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.,
“There’s plenty of phony made up people trolling for Trump (ArmyChickBlackGeneralissimo, or whatever his name is)...”
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Yeah, he/she/it who may, or may not, be in the Army and who may, or may not, be female and who may, or may not, be black and who may, or may not, be a Generalissimo. Someone made the comment that if she/he/it actually is in the army, he/she/it is the least busy (on Army matters) soldier in the army.
I'd like to go back in time....Interestingly enough, BFAC was here in 2011 dissing Trump and stumping for Herman Cain.
Yes, there is all kinds of nasty on Twitter, Facebook, etc., to be expected from supporters who are rabid about their candidate-but...
Have any Cruz supporters with ‘white power’ or ‘white genocide,’ etc. on their profiles called you a kike or posted or tweeted pictures of your avi behind a big metal door with a window, with tRump at what looks like a control panel, getting set to push the button labeled “gas ‘em”? Have any Cruz supporters threatened to dox you or publish your home address? Have any Cruz supporters insulted your appearance, your gender and your age and used the C-word when you posted something not 100% favorable to their Golden God? All of the above has happened to me.
Just saying.
“...They must be Trolls!”
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Only a subset...most are not, of course.
Yes, Cruz did before Trump...way before Trump.
Yes, Cruz did before Trump...way before Trump.
An outsider doesn't stand much of a chance. Without a big machine or moneyed interests to back a candidate, the average citizen, no matter how pure and civic minded, is dead meat before the first vote is tallied.
That Trump has made it this far and with as much support as he has is astounding.
Hey Booba Poopdeck, why is it that when I check out some of the loudest mouths her defending the Canadian, I can go back on to more than ten years using the in forum search function.
You morons don’t even participate on this forum, at least a lot of you don’t.
What happens, the checks stop coming?
Cruz didn’t do zip squat. The country is a de facto illegal alien sanctuary for God sake. Even Cruz home state of Texas is crawling will illegals, and has over a dozen sanctuary cities. Get real.
Do nothing lawyers turned career politicians. They do nothing and the country declines in every direction.
Bubba,
As ignorant as you appear, I don’t believe you are so ignorant.
Significance in data is a matter of statistical confidence intervals.
Politician Trump crowd draw data Vs. Molly Cyrus twerking camel toe nipple draw are independent data sets.
Unless... you are retarded.
Your call.
The question was, “what will they do about the borders and did they say the same thing before Trump started winning?”
Cruz is for, was for, and has been for building a wall prior to Donald Trump coming on the scene. That’s what I was responding to.
We can argue whether or not a single Senator from any state can do what a President can do. If Mr. Trump was in the Senate and did the same as Mr. Cruz, people would be singing his praises and he would have been just as unsuccessful under this administration.
Cruz didn’t do zip squat. The country is a de facto illegal alien sanctuary for God sake. Even Cruz’s home state of Texas is crawling will illegals, and has over a dozen sanctuary cities.
He did nothing, regardless of what comment you responded to. Get real.
So do I! If anything I suspect there are far more supporting Cruz than votes indicate.
No they do not believe anyone agrees with his message. No problem with border, illegals, trade...because they have been telling us there is no problem.
>Cruz is for, was for, and has been for building a wall prior to Donald Trump coming on the scene. That’s what I was responding to.
And he was also for giving out gift baskets to illegals fresh across the border with Glenn Beck.
The only thing Cruz has ever been for is whatever makes him look good at the moment.
Who?!
People that re sick, tired and have had enough of business as usual.
Only a jack@ss would ask such a question.
I remember the Obama “fake twitter accounts” story someone mentioned.
It didn’t shock me at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised that most candidates have some young techie type supporters (not necessarily paid) who do stuff like this, either authorized or not. Typical campaign stuff, like phony push polls, phony robo calls purporting to be from one candidate who are actually from supporters of the other, etc. Nothing new there, just standard dirty tricks stuff. The social media, especially twitter, just makes it much easier. Maybe I’m naive and the campaigns actually pay and sanction it. I don’t know anyone in the business to ask.
I have seen absolutely fake anti-Cruz stories from fake websites, like one a week ago on FR that appeared to be from ABC news—pretty good faked website at first glance, but empty of all other content other than this story, and the URL had an extra character. I’ve seen this from both sides, though. My very wild guess if that about 5 to 10 percent or so might fall into the troll/fake/nonsense categories. Sometimes the goal seems to be to get a fake story either adopted by the candidate, simply to embarrass him (this happened to Trump when his campaign bought into a fake twitter thing that said the guy who rushed the stage was ISIS affiliated.) The gold standard all these guys seem to hope for is when their phony story can break through to the MSM. This worked temporarily for the bogus Cruz National Enquirer story.
I am a Trump supporter, so some will automatically hate me. Yes, there are some obviously bogus anti-Cruz stuff here (two or three common themes pushed by about 20 guys, everybody knows who they are). But I really believe that the obvious troll/fake stuff has very little effect on either candidate.
However, never in my life have I seen such a concerted media attack against one guy as is aimed at Trump, from the NY Times to the supposed “conservative” media. When the GOPe started “StopTrump” they meant it, and they are throwing everything they have. Complaints about “bots” and minor league stuff like that seems pretty darned small in the face of what Trump faces from almost every quarter. Just my two cents.
Well I guess you’re right. Under your standard neither has Mr. Trump. What has he done. Not a damn thing.
Even Mr. Trump’s home state of New York is crawling with illegals. In fact New York City is a Sanctuary City. He has done nothing.
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