[EL] “Trump Consultant is Trolling Democrats With Biden Site That Isn’t Biden’s"

[Steve Klein]

>
> *"Yet in anonymously trying to exploit the fissures within the Democratic
> ranks — fissures that ran through this past week’s debates — Mr. Mauldin’s
> website hews far closer to the disinformation spread by Russian trolls in
> 2016 <https://nyti.ms/2xdVuXM> than typical political messaging.”*


Having perused joebiden.info -- the website in question that the NYT
righteously declines to name -- I’m curious just what on the website is
“disinformation”, or false information or propaganda. In the most recent
debate, my favorite line came from Rachael Maddow in response to Sen.
Sanders: “It’s a quote
<https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/1144436123122524161>...!” I would note
the same throughout the site.

To make the case simply on lack of a disclaimer that’s up to the NYT’s
standards makes any piece of anonymous political speech “disinformation.”

On Sun, Jun 30, 2019 at 11:11 PM Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

> “Trump Consultant Is Trolling Democrats With Biden Site That Isn’t Biden’s”
> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105922>
>
> Posted on June 30, 2019 8:01 pm <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105922>
> by *Rick Hasen* <https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
>
> NYT
> <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/29/us/politics/fake-joe-biden-website.html>
> :
>
> *From top to bottom, the website, JoeBiden.info, breezily mocks the
> candidate in terms that would warm the heart of any Bernie Sanders
> supporter: There are GIFs of Mr. Biden touching women and girls, and blurbs
> about his less-than-liberal policy positions, including his opposition to
> court-ordered busing in the 1970s and his support for the Iraq war. Pull
> quotes highlight some of his more famous verbal gaffes, like his
> description of his future boss, Barack Obama, as “articulate and bright and
> clean.” The introductory text declares, “Uncle Joe is back and ready to
> take a hands-on approach to America’s problems!”*
>
>
> * All the site says about its creator is buried in the fine print at the
> bottom of the page. The site, it says, is a political parody built and paid
> for “BY AN American citizen FOR American citizens,” and not the work of any
> campaign or political action committee.*
>
>
> * There is indeed an American behind the website — that much is
> unambiguously true. But he is very much a political player, and a
> Republican one at that. His name is Patrick Mauldin, and he makes videos
> and other digital content for President Trump’s re-election campaign.
> Together with his brother Ryan, Mr. Mauldin also runs Vici Media Group
> <https://vicimediagroup.com/>, a Republican political consulting firm in
> Austin whose website opens with the line “We Kick” followed by the image of
> a donkey — the Democratic Party symbol often known by another,
> three-letter, name.*
>
>
> *The Biden website was intended to help Democrats “face facts,” Mr.
> Mauldin said in an interview. He kept his name off it because “people tend
> to dismiss things that they don’t like, especially if it comes from the
> opposite side,” he said. Yet in anonymously trying to exploit the fissures
> within the Democratic ranks — fissures that ran through this past week’s
> debates — Mr. Mauldin’s website hews far closer to the disinformation
> spread by Russian trolls in 2016 <https://nyti.ms/2xdVuXM> than typical
> political messaging. With nothing to indicate its creator’s motives or
> employer, the website offers a preview of what election experts and
> national security officials say Americans can expect to be bombarded with
> for the next year and a half: anonymous and hard-to-trace digital messaging
> spread by sophisticated political operatives whose aim is to sow discord
> through deceit. Trolling, that is, as a political strategy.*
>
> [image: Share]
> <https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105922&title=%E2%80%9CTrump%20Consultant%20Is%20Trolling%20Democrats%20With%20Biden%20Site%20That%20Isn%E2%80%99t%20Biden%E2%80%99s%E2%80%9D>
>
> Posted in campaigns <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery
> <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, social media and social protests
> <https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>
>
>
>
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