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A Penny For My Thoughts: How The Right Uses Paid Commenters to Manipulate Public Opinion And Trash Free Speech

By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger

Fascinating book out by NPR media reporter, David Folkenflik, entitled Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires that explores the strange world of publisher Rupert Murdoch. Gobbler of such English-speaking newspapers as The News of The World, The Sun, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times, Murdoch is mostly known for his media collaboration with Roger Ailes in the development and promotion of Fox News, the Right’s mouthpiece of choice. Until his inglorious dismount from credibility in the London Phone Hacking scandal where a Murdoch newspaper employee was convicted of hacking the telephone voice mails of murdered British teenager, Milly Dowler, Murdoch had personified all that is unseemly about tabloid journalism. The personification of Charles Foster Kane, Murdoch fed the Right the red meat of dissention blending news with opinion and relying on practices that were criticized by honest journalists (even conservative ones) around the world calling it right-leaning tabloidism (here).

His right-wing pabulum had the desired effect when a media study by researchers at the University of Maryland found that regular Fox News viewers were more misinformed about American politics than viewers of any other channel. (here). Fox News immediately responded with this “substantive” reply about the merits of the study:

“The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”

As the Huffington Post notes, “For the record, the Princeton Review says the University of Maryland ranks among the ‘Best Northeastern Colleges,” Stelter notes. “It was No. 19 on the Review’s list of ‘Best Party Schools.” (here). Misinformation,it seems, extends beyond the viewership and all the way up to the executive suites at Fox News.

For his part, the foreign-born Murdoch calmly states his place in American politics as the savior of  the GOP. In an interview with Fortune magazine, Murdoch makes that point (here):

Fortune: “Does it bother you at all, Rupert, that there is a view that Fox News has contributed in a big way to the political discontent in the U.S., degraded the political process, and maybe, in spotlighting the Tea Party, even hurt the Republican Party?”

Murdoch: “It has certainly given voice and hope to people who didn’t like all that liberal championing thrown at them on CNN. I think it has absolutely saved it. It has certainly given voice and hope to people who didn’t like all that liberal championing thrown at them on CNN. “

Voice, indeed, as in Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and the myriad of right-wing pundits who keep up a very public drumbeat of Republican position points. Nothing much new there but the fascinating part of Folkenflick’s book is not the public manipulation of stories and ideas but instead the shadow war being waged on fair-minded internet blogs and their like-minded commenters by the paid flacks from Fox News and other Right-wing organizations. Folkenflik  says shills in Fox’s online PR staff maintained between twenty and a hundred fake profiles on each social media account. The fake commenters then used the accounts to promote right-wing agendas.

And it’s not just the hacks on the payroll at Fox News that get into the act but piece workers are recruited into the slime as well. Freelance writer Randa Morris describes the recruitment process:

I have encountered hundreds of help wanted postings for fake right-wing bloggers, paid commenters and bogus survey takers. Most of the positions pay between five and ten cents a post. The “paid commenters” ads usually appear on international freelancing sites, meaning you do not have to live in the United States to help push the tea party agenda here. (here)

Here’s an example of a Craig’s List ad purporting to seek out paid commenters to hawk right-wing talking points (Right click and Use the “Open Image In New Tab” for a better view):

Could this be fake? In the ether of internet guerilla warfare, everything is dubious but we have to admit the possibly it’s true in view of Folkenflik’s book. The placement in a Canadian Craig’s List  lends some credence to Randa Morris’  proposition that foreign recruiters are alive and well in the blog-o-sphere seeking paid commenters.

Folkenflik details that right-wing commenters are using fake profiles and they are getting paid.  He also notes the shadowy tactics used to hide true identities such as wireless broadband connections to block tracing the comments back to their sources. It’s long been known that so-called reputation management firms garner up to $10,000.00 per month to scrub unflattering (and often true) stories about its clients off the internet. (You can read a great exposition of this in the New York Magazine here). It’s no long stretch to conclude that what can be taken away can just as easily be injected into the dialog.

