HAPPY UPDATE: Looks like this little bit of hashtag activism despicable trollish smearing has collapsed; the hashtag is pretty much dead as of now. (5/11/17, noonish Chicago time)
On last Sunday’s episode of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” John Oliver once again rallied his fans to stand up for Net Neutrality, now under threat from the Trump administration, urging them to visit Gofccyourself.com, a site that links directly to the FCC page for public comment on the proposed change.
And so some of the worst people on the Internet have launched a new Twitter campaign to smear Oliver as racist — and get him fired.
“Er, what?” you might be wondering.
Well, it turns out that Trump’s newly appointed FCC head is of Indian descent. And the FCC site has been hit with a flood of racist comments attacking him.
The Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing rag the Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf once described as a “decadent and unethical” part of the “ascendant ‘smear wing’ of the conservative movement” has decided that Oliver is personally to blame.
John Oliver’s “grassroots” activism against Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai is full of bot accounts, fake comments, and death threats against the chairman. ….
However, an analysis of comments to Pai’s Restoring Internet Freedom filing, which Oliver has dubbed “Go FCC yourself,” shows thousands of comments using fake names and bots posing as “Jesus Christ,” “Michael Jackson,” “Homer Simpson,” and “Melania Trump.”
For instance, as of Tuesday evening, there were 1,761 comments filed under the name “John Oliver,” 998 separate comments using the name “Yoni Schwartz,” and 611 comments filed using “1” as the name. …
Pai also received death threats in several submissions. …
Other comments used racial attacks against Pai, the son of Indian immigrants.
Now some of the Internet’s worst people have seized upon this article (and a similar one in the right-wing Daily Caller) as an excuse to attack Oliver as the supposed instigator of this racist harassment campaign against Pai.
https://twitter.com/GasJaredKushner/status/862449448017952768
https://twitter.com/rockie_springer/status/862413212427456517
https://twitter.com/JimMcNulty8/status/862446902398332928
#fireOliver #firecolbert it's obvious who the REAL RACISTS are and these.. the anti Trump democrats!
He is sending Pai threats of violence https://t.co/J4wzxGryb5— American Man (@BrentGrantUSA) May 10, 2017
#FIREOLIVER GO BACK TO THE EU SHITBIRD https://t.co/Hs5Zvho2uS
— John Connor (@JohnConnor0861) May 10, 2017
https://twitter.com/uliw315/status/862396353426731008
So because of John Oliver making multiple accounts to push liberal agenda and attack Trump, pretty much sums up most of Twitter.#FireOliver
— True Patriot (@Common_Sense201) May 10, 2017
https://twitter.com/DeplorableSammm/status/862389346816720897
Could #GoFCCYourself actually be a Russian intelligence psyop on the U.S. Government by Jon Oliver? #FireOliver
— 🇺🇸Jacob Dillon🇺🇸 (@ADudeFromNowere) May 10, 2017
https://twitter.com/RosalynJBurgess/status/862390076596248576
https://twitter.com/dreamedofdust/status/862385631141539841
https://twitter.com/DeportSJWs/status/862386470509658112
I guess staying on message is harder than it seems.
Alongside all the Pepes and Deplorables, the hashtag is currently being spammed by dozens (hundreds?) of egg accounts all tweeting the same thing; it’s not clear who’s responsible for this.
The instigator and main organizer of the Twitter campaign? Alt-right “journalist” and infamous internet troll Jack Posobiec.
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/862370548063633416
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/862400904523374592
and these are the same ppl/bots that call us racist, constantly harassing us trump supporters..time for more anti trump karma #fireoliver 🔥🔥
— #TrumpWasRight⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@TrumpChess) May 10, 2017
https://twitter.com/Nik_Kirtane/status/862392588304777216
That last accusation from Posobiec — that Oliver was “making fun of the way foreigners talk” — is especially pungent bullshit, by the way. In the video that Posobiec links to in his Tweet as evidence, Oliver gently chides some of India’s more sensationalistic cable news channels, not by mocking how anyone talks but by pointing out the the ways in which they resemble Fox News. One of the channels he mocks? CNN India, for a misleading headline.
