Guest post by Joe Hoft
Back in April 2016 Clinton SuperPAC ‘Corrrect the Record’ –
issued a press release blatantly informing the public they would be spending more than a million dollars to pay Clinton trolls and shills to “engage in online messaging both for Secretary Clinton and to push back against attackers on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram.” If their own press release isn’t enough to convince people that they not only exist, but are actually being paid to infiltrate social media, comment sections and forums across the Internet, perhaps the documented payments to individuals from Correct the Record, list at the Federal Election Commission website, will.
The Dailycaller noted in late October 2016 that Reddit users (also known as redditors) had had enough with pro-Hillary Clinton political action committee (PAC) Correct The Record over its efforts to promote a pro-Hillary narrative on the site.
The Redditors were especially concerned that Correct The Record’s paid internet commenters were suppressing revelations from WikiLeaks’ release of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails, which produced a flood of damaging revelations about the Clinton campaign.
One former person who worked for the Clinton hit squad shared what a horrible job it was working for the Hillary campaign as a hitman.
The real problem for me started around the end of September and the beginning of October, when there was a change of direction from the team leader again. Apparently, the higher-ups in the firm caught wind of an impending spending splurge by the Clinton campaign that month and wanted to put up an impressive display. We received very specific instructions about how and what to post, and I was aghast at what I saw. It was a complete change in tone and approach, and it was extremely nasty in character. We changed from advocates to hatchet men, and it left a very bad taste in my mouth.
Just to give you an idea, here are some of the guidelines for our posting in October:
1) Sexism. This was the biggest one we were supposed to push. We had to smear Bernie as misogynistic and out-of-touch with modern sensibilities. He was to be characterized as “an old white male relic that believed women enjoyed being gang raped”. Anyone who tried to object to this characterization would be repeatedly slammed as sexist until they went away or people lost interest.
2) Racism. We were instructed to hammer home how Bernie supporters were all privileged white students that had no idea how the world worked. We had to tout Hillary’s great record with “the blacks” (yes, that’s the actual way it was phrased), and generally use racial identity politics to attack Sanders and bolster Hillary as the only unifying figure.
3) Electability. All of those posts about how Sanders can never win and Hillary is inevitable? Some of those were us, done deliberately in an attempt to demoralize Bernie supporters and convince them to stop campaigning for him. The problem is that this was an outright fabrication and not an accurate assessment of the current political situation. But the truth didn’t matter – we were trying to create a new truth, not to spread the existing truth.
4) Dirty tactics. This is where things got really bad. We were instructed to create narratives of Clinton supporters as being victimized by Sanders supporters, even if they were entirely fabricated. There were different instructions about how to do it, but something like this
Another story shared how Hillary was taking a page from Vladimir Putin with her online hit squads.
Using a tactic called “astro-turfing,” Clinton surrogates like Brock have attempted to advance the concept of the “Bernie Bro,” and to promote the idea that Sanders supporters are little more than a sexist cult. The moderator of the thriving Bernie Sanders for President Reddit page, preparing for an onslaught, recently outlined one common form these attacks take:
1. Create fake accounts
2. Establish that they are Bernie supporters by making them tweet about Bernie
3. Harass journalists and influencers in their @ mentions
As of November 9th, the Internet trolls for Clinton have stopped – crickets.
Correct the Record sent out their last tweet on the 8th (noted above) and thankfully are no longer.
Reddit is relieved with the sudden silence from the left plus there are no concerns about what the workers at CTR are doing now.
