There really ARE professional disruptors

[Stephanie]

What do you make of this? Anyone heard of this before, know of any other sources?

http://www.technomania.com/

New Media Communications conceptualizes, builds, and implements INternet strategies & solutions.

Our political practice group consults for Republican party campaigns and party organizations in the United States and center and center-right parties around the world, continuing to pioneer new initiatives online.



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Research - competition monitoring, market research, news group monitoring, Internet trends monitoring, site evaluation, site traffic monitoring, site analysis, and site reporting

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[plurality]

1. i'm not one who usally goes for hackers and such

but if someone tore up these fuckers sites I wouldn't shed a single tear.

[aquart]

2. Wonder if they're doing any hiring?

Really, how do they get their staff?

Can they be infiltrated?

[NYC]

3. Apply for a job.

See what happens.

[ParanoidPat]

5. Someone had posted a link to a want ad some time ago....

....right here on DU! You better believe there are professional disrupters here. Your best bet is to learn how they operate and use them to highlight your search skills! :evilgrin:
They seem to have a hard time answering the truth. :)

[Stephanie]

7. It's something to keep in mind when we see repug talking points

slyly posed as innocent questions on our boards.

[ParanoidPat]

21. Bingo!

Watch for the 'innocent' flame wars to break out, typically when there is some action here starting to gain momentum. Case in point, watch the Black Box Voting threads. Whenever we start posting about something that might stick you can watch the same group of posters start in with the heavy :tinfoilhat: BS about the Wellstone crash, the WTC collapse, etc.
The purpose of those threads is obvious, discredit the people who frequent this site.
You'll also notice there are a few people who just can't help but to post threads about gun laws, religion, abortion and which candidate is the best in their humble opinion that are phrased in such a way as to start a flame war! I hardly spend any time responding to posts here because there are so many 'members' that have anything but liberal opinions. :(

[qanda]

24. I honestly had that thought yesterday

When someone posted a thread about banning those who start threads with 911 conspiracy theories.

[TruthIsAll]

14. There are a few at DU who I strongly believe are professional disruptors

They always come out of the woodwork when there is a post which raises legitimate questions of malfeasance by the Bush Cabal.

[juajen]

27. I think those that have a hard time with the truth

are the amateurs. The professionals are harder to discover. We should all be careful and not give them what they want, which is to make us dislike each other, while they pretend to be supporting our candidates. Everyone keep your cool and remember democratic unity.

[Stephanie]

8. That's what I'd like to know

If they're infiltrating us, let's infiltrate them!

[ParanoidPat]

41. Don't infiltrate them, EXPOSE them.....

.....for what they are and what they're doing! :evilgrin:
Don't waste time going after them, stay focused on being the change you wish to see in the world. Organize and inform! That's what DU is all about. :)

[FredScuttle]

4. Ratfucking for the 21st century

Nixon must be grinning...in between his hourly anal probes in Hell.

[Clete]

6. Yeah, I first ran into them on boards

discussing universal health care on various women's sites before Hillary Clinton had introduced her plan. They could infiltrate a board, redirect people to another website they had created with all kinds of scares them about how terrible national health care was in other countries. How Canadians were coming down here by busloads to use our health care. How the British were dying for lack of health care. How terrible the government was at running things. Look at Medicare. Look at the DMV.

I frequented many of these type of sites before Bush was selected. It was always the same. When you had a consensus of posters agreeing that we needed this type of health care, the disruptors would arrive with all the cassandra like warnings and no facts. When you presented them with real facts and figures they accused you of using doctored numbers from suspicious sources. Yeah like the government sites from Canada and Great Britain are so unreliable.

I made an effort to try to trace them to the HMO, Insurance and drug industries. The dots weren't easy to connect but I did get some indication that the above entities were hiring public relations firms to do their dirty work for them so therefore they wouldn't appear to have been guilty of this chicanery. Since a cancelled check from the health care company to the PR company would be needed as absolute proof I can only say this is what is happening, but it isn't hard to spot them once you are attuned to the attacks.

[Stephanie]

10. Interesting

How did you trace them? I guess by backtracking from the sites they were posting?

[Clete]

19. One of the websites they had put up actually

had ads from a well-know HMO and pharmaceutical cos. The address that I was able to trace on one of the websites was to a PR firm. The websites usually disappear soon after without a trace. The PR firms of course don't talk about their client list if you ask. Since I am not a journalist or detective this was enough for me to know what was happening.

