Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Jimbo and Larry Lessig "Start" the Presidential Campaign Trail - on Reddit

This was good for some laughs....


Making a first swing at starting a presidential campaign on Reddit would be like Jimmy Carter starting his campaign in 1976 on CB radio. I was clued into this by a Reddit-watcher who noticed that a number of weird accounts were involved, such as:



Who showed up here:



(Is /u/AKVM a Lessig campaign worker?)

My source pointed out /u/1tudore, who had not used their account for over two years until a few months before the IAmA session was announced. Was he/she/it there for normal reasons, or were they a shill?


The number of reactivated and new accounts was shocking, such as /u/welshej talking to Lessig:


And when you look at the questioner:


If you look at the account, /u/welshej let it sit dormant for a year, posted something a year ago, and was posting one comment a month for the last seven months.

There were some like /u/mrblackcoffee, who were new and opposed/skeptical.

Is that a setup or not, or a right-wing troll going after a Democratic candidate? If the supporters are possibly fake, how about the opposition?


There were some people trying to reveal the truth, like /u/FuriousDark:


And people tried to laugh that off:


There were the jokers as well:


So was it all a fraud? Or were there enough fake accounts to "jumpstart" a conversation, just as Ohanian and Huffman used sockpuppets to start interest for Reddit on Reddit? It is pretty fitting that Jimmy Wales is the chairman of Lessig's campaign, because he used similar tactics to bulk up Wikipedia in 2001; taking articles from the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911), the 1899 Encyclopaedica Biblica, the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, and other public-domain reference books, rewriting them, and posting them helped build the site into the intellectual bedlam it is today.


The idea of a fraud conversation between a pseudo-candidate and fake voters within a scam-created website reminds me of a certain show about a Village, a man with a number for a name, and the Election From Hell:


Be seeing you.

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15 comments:

  1. metasonixAugust 26, 2015 at 11:15 AM

    "The idea of a fraud conversation between a pseudo-candidate and fake voters within a scam-created website reminds me of a certain show about a Village, a man with a number for a name, and the Election From Hell:"

    That's the colorful fictional version. We can only wish real life were that charming. This shit actually reminds me of business-as-usual in any number of Latin American countries. Jimbo is the Rios Montt or the Mugabe of the web. Take your choice.

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    1. StrelnikovAugust 26, 2015 at 9:45 PM

      Jimbo is too incompetent - he's more like Anastasio Somoza Debayle (aka "Tachito") of Nicaragua, two years before the Sandinistas smashed his crap government.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousAugust 27, 2015 at 9:29 PM

    Hey, this is AKVM. I'm a 17 year old highschool student. I'm not a campaign worker - I'm a Lessig supporter. (I'm also a Bernie supporter, by the way.) I said "we" because I've asked my friends to donate to Lessig, not because I'm a staff member. Although if Lessig would like to hire me, I'd be more than fine with that. ;)

    By the way, I will note that it's pretty shoddy journalism to post this kind of article without reaching out to the Reddit users involved to find out more.

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    1. AnonymousAugust 27, 2015 at 9:38 PM

      Also, if it wasn't clear, I've never contacted Lessig or Wales in any way, before this AMA. And I didn't throw softball questions at him - for instance, I asked him to pledge not to run as an independent (which he'd never known before), and I asked him and Wales about their political differences.

      Delete
    2. StrelnikovAugust 28, 2015 at 1:13 AM

      We asked the question "Is /u/AKVM a Lessig campaign worker?" You denied it, but can you prove your denial?

      You wanted real journalism and now you are getting it.

      Delete
    3. AnonymousAugust 28, 2015 at 9:13 AM

      If you look at my Reddit history, you'll find that the idea that I'm a Lessig campaign worker is ridiculous. I constantly post things that don't serve Lessig's strategic interests - for instance, my firm belief that there's zero chance that he'll win. (But that his campaign is incredibly important anyway, to draw attention to this issue.)

      Or for another example, I criticize him for saying things like "Bernie has been seduced by his consultants." (I agree with Lessig, of course - Bernie is focused on making change through gaining widespread awareness, a strategy that makes sense to me, and that strategy requires focusing on citizens' equality less - but it isn't serving Lessig to say it in that way.)

      Delete
    4. AnonymousAugust 31, 2015 at 10:24 AM

      No response?

      Delete
    5. AnonymousAugust 31, 2015 at 10:24 AM

      No response?

      Delete
    6. StrelnikovAugust 31, 2015 at 11:52 PM

      My response is that I have been taking to an expert and they think you are lying. I reserve judgement until such time as you can prove your assertions without giving your true identity away.

      Delete
    7. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2015 at 10:57 AM

      Alright, how do you want me to prove it?

      Delete
    8. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2015 at 10:57 AM

      Alright, how do you want me to prove it?

      Delete
    9. StrelnikovSeptember 2, 2015 at 12:57 PM

      That's for you to figure out.

      Delete
    10. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2015 at 2:29 PM

      That's ridiculous. Why isn't my proof above sufficient?

      Delete
  3. AnonymousAugust 27, 2015 at 9:30 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. AnonymousAugust 27, 2015 at 9:37 PM

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete

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