Posobiec, who works for Canada’s Rebel Media, was recently granted a White House press pass. Because that’s the kind of world we live in today.
Now, there are just a few teensy problems with the #FireOliver campaign.
John Oliver is not actually racist. He said nothing even vaguely racist in his Net Neutrality segment on Sunday, nor did he in any way encourage his viewers to launch racist attacks, or even personal attacks, on Pai.
There is absolutely no proof that Oliver has any connection to the troll accounts or the hate campaign, nor does he have any history of using trolls or bots.
You know who DOES have a history positively overflowing with trolls and bots?
Jack Posobiec.
You remember the massive leak of hacked emails from the campaign of current French President-elect Emmanuel Macron? Posobiec was the key person responsible for spreading the hacked data on social media in the West.
Sandy Garossino, writing in Canada’s National Observer, notes that Posobiec has been identified by cyber-security experts
as the origin of the first tweet linking a massive cache of Russian-hacked documents dumped onto the conspiracy website 4chan. He attached the hashtag #MacronLeaks. …
The #MacronLeaks hashtag, from the moment Posobiec tweeted it, was the primary social media propellant of the hacked Macron data, according to cyber-intelligence analysts at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab. They also concluded that bots played a significant role from the outset. Some 40 minutes later, Wikileaks tweeted the link with Posobiec’s hashtag, and the Internet erupted.
The appearance of bot activity, observed independently by both the DFRL and Belgian academic Nicolas Vanderbiest, from the first minutes after Posobiec’s tweet, strongly suggests a planned and coordinated campaign.
(For what it’s worth, Posobiec says he had nothing to do with the bots.)
As Garossino goes on to point out, Posobiec was also heavily involved in promoting the #Pizzagate nonsense as well as on last month’s #SyriaHoax campaign. Working alongside internet troll and steroid enthusiast Mike Cernovich, Posobiec helped to promote the
Russian-led social media propaganda campaign that claimed footage of children dying from Assad’s chemical weapons was a hoax.
Analysts expert in propaganda and social media at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague identified the #SyriaHoax as “a clear example of a Russian influence campaign designed to undermine US credibility.”
Both [Posobiec and Cernovich] picked up the hashtag early and propelled it through U.S. social media … .
You may also recall the “Rape Melania”sign that appeared at an anti-Trump rally last year. Though most assumed it was the work of anti-Trump protesters, Buzzfeed later uncovered text messages proving that the sign was in fact the work of, yes, Posobiec, who was attempting to make Trump’s opponents look bad
Huh. That sounds … familiar, huh?
Oh, and one other thing about the supposed pot by Oliver to bombard FCC boss Pai with racist comments and threats: Not only is there no evidence for it, but the very idea makes no sense. Why would Oliver, whose last campaign to protect Net Neutrality was a notable success, decide this time to launch a racist harassment campaign that would only serve to make him and other supporters of Net Neutrality look bad?
And while I’m playing Colombo here, there’s one more thing about the FCC thing that seems a bit off: The FCC says that on Sunday night, the night Oliver’s show aired, it was hit with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks intended to overload the FCC’s comment system.
The Washington Free Beacon story seems to insinuate that Oliver was behind these as well. This of course would be absurd. Oliver’s campaign depends on people being able to reach the FCC site so they can leave comments there. Why would he launch a DDoS attack that could knock the site offline, or at least make it harder to reach?
My guess is that whoever is behind the harassment campaign is also behind the DDoS attack. And that it’s not Oliver.
So is Posobiec the secret mastermind behind the harassment campaign? There’s no evidence — at least none that I know of — for this. But he’s certainly working overtime trying to blame Oliver for it, and spreading demonstrable lies about Oliver in the process.
I guess this is just what right-wing “journalism” looks like in the age of Trump.
EDITED TO ADD: I added the stuff about Posobiec and the infamous “Rape Melania” sign after being reminded of the incident by @EyesOnTheRight.