I contented myself from then on to destroying the credibility of any poster who had the suspicious talking points. One poster even put up a whole table of actuary figures. No connection to the insurance industry there, no sir, he claimed.

Of course after election 2000 and 9-11. Healthcare isn't even an important issue to the corporate health industry. They know as long as they have their boy George in office, they don't have to worry about it.

Incidentally, California is getting very close to passing a single payer health care system for Californians. Could this have something to do with the recall?

[stevedeshazer]

31. Question, Clete

Hillary Clinton introduced her health care plan in 1993, ten years ago. Are you saying these types were on the Internet in 1993?

[Clete]

39. Yep. At the time everyone was really interested in

getting national health care. With Clinton elected, the health care industry must have seen the writing on the wall. They may have been the first professionals pr firms at it, the ones hired by the health care industry. I truly believe that this was why Hillary got shot down in flames. At the time we were new to this and naive. I started to get suspicious, when at one website they had put up a poll for those in favor of NHC. The poll was consistently hitting 80% and the discussion board was a lively one of mostly women in favor of this.

Then they came in. Why anything run by the government was bound to fail and the private health care system was better. At the end of three days the poll had dropped to 45% in favor and the board ran out of posters and soon the discussion was shut down and the website went on to other things. The poison pill had worked. After Hillary's plan was flattened, there were discussions here and there on different websites. I tried to get into them when I could. The disruptors always came in and eventually the discussion would be closed. I think this is why Clinton abandoned the whole concept because people could be convinced by these snake oil salesmen that it was a bad idea.

[stevedeshazer]

47. Thanks for the response

I certainly remember the media blitz financed by the insurance corporations, e.g. 'we sure can't afford universal health care' but the net was relatively new, and I didn't know at the time that their astroturf groups were already there. Good post.

[w4rma]

9. ABC's The Note: RNC's/Rove's strategy for interfering in the Dem primary

Circle of Blue
A Political Week More Fun Than an Archie Comic!
…
At some point, somebody should take all the e-mailed press releases from the crackerjack research team at the Republican National Committee attacking the Democratic presidential candidates, print them out, and publish them in a bound, leatherette hard copy edition.

Like a fine Julie Teer quote LINK, or a "Breck Girl" anonymous missile from a "Bush adviser," these releases are intended to make mischief in the Democratic nomination fight — destabilize things as much as they can, dragging the process out as long as possible, trying to produce as weak a Democratic nominee as they can in the end, and basically playing bad cop, so the president can stay above the fray until the last possible moment.

These releases, read in their totality, are brilliant, but they can also cause some cognitive dissonance, because they do hit on some contradictory themes (sometimes, for example, attacking a candidate for being too liberal, but, sometimes, attacking someone for being to conservative).

The main themes are that one or more of the Democratic candidates are:

1. missing too many votes
2. changing their positions
3. itching to raise your taxes
4. inconsistent
5. attacking each other
6. too negative about President Bush (Note the irony!)
7. wimpy, effeminate, and crass
8. obstructionist
9. unconcerned with homeland security
10. borderline communist (ok: we are — pretty much — kidding about that one)

The RNC attacking the Democratic candidates is dog-bites-man, except, pace Karl Rove, this is arguably the most organized operation of this type in the modern era (You should see their tape library!!!).
…
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote_July14.html

[Cocoa]

15. thanks!

what a great list!

Missing too many votes showed up here recently.

One that they missed was "copying from each other" such as stealing each others lines or whatever.

[revcarol]

57. That one is out there too.

Kerry copying Dean, or Dean copying Kerry, or Dean cribbing from Clark...and certain people went ballistic on me when I mentioned that missing votes was a RNC talking point...Oh, we gotta make all those candidates behave like the RNC wants them to, or else!!

[prolesunited]

18. I think this one is particularly relevant

5. attacking each other

Especially around here. I certainly wish it would end.

[onehandle]

11. We knew this in 2000...

The GOP sent operatives into Green and other left leaning forums to encourage them to stick with Nader.

It worked.

[Stephanie]

12. Seriously?

How did you find this out?

[onehandle]

36. It was well known in the last few weeks before the election...

The story was usually connected to the story about the GOP paying to promote Nader on the West Coast. I witnessed them firsthand in the Nader forums. Nader's people flushed the forums quickly after the election. I imagine out of embarrassment.

[punpirate]

13. Another group accused of the same...

... behavior, particularly on environmental boards (on behalf of Monsanto) is The Bivings Group, another PR firm.

Cheers.

