Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Upton Trolls on Mlive.com

Articles on Mlive.com covering the 6th district congressional race between Congressman Fred Upton and Jack Hoogendyk often see comments attacking Jack and praising Fred Upton. Are these comments by normal readers, or are they actually written by people associated with Upton's campaign? Let's examine some of the commenters.

As of April 11, 2012, we have

westernright
First comment January 17, 2012
10 comments, all on the Upton/Jack race
Someone ripped of the name of this blog and is using it to attack Jack.

jmccordjr2
First comment January 12, 2012
15 comments, all on the Upton/Jack race

ChristieBush2016
First comment January 17, 2012
9 comments, all on Upton/Jack

kalamazoopatriot
First comment January 18, 2012
4 comments, all on Upton/Jack

kconservative
First comment January 17, 2012
5 comments, all attacking Jack

ajkazoo
First comment January 17, 2012
12 comments, all but one on Upton/Jack

CDillon
First comment January 17, 2012
6 comments, all but two on Upton/Jack

klp2013
First comment January 26, 2012
2 comments, both on Upton/Jack

andyh
First comment January 17, 2012
2 comments, both on Upton/Jack

Don Williams
First comment January 17, 2012
2 comments, both on Upton/Jack

PortagePatriot90
First comment January 17, 2012
2 comments, both on Upton/Jack

Amelia211329
First comment January 17, 2012
2 comments, both on Upton/Jack

On this article, the first five five commented at the times 1:05, 1:08, 1:15, 2:47, 2:55. On this one, several commented at 10:19, 10:31, 10:32, 10:35/37, 1:33, 6:18. On this one, they commented at 11:51, 11:56, 12:07, 12:21, 1:39.

All 12 profiles were created around the same time, nine on the same day, January 17. What's special about that day? Jack announced for Congress on January 17. All but two post pro-Upton and anti-Jack comments exclusively. Many of them use lines straight from Upton campaign literature. These comments are almost certainly posted by someone with the Upton campaign, whether it is one person using all the accounts or separate people. Note that not all pro-Upton/anti-Jack commenters are trolls, as the others post comments on a wide range of articles.

2 comments:

jmccordjr2 said...

To whom it may concern:

I am jmccordjr2. I saw a post on mlive directing me to this article. I wanted to inform you that I am a concerned patriot who, upon reading about Jack Hoogendyk's entrance into the race, created an account on mlive. My top priority for this country and this state is JOBS. Jack Hoogendyk has voted for some things that I, as a conservative, do not support and then he attempts to paint himself as a purist. My comments represent me and no one else. I thought you should know that before you put my name on your website.

Conservative First said...

jmccordjr2:

Some of your comments are not accurate and they usually follow Upton's talking points. Nobody has a perfect voting record, but is Upton's record really conservative? What do you think of the 15 votes catalogued in this post?

http://wmugop.blogspot.com/2010/07/fred-uptons-ten-worst-votes.html