actual way it was phrased), and generally use racial identity politics to attack Sanders and bolster Hillary as the only unifying figure.

3) Electability. All of those posts about how Sanders can never win and Hillary is inevitable? Some of those were us, done deliberately in an attempt to demoralize Bernie supporters and convince them to stop campaigning for him. The problem is that this was an outright fabrication and not an accurate assessment of the current political situation. But the truth didn’t matter – we were trying to create a new truth, not to spread the existing truth.

4) Dirty tactics. This is where things got really bad. We were instructed to create narratives of Clinton supporters as being victimized by Sanders supporters, even if they were entirely fabricated. There were different instructions about how to do it, but something like this (Dis-heartened Hillary Supporter) is a perfect example. These kind of posts are manufactured to divide and demoralize Sanders supporters, and are entirely artificial in nature. (The same thing happened in 2008, but it wasn’t as noticeable before social media and public attention focused on popular forums like Reddit).

5) Opponent outreach. There are several forums and imageboards where Sanders is not very popular (I think you can imagine which ones those are.) We were instructed to make pro-Sanders troll posts to rile up the user base and then try to goad them into raiding or attacking places like this subreddit. This was probably the only area where we only had mixed success, since that particular subset of the population were more difficult to manipulate than we originally thought.
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source: Reddit User Claims He Was Paid to Troll Bernie Sanders Supporters

an excerpt from an ex-shills time on the job (very relevant to thecoli)

The second binder was smaller, and it contained information specific to the web sites I would be assigned to. The sites I would work were: Godlike Productions, Lunatic Outpost, CNN news, Yahoo News, and a handful of smaller sites that rotated depending on need. As stated, I was NOT assigned to work ATS (although others in my group were), which is part of the reason I am posting this here, rather than elsewhere. I wanted to post this on Godlike Productions at first, but they have banned me from even viewing that site for some reason (perhaps they are onto me?). But if somebody connected with this site can get the message to them, I think they should know about it, because that was the site I spent a good 70% of my time working on.

The site-specific info in the second binder included a brief history each site, including recent flame-wars, as well as info on what to avoid on each site so as not to get banned. It also had quite detailed info on the moderators and the most popular regged posters on each site: location (if known), personality type, topics of interest, background sketch, and even some notes on how to “push the psychological buttons” of different posters. Although I didn’t work for ATS, I did see they had a lot of info on your so-called “WATS” posters here (the ones with gold borders around their edges). “Focus on the popular posters,” my trainer told me. “These are the influential ones. Each of these is worth 50 to 100 of the lesser known names.”

Each popular poster was classified as “hostile,” “friendly,” or “indifferent” to my goal. We were supposed to cultivate friendship with the friendly posters as well as the mods (basically, by brownnosing and sucking up), and there were even notes on strategies for dealing with specific hostile posters. The info was pretty detailed, but not perfect in every case. “If you can convert one of the hostile posters from the enemy side to our side, you get a nice bonus. But this doesn’t happen too often, sadly. So mostly you’ll be attacking them and trying to smear them.”
Click to expand...
source: I Was a Paid Internet Shill: How Shadowy Groups Manipulate Internet Opinion and Debate


Now i didn't post this on the coli to perpetuate fear or paranoia, but to stir discussion on the possiblities. Now, that also doesn't mean the coli is target en masse of such subversion but i'm also skeptical that nothing of this sort takes place here.
 
hashmander

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Berniewood Hogan

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psychedelic said:
The site-specific info in the second binder included a brief history each site, including recent flame-wars, as well as info on what to avoid on each site so as not to get banned. It also had quite detailed info on the moderators and the most popular regged posters on each site: location (if known), personality type, topics of interest, background sketch, and even some notes on how to “push the psychological buttons” of different posters.
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:mjlol:

Day 22: I have successfully annoyed Subject #402 by utilizing the "split the Black vote" meme I obtained from the dossier on Subject #71. Comparing Sanders to Ron Paul has increased the trollability rating of our target posters by 48.5%. A religion vs. atheism argument broke out in the middle of our sarcastic endorsement of universal healthcare. We were forced to abandon the operation. The subject known as "thekingsmen" might be on to us. For now, we refresh our browsers and prepare to spam the board with several pop-science threads that we know nobody is going to read.

“If you can convert one of the hostile posters from the enemy side to our side, you get a nice bonus. But this doesn’t happen too often, sadly. So mostly you’ll be attacking them and trying to smear them.”
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:russ:

"Agent Johnson, excellent work. You finally convinced Ethnic Vagina Finder and YaThreadFloppedB that perhaps affordable higher education isn't a priority in this election. I've been following your posts very closely, Johnson. Keep this up and we'll promote you to Chief Assistant shytposter in no time."
 
C

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Hollywood Hogan said:
:mjlol:

Day 22: I have successfully annoyed Subject #402 by utilizing the "split the Black vote" meme I obtained from the dossier on Subject #71. Comparing Sanders to Ron Paul has increased the trollability rating of our target posters by 48.5%. A religion vs. atheism argument broke out in the middle of our sarcastic endorsement of universal healthcare. We were forced to abandon the operation. The subject known as "thekingsmen" might be on to us. For now, we refresh our browsers and prepare to spam the board with several pop-science threads that we know nobody is going to read.


:russ:

"Agent Johnson, excellent work. You finally convinced Ethnic Vagina Finder and YaThreadFloppedB that perhaps affordable higher education isn't a priority in this election. I've been following your posts very closely, Johnson. Keep this up and we'll promote you to Chief Assistant shytposter in no time."
Click to expand...
@88m3
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