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.
How would you know what I am, as last night was the first time you were here? (Hint: I’m not a nihilist. You may want to learn the meaning of words before choosing to use them in a laughable attempt to insult me.)
Careful, sweetie, your mask is slipping.
And I will have to decline your entreaty to ignore you, since you’re the one sealioning all over the blog that I’m an active part of.
So, you assume we’re too ignorant to know any of that (or to have read Susan Faludi) and barge in arglybargling about Eve Ensler and editing GWW’s Wiki page. The first post I saw by you was an unprovoked and inaccurate snarl at Dan’s innocuous post about his work. You want to prove you’re not just some troll, you need to walk it back all the way to the Yukon. And make sincere apologies.
That, and some of you have gotten past some of your preconceptions about me, and some of you have even stopped challenging me to repeated insult competitions.
Thank you for looking at my first reference. As requested, here’s a second. And since the first was 6 years old, this one comes from this month, May 2017:
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Womens-groups-Cancel-la…
I hope you can excuse me for seeing systematic oppression when representatives of “women’s organizations” unanimously oppose a law to criminalize rape by women who coerce adult and child victims into sex?
Please tell me that US and European women’s groups have denounced this atrocious behavior by pro-rape feminists in the Knesset.
@ EJ
Not quite what you meant, but reminded me of this classic (SPG wasn’t just a hamster).
*warning for lyrical content*
@LindsayIrene, Rioting Werebonobo
Heh, nicely said.
I said: The only other thread I’ve posted on for hours is about the Civil War and John Brown,
Weir, as usual, altered what I’d said to call me a liar:
No Petra. You’ve been on this thread, the MGTOW thread, Judgybitch Nazi shirt thread and the Marine Le Pen thread. What a stupid thing to lie about. You’ve been in three active threads and necro’d an older one. You’ve been here for probably close to 12 hours now.
More like 18 hours. And like I said, for the last few hours now, I’ve only been posting on this thread and on the other one where we’re discussing the civil war. Ergo, not every thread I am on is about the same thing.
The fact that I was on other threads several hours ago is true, and does not contradict what I said.
You’re just twisting what I said to cover your embarassment for completely fucking up everything I previously said. It’s called swallowing the spider to catch the fly. And I’ll warrant I’m not the only one here that you’ve blamed for your own fuckups.
Indeed it would be.
@ Petra
Nope, because as mentioned before I couldn’t find it. However, thanks to leftwingfox, I now have. And yes, it’s an appalling attitude. It’s also legally and physiologically wrong.
*warning for rape stuff*
There are some bodily functions that humans have little to no control over. That can include erections and even ejaculation. Even some paraplegics can achieve erection and ejaculation through manual stimulation despite having no sensation at all. Similarly, some women orgasm during rape (adding an extra horrible level of trauma). Again, that’s totally involuntary. And yes, people have argued that’s evidence that it’s not ‘really’ rape. But we live in a world where some of the highest in the land(s) think women’s bodies miraculously shut down if they’re being raped. That’s a horrendous level of ignorance. And that’s someone that needs to be addressed.
But legally how a victim’s body reacts to violation is irrelevant. Sex without consent is rape, and you can’t infer consent through involuntary physiological reactions.
Petra also necro’d the “Men’s Rights White Knights rush in to protect Karen “GirlWritesWhat” Straughan from MRA criticism” article on May 9th, refuting the lie that last night was the first time Petra was ever here.
Petra has a problem with honesty.
Here’s the correct link: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Womens-groups-Cancel-law-charging-women-with-rape
Also, um, it’s from 2010? Like that’s not a big point, but it’s a weird thing to claim otherwise.
@Petra
C’mon, man. There’s gotta be something else you can do with your time. Epic Battle Fantasy or something?
Also, Petra, your schtick is slimy and manipulative to the nth degree. I don’t disagree with everything you’ve said, (which is part of why it’s so slimy), nor do I agree with everything said about you, but the thing that you’re doing here is gross.
The only organization mention in the article is the Noga Center. It’s not a feminist organization, it’s for “advancing the rights of crime victims in the Israeli legal system.” Calling it a womens’ organization seems odd. Then they quote a law professor saying that the law might be used against women who accuse men of rape. That’s… it. I don’t know how we could go about finding out how it all ended up.
Also, I call shenanigans on PP trying to make this look like something that just happened, to the point of faking a link.
PeeVee is correct on the dates; wrong on the motive. But then nihilists always assume a lie when it’s someone they have an interest in smearing. Honesty means nothing to them. They can’t grasp anything other than winning, so that’s all they attribute to others.
