Hillary PAC Spends $1M to ‘Correct’ Commenters on Reddit and Facebook

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/21/hillary-pac-spends-1-million-to-correct-commenters-on-reddit-and-facebook.html

by kushti • 10 years ago

101 59 10 years ago

thedailybeast.com

projectileboy• 10 years ago

Is this surprising to anyone? I assumed that all corporations, politicians and celebrities pay armies of minions to cultivate public opinion. How could it be any other way? I hardly think Bernie Sanders' campaign doesn't do the same thing.

pstuart• 10 years ago

I'm guessing the Sanders' campaign has enough volunteers doing that.

/meta

pessimizer2• 10 years ago

I hardly think Bernie Sanders' campaign doesn't do the same thing.

A generalized cynicism isn't a substitute for facts.

edit: also, just due to the nature of Sanders' support, discovery of something like this would lose him a lot of it. I don't think anything short of sponsoring a federal abortion ban could turn off Clinton's supporters.

r00fus2• 10 years ago

Everyone's doing it, so it's ok? Barring any evidence about other campaigns - sounds like a Hillary specific issue.

At the very least, it's sloppy that Team Hillary let this slip...

snowwrestler• 10 years ago

In case anyone wants to read the actual press release, which is referenced but not linked from the article:

http://correctrecord.org/barrier-breakers-2016-a-project-of-...

Dirlewanger• 10 years ago

FEC reform is the number one thing that the US federal government needs but no member of Congress will ever touch. All presidential campaign funds must be 100% publicly funded. I don't care how much more it taxes onto federal tax or how un-American it is. This shit will never end otherwise.

mason240• 10 years ago

I'm not willing to completely gut the First Amendment and abolish free speech.

bryanlarsen• 10 years ago

There are lots of countries that have strong supreme courts and free speech guarantees in their constitution yet have managed to limit election spending.

I personally find the dissent in Citizens United much more compelling than the majority opinion.

chishaku• 10 years ago

Just enforcing the laws currently on the books would be a good start.

“The likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim... People think the FEC is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional."

- Ann Ravel, FEC Chairwoman

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/us/politics/fec-cant-curb-...

The FEC has referred __eight___ campaign finance enforcement cases to the DOJ since __1978__.

http://www.bna.com/fec-rarely-votes-n17179934048/

maxerickson3• 10 years ago

I'm turning into a single issue troll with this, but I think we can make a positive change at the state level by changing ballot access. Just stop allowing parties to nominate candidates.

The machines can still endorse a candidate, but we could gut the national election process one state at a time by requiring any individual that wants to be listed on a ballot to submit petitions for that ballot, rather than receiving the blessings of a privately run national organization.

tamana4• 10 years ago

How would that solve any problems?

Submitting a petition to be on a ballot is a basic effort for national party. That's practically the the reason a national party exists in the first place.

chatmasta• 10 years ago

What if someone with a lot of money wants to get Hillary elected, so they spend their own money on sock puppets to promote her? Should Hillary be liable for those actions even if she had no knowledge of them?

This is the "arms length" argument of super PACs. At first glance it sounds really corrupt, but when you actually think about it, how can you tell someone what to spend their money on? If I want to spend $100 million of my own money to promote my candidate of choice, shouldn't I be able to do that?

hga• 10 years ago

Congratulations, you've just made part of the case for Citizens United, which coincidentally pertained to an ... unflattering movie about Hillary.

(The stronger case is of course "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press....", most especially core political speech.)

harigov• 10 years ago

I don't see this as a problem at all, as long as these commenters are representing the opinions of Hillary. I actually believe that people/organizations should be given an opportunity to respond to these comments "officially" using the same channels that commenters make use of.

pessimizer2• 10 years ago

If they were marked as being paid representatives, this wouldn't be a story. Plenty of people working for all of the campaigns participate in social media.

maxerickson3• 10 years ago

What restrictions do you perceive to exist?

On reddit, all they have to do is create an account. They can attest that the account is official wherever they want.

