Senator [Ron Paul?] in 'fake online campaign'

Herald Sun ^ | 12 October 2007 | Mark Schliebs

[Aussie Dasher]

I suppose it was worth a try...

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Senator Paul?

[Clara Lou]

I am SO shocked to read this. Astroturfing for Paul. Just amazing.

[Malsua]

The clip had been viewed nearly 60,000 times since it was uploaded yesterday.

It's hard to believe those kinds of numbers in the first 24 hours. After a day or two, no biggie. Immediately after an upload is suspicious.

[Bahbah]

Texan Republican Senator Ron Paul

Senator?

[drpix]

[Aussie Dasher]

I dunno. I’d never heard of him until last year...

[wideawake]

In other news, scientists have learned that all water contains a property they are calling “wetness.”

[dawn53]

Don De Bots

"De Bots" is probably what are causing all the hits (end/sarcasm.) Seriously though, they could be using a click farm or bots to generate lots of hits.

[saganite]

A promotion!!! Senator Paul, kinda has a ring to it.

The obvious mistake in this article repeated several times doesn’t lend a lot of credibility to the writer.

[Brilliant]

I do think it is a grass roots movement. It’s just a very small grass roots movement.

[drpix]

To make up for the mistake in original article’s headline (”Senator”) would adding “(Ron Paul)” at the end of the thread title be the right fix?

[drpix]

IMO a description using “mold” seems more fitting than “grass”...

[GlennBeck08]

Depending on the video, it’s possible, but a video where a politician is speaking, not so much. “Sore-eee” Ron.

[George W. Bush]

It is certainly possible to spambot YouTube to drive numbers up.

If that is happening, it’s very unlikely that it is the campaign doing it. More likely, some script kiddie with a deep bandwidth connection like at a university.

However, Ron Paul does have something like 55,000 Meetup members now, located in 24 countries. So some of the traffic might very well be an indication of international enthusiasm for his message. Many of the European and Brit young people really do like RP’s liberty and small-government message. They don’t like a nanny-state future and they recognize the problems with socialist government solutions.

I don’t find the article especially credible when they couldn’t even be bothered to verify that RP is a congressman, not a senator. And those interviews with the “expert”, well, he’s some nobody and they had a strange way of collating his responses. Funny he never bothered to mention to them that RP is a congressman.

[Vanbasten]

Does not surprise me a bit.

[mnehring]

Considering how many staff members are on RonPaulForums.com and how they have created fake forums for other candidates (FredForums.com, etc) I wouldn’t be surprised.

[mnehring]

Astroturfing 101

Read this for a while.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/

[drpix]

Your link took me to a Ron Paul page orchestrating something worse than "astroturfing" or spamming online polls and view/visitor counters. It's titled "Party Affiliation change DEADLINES!" and gives these for several states. Its intent is clearly to get non-republicans to change party affiliation to sabotage Republican primaries for this fraud of a candidate.

[kevkrom]

Aside from the factual errors (e.g., Senator Paul), the article is remarkably content free. Sure, many of us suspect astroturfing is going on, but despite the headline, all the article manages to say is that it kind of looks like it could be astroturfing.

Not worth the time to read it.