[Stephanie]

16. How did you connect the posters with Bivens?

I can't find anything on their site about hiring or posting. What clue led you to find that out?

[punpirate]

40. Pardon? Do you mean...

... posters here? I didn't make that connection. I simply said that the same thing had happened a while back on environmental boards. For some history, just search for "Bivings" (not Bivens) and "Mary Murphy" and "Monsanto."

Cheers.

[Q]

17. It's the privatization of cointelpro...!

- Infiltrate, disrupt, discredit, divide.

- And some are just plain ordinary republicans who are ashamed to associate with their own (neo) party so they call themselves Democrats.

[opihimoimoi]

20. They killed the DNCs board and sure wish they could do it to the DU

I was there man, Hubert Flottz and I was there. Its true, those pro disruptors are up to no good.

Opi

[Stephanie]

22. How did they do it to the DNC?

Couldn't the DNC toss them out? Is that board actually gone, or do you just mean it was ruined?

[opihimoimoi]

26. They allowed the freepers to come and disrupt.

The mods couldn't/wouldn't do anything. It kept getting worse. then during the summer of 01, just before 9/11, I got booted for swearing at a freep who baited me. Thats why I came here at the urging of Flottz. shortly after, the whole DNC Board went up in flames. I just happen to suspect the board got comp'd.

This is a dirty war and it starts in the trenches. Beware guys, there are moles and trolls everywhere.

Opi

[John_H]

49. They ain't getting their money's worth, that's for sure

judging by the quality of the trolls on DU I hope they're not paying them more than minimum wage.

[Cocoa]

23. unity among the democrats is a big priority for you, I can tell

You absolutely HATE it when anyone tries to discredit the dems.

[aquart]

25. You don't?

[Cocoa]

29. I do

I point out good things dems are doing, and I get called "dem loyalist" or "dem apologist" or "dem cheerleader" by a few people.

Always found it strange, at a site called democratic underground, that these are considered bad things by some people here.

[TacticalPeek]

33. Cointel Pro 2004 - Private Edition

n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

28. One way to out them

is to ask them where they shop for their brown suits? Brooks Brothers?

[Booberdawg]

30. I could NAME a few of them for you!

It's been pretty fricking obvious for quite some time now!

Quit falling for it! They start threads with no other reason than to invite discord and resentment. Many of them are new members and always post reasons why you shouldn't be for a certain candidate. (One in particular!!) Notice that none of them are donating members -(disclaimer** not that donations are required to be welcome here).

BEWARE! They also come in sheep's clothing PROMOTING one particular candidate over another. (One in particular!!)

Long time DU members - resist your heartfelt dedication to your well-informed and considered opinions about your choice of candidates and refrain from responding to obvious flame bait! PUH-LEEEEEZE!

Don't get your bowels in an uproar! You are being manipulated! Quit giveing these people rent-free space in your heads!

Watch out for the polls too! You don't have to ever post to be able to vote in a poll. I saw one get over a hundred votes in MINUTES last week with only a few posts on it. BULLSHIT ALERT!! BULLSHIT ALERT!!


Linda *sigh*

[JVS]

32. "Don't get your bowels in an uproar"

Interesting mental image there. :D

[TacticalPeek]

34. (Don't want to be a whistle ass.) n/t

[Booberdawg]

35. LOL! Not a pretty visual, is it?

:wow:

[grasswire]

38. excellent catch, Steph! (EOM)

[Stephanie]

48. Another friend of ours made the catch, grasswire

seas posted it on another board - I copied it here because I thought DU would be interested, and because I wanted to know more. DU came through with excellent info.

[never cry wolf]

37. I know that there are rules against

naming other posters in a bad light by name, but does that also apply to pm? Being still relatively new here myownself I find this thread very interesting and informative. I got caught up the other day in some of the threads started regarding how "mysteriously" the WTC buildings had fallen. They all had a huge number of responses and there was also alot of BBV news that day. I finally gave up trying to convince anyone as they obviously would not take the word of an architect familiar with the forensic reports.

I suspected that someone was just sitting at their puter laughing at all the time everyone was wasting.

[ParanoidPat]

43. There you go.....

......way too obvious! :evilgrin:
Hit your 'back' button and find whatever it is they are trying to draw attention away from! :)

[Booberdawg]

44. Possible but I don't know.

I didn't participate or read those threads. I looked at less than 50 responses and I thought it was flame bait and a lot of uninformed opinion and speculation. I'm not interested in that.

