People Are Getting Robocalls About Their "Derogatory" Trump Posts

[babylonsister]

People Are Getting Robocalls About Their "Derogatory" Trump Posts [Updated]
Kashmir Hill
Yesterday 4:51pm


Brett Vanderbrook was driving for Uber last week when he got a call from an unfamiliar number. He let it go to voicemail and when he listened to it later, he got a shock: It was a recorded message telling him to stop making “negative and derogatory posts about President Trump.”

“It was kind of threatening. I was dumbfounded at first and then creeped out,” Vanderbrook, who lives in Dallas, Texas, said in a phone interview. “Then I was angry and that’s when I decided to share it.”

Vanderbrook makes progressive political posts on Facebook, voicing support for gun control, LGBTQ rights, and immigrant rights. None of his public posts mention President Trump or come across as “derogatory.”

Vanderbrook is not alone, though. Across the country, and even in Canada, people have reported on social media that they’ve received the same robocall. The earliest complaint dates back to July. The intensity of the calling campaign is hard to gauge; a search of complaints turned up 10 reports scattered across different platforms.

The reports, though, are all consistent. When the call goes to voicemail, as it did for Vanderbrook, the beginning of the recording gets cut off, but people describing the calls on Twitter, Facebook, and the telemarketer-reporting site ShouldIAnswer.com have said that the recording claims to come from “Citizens for Trump.”

more...

https://gizmodo.com/people-are-getting-robocalls-about-their-derogatory-t-1820819203

[dewsgirl]

1. What fresh hell is this?

[Cattledog]

2. Internet Brownshirts.

[Chasstev365]

3. Trace the calls and then a class action harassment suit!

[Liberal In Texas]

4. Another good reason NOT to add your phone # to your FB profile.

Why would FB want your phone number anyway? I can't imagine how else these robocallers would have gotten the numbers in the first place.

[moda253]

5. I dont think it os even targeted.

It likely just makes calls dong this to whatever number it calls.

[demmiblue]

6. WTF?!

[Paladin]

7. This is why I never indicate my political leanings on Facebook.

Tempting though it may be.

[Liberal In Texas]

8. According to the update it's probably a prank or a Trump-supporting stunt.

Update (Nov 29. 8:46 p.m.): Several readers recognized the voice in the recording from Ownage Pranks, a service that places automated prank calls. “Citizens for Trump” is a prank offered by the service, which records the call and lets the person who ordered it post it publicly if they choose. In the full recording, the caller is identified as “Russell from the Citizens for Trump Foundation.”

Citizens for Trump has not yet responded to questions about whether it is behind the calls or, if it is, how it is choosing whom to target.

The script is cartoonish enough to sound like a prank. That might not be out of character for Citizens for Trump: The group is affiliated with Jack Posobiec, a Trump-supporting stunt artist and self-proclaimed investigative journalist, who listed himself in a bio as its former Special Projects Director in 2016. Posobiec is infamous for misinformation stunts; he allegedly brought a “Rape Melania” sign to a Trump protest to discredit the actual protesters, and he helped promote the bizarre conspiracy known as Pizzagate. Scholars from the Public Data Lab listed Citizens for Trump as being part of a “fake news ecosystem” during the last election.

More disinformation and from the Trumpers.

[dembotoz]

9. You have never gotten death threats?

Am I just lucky?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. Oh, it's Jack Posobiec again.

People Are Getting Robocalls About Their "Derogatory" Trump Posts

{Updated}

Kashmir Hill
Yesterday 4:51pm

....
Update (Nov 29. 8:46 p.m.): Several readers recognized the voice in the recording from Ownage Pranks, a service that places automated prank calls. “Citizens for Trump” is a prank offered by the service, which records the call and lets the person who ordered it post it publicly if they choose. In the full recording, the caller is identified as “Russell from the Citizens for Trump Foundation.”

Citizens for Trump describes itself as a “grassroots organization” that advocates for President Trump. According to a legal filing by its co-founder Timothy Selaty, the group was formed in 2015 by Patriotic Warriors LLC. Patriotic Warriors had now-expired business licenses in West Virginia and Arizona. The Citizens for Trump website encourages people to submit “Trump-related memes” for publication. In 2016, with the help of the ACLU, Citizens for Trump sued the city of Cleveland for the right to hold a parade there during the Republican National Convention.
....

The script is cartoonish enough to sound like a prank. That might not be out of character for Citizens for Trump: The group is affiliated with Jack Posobiec, a Trump-supporting stunt artist and self-proclaimed investigative journalist, who listed himself in a bio as its former Special Projects Director in 2016. Posobiec is infamous for misinformation stunts; he allegedly brought a “Rape Melania” sign to a Trump protest to discredit the actual protesters, and he helped promote the bizarre conspiracy known as Pizzagate. Scholars from the Public Data Lab listed Citizens for Trump as being part of a “fake news ecosystem” during the last election.

https://twitter.com/jackposobiec

[gratuitous]

13. I'm sure President Trump will denounce this ham-handed attempt at intimidation, right?

Ooooh listen! Crickets! Pretty late in the year for them, too.

[Orrex]

11. I call Trump an idiot racist fuckhead all the time, and I haven't had any calls

In fact, I call him "Idiot Racist Fuckhead" more often than I call him "Trump," and I remain unpestered by robots.

[LongTomH]

12. I just shared this to a couple of Facebook pages, with the closer.....

And, in closing, may I say: "FUCK YOU, DONALD TRUMP!!!!!"