‘Because it was the hate-storm on that [Stiffed] that put me off the movement in the 1990s.’
Just to say, for those of you who haven’t read it, that Stiffed, like all of Faludi’s work, is a compassionate and insightful exploration of gender relations. I don’t know if she was the first to describe it, or remember if she actually used the expression, but it’s a consideration of the causes and effects of ‘toxic masculinity’. She starts by suggesting that ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ are two different approaches to the same task–protecting and nurturing children. She goes on to argue that the value of actual ‘masculinity’ has changed, in our current economic environment, into what we’d now call ‘toxic masculinity’, and describes the effect of this change using case studies of men in various life circumstances; all heartbreaking stories of men attempting to ‘be men’ as best they can, in situations that are destroying them.
That’s a very interesting analysis. Thanks, Collateral Thought.
It’s interesting to note that the person who got it right was Imaginary Petal, in that they called for a ban very early on. At the time it could have been seen as unjustified hostility, but in retrospect it seems not only entirely justified, but as the smartest response.
However, there’s another aspect to it. Remember that the internet is predominantly not an interactive medium: the overwhelming majority of people who view this comments section will never post in it. As such, we’re not just writing for Petra or for one another, but for them.
Someone watching the last twenty-four hours from outside would have seen a group of feminists leaping to engage with someone, answering her points in good faith, trying to educate her and otherwise responding as kindly and compassionately as could be expected. If that watcher had little experience of kindness and compassion in their lives – as so many haven’t – then they might start thinking “I want to hang around feminists, they’re cool people”; or even “I want to be a feminist, they’re cool people.”
This matters, and this is one reason why having a community diverse enough to include people like dreemr as well as more badass people, is a great thing.
@ guest:
I’ve not read Stiffed but will add it to my list on your recommendation.
@ EJ:
You’re quite right. There’s a lot to be said in favor of having people in a community who approach seemingly-toxic strangers with an open mind, and courtesy, and tolerance, and respect. I always admire those who are able to do so, especially given I have often wanted to do so but not found myself able to. My training and predilections often lead me more towards troll-slaying than possible-ally-engaging I fear. I’m glad there are others better suited to the latter here.
And I also strongly agree that we’re not just writing to or for each other, but for a silent audience who might never engage. I visited this site for several years before deciding to post quite recently. I’m sure many others are the same way… only, you know, smarter and better-looking and nicer and less privileged and so on. /selfdeprecation 😛
I think the community dealt well with a bad-faith interlocutor. A troll who leaves firm, well-defined turds in only a few places is easier to track and deal with than one like this, who leaves liquid diarrhoea everywhere.
Chapeau to Collateral Thought for, well, everything on this page! And to all who engaged, across the whole gamut from courtesy to chucking-out time.
PS Anyone heard from Scildfreja at all? I hope xie is well (general <3 and awed chapeaux to Scildfreja)
@PeeVee
Well, I can tell you that when I read this charming little bit of prose,
I could have sworn I detected the delicate aroma of barbequeued seagull…
@opposablethumbs – I asked about Scild a couple of weeks ago, too, but she hasn’t been heard from lately. I, too, hope everything is going swimmingly for her and that she’s just very busy.
@guest – thank you for the mini-review of Stiffed. I have read some excerpts but not the entire book.
@EJ & Collateral Thought – Agreed re: non-commenting readers and what they see here. I also want to note that I do not have the same talents for troll-slaying as I admire in others here, and I appreciate how they call it out (yes, even when it’s me, although it takes me a day or two to get over it). I learn a lot from the approaches others take.
My skills for scorn usually amount to “Oh yeah?!!! SEZ YOU!!”
Re: engaging with someone for the benefit of others reading:
That’s why the ‘don’t feed the trolls’ mantra always feels off to me. Sure, they get a reaction. I guess that is what they wanted, so in that sense we ‘lose’. But everyone reading and not commenting sees that the commenters will engage with people who haven’t posted before, even of their first posts aren’t perfect.
