Does ANYONE here SERIOUSLY believe that DU is full of paid trolls?
Last edited Mon Jan 5, 2015, 04:50 PM - Edit history (1)
It is no secret that there are people who work for candidates and causes who post on Internet forums to advance their candidates and causes. But there seems to be a suggestion from some quarters that there are a number of people here who either work for corporate interest to advance a pro-corporate Democratic agenda or who secretly work for the Republicans to try to suppress voter turnout by undermining support for the Democratic Party and its leadership.
Is it not possible that people can be wrong for free? Maybe there are some paid trolls - But I doubt it. At least not very many.
bacon
| 85 votes, 4 passes | Time left: Unlimited | |
| Yes, there are a number of paid trolls working on DU | |
50 (59%) |
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| Come on! That is ridiculous. There might be a few. But people simply hold different opinions. They don't have to be paid for it. | |
28 (33%) |
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| Canadian bacon and British back bacon are far superior as a breakfast dish. But American streaky bacon works better as a flavorizer on a number of items from Roasted Brussels Sprouts to Clam Chowder. | |
7 (8%) |
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| 4 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided. | |
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Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll |
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= new reply since forum marked as read
might see a "pay cut" 
Comrade Putin says I'm getting a raise for 2015, he's very impressed that I've done such a good job of throwing people off my trail.
since if anything trolls, paid or otherwise, just entrench people in their existing opinions. I enjoy the thought of Republicans wasting their money though 
If he hadn't of won all of DUs polls, he never would have been elected.
He was elected as president, right?
One stop news----
oh, and---
And also to have the constant reminder that damn, there really are some sharp people in the World...
And the other reminder that, fuck, there are some idiots out there will believe anything!
there are sharp people in the World. Don't worry though, we've got your back.
That's a bad habit of yours.
I'd expect my DU minder to at least attempt to be honest!
I could name a couple; those that show up for primaries with very well organized points, then disappear for 4 years...until the next presidential primary.
Pro-corporate trolls? I never considered it. I suppose it's possible.
How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations
By Glenn Greenwald
The Intercept, 24 Feb 2014
One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.
Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations.”
SNIP...
Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums. Here is one illustrative list of tactics from the latest GCHQ document we’re publishing today:
SNIP...
No matter your views on Anonymous, “hacktivists” or garden-variety criminals, it is not difficult to see how dangerous it is to have secret government agencies being able to target any individuals they want – who have never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crimes – with these sorts of online, deception-based tactics of reputation destruction and disruption. There is a strong argument to make, as Jay Leiderman demonstrated in the Guardian in the context of the Paypal 14 hacktivist persecution, that the “denial of service” tactics used by hacktivists result in (at most) trivial damage (far less than the cyber-warfare tactics favored by the US and UK) and are far more akin to the type of political protest protected by the First Amendment.
CONTINUED w/links, sources, details...
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
Something I don't believe it did that when I first found it......The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, seems to have legalized the formerly illegal Operation MOCKINGBIRD in the name of national security post-9/11. Here's a little more of the story:
US Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans
by John Hudson
Foreign Policy, July 14, 2013
EXCERPT...
"They don't shy away from stories that don't shed the best light on the United States," she told The Cable. She pointed to the charters of VOA and RFE: "Our journalists provide what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate."
A former U.S. government source with knowledge of the BBG says the organization is no Pravda, but it does advance U.S. interests in more subtle ways. In Somalia, for instance, VOA serves as counterprogramming to outlets peddling anti-American or jihadist sentiment. "Somalis have three options for news," the source said, "word of mouth, al-Shabab, or VOA Somalia."
This partially explains the push to allow BBG broadcasts on local radio stations in the United States. The agency wants to reach diaspora communities, such as St. Paul, Minnesota's significant Somali expat community. "Those people can get al-Shabab, they can get Russia Today, but they couldn't get access to their taxpayer-funded news sources like VOA Somalia," the source said. "It was silly."
Lynne added that the reform has a transparency benefit as well. "Now Americans will be able to know more about what they are paying for with their tax dollars -- greater transparency is a win-win for all involved," she said. And so with that we have the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, and went into effect this month.