I always encourage people to trust their guts. If someone goes to great lengths to "convince" me about something I don't agree with I am suspicious. PM's especially.

Sometimes people are just passionate about their position and I don't discount that. I look for credibility on other issues as well and never take one thing as the deciding factor when I make a judgement.

[Isome]

42. I've seen it done...

There were two sites I used to frequent whose messageboards were infiltrated, and totally demolished as a result. It was sickening to see, but a valuable lesson. The boards live on, but the dialogue winds up diluted -- less substance, more superfluous topics, a procession of new users who always post inflammatory topics or responses.

It is cyberspace's version of "COINTELPRO".

[AmandaRuth]

45. I think it is much more organized/runs deeper than we ever thought

I am an avid gardener and used to post a lot at a site called the Garden Web. This site is --the--site for gardeners on the web, routinely gets mentioned in Horticulture etal. It has many forums, the most popular being the personal chat types.

Anyway, I was on the rose forum reading discussions about the direction of the American Rose Society, whether or not the society should endorse organic, chemicals, and other items of interest to roserians. The discussion, with rose people being what they are, got quite heated. The web master "Spike", pulled the discussion thread, with a message saying that only those that pay a fee can post their specific "agenda". He did this on a page with the logos of those who had paid to push their "agendas", and whose logo did I see, but that for the Heritage Foundation. Really. Followed the HF link and read some BS article about the ????fallacy??? of the minimum wage. I was amazed that the Garden Web, which has strict rules about discussion of a political nature, would be a channel for right wing propaganda. And to think that I almost became a paying member. The most interesting thing is the HF's logo "disappeared" after about a half hour, only to propagandize in secret, I guess. I am thinking that members of the Garden Web with an organic bent did not cotton to knowing their favorite site was a right wing ideology dumping ground.


My point is this, the right wing is obviously organized and spreading their message of fear and hate all over the web, and I agree with the poster above we need to be diligent, better still, to infiltrate. I bet would be shocked at what we find.

[Eloriel]

46. Thanks, Stephanie,

this is extremely important information -- validating, too, for what so many of us already knew.

Eloriel

[paulthompson]

50. damn, I wish I had a link

Last year I came across an article in a major paper, I think a British one, talking about professional, hired bulletin board posters. It should be required reading for everyone at DU.

The topic was genetically engineered foods. Basically, some people were able to trace the internet accounts of some posters back to a company that like the one above, boasted it's ability to influence debate on the internet. It was shown that bogus research supporting genetically engineered foods was introduced in bulletin boards and repeatedly pushed until they became accepted as facts and mentioned in mainstream accounts. Very scary.

But I don't remember the title or have the link. Maybe someone could find it?

[Dover]

51. Good post! Did you see this?

Off that second link -


http://www.freedombrigade.org/

Those who oppose the war on terrorism will be vocal in their dissent. That is why we need your help to spread the word about The Freedom Brigade and our Declaration of Support for the War on Terrorism by telling your family, friends, and colleagues about this site.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

53. That link has the strangest photo of the Statue of Liberty

Look how they photoshopped those scratches - a dagger goes right into where her private parts would be if she had them! Very weird and disturbing photo and phony organization.

[Tinoire]

52. SO glad you posted this !

The infiltration is so obvious it's painful to watch what it's doing to our board and to watch it get hi-jacked and exploited like this!

[tom_paine]

54. Of course there are

I believe, a few with 1000+ posts and stars after their names. Always initiating a divisive, nasty flamewar.

Others have laid this out better than I above.

They are here, and we must always be vigilant.

[Bushknew]

55. There ARE professional disrupters on DU / here is a profile

Their MO is to attack the person and ridicule their ideas, they donÕt address what you
say, they just ridicule it. Instead of engaging in dialogue, they hit and run.

When you have destroyed their arguments, their only recourse is to start a new thread that directly or indirectly attacks you. They're cowards really.

They make ridiculous excuses, analogies and justifications to defend the official nonsense that comes out of the white house.

They try to censor, ridicule and marginalize those posters with the other members
of the board.

They try to install fear that being too liberal will lose the Democratic party votes.

[newyawker99]

56. I am locking this thread.

Questions about Democratic Underground policies belong in the "Ask the Administrators" forum. All discussion topics relating to Democratic Underground policies, procedures, enforcement, etc., which are posted outside of the "Ask the Administrators" forum will be locked or deleted.


If you feel that someone is a disruptor, please use the alert button so that the moderators can take care of it.

Thanks you.



NYer99
DU Moderator