The issue that arises with this article is that the people using reddit perceive paid comments as an abuse of the channel, especially when the for pay nature of the comments is obscured.

wille92• 10 years ago

What about pro-Hillary comments coming from unofficial social media accounts? The article didn't say exactly where these comments would be coming from. I assumed they would be "astro-turf" type users that purport to be everyday reddit users but are actually affiliated with this Hillary PAC.

oh_sigh4• 10 years ago

So what if they are? As long as they don't misrepresent themselves, why not?

tamana4• 10 years ago

The campaigns already have an opportunity -- they can create an account, and some services like Reddit give "Verified" tags in the site

r00fus2• 10 years ago

Are they above the board? I know at sites like DailyKos there are lots of concern with Sanders supporters that Hillary is buying commenters and even the site itself.

The Hillary supporters claim this is "required given the money being raised on the other side" - $2B is a figure thrown around, and that not doing this is essentially ceding the field.

6stringmerc4• 10 years ago

"It's not propaganda when we do it!" - Every Politician, Ever

Kidding aside, I'm not a fan of astro-turf avenues of engagement. There's no point 'discussing' with a shill. Much like there's no reasoning with a hungry, rabid dog when you're holding a delcious cut of steak. Though the analogy may be flawed, it is worth considering how intensely votes are courted, generally speaking.

oh_sigh4• 10 years ago

Propaganda is, by definition, anything which promotes or publicizes a political cause or POV. Are you really against that? Or are you just afraid of the word "propaganda"?

Sharlin• 10 years ago

Words, in the real world, have denotations and connotations. One would do well to not forget that.

6stringmerc4• 10 years ago

It's a loaded term to insinuate that the cause or POV is using less-than-transparent mechanisms to garner a desired reaction. I've got no problem with political discourse, or even espousing controversial ideological proposals. That's all natural and healthy.

What I dislike is using tactics to frame one side of a narrative as impervious to criticism, which in this case, seems to be the desired outcome from the entity providing $$$.

lostlogin• 10 years ago

No, it's not that simple. Propaganda has a definition which usually includes something about false info or spin. From Marian-Webster "propaganda : ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc." Oxford "Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view"

kafkaesq• 10 years ago

Propaganda is, by definition, anything which promotes or publicizes a political cause or POV.

No, it isn't "anything" which promotes a cause or a POV.

It's the presence of manipulation (and as applies to astroturfing campaigns, such as the "Correct the Record" antics appear to be) false pretense that make it propaganda.

tathastu• 10 years ago

Obligatory: https://xkcd.com/386/

koolba• 10 years ago

Paying for shill comments would probably be cheaper: https://xkcd.com/1019/

lifeisstillgood2• 10 years ago

Seems simple to police : have an account that has a "registration" number. You get some basic training and access to a FAQ generator and can post "on message" replies - all above board as you need it.

tamana4• 10 years ago

What about users who don't claim to be working for the campaign?

The problem isn't overt campaigning. The problem is covert astroturf campaigning.

lifeisstillgood2• 10 years ago

Well, don't do that. It's like having links to PACs -

there was a political campaign sending tweets to a shell account about which wards it needs targeting (can't find the reference) - jail time was needed.

Same here. If people with no connection to a campaign are responding online - fine. If there is a connection. Gosh, jail time

quanticle• 10 years ago

Can anyone tell me why this is wrong, exactly? Or, for that matter, why this news?

Edit: to be more clear, I don't expect the same level of objectivity from Reddit or Hacker News comments that I do from an actual news story, so I don't have the same ethical issues with the Hillary campaign paying people to post comments on her behalf.

mattmanser• 10 years ago

Related to your edit, I do. I don't feel it unreasonable to either.

It's a form of lying, a form of corruption.

Also, it's in the interests of places like Reddit and HN to keep them out. It's distorts the comments in an unpleasant way.

I'm fine with corps and stuff posting here, as long as they identify themselves as such.

