How easily or willfully we forget the past:

3/14/2008

>The Obama campaign's chief strategist is a master of "Astroturfing" and has a second firm that shapes public opinion for corporations

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2008-03-14/the-secre...

Correct, doesn't make it right (and Hillary did some of this as well)

I agree. So why keep up this naive and demonstrably false act that 2016 was the year persuasion and behavioral psychology was put to practical use in politics to manipulate voters.

Every presidential election cycle I can remember was full of rhetoric and outright lies persuade voters. Does no one remember all of the hilariously terrible chain letters from past elections that claimed all sorts of nonsense? I just don't understand why people are running away with this idea that somehow facebook/twitter have changed the game when it comes to brainwashing people to vote conservative.

Politics is and always has been a no holds barred competition where anything goes that isn't straight up illegal. History books praise JFK for utilizing the television in 1960 to win his presidential election. I'm starting to think that if they had today's political climate he would be remembered as a manipulator rather than being savvy.

The difference is a lot of people never imagined Trump could be elected and many people for the first time are shocked to see what the other half of the country thinks. Imagining that they were manipulated by superior technology not previously available lets people hold to the idea that half the country really didn't vote for trump deep down - if only they hadn't been duped and knew what he really was.

Did you really link to russianlago, an actual shill subreddit? Also thinkprogress is a shill advocacy organization.

> However that's not what has been done, but the a) use of shills and fake personas to pump up opinion b) creation of fake "grassroots movements" and "news articles" with a divisive purpose

This has been done since forever. People supporting Obama did in 2008. Those supporting Ron Paul did it. Bernie sanders supporters did it and so did hillary supporters.

Ad-Hominem and Whataboutism on the same comment, congrats

I was directly responding to your point. You said shilling is bad. I agree. But it doesn't do your argument any favor when you use two shill sites to defend your position. Russianlago is a shill subreddit. Everyone knows this. Thinkprogress is a shill advocacy group. It's in their mission statement.

Also, "Ad-Hominem and Whataboutism" is the easiest way to spot shilling. The fact that it is capitalized makes me believe it was copied and pasted from a list of talking points.

If you truly believed shilling was bad, you wouldn't support russianlago or thinkprogress. But the fact that you linked to those two makes me believe you actually support shilling. Just the shilling you agree with. Just an observation.

> But it doesn't do your argument any favor when you use two shill sites to defend your position

And it doesn't help your point that you conveniently ignored the point these two websites are making, and that have been reported by others as well.

"Everybody knows this" is a cop-out.

Shilling is bad, but water is still wet regardless if it's reported by TP or FoxNews or Breitbart, as opposed to you who prefers to shoot the messenger and has a 32 day old account. Just an observation