Folkenflik explains that the paid commenters don’t just stick to Fox News blogs but spread out through the internet to spew the talking points and drive off real commenters. The tactics are vicious personal attacks with the goal of stifling liberal or moderate points of view. The attacks usually come in packs and are both immediate and bullying. And since many liberal to moderate voices are well-educated folks with little desire for direct verbal confrontation, the tactics work:

 “They respond to normal people in the comments sections of any number of web-sites, often with aggressive and insulting attacks.Gawker reports that its site is one of many that has been targeted by Fox’s paid commenters, otherwise known as social media trolls. According to Gawker, Folkenflik said that when he was at Fox “even blogs with minor followings were reviewed to ensure no claim went unchecked. The point of these fake commenters is not just to push a specific agenda. It’s also to deceive the unsuspecting public about the actual amount of support that exists for that agenda. Paid commenters use vicious attacks against anyone who posts an opposing opinion. Eventually the attacks have the effect of driving people with opposite views away from the targeted sites. This allows them to dominate the web with their fake profiles, while at the same time discouraging real people from participating in the discussion.” (here)

Armed with this info how do we spot a paid troll versus an ideologue? Here’s my checklist:

1. Immediate response to contrary views.

2. Huge volume of comments.

3. Provocative personal attacks.

4. Gloating over driving people away from the blog.

5. Fawning deference to the blog host to ensure continued ability to post.

6. False professions of fair mindedness as shown over time.

7. Ganging up with other trolls to intimidate.

8. Avoiding the merits of a piece to attack the author or supporter.

9. Similar postings across the web on other sites

10. Stalking opposing commenters to obtain personal information and revealing that information.

 

You think ISIS is a direct threat to our democracy? Look closer to home.

 

Sourced Throughout

~Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger

Kudos to Gene Howington for educating me on the perils and politics of propaganda with his contributions on this blog and sparking my interest.

By the way and for better or worse, the views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays of art are solely the author’s decision and responsibility. No infringement of intellectual property rights is intended and will be remedied upon notice from the owner. Fair use is however asserted for such inclusions of quotes, excerpts, photos, art, and the like.

 

 

316 thoughts on “A Penny For My Thoughts: How The Right Uses Paid Commenters to Manipulate Public Opinion And Trash Free Speech”

  1. @Els Dl

    Yeah, but where else do you get great, high class poetry like this to help you remember those Good Old Days of BC (before conservatives)???

    The Echo Chambers of Yesteryear
    A Poem by Squeeky Fromm

    The Echo Chambers of Yesteryear
    Are calling to me now.
    The comforting sounds of my own voice
    To soothe my weary brow.

    Voices echoing my own thoughts
    Reverberate around.
    I lay my head upon my hands
    And listen to the sound.

    And nary one dischordant note
    Is plucked within this womb.
    No flats, no sharps, unless in key
    Are heard within this room.

    And here, my mind in safe repose
    In silken threads is twirled
    As Echo Chambers of Yesteryear
    Cocoon me from the World.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  3. Professor Turley, for a man with your intellect and integrity, I am blown away with your unwillingness to admit that this site which often brings up issues I care about, has become just another site to sling mud at one another. Once you went all out in defense of the commenters on the right you traded in good, decent discussions for mindless drivel, which is what Fox News (mostly opinion) does. I stopped watching Fox News a long time ago. I only turn on the channel to show what they do to any non-Americans visiting me. They always start laughing at the circus it is and immediately recognize the age-old tactic of using sex to sell news. They laugh the hardest with the ‘fair’ panels where one out of four or five has to defend the other side of an issue. My visitors ask me why everyone on the screen wears so much make-up, yells so much and in the end they ask me to turn off the TV.
    Dredd, thank you for the information, not that I didn’t know it already.
    Paul Shulte: show me your credentials and your life-long work as a scientist and a peer reviewer of scientific studies and I will gladly read your comments on here re: climate change, evolution etc.
    I just skip reading most of what you write here for it just adds nothing to a serious conversation.

    1. Els DL – Michael Mann is gaming the system and if you are unwilling to see that then it only shows that you are not as open minded as you pretend to be. The emails showed he and his minions closed off the peer-reviewed journals to only those that he and the minions peer-reviewed. They actually threatened (extorted) other journals to keep out scientists that did not agree with them.
      I am not a scientist, never claimed to be a scientist. But I think Micheal Mann should be fired from wherever he is currently working and never allowed to work in the field of paleoclimatology again. I think he is a fraud.
      BTW, what are your credentials in the field?

  5. There are other strange methods of PTD (partisan thread defense). Here is an Irish Poem for one of my favorite libs here:

    Advanced Avonics???
    An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm

    There once was a liberal tard 🙂
    For whom argumentation was hard.
    A failure at logic,
    He waxed pedagogic
    And went around quoting the The Bard.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  7. OH – somehow you think that progressives use logic. However, it has been my experience that they use emotion rather than logic. Logic just gets in the way.

  11. {quote}Nick Spinelli
    The very liberal, but fiercely intellectually honest, Christopher Hitchens spoke eloquently about the savagery of liberals. Hitchens was blasted by liberal “friends” when he would skewer the Clintons. But, he said it was nothing like the venom spewed when he supported Bush for going into Iraq. Close “friends” abandoned him. I see the same dynamic here w/ JT and Obama. The intellectually honest JT goes after Obama for his lawlessness just as he did Bush. But, his liberal “friends” have abandoned him. Lockstep is required to be part of the liberal club. {quote}

    I think you mean ‘Goose Step’ Nick.

  12. Max:

    I’m familiar with Hayhoe. It’s a shame that she gets hate mail from fellow evangelicals because of her scientific views.

  13. Max-1

    No, don’t shut up. That is not what I meant, Maybe just keep the info that you provide to an amount that can reasonably be read. If you have a really good link to something, and you surround it with 2 dozen or more so-so links, then who is going to spend enough time to find the really good one???

    Maybe you should also consider doing your own blog. They are free at wordpress. That way you could organize your information and provide a single link to each topic or subtopic. Like warming in California on one post, and rising sea levels on another. That would permit you to go deeper into each topic. IMO.

    1. Max-1 – the exposure time on those photos from the early to mid 1800s was several minutes. The pictures of the Civil War are of dead bodies, not because they could not have found live ones, but they needed a longer exposure time. In fact, they actually had things to hold your head steady, so they didn’t have to take your picture a second time.

  15. Penelope Dreadful,
    Then don’t brush…
    … And smile for the camera.

    p.s.
    You know why old black and white photos from the 1800’s where people aren’t smiling? Yep, they weren’t brushing and many were missing teeth, so it became acceptable to not SMILE for the camera.

  16. p.s.
    That video of that H2O mass from Typhoon Phanfone hitting the West Coast is brought to us by the very same scientists that are reporting the climate changes.

    1. Max-1 – Michael Mann is a paleoclimatologist, a very small incestual field. To prove Climate Change you have to have a historical record of climate, hence Michael Mann’s importance to the field. Unlike a real scientist who puts his data out for others to duplicate, Mann has protected his and has had his last university protect it as proprietary work product. This is not the action of a scientist, this is the action of a propagandist.

        1. Max-1 – my friend, have you read the emails that were hijacked between Michael Mann and his minions? Personally, I thought it was going to get them fired. However, I was wrong. I am not a scientist, but I follow science closely. Everyday something like the chocolate is good for you arrives in my mailbox. A week from now chocolate will be bad for you. Both will be published in peer-reviewed journals. Last week I got an article that said that 70% of science writing was crap. And I have to agree. 🙂

          If I control the peer-review journals, how pure are the results coming out the journals? That is what the Michael Mann emails told us. They made sure that no one who disagreed with them could get published in a peer-reviewed journal. And they all peer-reviewed each others stuff. Talk about a circle jerk. And peer-review is not a rigorous as you think it is. Since it is voluntary and unpaid the quality is uneven. In most cases they are only looking for serious mistakes, not really looking at the data.

  20. Paul C.
    You are the reason I don’t quote Mr. Mann…
    Instead, I’ll happily quote others, yet you still hate on Mr. Mann’s work.
    Interesting to psychoanalyze that one…

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