7 ms·

Fascinating stuff. I went down a rabbit hole with this particlar ad: https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR13265040647275937793/creative/CR1834181414

Fascinating stuff. I went down a rabbit hole with this particlar ad: https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR13265040647275937793/creative/CR18341814140017836033?region=US&topic=political https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR132650406472... It links to a website called fultongrandjury.com, which I at first thought would be an official government website, and what initially made me curious was the idea of spending money to advertise a government website, getting this additional credibility. Like, if the facts are so strongly on your side that you merely need to spend ad money to point people to official sources, that's a strong signal. > Fulton County Jury is a project of Our Community Media, Small Town American Media, and Small Town Truth. None of these are linked, but they can be found with Google. Our Community Media appears to be a website with stories scraped from Google News, one even has the Google News default image. Small Town America Media claims to support Small Businesses, Telehealth in Rural America and Digital Literacy. Their latest news: Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws Are Political Theater by State Politicians. Small Town Truth is probably the most inspiring: > For over 200 Years > American has fought for truth > Now.... > We need you to help They have page dedicated to "discovering truth", telling it apart from "russian fake news"[1] which is copied from and links to a medium post. None of these websites have information about who's behind them. No person. No address. They have contact pages, but these are just forms, probably to add you to some spam mailing list. [1]: https://www.smalltowntruth.org/discover-truth https://www.smalltowntruth.org/discover-truth

jodacola 2y ago
Small Town Truth says it's a registered 501(c)(3). I just found it by searching here: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ It leads to further rabbit holes I don't have the time to dig into now, but I might later, because now I'm very curious where it leads.
- jodacola 2y ago
  Meetings ended and I couldn't wait to get back! So, searching via that Exempt Organization Search led to a 501(c)(3) letter being issued to Small Town Truth, mailed to a residential address in the care of the "Better Narrative Group" - another "interesting" site[0]. Doing a little more searching, I've found another 501(c)(3) in care of Better Narrative Group: Soul of a Nation Media. Similar setup. In trying to find more information to connect some dots, I found Soul of a Nation Media's taxes were filed by ChurchBiz[1], but this hasn't led to anything interesting. Both Small Town Truth and Soul of a Nation Media changed addresses to a PO Box in Virginia in 2022. Oh, and here are another two I just found related to Better Narrative Group: American Volunteer Corps[2], Better Neighbors Network[3]. To not assume malice, maybe it's a concerned citizen trying, in their own way, by establishing these organizations. Something feels off about the sites, though - not much content, a little dead behind the eyes, and I can't put my finger on the actual purpose of the sites. Odd. [0] https://www.betternarrativegroup.org https://www.betternarrativegroup.org [1] https://www.churchbiz.com https://www.churchbiz.com [2] https://www.americanvolunteercorps.org/ https://www.americanvolunteercorps.org/ [3] https://www.betterneighborsnetwork.org/ https://www.betterneighborsnetwork.org/ edit: formatting
  - dartos 2y ago
    Not at my desktop, so I can’t really dig into the technical details of these sites, but by the look of them, they were all made either with the same tool and general components OR they were all made by the same group (maybe the same contracting firm or something)
    - neom 2y ago
      The images are all hosted on wix, so I guess they're all built with wix (I checked through them all to see if I could track the images back to anything, it's all stock photos) The weirdest thing I find about everything in there is this hobby lobby page: https://www.smalltowntruth.org/our-economy https://www.smalltowntruth.org/our-economy
      - dartos 2y ago
        Yknow maybe these are just actual us political groups… they have to exist, right?
        crazygringo 2y ago
        "Real" legitimate domestic political groups usually have the names of the people running them, with bios, etc. Who founded them, etc. They try to make it easy to figure out who they are so you trust them. When that information is missing it's extremely suspicious, and rightly so.
        uoaei 2y ago
        I think that's a pretty obsolete take that hasn't been reliable since Obama '08 and the "digital strategy". Not saying anything about "should", zealous downvoters...
        singlepaynews 2y ago
        Why? Do you know something I don’t? Intuitively to me it seems like “unverified identities are usually fake” is the core tenant of post-internet media literacy.
- euroderf 2y ago
  headline: Russian disinfo webring busted by HN diligence
  - datavirtue 2y ago
    Spot on.
vharuck 2y ago
[flagged]
- fakedang 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    Population being split on the available options is the basis of democracy and is a feature not a bug. Otherwise we might as well just have a CCP style single party.
    - fakedang 2y ago
      I'm sure we don't need to argue semantics here as you very well understand what I mean. The American public wasn't as divided as now. Heck, if Watergate were to have happened now, Nixon would have escaped scotch free - as Trump has. Joe Biden might even forever be remembered as the Neville Chamberlain of USA (even though Neville doesn't deserve his reputation while Biden absolutely does).
      - maxerickson 2y ago
        What analogy are you proposing with the Chamberlain thing? Are you mad the US hasn't declared war on Russia and worried that it is going to have dire consequences for the US?
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Are you mad the US hasn't declared war on Russia and worried that it is going to have dire consequences for the US? We've absolutely been slow rolling aid to Ukraine because the Biden White House bought Putin's bullshit. If we'd provided the weapons we're providing Kyiv with now at the outseet they would have been able to capitalise on the Russian army's lack of preparedness to draw frontlines much more advantageously, possibly even end the 'special operation' before it became entrenched.
zamadatix 2y ago
When I see .com I immediately assume it's not a government site until proven otherwise. It's sometimes done, particularly for affiliated and contracted sites, but also anyone can just go register a .com (see the history of whitehouse.com - from porn to gambling and more) plus government ones overwhelming tend to be .gov, .org, .us, etc anyways. (.gov is really the only one of those that's a particular guarantee of much but the others are at least slightly more likely to be real sites).
lupusreal 2y ago
> fultongrandjury.com, which I at first thought would be an official government website Are you being straight serious here, or are you doing a rhetoric thing where "I was confused" is just a shorthand for "I think some people might plausibly be confused"? I could see some people who aren't net-saavy thinking that domain looks like a government website, but I'm surprised that anybody here might see a .com like that and think it an official anything. Official government websites in America almost always use a .gov, and when they don't they usually have some goofy long string of subdomains like www.courts.state.md.us (I'm not 100% sure that is actually official, but it's in the style government websites use and if an unofficial website used that style I'd definitely consider it an attempt to deceive people.)
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago
  usps.com. amtrak.com. mta.info. These were just the first that came to mind. I think there are specific reasons behind each of these, but the fact is that I am used to interacting with government websites that end in .com, so it wouldn't surprise me if some county's court system also used a .com.
  - Discordian93 2y ago
    Those are state run businesses, not exactly government agencies.
    - edm0nd 2y ago
      USPS is a federal government agency tho https://www.usa.gov/agencies/u-s-postal-service https://www.usa.gov/agencies/u-s-postal-service
  - MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
    None of those are government websites.
kylecazar 2y ago
It seems to be the work of a man named Scott Shalett. Not sure in what capacity. https://www.publicdemocracy.io/scottshalett https://www.publicdemocracy.io/scottshalett
idrios 2y ago
Looking at that smalltowntruth website reminds me of someone I met in 2015. I stayed at a guy's airbnb in Denver. He was in breach of his renting agreement by hosting the airbnb and had previously spent about a year in jail (forget for what). He said he had 2 websites that he was promoting on Facebook and were making him money. On one website he posted lots of pro-Trump content and on the other he posted lots of pro-Bernie Sanders content. This was during the primaries so these articles were largely in opposition to Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton. He said he didn't care about either candidate but both websites were making him good money in ad revenue. He was not actually affiliated with either party. I wouldn't be surprised if he or someone else like him had scaled up their efforts.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  I find that quite satisfying. At least someone is getting something tangible out of the screaming and shouting, and best of all, it’s something straightforward. Money.