They see the commenters pushing back against false assumptions, with sourced arguments.
They see that it takes a while for the banhammer to fall, that people are given answers to questions and explanations about assumptions that are wrong.
I hope that allows lurkers to post, when they feel like they want to. Please do, the conversation is strengthened with more voices.
I read pretty much all the comments, though i don’t post too often.
@petra, if you’re still reading, all of this happened to you. You came in with ideas, which people explained were false, and then gave you reasons why.
Please consider why you were banned. (Goalpost moving, not providing information and then being angry that we didn’t know it, etc) If you aren’t a troll, though you did say that you were trolling earlier, then reflect on how you acted that made you come across as such.
I would recommend reading Collateral Thought’s excellent recap of the interaction, perhaps after you’ve had a chance to put some distance between yourself and this. That is how it looked to people who weren’t in your head.
If you are a troll, good job at least being a memorable one.
Re Stiffed–it’s been probably pushing two decades since I read it; I hope it’s aged well. I do remember it pretty clearly though because I mentioned her take on space travel when I was on a panel at a sf convention and people completely flipped out (if you were there and remember that then you know who I am :)).
@Pie,
Yeah, I noticed that, too.
I was speaking more of the “say something intended to be imflammatory, explain with more imflammatory rhetoric, give a personal (painful) anecdote, receive sympathy, go back to posting imflammatory insults against the community, and then expect that anecdote to erase all of the shit they’ve previously posted and wonder why empathy is finite” type of shit that was so glaring of, say, MRAL’s style.
Along with the “why are you guys so MEAN to me??” nonsense.
I wonder if David could shed more light whether this was a brand new troll, or a returning guest?
ETA: I hope Scild is okay, too. She would have shredded Petra, in the most kindly way possible.
In any case, glad Petra is gone.
I’d like to add my thanks to Collateral Thought for their excellent summary of Petra’s posting behavior, and to everyone else who has joined in the (far more interesting and worthwhile than Petra’s posts) meta conversation about engagement with trolls, benefits and drawbacks thereof.
One benefit I would like to further highlight, especially to the lurkers and infrequent commenters here, is the learning opportunities we all get in pattern recognition when a new ‘nym tapdances in, whistling an old tune, and commenters name that tune.
When commenters here name that tune, they flag it to other people as both a non valid argument which they might want to be aware of while listening to others, and a technique that is eschewed by intellectually honest folk.
I really hope Petra is still reading this thread despite no longer being able to speak on it. An honest person who was trying to have a sincere discussion would be doing that.
They would be reading and evaluating the many other contributions to the discussion, rather than just stating their case and labelling the commenters they did skim with a variety of slurs.
I also miss Scildfreya so so so much. Kupo too.
Oh, Kupo! Where did Kupo go??
I have been reading and commentring on WHTM for about 3 years, and I have NEVER heard anyone here condone the sexual abuse of men and boys or even try to dismiss or deflect about it. As a man who has faced the threat of prison rape for 18 months — which turned out to be less of a threat than I had thought it was in my particular slammer, but you hear the stories and only after a while get a feel for what really goes on — I certainly would notice it if it existed here. I suppose there are occasional people in the world who call themselves feminists who have a cavalier attitude on the subject, but I have never encountered them. In general, feminists are a HUGE amount better on this subject than manospherians, who whine about the subject but never do anything concrete to help the victims. Therefore, when someone comes here accusing this community of condoning rape of men and boys, it raises a giant red flag for me — and therefore I never really took Petra seriously. It sounded to me like zie was angry and just venting whatever came into zir mind in no particular order and trying to say as many hurtful things to as many people as possible.
There were several good comments on what zie said — particularly Collateral Thought’s analysis — but I’m not sure all those posts from Petra were intended to be anything more than an attempt to work off some kind of negative energy. After all, pretty much all zie did was try to claim we were trying to harm zir — after zie came barreling in here like a baseball runner going into second base with his spikes high, hoping to gouge the fielder.