But if anyone needed a reminder of the dangers of domestic propaganda efforts, the past 12 months provided ample reasons. Last year, two USA Today journalists were ensnared in a propaganda campaign after reporting about millions of dollars in back taxes owed by the Pentagon's top propaganda contractor in Afghanistan. Eventually, one of the co-owners of the firm confessed to creating phony websites and Twitter accounts to smear the journalists anonymously. Additionally, just this month, the Washington Post exposed a counter-propaganda program by the Pentagon that recommended posting comments on a U.S. website run by a Somali expat with readers opposing al-Shabab. "Today, the military is more focused on manipulating news and commentary on the Internet, especially social media, by posting material and images without necessarily claiming ownership," reported the Post.
But for BBG officials, the references to Pentagon propaganda efforts are nauseating, particularly because the Smith-Mundt Act never had anything to do with regulating the Pentagon, a fact that was misunderstood in media reports in the run-up to the passage of new Smith-Mundt reforms in January.
[font color="red"]One example included a report by the late BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hastings, who suggested that the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act would open the door to Pentagon propaganda of U.S. audiences. In fact, as amended in 1987, the act only covers portions of the State Department engaged in public diplomacy abroad (i.e. the public diplomacy section of the "R" bureau, and the Broadcasting Board of Governors.)[/font color]
CONTINUED...
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/12/us_backs_off_propaganda_ban_spreads_government_made_news_to_americans
Here's another source with the complete article:
http://www.alipac.us/f12/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-americans-283470/
So, there's that.
It looks so pretty just dragging across the clear waters, trying to lure with it's BAIT?
You know what those MASTERFUL people love doing for absolutely NO money?
… 
Thanks master!
Who's the master?
YOU da master!
That sets me apart from trolls who seldom include links in their posts. Here's an example:
JFK Conference: James DiEugenio made clear how Foreign Policy changed after November 22, 1963
As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend the Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy at Duquesne University. One of the many important things discussed there was what author, historian and teacher, James DiEugenio reported on the important change in foreign policy JFK represented from his predecessor and his successors, immediate and otherwise.
DiEugenio said President John F. Kennedy did not undergo a change of heart from Cold War hawk to liberal dove Democrat only after the hair-raising nuclear crises he experienced in office. "John F. Kennedy was never a Cold Warrior," DiEugenio said. Throughout his 16-year career in the House and Senate, President Kennedy sided with the People, Justice and Democracy -- across the United States and around the world. This is a world view radically different from Eisenhower, and his foreign policy makers, principally the Dulles Brothers and their allies, including young Dick Nixon.
The JFK Administration may have represented a break in the action, H20 Man's Father explained to him and I agree. It was a special interlude, indeed. In only 1,037 days, we launched the nation toward the moon, creating a new type of economy; maintained the peace when several times the heads of the military and the secret organs of the national security state counseled all-out war; and started the nation on a path where all men are equal under the law, no matter race, color, or creed, and justice extended to economics and health, as under FDR and the New Deal.
DiEugenio’s research shows President Kennedy was working to defend the interests of democracy over those of colonialism, not only in Europe, as evinced in divided Berlin, but in Africa, Asia, South America and around the world. During less than three years in office, Kennedy turned official U.S. support from that of Eisenhower and the Dulles Brothers for supporting US commercial and colonial interests over democracy, such as in Guatemala and Iran, to respect for the nations and their democratically elected leaders, like Lumumba and Sukarno. In matters of war and peace, JFK always sided with peace, making overtures to North Vietnam. The Dulles Brothers and Nixon sided with France and the colonial powers, even drawing up plans to nuke the North Vietnamese Army at Dien Bien Phu, Operation VULTURE.
The record shows JFK's Foreign Policy of democracy over colonialism was immediately reversed by Lyndon B. Johnson, who reversed course in Vietnam and supported the pro-colonialist forces in Congo, Vietnam, Brazil, Dominican Republic and elsewhere around the world. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and most who followed continued the Business-As-Usual, advancing the interests of Big Money, Big Oil and Big Wars for Profit.
