Wowza.
Posted on 04/09/2016 2:33:28 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
If you’ve spent any time on social media, particularly in the politicalsphere, chances are you’ve encountered an internet troll or two. This election cycle has been er, um… interesting. I never thought I’d long for the days the so-called Paulbots would troll my feeds lecturing me about liberty and the Constitution and Dr. Paul. At least most of those accounts were real. Alas…
Not so in 2016.
The Trumpbots, or accounts that seem to exist solely to attack those with unfavorable views of The Donald, are a special breed of vicious. I’ve learned it’s best to ignore, block, and move on. Why waste time on people, or bots rather, not interested in positive engagement, I say.
I’ve also suspected there was a concerted effort to derail conversation on social media and to attempt to fluster influencers. It all reeked of some kind of psychological web warfare. Turns out, I might have been right.
Sure, Trump pulls in around a third of the Republican primary vote now, but it’s curious that he had an overwhelming appearance of support right out of the gate. The reader may remember Trump’s campaign was busted paying individuals to attend his early rallies.
These Trumpbots are behave especially hostile towards Ted Cruz. Professor Jacobson has encountered what was likely the working of the Trump botnet on more than one occasion, “It seems that every time our Twitter account gets involuntarily looped into some endless stream of vicious anti-Cruz tweeting, typically because we’ve retweeted something pro-Cruz by a well-known person, the relentless pro-Trump protagonist is someone with very few followers, but thousands of tweets,” he said.
Yesterday, Digital Analyst, Patrick Ruffini began digging into a score of Twitter accounts that seem to explain this bizarre Trump/social media phenomena. It might also explain the consistent skew in online polling (read: Drudge Poll).
Earlier this week, Jason Taylor, blogging at Medium, explained how it’s possible to procure around 500,000 ‘aged’ Twitter accounts to create a botnet:
From my years on Twitter I’ve ran many campaigns against in what I believed to be wrong, and unjust. I have years of knowledge on how to run multiple Twitter accounts, and how to go about getting those. It’s not as simple as going out, creating an email account and then starting a Twitter account, not if you’re talking about five hundred thousand accounts. And, brand spanking new Twitter accounts won’t cut it, they get suspended to easy. You need “aged” accounts, accounts that have been steeping for at least five years.
There are many places to go on the dark web to buy Twitter accounts that also come with email addresses, that’s where Team Trump went.
These “aged” accounts are not cheap, to amass half a million of those you’re looking at some real cash, not that Trump doesn’t have it, but you need planning and someone well versed in social media to put this plan into action. I’m sure that the Trump Team new the power of Twitter long before he ever jumped in the race for President.
With these Twitter accounts, Facebook, and an email account to go along with each one; it’s no surprise he (Trump) wins every online poll. Trump has tried to control the narrative from the start, and he’s done a pretty good job of it, up until now. This was well thought out, and executed the way a general might map out a war.
These Twitter accounts are easy to spot, accounts that are dated 2009 to 2012, with few followers and a solid line of Donald Trump propaganda. There are real people running these Twitter accounts, mostly from the middle east, using VPN’s and Proxy’s to hide from United States Twitter. Erick Erickson too explored Trump’s manufactured support and the troll accounts that harass him via email or call into his radio show insisting he said something anti-Trump when Erickson wasn’t even on the air — he was on holiday.
Last Tuesday night, my radio show saw a wave of callers calling in to complain about what I was saying that very night on radio. The callers assured my call screener they were listening. The calls were coming from area codes all over the nation and they were very angry about what I had just said on the radio that very night about Trump.
I was on vacation. The guest host had been talking about local matters and had not even mentioned Trump. Hello, seminar callers. Likewise, many of the calls to my radio station demanding I be fired or disciplined for insulting Trump have come from people making statements about my radio show that clearly indicate they have not listened to the show or the station.
Similarly, whenever I get a wave of emails attacking me for things about Trump, frequently the same IP address pops up. On Twitter, the waves come from people with rarely used or new Twitter accounts that are suddenly all in for Trump — every tweet an attack against someone or Trump propaganda. More often than not, the accounts have pictures of someone other than the the person tweeting and most do not use real names.
Certainly it could be people with low social connectedness, as Michael Barone has noted, but it sure seems odd to suddenly get a a wave of #whitegenocide tweets from accounts that are just suddenly active and all in to attack people who oppose Trump.
And then there’s the ‘news’ site, pushing nothing but pro-Trump propaganda that originated from… Macedonia?
In the wake of the Wisconsin primary, for example, supporters of Donald Trump took to social media posting what appeared to be valid news reports making fraudulent claims that electronic voting machines in Wisconsin were switching from Donald Trump to Ted Cruz.
This particular fake story appears to have originated at UnitedMediaPublishing.com, and was distributed ad nauseum all over social media. But the bogus story or a variation of it was additionally cited at many other pro-Trump propaganda websites, which were also shared repeatedly on social media.
An analysis prepared by John Daniels, editor-in-chief of Tavernkeepers.com and exclusively relayed to the Examiner examined numerous “news” sites. Daniels determined that the following pro-Trump propaganda sites sprung up in only the past several months from Macedonia, a nation bordering Greece. Using the website ICANN WHOIS, Daniels was able to determine the registrar, origination date and location of these websites:
1) Usanewsflash.com 2) 365usanews.com 3) worldnewspolitics.com 4) Usapoliticsonline.com 5) worldpoliticus.com 6) USAdailypolitics.com
Articles about fake voter fraud in Wisconsin and claims that Ted Cruz will be dropping out of the presidential race (he is not) were posted at all of the above sites. They linked back to other pro-Trump sites such as thepoliticalinsider.com, thegatewaypundit.com and endingthefed.com.
Included in the slideshow above is this excerpt from Trump’s The Art of the Deal where he discusses creating a perception to close a deal:
“My leverage came from confirming an impression they were already predisposed to believe,” wrote Trump.
Smart politics or gutter-dwelling tactics? Doesn’t really matter at this point because it worked.,
Your approach to the dilemma is interesting, instead of being disappointed by a conservative, you're now going to vote for a full-blown, big-government, pro-abortion (until two months ago, supposedly), pro-state power (Kelo) leftist. It's genius really, the way you've insured now that when he grows the size, power and influence of government in our lives, you'll be getting exactly what you voted for.
It's a brilliant solution to the problem. Congratulations.
You’re suffering from BVS, Battered Voter Syndrome. You just can’t get enough abuse.
They keep lying and looting you but keep coming back for more. Or maybe you’re just in on the charade.
Tell ya what slick, you stick to voting for the sultans of sham in D.C., and their policies of deceit and decline, and I’ll vote for who I want.
Wowza.
Cruzers were attacking the supporters of any other candidate, particularly Walker supporters, beginning early last year.
By the time Trump entered the race in June they had their knives sharpened to fine hone.
For months I had the by-line of ‘Is Cruz himself as mean-spirited as his supporters here on FR?’
Proof or it didn’t happen. I’ll wait.
The mouth foaming, content free replies that you are getting from the Trumpettes pretty well proves your point.
I personally know only four Trump supporters. The most intellectually engaged one is a felon who can’t vote, but can have a rational conversation about Trump’s shortcomings and actually likes Cruz just as much. The next most rational Trump supporter is well known for admittedly never paying attention to politics or even voting until past middle age and never had access to the internet until the same time, but now thinks Facebook is the source of all information. Next is the most deeply embedded political insider I have ever personally met, who is famous for pushing the limits of acceptable behavior in political campaigns and switching sides on a dime to work for whoever will pay the most for campaign consulting. Last is the famous neighborhood cranky old fart who can not engage in a conversation with any one on any political subject for longer than three sentences without flying into an irrational tirade whether anyone disagrees or not and who thinks that aliens from space are controlling the government and our minds anyway. Out of people that I personally know, that’s the Trump camp.
On the other hand, everyone else I know is opposed to Trump and sees him as either what the various nasty name calling rants the lefties say he is, a deranged megalomaniac, an uniformed clown, a Clintonite imposter attempting to sow confusion and dissension among the opponents of the lefties, or some combination thereof.
“So your emotions decide your vote. It’s ok. Just don’t lecture anyone else on logic. Clearly that doesn’t apply in your case.”
Excellent example of projection. No, he was simply discrediting me and my arguments by association. My emotion had nothing to do with it. The emotions of the listeners had everything to do with it.