jodacola 2y ago

Small Town Truth says it's a registered 501(c)(3). I just found it by searching here: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ It leads to further rabbit holes I don't have the time to dig into now, but I might later, because now I'm very curious where it leads.

jodacola 2y ago
Meetings ended and I couldn't wait to get back! So, searching via that Exempt Organization Search led to a 501(c)(3) letter being issued to Small Town Truth, mailed to a residential address in the care of the "Better Narrative Group" - another "interesting" site[0]. Doing a little more searching, I've found another 501(c)(3) in care of Better Narrative Group: Soul of a Nation Media. Similar setup. In trying to find more information to connect some dots, I found Soul of a Nation Media's taxes were filed by ChurchBiz[1], but this hasn't led to anything interesting. Both Small Town Truth and Soul of a Nation Media changed addresses to a PO Box in Virginia in 2022. Oh, and here are another two I just found related to Better Narrative Group: American Volunteer Corps[2], Better Neighbors Network[3]. To not assume malice, maybe it's a concerned citizen trying, in their own way, by establishing these organizations. Something feels off about the sites, though - not much content, a little dead behind the eyes, and I can't put my finger on the actual purpose of the sites. Odd. [0] https://www.betternarrativegroup.org https://www.betternarrativegroup.org [1] https://www.churchbiz.com https://www.churchbiz.com [2] https://www.americanvolunteercorps.org/ https://www.americanvolunteercorps.org/ [3] https://www.betterneighborsnetwork.org/ https://www.betterneighborsnetwork.org/ edit: formatting
- dartos 2y ago
  Not at my desktop, so I can’t really dig into the technical details of these sites, but by the look of them, they were all made either with the same tool and general components OR they were all made by the same group (maybe the same contracting firm or something)
  - neom 2y ago
    The images are all hosted on wix, so I guess they're all built with wix (I checked through them all to see if I could track the images back to anything, it's all stock photos) The weirdest thing I find about everything in there is this hobby lobby page: https://www.smalltowntruth.org/our-economy https://www.smalltowntruth.org/our-economy
    - dartos 2y ago
      Yknow maybe these are just actual us political groups… they have to exist, right?
      - crazygringo 2y ago
        "Real" legitimate domestic political groups usually have the names of the people running them, with bios, etc. Who founded them, etc. They try to make it easy to figure out who they are so you trust them. When that information is missing it's extremely suspicious, and rightly so.
        uoaei 2y ago
        I think that's a pretty obsolete take that hasn't been reliable since Obama '08 and the "digital strategy". Not saying anything about "should", zealous downvoters...
        singlepaynews 2y ago
        Why? Do you know something I don’t? Intuitively to me it seems like “unverified identities are usually fake” is the core tenant of post-internet media literacy.
euroderf 2y ago
headline: Russian disinfo webring busted by HN diligence
- datavirtue 2y ago
  Spot on.

