Posts made by Spintendo

Here is Stanford's report on Resist the Mainstream:

https://www.eipartnership.net/rapid-response/north-macedonian-content-farms

@raphjd

That's the difference.... That picture says it all. You know exactly what I mean.

Researchers at Stanford determined Resist The Mainstream is actually run by two individuals in Veles who generate viral stories and profit from advertising revenue using the InfoLink ad service and Google Analytics.

Now that you know, posting additional links here from that site would be you attempting to drive traffic towards their site. Whether or not you choose to disclose that to the forum is you and the site owner's business.

@raphjd
You hit the nail on the head.... that's exactly right. You said it perfectly.

My concern is that your suggesting links to a click-farm for other users of this forum to click. These Macedonian website operators target conservative Americans with partisan content copied from better-known right-wing websites in the United States. Your links generate advertising revenue every time somebody clicks them.

Do users of this forum understand that is what happens when they click links from resistthemainstream.org? My guess is no, they don't.

The stories you've highlighted here from that website may have been accurate (and that is still a stretch), but the same cannot be said for the thousands of other headlines from that website that you're not posting here. And when the goal is to increase people clicking on these headlines, truth goes out the window. It does if your wanting a paycheck for all those clicks.

@raphjd
CNN MSNBC Slate and Salon are not run by single individuals who operate out of apartment buildings in Macedonia, copying news stories onto their sites in order to get paid for clicks, without even an iota of journalistic cred to back up what they post.

The site resistthemainstream.org checks all of those boxes.

Is this where MSNBC runs there website from? What about CNN, are they located in this building above?

Of course not. But thats where your website is run from (or a building just like it)

You don't dispute that now, because you know now that it's a click farm. I'll bet anything you didnt know that before today. But now you know better.

You're posting links to Macedonian click-farms, and soapbubble is the one who is spamming?

Here's a new headline: Pot Calls Kettle Black

People in the forum have a right to know what links you've posted, like resistthemainstream.org are ultimately supporting. Either disclose that, or use a different site to get your USA political headlines from, preferably one outside of the former Yugoslavia (unless the subject is about something happening in the Balkans).

Youtube Video

@raphjd
I believe they were pointing out that the origins of the website you posted was suspicious. I pointed out that the link appears to be a Macedonian click-farm. That's what mediabiasfactcheck suggests on their page, that the site originates in Veles, Macedonia. Whether or not the information was "true" was not the point. It was how the information was being presented here, as a link to a click-farm.

@djsoapbubble
Within Veles itself, the young entrepreneurs behind these websites became subjects of tantalizing intrigue. Between August and November, Boris earned nearly $16,000 off his two pro-Trump websites. The average monthly salary in Macedonia is $371. Boris developed a routine. Several times a day he dredged the internet for pro-Trump articles and copied them into one of his two websites; if JavaScript prevented an easy copy-paste, he opened a Notepad file and typed the articles out. After publishing a piece, he shared the link in Facebook groups which made it simpler to propel an article into virality.

In Macedonia, wringing money out of web advertising is a game that long predated Trump’s bid for the presidency. Mirko Ceselkoski began to play in the early 2000s. He built seven or eight websites—about muscle cars or celebrities or superyachts, all oriented toward the American reader, because an American reader is roughly three times more valuable than a non-American one. For five or six hours of daily toil, Ceselkoski says, you can earn approximately $1,000 a month. Many Macedonians can spare the time; the unemployment rate is around 24 percent. [1]

This sounds a lot like resistthemainstream.org's modus operandi:

The contact page claims they are from Miami, Florida; however, this is a digital virtual mailbox forwarding service that attempts to lend them credibility as an American source. According to Stanford researchers, the website is from Veles, Macedonia. [2]

resistthemainstream.org is a Macedonian click-farm.

Prominently placing these links in this forum seems like advertisement for a Macedonian click-farmer. Wouldn't it better to link to the original news source for these stories, wherever that may be? Or at least a disclaimer for readers of the forum so they know what they are clicking.

@djsoapbubble

Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex

https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/

@raphjd

"Suspicions were raised about the water board election when more than 10 percent of the town’s 2,500 voters registered using the same mailing address."

When that was the evidence, it still took almost 4 years for her to plead guilty. This Texas anti-voter fraud effort sure has its work cut out for it. More power to 'em.

She was trying to influence the outcome of a utility board election held in 2018 in Calhoun County, Texas, population 12,015.

Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton announced that more than 500 election fraud cases are currently waiting to be heard in court.

