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I have to disagree with this for several reasons. First, defining grass roots as independent events is not the typically used definition. It simply means trying
by berryjerry 6y ago
I have to disagree with this for several reasons. First, defining grass roots as independent events is not the typically used definition. It simply means trying to get support at the local level to most people. For instance the Bernie Sanders campaign was considered "grass roots," but those people were usually all convinced by a national voice, Bernie Sanders, potentially use advertisement dollars collected by different states. Secondly, there are many situations where any organizer tries to make changes in different states and thus creates multiple websites. Thirdly, in literally 10 minutes I could buy the domains and create both of those websites with about $50 and in less time if I knew an activist who had a template for it. Perhaps a friend who just created a website for another state? This doesn't take a massive organization or entity to push an agenda. Lastly, it seems extremely likely to me that this agenda, affecting the entire country, is very likely to be sought by any of the over 20 million people who recently claimed unemployment benefits, or the many millions more who also lost their job and simply have not filed for unemployment yet, or the business owners who are getting their livelihoods destroyed. I'm not seeing the great leap here where astroturfing would even be necessary given the current situation and feeling of the populace for a couple of cheap websites.
- ryandrake 6y agoRight. Astroturfing is characterized by the deception and obfuscation, not by whether it’s coordinated or not. This is clearly astroturfing because the organizers are trying to hide the fact that it is coordinated and presumably led by a small number of interests.
- frockington1 6y agoThe small interests being the families who no longer have a source of income because the government deemed their job non-essential. I know software engineers are still able to work but a lot of people are out of work and may be permanently as lockdowns increase
- ryandrake 6y agoCome on. I know it's not allowed here to suggest that someone didn't read the article, but Krebs (and the Reddit "researcher") presents pretty compelling evidence that this is not, in fact, a bunch of rando people spontaneously deciding to protest all at once. If Facebook provided the same kind of transparency you can dig up from the DNS registration system, you'd likely find a similar pattern around who's behind all the "organization" that suddenly popped up seemingly out of nowhere.
- frockington1 6y agoIt would make sense for a nation-wide phenomenon to be coordinated among people with the same problem. Also makes sense for it to pop up around the same it became apparent the virus was not nearly as deadly as initially reported.