Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Caught red-handed, Republican astroturfers insist that this isn’t news–will they get away with it?

“We’re just trying to use technology to get people more involved in the political process,” Chuck DeFeo told PC World (Jan. 22, 2003). DeFeo, who works for the RNC, denies that he’s doing anything wrong. And PCWorld accepts DeFeo’s stonewall stance because “using the Web to mass-mail prewritten letters is nothing new.”

Hold on there! Those Nigerian guys who want my bank account number are “nothing new”–and they are just “using the Web to mass-mail prewritten letters.” Does that make it okay?

The point of the Republican “letter generators” is to trick small-town papers around the country into publishing spin-doctor prose disguised as the work of a fellow who lives next door. The Republican mailings were wrong for the same reasons those Nigerian mailings are wrong.

• The letters are written by pros but claim to be written by amateurs–because if you knew who wrote them and why it would be fatal to what they are trying to do.
• The letters are used to trick people into acting against their own best interests–most newspapers would rather get paid an advertising fee to publish RNC releases instead of giving them free space on letter pages.
• The letters are signed by people who expect to be paid (in points they exchange for merchandise)–but this is not disclosed either.

No wonder the Republicans don’t want to outlaw spam with deceptive headers–it lies at the heart of their own PR campaign!

Did any of those letters-to-the-editors say “Paid for by the Republican National Committee”? Because the GOPLeaders.com website, Mr. Chuck DeFeo, and whoever wrote those smarmy letters probably cost the RNC a bundle. Not to mention the merchandise people get for signing them…

So far, two news stories outside the online British technology journal Inquirer ( PC World, Jan. 22 and UPI, Jan. 24)–both tamely accept the idea that these intentionally-deceptive mailings are not only not wrong, they’re not even newsworthy.

If you find suspicious astroturf in your local paper, let the editors know. Suggest that they bill the Republican Party instead of giving them space for free.

If you want to write your own letter in reponse M. E. Cowen’s excellent blog has astroturf examples and advice. Let’s see if we can break this chain of complacency and deceit.

*****Hurray! Paul Boutin, whose excellent blog was the first place I read about this story, just published a very funny piece in Slate about this issue.

News story (from the Inquirer)

• Jan. 20: First news story using Google to show 31 identical letters signed with 31 different names.
• Jan. 21: Screenshot of web-based spam-generator.
• Jan. 21: Irate letters to the Inquirer as Republicans protest these revelations.
• Jan. 22: Screenshots of prizes you get for sending spam, thanks from Republican National Committee.

Hurray for bloggers!

• What you can do plus examples of RNC spam going back to April. (M. E. Cowan–this page continues to be updated as new information becomes available.)
• Background plus lots more
  deceptive Republican Astroturf (Gary Stock)
• Blog with reader comment–one reader’s friend turned out to be a “GOP Team Leader” himself. (Ben Hammersley)
• Another screenshot of the html form used to create “demonstrating genuine leadership” letters. (G. W. Bodine)
• Salon.com readers discussed similar letters appearing as early as February (thanks to Paul Boutin for the link.)

There are two kinds of organized mailings, both called “Astroturf” because they imitate grassroots support. Both kinds involve lots of folks sending on a form letter they got from some group they support. But one kind is meant to be informative, the other is meant to be deceptive.

Informative astroturf sends a lot of the same form letters to some politician so that politician can count up how many people support the point of view.

Deceptive astroturf disguises its form letter as a personal, heartfelt opinion, sending one copy (each signed by a different person) to each of many newspapers or individuals. The recipients aren’t meant to guess they are reading a PR firm’s carefully-worded message. Propagandists call this way of disarming suspicion the “Plain Folks” effect.

There’s a very big irony in the recent exposure of deceptive Republican astroturf by bloggers and by Mike Magee at the Inquirer.

The irony is the Bush team is sending out astroturf with intent to deceive–after denouncing and refusing to consider more than 700,000 messages sent to them in an open, appropriate way by members of environmental groups–because they were form letters and not “original.”

Check out this New York times story, by Katharine Seelye. Registration (free) is required, so let me just quote for you the astroturf-relevant bit:

“… the [Clinton-era] Forest Service actually relied on public comment when it developed its “roadless rule,” intended to protect 58 million acres of undeveloped national forest from most commercial logging and road building. It drew 1.6 million comments, the most ever in the history of federal rule-making. Almost all the comments — 95 percent — supported the protections but wanted the plan to go even further, which it eventually did.

But the Bush administration delayed putting the rule into effect and sought more comments, receiving 726,000. Of those, it said that only 52,000, or 7 percent, were “original,” meaning that the administration discounted 93 percent of the comments. The rule is now being challenged in court.”

Inquirer links

• Jan. 20: First news story using Google to show 31 identical letters signed with 31 different names.
• Jan. 21: Screenshot of web-based spam-generator.
• Jan. 21: Irate letters to the Inquirer as Republicans protest these revelations.
• Jan. 22: Screenshots of prizes you get for sending spam, thanks from Republican National Committee.

Mike Magee posted a screenshot of the HTML form that generates this letter–a spam-generating engine run by the Republican National Committee.

Irate Republicans wrote to the Inquirer complaining about these revelations. Okay, so people were sending out press releases from the RNC disguised as personal letters–that wasn’t the point. The point was that each person sending the letter had the pure motive of getting out this fine message to the world.

Ooops–that’s not true either. The Inquirer this morning shows what was really behind the barrage of spam: the senders get prizes for signing and sending these letter. He’s got the screenshots to prove it.

Shooting down well-financed-fakers is exactly the kind of stuff we all hoped the Internet would help us do. Woo hoo!

The blogs got the story first. The first news story was Mike Magee’s in The Inquirer.

Running a Google search turns up 31 identical letters praising the latest Bush tax cuts in identical language. Every single one denounces Democrats’ “class warfare rhetoric”; every single one praises Bush for “genuine leadership.” Of course, that count misses newspapers whose letters to the editor don’t appear online. Could this be one enthusiastic person sending out a lot of letters? If so, it’s hard to see why that letter got signed with 31 different names.

Furthermore, as Paul Boutin’s excellent blog points out, this letter is only the latest in a series. Gary Stock documents other bursts of identical pro-Bush letters, appearing in journals from the Cape Cod Times to West Hawaii Today: 12 in September (claiming Democrats had a secret plan to raise taxes), 20 in November (praising Bush’s agenda for Congress). The October letter (30 Google hits)praises Bush’s stand against Iraq.

I can’t believe this isn’t front page news in the dead tree papers–doesn’t anyone out there read Blogdex?

Magee later found and posted a screenshot of the HTML form that generates this letter–a spam-generating engine run by the Republican National Committee

Shooting down well-financed-fakers is exactly the kind of stuff we all hoped the Internet would help us do. Woo hoo!

The blogs got the story first, including Paul Boutin’s excellent blog. The first news story was Mike Magee’s in The Inquirer.

Running a Google search turns up 31 identical letters praising the latest Bush tax cuts in identical language. Every single one denounces Democrats’ “class warfare rhetoric”; every single one praises Bush for “genuine leadership.” Of course, that count misses newspapers whose letters to the editor don’t appear online. Could this be one enthusiastic person sending out a lot of letters? If so, it’s hard to see why that letter got signed with 31 different names.