Lee Camp Article on TD Brings Sock Puppets From Out of the Disqus Shadows
I'm sure most if not all of you have read the recent satirical article on Truthdig by Lee Camp about "Election Guard." If not, I'd recommend it. And I'd also recommend the more serious Whitney Webb article on Mintpress News that was the basis for Camp's piece and his Redacted Tonight monologue on the topic.
The Camp article seems to have struck quite a few nerves as it started attracting comments from some Disqus users who hadn't posted in quite a while, never posted on TD before, etc. Some of the other apparent sock puppet accounts who have lately become usual suspects on the TD comment threads also threw in their two cents as well, but it was some of the "new faces" who first really made me raise an eyebrow. When I've gone too deeply into the topic of Disqus users on TD who make it too apparent that they're sock puppets before, the posts have gotten zapped pretty quickly. So, I figured I'd initiate a discussion here on The Digger.
For openers, let's look at Tyler Regus, who made one unrelated comment two days ago before he suddenly decided that he needed to post on TD to question and belittle the Camp piece with technical arguments. Before that it had been eight months since his previous Disqus comment.
Then there's Arkbane, who has made a whopping total of 24 comments since he joined Disqus in 2013. His last comment was 10 months ago before he decided to post on TD to criticize Camp's employment at RT.
How about Michael Henry Starks? He's amassed 51 upvotes on 42 comments since he joined Disqus in 2009. A grand total of four of those comments were posted in the last two years. I think that with those stats he deserves to be crowned as the Holy Sovereign King of Zombie Accountlandia. Additionally, his comment is so bizzaro world that it deserves to be seen in its entirety.
Then there are some of the usual suspect sock puppets who have lately been gracing TD with their anal expressive offerings who also popped in to the thread to complain about Camp daring to question the integrity of US elections.
First, there's Rick D who found no humor in Camp's account.
Rick posted the above analysis only after this previous post had seemingly failed to garner any attention:
I also got a response today on the Camp thread from the private profile of Dave who has been portraying a knee jerk GOP fan on TD in the 2847 comments his fingers have tapped out since he joined Disqus on January 8, 2019. In retrospect, January of this year looks like it may have been when a new crop of sock puppets were introduced to the TD comments. Perhaps that way they'd seem like an organic part of the community by the time the 2020 election discussions start getting heated.
There are a few other notable frequent TD sock puppets who don't seem to have posted in the Camp thread who nonetheless deserve honorable mention here. There's the ever obedient DNC flunky Steve Parsons, and of course also the recent arrival who goes by the handle Dunnyveg or something similar. Dunnyveg has a magical ability to garner mind-boggling upvote totals in split seconds! Talk about a super power!
When Dunnyveg first appeared on TD, I called out the obviously suspicious nature of the activity when a brand new user was almost instantly awarded a virtually infinite number of upvotes as soon as he hits the post button. I was quite surprised when my post was instantly slapped with a red PENDING tag, but much less surprised when the red tag was changed to DELETED a short time later.
Dunnyveg seems to be assigned to play the part of a GOP far right Fox News fanboy type, but I recently noticed he made a post where he was pretending to be a believer in the "russian election interference" story. I then pointed out that when the sock puppets can't keep their characters consistent that the sock puppet show lost its dramatic tension from the lack of continuity in the script. But I took the step of putting dashes in between the letters in s-o-c-k p-u-p-p-e-t-s. To my amazement, that post didn't get deleted. Who would have guessed that?
The Camp article seems to have struck quite a few nerves as it started attracting comments from some Disqus users who hadn't posted in quite a while, never posted on TD before, etc. Some of the other apparent sock puppet accounts who have lately become usual suspects on the TD comment threads also threw in their two cents as well, but it was some of the "new faces" who first really made me raise an eyebrow. When I've gone too deeply into the topic of Disqus users on TD who make it too apparent that they're sock puppets before, the posts have gotten zapped pretty quickly. So, I figured I'd initiate a discussion here on The Digger.