One of the things I am most proud of is how Democratic Underground covered many of these salient points on its boards, from DU1 through the present day. At the Duquesne conference, I was listening and nodding, knowing that many times we had discussed this on DU. In looking back to one particularly important post through GOOGLE, I found we sourced this information back to DiEugenio. That's what the Internet can do: Spread Truth.
Why it matters.
Democracy depends on Truth. The Republic depends on Justice. That is, the reality that ours is a nation under law.
Once a criminal is, or criminals are, allowed to go free, Justice has been denied. We find ourselves operating under a falsehood, we are living a Big Lie.
We as a Nation have been on the criminal path since November 22, 1963.
DUers know you don’t need to read a history book or watch a tee vee special to know: It shows. Since 1964 and the Gulf of Tonkin, it’s been a series of wars without end for profit. And in the process, the rich became super-rich -- the richest and most powerful people in history.
Thanks for reading. Keep spreading the Truth, DU! The next 50 years can be different -- they can be decades of peace and prosperity for ALL: They can be Democratic.
So, links are like all those times I've asked you to show DU where I'm wrong. And you don't.
My prediction was spot on!
Or maybe this one:
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There's this one, used to be StarburstClock and just1voice, that's particularly kooky.
Sid
The idea that DU is full of people paid to disrupt here is absurd and conspiracy theory nonsense. The various discussion boards, both left and right wing, have minimal impact in elections or how our elected officials choose to do their jobs.
The 1% has all the money in the world to pay people to advance their agenda, so why waste an oportunity?
And yes, of course, people can be very wrong for free.
That's what the MSM and trolls are for. To help convince people be wrong for free. They present lipstick on a pig RW propaganda to gullible people so that these gullible people will never be able to figure out that the 1% is totally fucking them.
Ever notice how a certain group of posters here is always trying to convince people to "OBEY" ?
"They" live. 
Thanks for that.
That someone working for the PTA would post. (Paid Troll Asociation)
But Kevin Bacon in not a payed troll .
So you want more of us to simply think our fellow DUers are 'batshit crazy' and not actually working in their own self-interests?
But I feel as you do when I heard there were centrist groups paying posters and I missed out on that. 
yummy!
Didn't you get the forms to fill out?
With so many willing to troll for free? 
I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing.
Which financial/political entities have no socially acceptable ethics, the most motivation, and unlimited resources, to pay people to post duplicitous pro-corporate, pro status quo center-right propaganda here, in order to attempt to sway opinions on a website like DU, a website primarily caters to a Democratic party affiliated membership?
(Hint: It's definitely not Occupy Wall Street, or the Progressive Democrats of America).
If this entity can't get people to vote republican, what's the next best group to get people to vote for?
Conservative, pro-corporate Democrats, of course. The idea is to neutralize the Democratic party in order to make it ineffective as an entity that protects Americans from predatory business practices that cause economic equality and injustice, and are environmentally destructive, etc. They have no problem with any Democratic party policy that does not go against the wishes of the global financial centers, but will attempt to derail support for all populist/liberal candidates, individuals, and ideas. They won't outright attack things like social security, labor unions, etc., because everyone would immediately suspect troll. They are generally cleverly subtle, and indirect in their veiled attacks on traditional Democratic party institutions. Again, the main focus of their posts will be to maintain and protect the interests and power of the global Military Industrial Corporate Establishment.
Everyone has a motivation for posting. Ask, "What is it that motivated this person to post this?". If it quacks like a duck, there's good reason to suspect it might be a duck.
You can identify them by the things that they never post and have never posted, as well as what they post. There are some posters who are simply dedicated sycophants, who fall in love with personalities and will never admit that their beloved is not perfect; they're not trolls, they are simply flat out blind in love with Elvis, or the "Team", or whatever/whoever. These posters are easy to distinguish from the paid or dedicated volunteer trolls. The trolls primarily prey on this type of personality.
Everyone else pretty much already knows who the corporate trolls are.
