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.,
accounts that seem to exist solely to attack those with unfavorable views of The Donald
More Jump Trump crap.
America.
Influencers? Who anointed them and why shouldn't they be "flustered" if they support something I don't.
I also stopped reading at this point. Why are liberals so incredibly long winded? Using 2,000 words where 100 will do.
Insulting others seems to have some cathartic affect on them.
More worthless attacks on a man who wants to stop the illegal alien invasion.
Who are you voting for and what will they do about the borders and did they say the same thing before Trump started winning?
Be the bigger person and stop doing it first.
All Cruz are belong to Trump.
If you are addressing me personally, go back and look at my posting history.
That vaunted sCruz “ground game” has been matched in spades, by TRUMP’s online electronic army.
Wait until what happened in Michigan today gets on the road tomorrow.
TRUMP and Kasich shut out sCruz of his 8 candidates for MI eight spots on the National Committee!
SHUT OUT!!!
Kasich colluded with TRUMP to block Cruz and BOOM!
We are playing Cruz games now, both in the Air and on the Ground.
TRUMP 2016
ChiComs have done this for a long time too.
It’s obvious Trump is doing this.
“The reader may remember Trump’s campaign was busted paying individuals to attend his early rallies.”
No, in fact I do not recall this, I think it is untrue.
Also the writer makes a claim about Trump buying accounts but has no proof
How stupid is this author?
The man came out with a KO announcement speech on 6/16/2015, telling Americans what no other corrupt insider lawyer turned career politician would even whisper prior to Trumps announcement.
They simply don't get it.
Here on FR Trumpsters have nothing on the Cruz Brigade.
Their means-spirited attacks began more than 15 months ago.
For a long time I questioned why Cruz seemed so nice, and his supporters so mean spirited.
I’m a bit of a slow learner at times, turns out his supporters have the same spirit as Cruz himself, he just managed to keep it hidden longer.
I think I remember that they investigated and at least 2/3rd of Obama’s Twitter followers were fake, i.e. bought and paid for media.
Cheaper than TV ads I guess and I suppose some think Twitter has more influence on the younger generations.
I frequent LI. Kimberlee absolutely HATES Trump. Wm. Jacobson (site owner) is also no fan, but not nearly as rabid as KK.
One of the Trump hating posters there is the most obnoxious, vile, and profane of the “lawyers” that comment there.
I simply posted an indiputable cite to something he was denying happened and he immediately went into deranged name calling and insults,
So happy to learn this...now I know how they have moved in on free republic. Meanness seems to be what they all have in common, that a pure hate for Cruz. Unreasonable.
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