Maybe after this one, the 499 left are perhaps more significant?

Or is it, they're just tackling the smaller, easier cases first.

@arlawson
The problem you've described ("most of the time my torrent client never uploads after I download stuff.") sounds familiar to me.

I've found that while a torrent is at a seeder/leecher ratio of 1 to any other number (say 1/50 or 1/100) you will pick up lots of leechers to upload to before you've finished getting the file yourself. Once the ratio tips (the moment when more than one person has the entire file) that's when the seeding drastically declines. That's been my experience. It's important to note, that while the uploading may decline, it's still a good idea to seed for as long as possible even if no one is connected to your client (you'll still get bonus points based on time seeding).

As far as piratebay seeming to have more leechers for you to seed a file to, those and other open access trackers can have thousands of leechers across multiple trackers, whereas the most you'd see for a file here on our single tracker would be less than 200 per file, so that accounts for your lessened upload activity here as opposed to there.

I don't think your router has anything to do with it.

@raphjd
Which legislature, and when should they have fixed it? The one in 1970 controlled by Republicans with a Republican governor, who wrote the legislation with a loophole large enough to fly a 747 full of beehives through -- or the one in 1984 controlled by Democrats with another Republican governor, who repealed the 1970 legislation but left the wording with the invertebrate loophole exactly the same?

@raphjd
I think the term "Voter" is what is confusing you here, since the word is both a noun and a verb. Let's make it simpler.

A person who was a voter while they were alive, but then died, well they don't vote anymore. But if they did, that would make them a "Dead Voter". So for that definition to be accurate, the Voter has to have voted while they were dead. That would make them a dead voter.

Someone who is dead, and still has an open registration -- is not really a dead voter according to the definition above. They would be more accurately described as a Dead Registrant.

So when you say "Dead Voter" and the report talks about "Deceased Voter Registrations" you're not really on the same page. But you knew that already. You're a smart person, and you know exactly what the distinction is I'm talking about here. It's a distinction that your headline hyperbole glosses over.

@raphjd
Isn't that the theme for your column here, making things up?

"60K Voters Dead or Registered Twice" --- your wholesale invention. Even the Youtube video you posted didn't go that far, calling it "8K Dead Voters" which is still, by itself, farcical (because they were registrations, not votes).

But what about the missing 80K ballots, Raphjd? You must have an opinion on this subject ... where do you think those 80K missing ballots went? Are there no Youtube videos about those missing 80K ballots for you to share with us here?

@raphjd
I'm surprised you didn't spot a major point in the report:

2,860 undeliverable ballots (outdated voter data meant the ballot could not be mailed out to a registrant)

and

86,000 unaccounted for ballots (those mailed out to registrants but never returned for counting)

Where's the headline saying "88,860 Ballots Go Unused in NC"

Where's the outrage over this? Doesn't this broken part of the voting process, where ballots are mailed out and never seen again, need to be fixed?

@raphjd

PILF's report is titled "North Carolina: Tens of Thousands of Deceased and Duplicative Voter
Registrations Found After 2020 Election"

The report says nothing about Dead Voters, because it's not about voters, it's about registrations. (Hint: See the revised headline I wrote in my last post - it's more accurate than yours)

If you want stats about dead voters in NC, you need only look at PILF's own statistics:

2016: 2,454
2018: 2,172

"60K on Rolls are Dead or Registered Twice" is a great example of headline hyperbole. Should actually read like this:

"42,984 are Legally Registered in A Second State, 10,549 had Duplicate Variations of Their Names Registered in NC, 2,028 had Non-Updated Variations of Duplicated Names Registered in NC (Such as Through Newly-Married Surnames), and 7,933 Were Dead (and Didn't Vote)"

That second headline sure is a lot clearer now, isn't it? That's what happens when hyperbole is cut out.

Nowhere in PILF's report does it allege that any of the figures mentioned above were actually exploited to commit voter fraud. All PILF's report does is remind NC officials to continue doing the job they already do, while urging them to do it quicker (even though much of their job clearing the election roles of detritus depends on the recordkeeping abilities of other agencies outside of their control).

@manhandler

You heard it here first people: ManHandler approves of giving money to homeless people, free land to Muslims, and pay raises for attorneys who represent thieves and criminals (public defenders). Who would have guessed? Thank you for your honesty!

It seems to me the revelation here is that it's not the policies themselves that you dislike... rather, it's who enacts those policies. If a democrat gave money to homeless people or free land to Muslims, ManHandler would ensure that this whole forum would never hear the end of it. However, when conservatives perform those actions, it makes everything okay.