I know several conservatives that I like and respect who are big Trump supporters.
I wish I could find some reason to believe that Trump is conservative, but I cannot. He is, however, far better than the Democrat alternatives.
If Trump gets the nomination I will vote for him, just like I held my nose and voted for Romney in 2012 and held my nose and voted for McCain in 2008. I just wish that I didn't have to hold my nose to vote for a non-conservative that I expect to lose.
Like a typical Trumpette, you stopped reading because you lack the intellectual capacity to follow a discussion more involved than the sound bite shouting matches of the short-attention-span generation. This was actually a very well written and supported post that started with a clear and concise summary of the critical points and then presented a substantial amount of supporting evidence and logic to prove the postulated contention.
If discussions with this level of detail tax your capability for comprehension, then I suggest you avoid the documents of the founding fathers of this country as they would clearly be too much for you. If you can’t bother to actually read the post and to engage the author on the points of fact that he asserted, then you should probably let the adults handle the conversation.
Unless of course you are really trying to prove by example the poster’s contention that supposed Trump supporters are just intellectually deficient trolls or paid foreign spambots sent to derail rational debate, because you are doing a pretty good job of making the poster’s case for him.
Just because there were enough Trojan’s that liked the horse for them to pull it into their city doesn’t mean that the Trojan Horse was their friend.
Using three long paragraphs to say “shut up asshole” still doesn’t make you right or more erudite. And your ad hominem attacks could use some work.
Personally, I hope that Trump looses the nomination because that will present the true test of who he really is. If he is who he currently claims to be, then he will support the Republican nominee. If, on the other hand, he does not, then it will prove that he really was a Clintonite Trojan Horse all along. Either way, there will be clarity. The known history of his political positions and activities so far does not justify confidence that he means anything he says and if he wins the nomination, then we will have no way of knowing and be stuck with just a roll of the dice.
The writer isn’t talking so much about attacks on one candidate or the other, he’s talking about Trump supporters intrinsic hostility. Its almost impossible to interact with one without them immediately resort to personal insults. Its remarkable.
Insulting others seems to have some cathartic affect on them.
It is not Trump supporters who are “almost impossible to interact with without them immediately resorting to personal insults.”
I don’t even have to go back one day to prove my point...
Received this little “gem” this morning in response to something I had said to another poster—not ballplayer. But ballplayer (with whom I have never interacted) is clearly a very nasty Cruz supporter whose first word to me was “idiot” and then ended with word “idiot”.... so twice in one post:
4/10/2016, 6:00:39 AM · 35 of 57
ballplayer to bushwon
Idiot,just because your candidate is an amateur doesn’t mean he got cheated,you must be another Obama idiot
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3419301/posts
So please don’t state it is the “intrinsic hostility” of Trump supporters!
Start holding your breath.
Well then, you’re free to stick with the disciples of deceit in D.C. Feel free to elect yet another lawyer turned professional career politician.
Brilliant.
If you see that, you're an idiot or blind, because that's not what I wrote.
I said he's a big government supporting, pro-abortion supporting liberal. He didn't run the government the last forty years, liberals mostly have. Liberals who got to power with the financial support of the idiot you are going to vote for. And he brags about bribing them to give him special privileges and advantages.
The Putin picture's perfect. The Donald openly slobbers over him and the corrupt oligarchy he sits on top of. And obviously you see great advantages in the post-soviet system, since you're eager to bring it here.
You guys imagine that some how The Donald will share his booty with the American rubes who install him.
Well then, your solution is clear. Vote for yet another do nothing, parasite law clerk turned career politician. But this time you can double up and vote for one not even born in the U.S.A.
Brilliant.
“Proof or it didn’t happen. I’ll wait.”
“Start holding your breath.”
I don’t waste breath waiting for Trumpbots to prove anything they or their candidate say. Zero credibility.
Either Cruz, the Republican Establishment or the Democrat Establishment is behind this... Trump doesn’t know ‘the way’ of the scoundrels in DC. If Trump DID he would have the ‘right tone’ by the standards of the corrupt elites in DC
This IS NOT TRUMP’s way. It is Hillary’s way. IT’s not Sander’s way...
We know the lowlifes by their choices.
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