I am 100% speculating, but I'd guess that's what Jeff Bezos did in relation to his extra-marital affair, and what Bill Gates and others have been doing in relation to Epstein.
I'd be interested in learning about what techniques they use, since they seem like something that ought to be countered.
I suppose it is mostly about connections with people in newspapers etc. and collecting favors from them.
I've seen it many times and it has always struck me as the kind of spin that PR firm would write and disseminate.
Have to say I'm particularly impressed with Reid Hoffman's PR outfit though. By all accounts he was a major Silicon Valley nexus connecting Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and others, yet he managed to stay almost completely out of the headlines and even still hosts a show on NPR about the startup scene.
When you look at the whole Epstein story, the people and the patterns, it's pretty clear that Gates was in a very questionable relationship with Epstein. The MIT donations, the senior Gates employee being the executor of Epstein's will, Gates' denials of knowing Epstein before the NYT article hit and his failure to address his flights with Epstein and meetings at his houses, Gates' email to staff about meeting with Epstein and a "beautiful Swedish woman and her 15 year old daughter, late into the night"...
With Gates in particular a lot of people seem willfully ignorant or have a strong desire not to dig deeper. It was a the same with Matt Gronenig. Prince Andrew, Dershkowitz, Wexner... I think every assumes the worst there but a lot of people are struggling to digest their actual heroes turning out to be much less than they thought.
I mean, your heroes sometimes turn out to be all that and so many more, horrible things. It's hard to fathom that people can contain good and bad qualities, and after the fact push them aside among "bad people". But if you do this, you won't learn anything, or be watchful of your remaining heroes.
Next time you idolize someone, remember that. They may be more things and those things may not all be pretty.
The English Language strikes again. Apologies for wandering off-topic, but to (hopefully) clarify:
You're thinking of less / more in the quantitative sense, suggesting some people have _more_ traits, some of which are unpleasant.
I think GP was using less in the qualitative sense - "a lesser person for lacking moral fiber", if you will.
Both are valid, but contextual ambiguity interferes with interpretation.
There’s a perfectly sound explanation for those posts that seem “shillish”: sincerely held beliefs that are different from yours. I think fanboyism and ideology motivate a lot more people to argue on the internet than money. If you want proof of this, look at all the teeming masses arguing for all sorts of causes that the rich and powerful don’t care about.
It's not necessarily relevant to this case, and I agree that calling those people out as such lowers the quality of discourse, but I think it's something important to keep in mind.
Now I’m getting in the weeds and questioning the motivations of party A. I suspect this might make party A feel the way party C does when people call them “useful idiots”. And perhaps it demonstrates how this line of questioning is an endless rabbit hole.
I think the criteria "that party B calls party C" is actually pretty irrelevant to the concept's usefulness.
> essentially an argument meant to invalidate popular support for party B
In most of the cases where I'd use the term "useful idiot" the "party B" doesn't have much popular support, but is rather engaging in manipulation, disinformation, dishonest propaganda, etc. The realization isn't useful as a dismissal, but rather as a reminder that you need to confront both the idiot's sincere belief along with their ignorance of it's goals, implications, and beneficiaries.
Another example of these kinds of statements would be "Elon Musk is like a real life Tony Stark." Do I think that every Elon fanboy is paid to say this online? No, of course not. Do I think that Elon Musk like many celebrities has a public image crafted by a PR firm and that this kind of jingo-istic soundbite probably originated from that firm? Absolutely.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-univer...
Bezos put all cards on table to avoid being blackmailed.