A Super PAC headed by a longtime Clinton operative is spending $1 million to hire online trolls to “correct” Bernie Sanders’ supporters on social media.
Correct The Record (CTR), which is operated by Clinton attack dog and new owner of Blue Nation Review David Brock, launched a new initiative this week called “Barrier Breakers 2016” for the purpose of debating supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders — or “Bernie Bros,” as they’re referred to in Correct the Record’s press official release — on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms.
The “Barrier Breakers” will also publicly thank Hillary Clinton’s superdelegates and fans for supporting her campaign. The paid trolls are professional communicators, coming from public relations and media backgrounds.
“The task force staff’s backgrounds are as diverse as the community they will be engaging with and include former reporters, bloggers, public affairs specialists, designers, Ready for Hillary alumni, and Hillary super fans who have led groups similar to those with which the task force will organize,” CTR stated.
In a Reddit comments thread about CTR’s new project, Reddit user and Sanders supporter /u/workythehand, gave other commenters advice on how to identify and engage with one of David Brock’s paid commenters:
The best tactic to use against “professionals” is to simply downvote and move on. The more you argue with them, the more likely people will read the astroturfer’s posts.
Keep your eyes out for very young accounts, repetition of phrasing and syntax (the same “Sanders only diagnoses the problem…” talking points, for instance) in every post, and rapid fire posting – 10+ comments in the span of a few minutes is a good indicator.
Libby Watson of the Sunlight Foundation told the Daily Beast on Thursday that FEC loopholes allow the Hillary Clinton campaign and David Brock’s Super PAC to coordinate with one another, despite the Citizens United vs. FEC Supreme Court decision prohibiting a Super PAC’s independent expenditures from going directly toward a particular candidate.
“It’s not totally clear what [CTR’s] reasoning is, but it seems to be that material posted on the internet for free—like, blogs—doesn’t count as an ‘independent expenditure,’” Watson said. She continued by addressing the unprecedented nature of the project.
She concluded with a damning assessment: “Campaign finance lawyers are not that impressed with [CTR’s] logic, but they can get away with it because the [Federal Election Commission] is deadlocked and does nothing.”
Watson also made note of the unprecedented and bizarre nature of the program, saying, “Usually places like MMFA and CTR are defending her against the media and established figures. This seems to be going after essentially random individuals online,” she said. “I don’t know that they’ve done anything like this before.”
CTR boasts on its website that it’s already “corrected” at least 5,000 Sanders supporters on Twitter.
Tom Cahill is a writer for US Uncut based in the Pacific Northwest. He specializes in coverage of political, economic, and environmental news. You can contact him via email at tom.v.cahill@gmail.com.