For Manhandler, it's all about presentation and performance. Here we have a whole list of city ordinances which appear to ManHandler as virtuous when performed by a conservative-run city. These same actions are vices when performed in liberal-run cities. Hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.

There's a reason why I chose those particular ordinances to highlight (knowing full well that, because of where they were passed, you'd jump up to support them). The majority of those ordinances have their origins in progressive liberalism. Giving money to chronically homeless people is not a core Conservative value. Giving away city-owned land to organizations for free is not a core conservative value. Mandating training in diversity is not a core Conservative value. Giving city employees an across the board pay raise is not a core conservative value (conservatives value raises garnered through individual merit, like hard work and singular accomplishment).

So from now on, whenever you see these same actions occur somewhere else and cry foul, a little piece of you deep inside will feel betrayed, because those same actions performed by others were once given an "OK" by you.

The last one about ethics and "keeping it simple" and "order and chaos" LoL Not much thought put into that response, eh? Which is why you listed it last. Not worthy of our time.

My guess is you'd be the first to agree that today's PC environment is too litigious. So put some effort into thinking why it's probably not a good idea to leave your city employees open to lawsuits by not preparing them with training that helps the city avoid lawsuits. Do a risk benefit comparison....the costs of hiring attorneys to fight PC lawsuits.... versus the costs of hiring someone to show city employees a PowerPoint on avoiding PC lawsuits. Which one is cheaper?

Any monies saved could be re-invested in their Golf Course Fund!

@manhandler I'm sure Plano really is the Garden of Eden you've described. But just to be sure, let’s take a look at what actions the Plano mayor and city council have completed recently, by examining a handful of city ordinances they passed last year:
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Resolution No. 2020-7-1:

• To approve a contract with the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs in an amount not to exceed $192,675 for the Homeless Housing and Services Program .

$200K for homeless people? Maybe that’s why Plano has less of them. The city simply pays them off. That's your tax dollars at work.
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Ordinance No. 2020-7-4:

• To repeal section 2-100 of the City Code of Ordinances in its entirety, requiring training for elected and appointed officials of the City with regards to the city’s code of conduct, ethics, conflicts of interest, open meetings, public information, discrimination and harassment free workplaces, and diversity.

Because who needs boring diversity training and pesky lessons in ethics? Certainly not Plano city employees!
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Ordinance No. 2020-7-5:

• Authorizing the quit claim of all right, title and interest of the City of Plano in a 0.5 acre right-of-way property, recorded in Cabinet F, Page 372, of the Plat Records of Collin County, Texas, being situated in the James Ledbetter Survey, abstract No. 545, located within the city limits of Plano, Collin County, Texas; surrendered to the abutting property owner, the East Plano Islamic Center.

The City of Plano donated this land to Plano’s Islamic Center. How nice of them to do that. I’m sure it will be put to constructive use.
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Ordinance No. 2021-4-5:

• To transfer the total sum of $1,640,294 from the following Unappropriated fund balances: General Fund ($1,473,584), Convention & Tourism Fund ($21,552), Water & Sewer Fund ($61,228), Sustainability & Environmental Services Fund ($49,467), Municipal Drainage Fund ($13,565), Recreation Revolving Fund ($9,127), Golf Course Fund ($3,704), Risk Management Fund ($3,684), and the PTV Fund ($4,383), to each of the listed Fund Operating Appropriations for fiscal year 2020-21 for the purpose of a mid-year 2% across the board pay increase for all city employees.

Because Plano city employees deserve more money for all their hard work, they’re getting a big raise. Unfortunately to pay for the raise, the city must take $1.6 million from a whole bunch of funds, including $65K from Plano's Golf Course and Water and Sewage funds. Let’s just hope the sewers don’t get backed up, or it may start to smell. If there are any problems, all their hard work paying the homeless to poop elsewhere may be for naught.

When you say "poop in the streets is policy" what policy are you referring to? The only Dallas city ordinance I know of regarding poop in the streets is the following:

City of Dallas, Texas Code of Ordinances
VOL 2, SEC. 31-18: URINATING OR DEFECATING IN PUBLIC

A person commits an offense if he urinates or defecates:

• in or on a public street, alley, sidewalk, yard, park, building, structure, plaza, public or utility right-of-way, or other public place; or
• in public view.

That policy has been on the books for decades.

Since you live there, when you mention "policies", please cite these policies as they're codified in the law books.