vharuck 2y ago

[flagged]

fakedang 2y ago
[flagged]
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  Population being split on the available options is the basis of democracy and is a feature not a bug. Otherwise we might as well just have a CCP style single party.
  - fakedang 2y ago
    I'm sure we don't need to argue semantics here as you very well understand what I mean. The American public wasn't as divided as now. Heck, if Watergate were to have happened now, Nixon would have escaped scotch free - as Trump has. Joe Biden might even forever be remembered as the Neville Chamberlain of USA (even though Neville doesn't deserve his reputation while Biden absolutely does).
    - maxerickson 2y ago
      What analogy are you proposing with the Chamberlain thing? Are you mad the US hasn't declared war on Russia and worried that it is going to have dire consequences for the US?
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Are you mad the US hasn't declared war on Russia and worried that it is going to have dire consequences for the US? We've absolutely been slow rolling aid to Ukraine because the Biden White House bought Putin's bullshit. If we'd provided the weapons we're providing Kyiv with now at the outseet they would have been able to capitalise on the Russian army's lack of preparedness to draw frontlines much more advantageously, possibly even end the 'special operation' before it became entrenched.

zamadatix 2y ago

When I see .com I immediately assume it's not a government site until proven otherwise. It's sometimes done, particularly for affiliated and contracted sites, but also anyone can just go register a .com (see the history of whitehouse.com - from porn to gambling and more) plus government ones overwhelming tend to be .gov, .org, .us, etc anyways. (.gov is really the only one of those that's a particular guarantee of much but the others are at least slightly more likely to be real sites).

lupusreal 2y ago

> fultongrandjury.com, which I at first thought would be an official government website Are you being straight serious here, or are you doing a rhetoric thing where "I was confused" is just a shorthand for "I think some people might plausibly be confused"? I could see some people who aren't net-saavy thinking that domain looks like a government website, but I'm surprised that anybody here might see a .com like that and think it an official anything. Official government websites in America almost always use a .gov, and when they don't they usually have some goofy long string of subdomains like www.courts.state.md.us (I'm not 100% sure that is actually official, but it's in the style government websites use and if an unofficial website used that style I'd definitely consider it an attempt to deceive people.)

Wowfunhappy 2y ago
usps.com. amtrak.com. mta.info. These were just the first that came to mind. I think there are specific reasons behind each of these, but the fact is that I am used to interacting with government websites that end in .com, so it wouldn't surprise me if some county's court system also used a .com.
- Discordian93 2y ago
  Those are state run businesses, not exactly government agencies.
  - edm0nd 2y ago
    USPS is a federal government agency tho https://www.usa.gov/agencies/u-s-postal-service https://www.usa.gov/agencies/u-s-postal-service
- MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
  None of those are government websites.

kylecazar 2y ago

It seems to be the work of a man named Scott Shalett. Not sure in what capacity. https://www.publicdemocracy.io/scottshalett https://www.publicdemocracy.io/scottshalett

idrios 2y ago

Looking at that smalltowntruth website reminds me of someone I met in 2015. I stayed at a guy's airbnb in Denver. He was in breach of his renting agreement by hosting the airbnb and had previously spent about a year in jail (forget for what). He said he had 2 websites that he was promoting on Facebook and were making him money. On one website he posted lots of pro-Trump content and on the other he posted lots of pro-Bernie Sanders content. This was during the primaries so these articles were largely in opposition to Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton. He said he didn't care about either candidate but both websites were making him good money in ad revenue. He was not actually affiliated with either party. I wouldn't be surprised if he or someone else like him had scaled up their efforts.

lostlogin 2y ago
I find that quite satisfying. At least someone is getting something tangible out of the screaming and shouting, and best of all, it’s something straightforward. Money.