Posted on 11/26/2012 8:14:10 AM PST by detective
WND Internet forum moderators have conducted extensive studies of leftist, pro-Obama “trolls” who post misinformation.
In the process, the moderators have blocked from WND forums participants who post abusive language aimed at angering or otherwise insulting forum members, WND authors, management and staff.
Trolls appear to perform a “disinformation” function typical of counter-intelligence efforts by intelligence agencies to confuse political enemies and refute or deflect opposing political views that are less susceptible to refutation by more traditional methods of debate and argumentation.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
he won the nomination because the overall turnout in the primaries was less than 20%...
mathematically, 10% of registered republicans put his name on the ballot..
there is no other excuse
I think the pro-Obama stuff would stand out but the name calling and personal attacks could be Dems or just authentic zealot nut-bags.
If I was going to troll a Dems site I would post there that the whole system is rigged and so there was no point in voting anymore, after a R victory like 2004.
I would demand that the Dems in congress be so aggressive that they p most voters off, tell them to demand a bunch of crazy stuff like block the R winner from being confirmed.
And the trick is to walk that fine line between the aggressive lib and the total psycho who gets booted off. And I have seen a few booted off for calling most of the other members traitors or cowards, and calling for say racial reparations in a bill in posted vanities.
Interesting data.
They gambled that they did not need the Conservative base.
They gambled wrong.
I have run in to them too, on Topix.com. They begin by posting the Dem. talking points for the day, written to appear as though the “local” poster wrote them as his or her own thoughts. The same person has an endless arsenal of names they use to give the appearance of strength in numbers.
When the talking points are refuted with facts, they resort to name calling and vulgarity, or my personal favorite, insisting my information source is unacceptable.
I visit a lot of different Conservative sites. During the McCain campaign, I was almost 100% sure that trolls were making it difficult or impossible to discussion anything. At that time, they would just make random replies. The amount of this diminished until the last campaign cycle. It then restarted with a lot more and longer posts. What frightens me is that after the election, I find it intensifying. At almost any Conservative site, there is always a liberal trashing whatever the conservatives say. I see a clear pattern. If someone says anything negative about Obama, the troll keeps post trash about Bush/and or Republicans. Liberals believe that they have the right to everything, and that conservatives are less equal than they are. They are shameless bullies and not very bright. But they have an enduring sense of superiority and entitlement. They are winning. We need wake up to their tactics, or we will lose, everything.
My democrat sister in Livonia said that Romney door knockers came to her house at least 4 different times. She told them she was an idiot (democrat) and they told her that she shouldn’t worry about Romney being an anti woman extremist like Santorum. “Romney will protect your reproductive rights”
It might be more accurate to say he was the weakest for purposes of the general. Weakness in that sense could not be measured in pure primary vote count, because it was a prediction of fitness for a future condition.
Another way to look at it is category rather than individual. Romney was the dominant liberal Republican, and that category of primary candidate never got the preponderance of primary voter support. As a category, the clear winner was the composite conservative candidate. For example, if Palin had been in the race, she would have likely zeroed out support for all the other conservative candidates, making it a straight up contest between her and Mitt, which I believe she would have won.
Its a progressive tactic called “Manufactured consent”. Basically to make you feel wildly outnumbered by posting all over the place.
Watch the national popular vote threads posted here at FR. There’s one poster who posts the exact word for word things all over the internet under multiple names.
Yes, thanks for the ping!
Trolls are everywhere, even on local town forums. We know of two instances where several names were posting 24 hours a day, having conversations with themselves. Interesting to see the same spelling peculiarities showing up in multiple posts.
Instance one was an investment group trying to turn a little piper cub airport into a giant air cargo facility. Instance two was the teachers’ union trying to smear Chris Christie. Really, imagine how cheap and effective this is. Hire someone’s unemployed brother-in-law to have the forum window open on his computer, and just chime in at any time to disrupt actual dialogs. And give three brothers-in-law the same set of passwords and you have 24-hour coverage. I think some of them get paid by the post.
In 2006 Romney had a strategy of shaping the primary by keeping out other major candidates by having an early series of big money fundraisers and making it clear that he would be using his own vast wealth to self fund, when needed, that strategy worked and no other major players entered.
Romney broke records in spending, and self funded with about 45 million of his own dollars, which he could inject at the most opportune times, of his own choosing, even when fund raising went south, Romney still ended up losing to two totally unfunded, mediocre figures, Huckabee and Senator McCain
Naturally 2012 was a forgone conclusion, and the establishment was constantly working against Palin to make sure that she wouldn’t disrupt the game. As it was, no big boys ran, since Romney was clearly the well funded, machine candidate.
2012 was a replay of 2008, with Bachmann no serious threat, rookie Cain, same thing, Santorum had been booted from the Senate with a history making 17 point loss, Gingrich who hadn’t held office for many years was a last minute fill-in for conservatives similar to Fred Thompson in 2008, none of the challengers were the kind of major figures with organizations to take on Mitt’s continuous presidential campaign machine, which had been operating for 7 years.
Romney’s inertia launched in 2006, was unstoppable, his campaign and his establishment support of the party and of the national media, could only have been broken by a charismatic, game changing, Reagan/Palin type figure charging through the massive gaping hole that was open on Romney’s right flank.
Rick Perry, the SECEDE TEXAS, GUN WAVING swashbuckler. closed that gap with his sudden, puzzling, half hearted feint at the role before he quickly disappeared, having done nothing but having removed Romney’s vulnerable weak spot.
Romney was the result of deep, institutionalized, machine politics by the national party and the national media, and with full support of the democrats, who all were on the same page, of who the 2012 candidate was going to be.
They did try to do the same thing with Guiliani in the past.
The evidence for trolls’ being active on Conservative sites has been obvious for quite some time. Thank you for providing the details at WND, and all on one page. Excellent.
Thank you for the ping, Moose07.
Hi, Darks.
Romney is more of a relentless machine of wealth and power than Giuliani.
Mitt Romney was born into a powerful dynasty of Mormon royalty, and was the son of a rich and powerful presidential candidate and a Senate candidate mother, Giulini just didn’t have that same oomf, to carry him past a Mitt Romney, who powered out Giuliani in the 2008 primary process.
I have had many encounters with these posters on Yahoo, Politico, Fox (which doesn’t show me the comments sections anymore), and the Breitbart sites.
They are rude, full of lies, and will stalk you if you beat them enough. I had a couple of them stalking me from news article to news article. They must have been allowed to view hidden user info too because I don’t show them my state/location yet one or two were able to see that info even though I had it blocked (according to the privacy settings on Yahoo).
Yes, you are correct. I’ve encountered a couple of them on FR as well. They usually will attack a poster as a newbie if they see you have a newer account. That is usually the first thing they try to use to discredit a poster on FR. From there they will move on to personal attacks.
Heck. I even have outed one on a CAS pro-gun forum.
They should be horsewhipped. Too bad I don’t have a horse.
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