For openers, let's look at Tyler Regus, who made one unrelated comment two days ago before he suddenly decided that he needed to post on TD to question and belittle the Camp piece with technical arguments. Before that it had been eight months since his previous Disqus comment.
Then there's Arkbane, who has made a whopping total of 24 comments since he joined Disqus in 2013. His last comment was 10 months ago before he decided to post on TD to criticize Camp's employment at RT.
How about Michael Henry Starks? He's amassed 51 upvotes on 42 comments since he joined Disqus in 2009. A grand total of four of those comments were posted in the last two years. I think that with those stats he deserves to be crowned as the Holy Sovereign King of Zombie Accountlandia. Additionally, his comment is so bizzaro world that it deserves to be seen in its entirety.
I subscribe to Truthdig for honest, reliable journalism that I don't find elsewhere. When I want comedy, I visit YouTube. "Microsoft and the Pentagon Are Quietly Hijacking U.S. Elections" Really? If Truthdig thinks that's even likely, please put a real reporter onto it.He subscribes? Is there a paperboy on a fixed gear bike wheeling around his neighborhood throwing paper copies of TD onto porches? Does he have his subscription cost set up as a recurring charge on a credit card or does the paperboy include an envelope every month?
Then there are some of the usual suspect sock puppets who have lately been gracing TD with their anal expressive offerings who also popped in to the thread to complain about Camp daring to question the integrity of US elections.
First, there's Rick D who found no humor in Camp's account.
Found little of humor much BS.
This might be funny to sophomores in High School but has no place in an editorial:
"Well, our election system is … how do you say … a festering rancid corrupt needlessly complex rigged rotten infected putrid pus-covered diseased dog pile of stinking, dying cockroach-filled rat shit smelling like Mitch McConnell under a vat of pig farts. And that’s a quote from The Lancet medical journal (I think)."I got no further in that article.
Rick posted the above analysis only after this previous post had seemingly failed to garner any attention:
It seems a Lee Camp article is the Truthdig equivalent of supermarket tabloid. I choose to skip his bombast in future.Then there's the ever popular XPat whose private profile shows that he's received 923 upvotes on his 1268 comments since he joined Disqus on January 17, 2019. He predictably casts aspersions on Camp, yet surprisingly recommends the Whitney Webb Mintpress article. Who would have guessed that? Perhaps he's fishing for upvotes to remedy his embarrassing comment to upvote ratio. XPat is also notable in that his character is supposed to be a diehard Bernie Fan, but he loves to argue with anyone who points out that the 2016 democratic primaries were rigged against Bernie.
I also got a response today on the Camp thread from the private profile of Dave who has been portraying a knee jerk GOP fan on TD in the 2847 comments his fingers have tapped out since he joined Disqus on January 8, 2019. In retrospect, January of this year looks like it may have been when a new crop of sock puppets were introduced to the TD comments. Perhaps that way they'd seem like an organic part of the community by the time the 2020 election discussions start getting heated.
There are a few other notable frequent TD sock puppets who don't seem to have posted in the Camp thread who nonetheless deserve honorable mention here. There's the ever obedient DNC flunky Steve Parsons, and of course also the recent arrival who goes by the handle Dunnyveg or something similar. Dunnyveg has a magical ability to garner mind-boggling upvote totals in split seconds! Talk about a super power!
When Dunnyveg first appeared on TD, I called out the obviously suspicious nature of the activity when a brand new user was almost instantly awarded a virtually infinite number of upvotes as soon as he hits the post button. I was quite surprised when my post was instantly slapped with a red PENDING tag, but much less surprised when the red tag was changed to DELETED a short time later.
Dunnyveg seems to be assigned to play the part of a GOP far right Fox News fanboy type, but I recently noticed he made a post where he was pretending to be a believer in the "russian election interference" story. I then pointed out that when the sock puppets can't keep their characters consistent that the sock puppet show lost its dramatic tension from the lack of continuity in the script. But I took the step of putting dashes in between the letters in s-o-c-k p-u-p-p-e-t-s. To my amazement, that post didn't get deleted. Who would have guessed that?
