All the “reopen $statename” websites were registered on the same day | Hacker News Reader

All the “reopen $statename” websites were registered on the same day

reddit.com

107 pointsenraged_camel12 comments

The whole comment thread is fascinating, and perhaps the best evidence that this entire movement was astroturfed. I thought it was interesting the ease at which this could be detected.

Well, copying and pasting descriptions across Facebook pages, registering all the domains at the same time with the same provider and same naming scheme, and missing WHOIS privacy are all OPSEC fails.

It wouldn't have taken much effort to cover their tracks a little better.

On a similar note, there is an effort underway to identify a large cluster of fake news websites set up in the same cookie-cutter manner:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MassMove/

https://github.com/MassMove/AttackVectors

OPSEC needs are minimal with the people they’re targeting.

It's scary to me that our country is being manipulated.

Covid19 does not need to be politicalize. We're in troubled times I don't believe we need people going against experts (science/doctors/etc...).

It doesn't need to be, but if you have your own interests in mind (economic, anti-US, others?), then why not? Since the rise of mass social media we've learned it's pretty easy to mindfuck a bunch of rubes, and if you get caught, the rubes will double down because nobody's ego will ever take the hit of realizing they're the rube.

> It's scary to me that our country is being manipulated.

That's because the political system is very dysfunctional and national political leaders are no longer used to coherent action.

true, but there is the possibility of making the correct decision for the wrong reason.

For those of you that prefer the “old” reddit interface:

https://old.reddit.com/r/maryland/comments/g3niq3/comment/fn...

Firefox add-on to always automatically redirect to old.reddit (also works on Firefox for Android)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/old-reddit-re...

What exactly is the definition of astroturfed? If it implies spending lots of money then is there evidence of that here? A few Facebook groups (free) and a few hundred dollars in domain registrations and hosting. Are these protesters being bused to rallies? What would a true grassroots movement look like these days?

First off, grassroots vs astroturf describes a spectrum, rather than a binary or dichotomy.

Astroturf implies control and/or financing by an organization. That organization might pay participants (Brooks Brothers Riot) or pay for advertising to generate support from those who would otherwise be apathetic.

It is said that the Tea Party started out as grassroots, but was coopted and turned into an astroturf operation. OTOH, Occupy Wall Street rejected any kind of centralization and can thus be described as almost purely grassroots.

Astroturfers often have additional, hidden goals that may be misaligned with those of the supporters that they have attracted.

"Astroturf" means "appears grassroots, but isn't". It only implies deception. The amount of money spent or the scale of the operation is not that relevant.

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