Must read --two year old article in Boston Globe on paid bloggers infiltrating political boards!

Please don't hesitate to click on the link and read the whole article---it's very relevant to the debates we see online every day!

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/02/23/political_bloggers_fear_publicists_will_infiltrate_sites/

....maybe a sock puppet, shill, or a troll -- Web slang for bloggers who pretend to be grass-roots political commentators but instead are paid public relations agents.

The author of the pro-McCain articles on Redstate.com, Erickson determined after a Google search, was a Michigan political operative whose firm worked for McCain's political action committee.

With big corporations now hiring public relations firms to pay fake bloggers to plant favorable opinions of the businesses online, many political bloggers are concerned that candidates, too, will hire people to pretend to be grass-roots citizens expressing views.

"This is going to happen more and more, and blogs are going to have to be vigilant," Erickson said in an interview. "I expect there will be commenters jumping in and trying to build negative campaigns to cause scandal for the other side. That's my fear."

<snip>

10, 9, 8, ....

It's just an article that talks of the existence of paid bloggers.

Read them side by side, and you'll see you're 100% incorrect.

It's a message board.

Other than that, trust me on this - paying people to post comments is far from lucrative and ends up being a waste of money for the payer.

I'm sure a lot of DU's members do read a lot of political blogs. This is just a heads up to everyone who does.

The pay for posting on boards and blogs is terrible and mostly attracts people living in third world countries. If anything, the majority of of these types of efforts are on the behalf of pharma spammers.

But you go ahead and believe some trend article bullshit.

Why so defensive?

I just happen to know a little something about how the web works. Read Susan Faludi's "Backlash" sometime and educate yourself on the ridiculousness of trend articles.

It seems pretty easy to do and would be silly for a party who is known to engage every dirty trick in the book not to.

I just take it for granted they do it. It called psych ops and it is about demoralizing the "enemy". It softens up the opposition to make it easier for them to win. I would be surprised if it doesn't happen in both directions.

That's right. I'm a paid commentor. I make meellions of munnies posting on DU. I work for evil peeple in the country of Richiestan. They have super awesome tracking software that can tell every time I unrec a post on DU.

You guys crack me up.

They seem to only post about guns.

Who knew...? :rofl:

Maybe the article is no longer available on line.
I hope it is still available because I want to send it to a friend. We were talking about political postings appearing at very non-political sites. I thought it might be part of a paid campaign.

But you know, don't be a "tin-foiler" and believe that my earlier thread had anything to do with it. Here's a larger part of the article from another source:

Political bloggers fear publicists will infiltrate sites

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2...

By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent | February 23, 2007

WASHINGTON --

...continued

With big corporations now hiring public relations firms to pay fake bloggers to plant favorable opinions of the businesses online, many political bloggers are concerned that candidates, too, will hire people to pretend to be grass-roots citizens expressing views.

"This is going to happen more and more, and blogs are going to have to be vigilant," Erickson said in an interview. "I expect there will be commenters jumping in and trying to build negative campaigns to cause scandal for the other side. That's my fear."

The Internet has already become a prime target for such manipulation. Tom Rosenstiel , the director of Project for Excellence in Journalism , said the growing influence of political blogs, combined with the relative ease of posting negative information anonymously, make them "irresistible for dirty tricks and attack politics."

"Candidates, history shows, will do anything they can to win. The only downside to a candidate is getting caught," he said. But the downside for blogs could be far greater, because the blogs' credibility rests on the idea that they represent unvarnished grass-roots opinion. "Campaigns and organizations promote their candidates and efforts, obviously," Markos Moulitsas , the founder of DailyKos.com , a prominent liberal blog, said in an e-mailed response. "If they do it openly, it's well accepted. If they use sock puppets ( create aliases to hide their identities), then it's a big deal."

:shrug:

I'd name names but there's a no calling out rule.

They're not all right wingers.

No, let me put that another way.

They're not all right wing Republicans.

Know what I mean?

Following the health care videos on youtube, I have went through the comments sections and will see a couple of users constantly posting to numerous videos for 24 hours at a time. They also occasionally mark as spam your rebuttal to them. Check the 'Billionaires for Wealthcare' videos.

Man, but y'all are a fuckin determined lot, aren't you?

Alas, most of the candidates I usually support can afford to pay their staff let alone bloggers.

Determined, misguided in the extreme, imo, but determined none the less.

Oh, and unreced (without pay even)

:rofl:

Political bloggers fear publicists will infiltrate sites

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2...

By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent | February 23, 2007

WASHINGTON --

...continued...

With big corporations now hiring public relations firms to pay fake bloggers to plant favorable opinions of the businesses online, many political bloggers are concerned that candidates, too, will hire people to pretend to be grass-roots citizens expressing views.

"This is going to happen more and more, and blogs are going to have to be vigilant," Erickson said in an interview. "I expect there will be commenters jumping in and trying to build negative campaigns to cause scandal for the other side. That's my fear."

The Internet has already become a prime target for such manipulation. Tom Rosenstiel , the director of Project for Excellence in Journalism , said the growing influence of political blogs, combined with the relative ease of posting negative information anonymously, make them "irresistible for dirty tricks and attack politics."

"Candidates, history shows, will do anything they can to win. The only downside to a candidate is getting caught," he said. But the downside for blogs could be far greater, because the blogs' credibility rests on the idea that they represent unvarnished grass-roots opinion. "Campaigns and organizations promote their candidates and efforts, obviously," Markos Moulitsas , the founder of DailyKos.com , a prominent liberal blog, said in an e-mailed response. "If they do it openly, it's well accepted. If they use sock puppets ( create aliases to hide their identities), then it's a big deal."

You were too busy misreading it and getting defensive to take note that you are not pasting the whole link into your post.

I am feeling a real ad hominen coming on.

Will try to edit my original. Again, my bad. :)

I don't care about the unrec feature, but there have been many instances of paid blogger/talk show caller/talk show host/message board post advocacy from the right since 2006 and I have not kept a handy list. I'm sure I have DU threads bookmarked, but I have hundreds of those. I hope this thread shakes loose some other reports.

BTW, I recced this thread because of the paid RW blogger aspect.

So, if you know you're not one and you only talk to yourself, you will be safe, otherwise, take your chances with the rest of us.

I could use some extra cash right now.

If they can do it . . . . .

I guess I was too obvious. :rofl:

:rofl:

to my daughter when she was little.

Having said that, it looks inoffensive. As long as it's not overtly sexual, it doesn't have the same connotations to a child. It can even help them to deal with things that children in a more repressed environment might become neurotic about.

My daughter used to love going to Marrakesh, a Morrocan restaurant in DC. We took my evangelical parents along once, and they were shocked when the belly dancer came out. My mother said "how are you going to explain this to Angie?" But there was no need -- Angie didn't see it on a sexual level just enjoyed the performance. She grew up sensible and much less repressed than I did.

for the stripper doll thread.

God, I certainly got those two replies mixed up!

with over 1000 posts too.

He'll slip up one day. Repukes aren't that clever.

There's a ton of those mo fo disinfo agents here on DU. :puke: