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.
@Ray of Rays
I ain’t no Scild nor Paradoxical but I’m feeling masochistic.
These two went out of their way to promote bigotry against minorities and incite harm on minority groups. This is a good start.
“Yeah we are terrible with how much we advocate killing and torturing the poor, sick, weak, women, children, men, anyone not white, but Political Correctness is just as bad honest!”
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/12/trumps-supporters-believe-a-false-narrative-of-white-victimhood-and-the-data-proves-it/
He should have been more comprehensive in his reading, because this study isn’t helping him prove his point of “both sides are bad.”
Does he link this grand study that shows people of all political spectrums are equally as prejudiced? Nope you should just take his word for it? Why bother linking sites when you can’t even be arsed to read the headline of an article that goes against your narrative?
“You see by being against racists, classists, ableists, sexists, bigots, and more you are the real racist, classist, ableist, sexist bigot.”
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550613476096
Gordon Wetherell
Turks and Caicos Islands
They are known primarily for tourism and as an offshore financial centre. This is the person he turns to?
The rest of his article is summed up as “but you see really since both sides dislike each other that means their values are equal to each other and liberals really should tolerate groups that actively vote for the poor to die without health care or support organizations that are meant to target minorities.” He also ignores any and all reasons why progressives might find people who actively use voter suppression and say that women’s bodies belong to other people when they have kids to be a little bit awful.
Basically, the “logic” goes that if we’re intolerant of intolerant people, then we’re just as bad as they are, amirite?
But of course they are never going to state the matter that clearly.
@GrumpyOld SocialJusticeMangina
If they did this entirely pointless and two faced article would have been reduced to a twitter post. This is the same logic that supervillains use on superheroes after the supervillains slaughtered civilians.
This is too incoherent for me to give any sort of intelligent response to. The attacks on John Oliver, I mean, not the article.
‘On the other hand, people tend to express prejudice against people who do not share their values.’
That’s not even what ‘prejudice’ means. (I actually personally prefer the word ‘bigotry’, as it more clearly represents the state of mind that we’re talking about–and that has even less to do with people’s so-called ‘values’.)
Too stupid to even engage.
If Donald Trump came out and identified as a woman, would it be misogynistic to call her “bossy?” Would it make you transphobic if you refused to acknowledge that she had cracked the glass ceiling as our first woman president?
Would it make you a hypocrite if you complained about
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/12/trumps-supporters-believe-a-false-narrative-of-white-victimhood-and-the-data-proves-it/
Big words for a news source — Salon — that says it isn’t rape when a woman ties a man to a bed at gunpoint and takes him sexually — because his erection constitutes consent.
The substance of the attacks is incoherent. The strategy is not incoherent. The politically savvey should recognize what’s happening. The far right is mastering the tools of the anti-1st amendment wing of the left. Eventually, they will start using Title 9 to shut down safe spaces and other 1st amendment suppresants. Someone will figure out that V-day is “cultural appropriation” of Valentine’s day. lesbian domestic abuse victims will actually get protection, as cops stop being as useless as a white knight in a catfight; Lesbians who abuse their lovers will actually do time. All your worst nightmares are about to begin. Muahahaha.
@Petra Pumpkineater
Empty threats as always. Heard it all before.
@Petra Pumpkineater
‘All your worst nightmares are about to begin.’
My junior school is going to turn into Antarctic base US#31, and I’m going to be pursued around the corridors by a nameless, shapeless dread while the snow piles up outside, cutting off rescue?
Or I’m going to wake up on the sofa in the living room in the middle of the night, look up at the throw we have on the ceiling as insulation, to see, in a gap in the fabric, a hideous eye staring back at me?
Well, that is not how I saw this week panning out!
Also, what are you talking about?
@ dan
When I used to work for newspapers one day Mystic Meg was on holiday (she was actually the editor of the Sunday magazine in real life). I asked if I could do the horoscopes in her absence. But they rejected them because I did really specific ones.
“Libra – You will be run over by a large blue furniture truck…”
@Alan Robertshaw
That’s a shame. Still, you should have seen it coming!
OH. I see. So I’ll be at a cottage trying to get a fire going. I’ll try to throw a dry leaf in the old-fashioned furnace, but the wind will shift and my pet tiger kitten will be sucked into it instead. Then the flames will leap through the furnace and the cottage will start burning down. I’ll try to scream to warn my brother, but I’ll be unable to move or speak.
