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It's absolute something, just make sure not to step in it...
I have definitely seen some that smelled of astroturf back around the election, and I suspect a few are still around. But I think it largely normal folks.
What I find interesting about this place, is that the folks who do 80% of the threads have zero interest in learning anything new ever. Their idea of a conversation is to post propaganda from their partisan sources and high five other true believers.
Most of the forum is bright enough to recognize paid shills, there was a discussion in the elections section on this topic. The paid shills did not fool too many people because right after the election they disappeared. What I hate is the shills who bombard the forum with 10 too 15 new threads a day. And thus taking over the forum and bumping down true members threads to page 2 or even 3.
I know this is not my forum but if it was I would not tolerate hired guns taking over the whole forum. I would put a new thread limit at 2 a day so the forum does not get satuarated with one sided partisan non sense.
But I have noticed that a good portion of really smart posters that have something too say from both sides hardly post here anymore. I used to learn a lot here but now it is mostly filled with ignorant partisan rants. I miss the old days and those posters but can't say I blame them for leaving looking at the low quality of discussion. Oh well just like everything in life the good days seem to be in the rear view mirror.
So I've noticed going from forum to forum that some of them have wildly different beliefs on what is currently going on politically. I attribute some of that to the demographics of the forums, but every now and then I notice extremes. Both left and right.
Hang around here long enough and you'll note that this is probably the worst possible forum to try to astroturf.
1/2 the posters here are bonafide card carrying wingnuts that will never be convinced of anything....it's their side good, other side bad.
Many of the others aren't going to be swayed by some goober astroturf pushing partisan garbage with no backing in logic etc.
That leaves what? Yeah...not much.
Basically, it's slim freakin' pickings around here for a turfer.
My guess it's started to move on from forums (old farts are a waste of time) to things like twitter etc.
There are paid political operatives on many forums. They were pretty easy to spot during the last election cycle, because within a week of the election last year, they were all gone. Leading up to that election, they posted non stop, all the time.
They had even gotten smart, and would create a forum username a year or two before the election, then not post anything again until about May of last year.
But, by and large, they were pretty easy to spot because no amount of data would influence their asinine positions that either Romney, or Obama, were God by another name.
I don't think its a common practice on off election cycle years. May see them reemerge next May.
There are paid political operatives on many forums. They were pretty easy to spot during the last election cycle, because within a week of the election last year, they were all gone. Leading up to that election, they posted non stop, all the time.
There was one in particular (jt800) who posted 30-40 times a day for several months, and then abruptly vanished on Election Day.
One is more likely to find them on forums talking about cruise lines, airlines, hotels, cars, major appliances where people are more likely to make spending decisions based on other people's opinions.
One is more likely to find them on forums talking about cruise lines, airlines, hotels, cars, major appliances where people are more likely to make spending decisions based on other people's opinions.
Those are marketers.
The definition of astroturf in this context is to fake a 'grassroots' or to create an appearance of popular, spontaneous support, action, etc, that springs up on its own - the TEA Party movement was the definitive grassroots movement ( anyone saying different... is wrong, period. End of discussion.. .there is no truth to anything else).
Some thought the Occupy(x) was, but it wasn't. It was conceived by a few people and implemented by a bunch of activists who studied a target audience, marketed to them, and got a lot of useful idiots to play the part, but it was not even SLIGHTLY grassroots. I have, somewhere on my old computer, an email archive published by someone who was on it, that showed precisely how it was crafted, recruitment done, and even big money sponsors playing roles in it.
It's the process of labor unions such as SEIU busing hundreds of "protestors" in to events and handing them signs to carry, to act as though they are concerned citizens who came out on their own to oppose a conservative initiative.
Reporters who ask these people what they are protesting, find they invariably can't give a coherent answer, or show that they know anything at all about the issue they are "protesting".
Occasionally one admits he was paid $25 or $50 to stand there, chant, and hold the sign.
My husband is employed by a financial company targeted by the former Occupy ( Chicago) movement. It was common knowledge that some who participated were paid by the day. Local news even got some of them to admit it on tape and claim they were paid by unions. Then again, they may have been anti union folk doing a switcheroo.
Life is too short for this nonsense.
As it relates to politics, there is no need to seed. Fox and MSNBC do a better job.
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