CobrastanJorji• 10 years ago

Well, the story is probably popular here and on Reddit because it makes people suspicious of each other and also makes us, as commentators, feel important. Somebody is being paid a lot of money to get at us!

But the real reason that this is a news story is because SuperPACs have one defining trait: they don't coordinate with the candidates at all. However, in this particular instance, due to "loopholes", this SuperPAC is able to coordinate directly with the Clinton campaign. In essence, Clinton gets direct control over SuperPAC money for this specific purpose, which is newsworthy if fairly dry.

gshulegaard• 10 years ago

Hmmm...well I can only speak for myself, but I see a number of problems with this. To spare time though, I will focus on the two things I perceive to be the biggest problem:

"Due to FEC loopholes, the Sunlight Foundation’s Libby Watson found this year that Correct the Record can openly coordinate with Clinton’s campaign, despite rules that typically disallow political campaigns from working directly with PACs."

PACs which raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and other private business groups have always been questionably legal. However, they have been allowed to exist under strict regulation so long as they remained completely separate from candidates' campaigns.

It would appear, however, that a PAC is now coordinating with the Hilary campaign while not being under the same fundraising restrictions.

To me, PACs have always been subversions of the American governmental process and now one operating more or less as the "long-arm" of an individual candidate's campaign just makes them even more troubling.

The second thing is this type of brigade behavior, especially with funding behind it, is particularly dangerous since it has a disproportionate ability to influence general public perception. It may not influence you or I much individually, but I am not sure Hacker News readers/commentators are a representative sample of the "average American".

lasermike026• 10 years ago

Sock puppets....

erpellan• 10 years ago

I must now assume that any comment on this page of the 'so what?' or 'everyone does it' variety or any downplaying whatsoever is in fact a paid shill. That includes any disagreements with this statement :)

idrios• 10 years ago

At first I chuckled at your comment and scrolled away. Then I saw how many people on this thread are downplaying this. Now I'm wondering if you're right

superobserver• 10 years ago

You might not be far from the mark, actually. The funny thing about at least one Hillary supporter that I know is how vocal they are about all other politicians being just as bad as, if not worse than, HRC, and that ergo, HRC is no worse than anyone else, and ergo HRC is as equally viable as anyone else. It's quite a distorted Weltanshauung.

tawpKek• 10 years ago

Vintage thread on consensus cracking: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread429408/pg1

trhway• 10 years ago

1M - how come so cheap? With a 1B+ scale campaigns one would think that such an important tactical theater would receive more spending. Probably it is one of the indication of a reason - not enough resources spent/committed - why Hillary doesn't do that well with the young.

Upvoter33• 10 years ago

much bigger problems exist, you know, like the quality of the news media. commenters on message boards: not so much, paid or not.

r-w2• 10 years ago

This may give her a stronger online presence in a naïve sense, but it also undermines all of her genuine supporters. Now every Hillary supporter on the Internet looks like they’re being paid off.

Really makes you wonder what kind of administration she’d run. Seems like money always turns up wherever she turns up; the direction of causality is up to your imagination.

raddad• 10 years ago

Don't politicians pretty much buy their votes? Only difference is where the money comes from and how they spend it. I haven't looked into it, but I wonder what the price for a vote is these days?

FooNull• 10 years ago

Depends on whose vote

r-w2• 10 years ago

Maybe the real problem is that people in this country still think that the more they hear something, the more it’s worth hearing. If they’d only keep those little slivers of truth about Hillary in mind among the sea of lies—if there were any mental permanence to their observations about her—then maybe she’d stop being able to slip through the cracks like she has about the emails, the speeches, and (foreseeably) this Big Brother-esque move.

patrickg_zill• 10 years ago

What it means (in combination with the analysis that a huge %age of Twitter followers are not real) is, there are even less humans that like her, than we think.

She is like a rich person that bribes people to hang around her.

user10001• 10 years ago

I don't really have a problem with that since a person would only go to Reddit or Facebook to be brainwashed anyway.

Hillary PAC Spends $1M to ‘Correct’ Commenters on Reddit and Facebook

Related Stories