That doesn’t sound fun, I admit.
(Thanks to @DanHolme for this idea!)
@Petra Pumpkineater – More seriously now:
If they’ve said that, then yes, that’s completely wrong. But quoting or linking to a news article doesn’t mean you endorse the whole outlet (by that logic you could say David here endorses the Daily Stormer).
Yes. It’s fair that abusers are punished. Why do you think we’d be against that?
So, I’ll be late for an exam and every time I try to leave the house I will have forgotten something important. And then all my teeth will fall out. Ugh.
I guess having to re-take a class and wear dentures aren’t the worst things people have to endure….
@ Petra
Might you be so kind as to post a link to this? I’m not suggesting it wasn’t the case; but I’ve been searching and I can’t find any article where Salon has claimed this.
Given that “Bossy” has never been applied to Trump as a term… uh, yeah, It would be misogynistic. It would also be trans-misogynistic to refuse to acknowledge Trump by her preferred pronouns and name. It would not change that she’d still be a dangerously incompetent, boorish, abusive, ignorant, racist sexual harasser.
Also, given that Trump has given less than zero evidence of being trans before this hypothetical transition, I’m not inclined to speculate on that particular gotcha.
I’ll have a final exam for a math class I haven’t studied for in 30 years, and I’ll be frantically trying to put in contact lenses that are the size of dinner plates?
Colorless green ideas have furious nightmares.
@Alan: I would love to read your very specific horoscopes.
I once went to a psychic and got the most bland and boring tarot card reading ever. “I really don’t see any big changes here,” she told me. “Or even any small ones. You’re very stable. Nothing much is going to happen to you in the next few years. Your life will go on much the same way it is now.”
I wish I could get that same assurance now.
OT: The SPLC has filed a lawsuit against Andrew Anglin for siccing a firestorm of neo-Nazi trolls and death threats on a Montana woman and her family. It’s quite a mess. Richard Spencer’s mother is involved. I hope they win, bigly, and bankrupt Anglin for life.
@ buttercup
The irony is, Meg’s horoscopes were notoriously specific. So each week one twelfth of the population must have been finding their granny’s long lost jewellery, in a shoebox in the attic, behind the water tank.
@Alan Robertshaw
IIRC, wasn’t Dirk Gently being persecuted by a horoscope writer who hates him, and writes what are basically death threats under Dirk’s star sign?
My worst nightmare is one from childhood, in which cartoon Aladdin kills my mom with a gun. Aladdin: riff raff, street rat, mom killer.
Well, I went to the FCC site (with the help of John Oliver’s link) and took a look at the comments (before attempting to add mine) and saw a bunch of comments from real people asking for net neutrality under title II rules.
The I tried to add my own comment, had my laptop freeze up completely and had to force a power-down. My browser was hosed and had to be re-downloaded, as did all my add-ons and my bookmarks restored. Yikes.
I would not be surprised to learn the usual trolls were operating some sort of rat-f*cking project here.
@Petra
You mean the one where I’ll have to take tests based on subjects I’ve never learned during the mental purge of all things anime?
@Buttercup
Best of luck to them.
David, you’re saying it’s possible that you hadn’t added that reference when I made that post? (Please say yes. I prefer to think I am not a doddering old lady with shitty reading comprehension, lolol)
In any case, Probiotic is an asshole, so, whatever the case, THAT I didn’t miss. ?
@ Makroth — the fact that you took what I said as a “threat” says more about you than you probably intended…
@Leftwing(“no one has ever called Trump Bossy”)Fox: Google Bossy Trump, About 438,000 results (0.48 seconds)
And so on.
That goes without saying, and here’s the question you did not answer:
If it’s “transphobic” to wince when a transman calls a news conference to announce that he’s the first pregnant man, then 13 transpersons in my acquaintance are transphobic. Get to know a few transpersons and you’ll realize that kind of Jerry Springer shit annoys and frustrates the trans community, and they have names for that kind of behavior which I will not use because I’m more or less cis.
…@Petra, what game are you trying to play?
Because there are far better ones out there. Maybe VVVVVV? Audiosurf? Don’t Starve?
Or dig in the back of your closet and see if you have an old NES or Atari 2600 in there.