"Unmasking The Source of an Internet Rumor" [FR is hurting the Obama campaign!]

Obama for America ^ | Jun 28th, 2008

[Winged Hussar]

Dr. Danielle Allen

An Attack That Came Out of the Ether Scholar Looks for First Link in E-Mail Chain About Obama

By Matthew Mosk Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, June 28, 2008; C01

...Poring over these early articles on the topic, Allen noticed what she thought was an important pattern. In each instance, someone had posted the articles on the Free Republic Web site, prompting a discussion involving the same handful of people, with several expressing a desire to spread the word about Obama's supposed faith.

...The attacks on Obama are different, Allen says. The level of anonymity, the technical efficiency, and above all the electoral impact of Internet-based smears all represent a new challenge.

"What I've come to realize is, the labor of generating an e-mail smear is divided and distributed amongst parties whose identities are secret even to each other," she says. A first group of people published articles that created the basis for the attack. A second group recirculated the claims from those articles without ever having been asked to do so. "No one coordinates the roles," Allen said. Instead the participants swim toward their goal like a school of fish -- moving on their own, but also in unison.

..."Citizens and political scientists must face the fact that the Internet has enabled a new form of political organization that is just as influential on local and national elections as unions and political action committees," she says. "This kind of misinformation campaign short-circuits judgment. It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one's accusers."

[Winged Hussar]

This piece, originally from the Washington Post, shows that we can cost Obama the election.

I personally have formal education in organizational psychology, plus considerable self-education in psychological warfare. My basic approach to viral E-mails and other forms of propaganda (any effort to sell an idea is propaganda, whether for good or bad purposes) is to make sure the reader can verify for himself or herself the truth of what is being said.

As an example, I post a picture of Obama arm in arm with "the prominent racist and anti-Semite" Al Sharpton. The picture itself includes the invitation to Google on "Sharpton" and "Freddy's Fashion Mart" or "Crown Heights" or "Tawana Brawley" allows everyone who sees the picture to verify that Sharpton does indeed have a track record of inciting hatred of white people and especially Jews.

As another example, I post quotes from Obama's "Dreams From My Father" WITH PAGE NUMBERS so anyone can pick up the paperback version in a library or bookstore and see that what is being said is not a smear, but the truth.

In the case of hate speech from my.barackobama.com, a link to the page and of course the Google cache in case Obama throws it under the bus works, as does a screen shot with Obama's and Biden's pictures above the hate speech.

Here is the bottom line, though. Free Republic should not be an echo chamber in which we all sing the same hymn and then proclaim "Amen!" The material won't cost Obama any votes if we preach to the choir, so take it to other Web sites, blogs, letters to the editor and, of course, viral E-mail.

Anti-Obama resources here: http://www.stentorian.com/Obama

[vpintheak]

If obama is elected be sure that anonimity for these sites will no longer exist. With the government taking over financial institutions left and right, you can bet that we are next on the hit list.

[Question Liberal Authority]

If they can expend manpower and resources to track the source of an internet rumor, they can find out what Barry actually did as a “community organizer”.

[SaxxonWoods]

Doesn’t matter. Babs does her thing for Obama tonight.

“It ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”

Guess it’s over after tonight then.

[Viking2002]

If we Free Republicans are acting as a viable force that can destroy The Obamanation and his Satanic cabal, then I say let there be scorched earth!!!!!!

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

It also aggressively disregards the fundamental principle of free societies that one be able to debate one's accusers."

WTF? The accuser is the person who wrote the initial article. What this a$$hat is saying is that it's OK to sue the post office if someone mails you a nasty letter?

[Winged Hussar]

Re: “If obama is elected be sure that anonimity for these sites will no longer exist. With the government taking over financial institutions left and right, you can bet that we are next on the hit list.”

I’ll be glad to sign my real name to what I say about this two-bit fraud, and I have done so in my local newspaper. I have given my real name on a local radio show while denouncing this phony as well. If I can prove I did something significant to derail his campaign, I’ll sign my name to it and take credit for it.

I’m also the person who broke the back of the Million Mom March (2000) and crippled MoveOn.org (2006), and it’s pretty easy to find out who I am. I don’t say behind anyone’s back what I won’t say to their face.

[ncfool]

Gee! I’m proud to be a poster on Freerepublic.com where the truth is exposed about the left!

[listenhillary]

Lets see Sarah faked her pregnancy to cover for her daughter...

Who created this? I think we had almost tracked it back to a paid Obama acolyte. Lost the thread though.

[6SJ7]

We're the new Pamphleteers. Doing the work the MSM won't.

[null and void]

If they can expend manpower and resources to track the source of an internet rumor, they can find out what Barry actually did as a “community organizer”.

THEY already know.

They don't want US to know.

[nclaurel]

Let me get this straight we on FR are bad but Daily Kos could start numerous vile rumors about Palin and her family which the MSM ran with and that is ok? Well alrighty.

[Winged Hussar]

“Lets see Sarah faked her pregnancy to cover for her daughter...

Who created this? I think we had almost tracked it back to a paid Obama acolyte. Lost the thread though.”

It would not surprise me if My.BarackObama.com is being used by Obama campaign staffers to spread rumors that McCain has an age-related neurodegenerative disease. Hmmm, “no controlling authority” over the site (even though they do exercise editorial control) and hundreds of pages that promote this rumor...

[itsPatAmerican]

With the government taking over financial institutions left and right, you can bet that we are next on the hit list.

No doubt, that makes total sense. What should we do? Does anyone know servers and how to move these things off to somewhere safe?

[vpintheak]

Same here. I will also be one of the best defended around if it comes down to it.

[1035rep]

“Gee! I’m proud to be a poster on Freerepublic.com where the truth is exposed about the left!”

Ditto! FReeper reporting for duty.

[DBrow]

I too like to attribute sources, and I frequently urge people here to post a link.

I'll also whack a pure rumor or false quote; no point in spreading a lie that can be used to discredit everything else in the list.

The takeaway in the article is that anonymity is the key factor. This is how they will stop these “vicious rumors”, the true ones that hurt, by making everyone online use their true identities.

So what? Well, look what the left always does when an unpleasant truth comes out- immediately discredit the messenger, any way possible.

Alinsky said freeze it, personalize it, polarize it, demonize it. They can't personalize it if they don't know who you are,

[Roccus]

Anyone remember getting all those e-mails in 2000 about the black churches that were going to burn if Bush got elected?

[redstateconfidential]

[Chaguito]

The accuser is the person who wrote the initial article

And that is why this psycho(logist)'s article is bogus. Daily Kos and others made smears up out of whole cloth and went viral. Individually-generated nasties on FR are generally reprimanded and/or zotted. The author is a putz.