As I commented last week in a related thread, I continue to have problems with this project. I'm totally in favor of "following the money" and identifying shills, it's just that ShareBlue seems like the wrong place to look when compared with Media Matters.
From what I've read, ShareBlue has fewer than 20 employees, many of whom may not even be full time, and doesn't include an argue-with-trolls-on-social-media mandate at all. None of these links show anything to indicate it has secret additional funding, or secret additional employees, or a mandate to go shill anywhere. People continually SAY that ShareBlue is shilling in their threads, but that isn't the same as actually proving it's ShareBlue doing the shilling. The links above lead to hundreds of pages of detailed disbursements for CTR because it was a political organization governed by the FEC. ShareBlue isn't one, which is why there aren't FEC documents for it. It's basically a small, pro-Hillary Clinton blog. Over on /pol/ they're saying that it's the new "Correct The Record," but that's not true. It's not organized like CTR was, or funded the same way, and it's much smaller. Media Matters is 4 or 5 times bigger, it has been proven to have illegally diverted funds, and it has a mandate to do social media interventions.
I'm not saying that ShareBlue is innocent or shouldn't be investigated. I'm just saying that Media Matters remains a much better lead (which was a major point of my series of submissions, see my submission history for details).
I could argue that Shareblue is like a tendril to groups like Media Matters and Correct the Record. By looking at the satelites, we can find more suspects and connect them with the ones we already know or find clues to additional crimes.
Zac for example based on his history with Media Matters is most certainly a lieutenant to David Brock.
It's absolutely a relevant subject for research. Although some of the ShareBlue staff are surely just liberal normies, some are likely dirty. My concern is that the folks over on /pol/ seem to yell "ShariaBlue shill!" at everything, not realizing where the big money flows and headcounts actually are.
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SoberSecondThought ago
As I commented last week in a related thread, I continue to have problems with this project. I'm totally in favor of "following the money" and identifying shills, it's just that ShareBlue seems like the wrong place to look when compared with Media Matters.
From what I've read, ShareBlue has fewer than 20 employees, many of whom may not even be full time, and doesn't include an argue-with-trolls-on-social-media mandate at all. None of these links show anything to indicate it has secret additional funding, or secret additional employees, or a mandate to go shill anywhere. People continually SAY that ShareBlue is shilling in their threads, but that isn't the same as actually proving it's ShareBlue doing the shilling. The links above lead to hundreds of pages of detailed disbursements for CTR because it was a political organization governed by the FEC. ShareBlue isn't one, which is why there aren't FEC documents for it. It's basically a small, pro-Hillary Clinton blog. Over on /pol/ they're saying that it's the new "Correct The Record," but that's not true. It's not organized like CTR was, or funded the same way, and it's much smaller. Media Matters is 4 or 5 times bigger, it has been proven to have illegally diverted funds, and it has a mandate to do social media interventions.
I'm not saying that ShareBlue is innocent or shouldn't be investigated. I'm just saying that Media Matters remains a much better lead (which was a major point of my series of submissions, see my submission history for details).
darkknight111 ago
I do understand where you're going with this.
I could argue that Shareblue is like a tendril to groups like Media Matters and Correct the Record. By looking at the satelites, we can find more suspects and connect them with the ones we already know or find clues to additional crimes.
Zac for example based on his history with Media Matters is most certainly a lieutenant to David Brock.
SoberSecondThought ago
It's absolutely a relevant subject for research. Although some of the ShareBlue staff are surely just liberal normies, some are likely dirty. My concern is that the folks over on /pol/ seem to yell "ShariaBlue shill!" at everything, not realizing where the big money flows and headcounts actually are.