Thank you, Alan. It’s a relief to hear someone say that, just as it’s a relief to me to hear a lot of the stuff that Karen Straughan says. I’ve been very clear from the onset that Karen Straughan is linked to my discussion here on sex abuse, etc. I was hoping to find one or two people among the feminists here that were capable of treating me like a human being. Thank you Alan. And I enjoyed talking to you off the topic that was eating me, too. John Brown is unique to me — the only example I’ve found I could wholeheartedly embrace as a JUSTIFIED terrorist. But the stakes were really high, and if he’d succeeded, the civil war would have been very very short, and minus some 550,000 dead. Those that seek to immitate him in less dire and less violent times have, IMO missed the point. And those that want to use violence in response to mere speech, are less like John Brown than like the thugs that half murdered Charles Sumner in Congress.
I’m starting to think that PP is Karen.
Getting back to the original post I have a vision of alt-righters desperately going through every single one of the nearly 300 Bugle podcasts John Oliver did with Andy Zaltzman looking for racism.
If nothing else that should give them a working knowledge of Test Match Cricket and the opportunity to witness the birth of the neologism “Fuckeulogy”.
Speaking of Posobiec’s and the alt-rights #MacronLeaks antics, I just read an amusing article in Le Monde (my translation):
Look fascists, either you can be a xenophobic, uneducated, narrow-minded nativist/nationalist, or you can attempt to know another language and culture well enough to comment on their affairs. Not both. These are not compatible things.
That the human body can react without desire is not a new idea. Again, Feminism 101, heck, it’s Biology 101. If this is the first time you’ve ever encountered this fact, you have a lot of learning to do, and your assumptions about feminists, women, and “the west” are grounded in naivete.
Just because something is new *to you* doesn’t mean it’s new.
Are you really young, maybe? Because Faludi, a lot of her seminal work was written over 25 years ago…like I said, it ain’t nothing new…
@Petra Pumpkineater
Just a little bit of gaslighting folks nothing to see here.
Thank you, Lindsaylrene. I guess I took the centrist rep of the JP, and assumed that they wouldn’t misrepresent that.
It’s just … well some of Red’s words in an interview on the Red Pill video. She gave this whole, fuck the boys, our rights come first spiel. Calmer than the first video, but seriously evil. I’ve run into it before. And coming here and seeing her defended like that, I guess I made some assumptions about most of you just as you made of me.
I’ll continue to look for Karen Straughan’s references when she talks about penetration being the definition of adult coercive rape in many US jurisdictions. If I can’t disprove it, I’ll come back here to bounce it off you. Unless I’m banned. Don’t have elsewhere to go, and, well, if some of you can’t cope with your own mission statement, then maybe those folks should find a safe space and try out those video games you keep talking about. Personally, I only play shit like Civilization, because (as you can probably guess) I’m a victim of sexual violence, not as bad as some, but some pretty fucked up stuff nonetheless. And I don’t want to be triggered that way. Not your fault, not your problem, but you’re barking up a tree with the vidgame recommendations. I’m here because I don’t like the world of the red pill and I’d like to see a little more hope for me and my boys.
Thank you, DJloue. Again I erred. a may date was in the right corner and I missed the recent one. I was looking for some of Karen Straughan’s references, and found that Israel story instead.
as for your accusation, DJLoue, I think you’re saying what you actually believe (unlike someone else here) but you are mistaken about my intent here. At this point I don’t care if you believe me. I appreciate the useful information and POV that I’ve received here, and that was well-worth the timewasting accusations, assumptions, and persistent hate of others. And the heartbreaking suspicion and anger of sincere broken ones. Hey, I remember then angry flavor of denial. I lied to protect my molester, like any good seven year old
Who the hell is Red? What does she have to do with us? I’m a victim of sexual assault, too, (many people here are), but I don’t go onto random blogs and start spewing nonsense.
This shit:
Knock it off. We know PeeVee; we do not know you. PeeVee gets the benefit of the doubt; you do not.
Why are you in the world of the red pill?
When you say “your boys” do you mean your sons? Brothers? Nephews? Friends? Yourself? Others? Who?
What’s with all the Karen Straughan hero worship? AFAICT she’s a 4th-rate hanger-on to a 5th-rate bigotry movement. If she’s ever said anything interesting it’s been lost in the oceans of bullshit she’s spewed as a “Cool Girl” embracing her internalized misogyny in order to cozy up to the MRAs who would just as soon spit on her as tolerate her.
LOL oh Petra, you haven’t risen to the level of hate. Annoying, sure. The persistent annoyance of others, is more accurate.