Wednesday, May 31, 2017

More Good American Jobs Lost To Automation



You know back in my day, your average, hard-working American troll could pull in a little wingnut lagniappe on the side by buckling  down and lending their only god-given skill to the skeezy internet tactics of a desperate politician:
Win Points for McCain!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Spread John McCain's official talking points around the Web -- and you could win valuable prizes!

That, in essence, is the McCain campaign's pitch to supporters to join its new online effort, one that combines the features of "AstroTurf" campaigning with the sort of customer-loyalty programs offered by airlines, hotel chains, restaurants and the occasional daily newspaper.

On McCain's Web site, visitors are invited to "Spread the Word" about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor's screen name. The site offers sample comments ("John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .") and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into "conservative," "liberal," "moderate" and "other" categories. Just cut and paste.

Activists and political operatives have used volunteers or paid staff to seed radio call-in shows or letters-to-the-editor pages for years, typically without disclosing the caller or letter writer's connection to a candidate or cause. Like the fake grass for which the practice is named, such AstroTurf messages look as though they come from the grass roots but are ersatz.

McCain's campaign has taken the same idea and given it an Internet-era twist. It also has taken the concept one step further.

People who sign up for McCain's program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain's webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express, according to campaign spokesman Brian Rogers...
Books and bus rides, people!  Doesn't sound like much now, but back in 2008 it was the wingnut Civilian Conservation Corps, keeping literally dozens of American idiots safely indoors and away from sharp objects.

Or so I am told.

But now, despite his promises of Jobs!Jobs!Jobs!, President Stupid is using automation to decimate America's vital internet trolling sector.

Half of President Trump's Twitter followers are bots

WASHINGTON — President Trump may be buying some Twitter love.

The tweeter-in-chief has picked up roughly 3 million Twitter followers in recent days, most of which appear to be recently created Twitter bots.

Screenwriter John Niven pointed out Tuesday morning that Trump's account saw a big spike in followers over the weekend, most of them newly created accounts without photos or tweets — telltale signs of Twitter bots.

Trump's Twitter following is now up to 31 million. According to Twitter Audit Report, a website that analyzes how many of an account's followers are real people, just under half of those aren't real: 15.9 million are authentic, and 15 million aren't, for a 51% reality rate.
...
Seems like just yesterday I was laughing at one of those Facebook flivvers as it rattled past me on the internet, pop-up ads blocking the view, leaking private data everywhere.

And now "reality rate" is a thing.

Some days I feel a thousand years old.  

5 comments:

Unknown said...

The press seems to laugh off Trump's fake followers as vanity, but I think he's setting up a bot army to game Google search, not stroke his ego. (That's a bonus, of course) Once these accounts get going and start posting the same BS links showing how Killary stabbed Seth Rich to death and used the flag to wipe down the evidence, it will drown out the real news and muddy the waters something fierce. That's my guess, anyway.

dinthebeast said...

The Russians did this during the campaign a lot. I think they're still doing it; I keep running into comments sticking up for Russia when I point out that president four-year-old just accomplished Russia's long time goal of driving a wedge between us and Germany, so I assume that's them...

-Doug in Oakland

Chan Kobun said...

Three things:

1) Buying Twitter followers is against the TOS. For most of us it would result in losing our followers and possibly our accounts, but because Twitter is in love with the controversy that President Stupid creates with his abuse of their service, they'll never do anything about this.
2) He paid for Russia's bot-manufacturing services by selling our country and our intel to them - meaning we pay the price and he gets the benefits.
3) These bots likely will be used whenever President Stupid is revealed to be an incompetent mental patient or a shiftless traitor. They'll flood twitter with scripted talking points to drown out criticism, and our darling media will assume that this is How Real Americans Feel and report on it dutifully.

Robt said...

What is weird is,
Years ago conservatives started calling Hippies and liberals "a commie".
Not that it is unusual for republican minded individual robotic leagues of derogatory name calling was something new.
Just that after being called a commie for all that time.. Until the Heritage foundation's years of well funded brainstorming. Came up withand introduced into the GOP lexicon. The term, "libtard". To be used to degrade those you view as your enemy.
So for them to be caught up in oral servicing Putin now is hilarious as kathy Giffor'd photo of the decapitated Trump head.
In which Trump and the anti political correct conservative police are in tears and put out an APB. There is a warrant for kathy I hear.
After Rush joked over Montana body slamming of a Libtard. They now walk the "Trail of Tears" and demand political correctness.
As it ever was. They can dish it but are so sensitively vulnerable when they get punked.

Neo Tuxedo said...

"Reality rate" has been a thing on and off since 1990, and it's about to be on again:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1216685848/torg-eternity?ref=activity

(The Near Now: Later today, early tomorrow, sometime next week, the world began to end.)