Health Insurers Caught Paying Facebook Gamers Virtual Currency To Oppose Reform Bill

[Newsjock]

Source: Silicon Alley Insider

Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama's health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money -- called "virtual currency" -- to send letters to Congress protesting the bill.

Here's how it's happening:

Facebook users play a social game, like "FarmVille" or "Friends For Sale." They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy "virtual goods" such as a machine gun for "Mafia Wars." But these gamers don't buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency.

The gamers get virtual currency three ways:
-- Winning it playing the games
-- Paying for it with real money
-- By accepting offers from third-parties -- usually companies like online movie rentals service Netflix -- who agree to give the gamer virtual currency so long as that gamer agrees to try a product or service. This is done through an "offers" provider -- a middleman that brings the companies like Netflix, the Facebook gamemakers, and the Facebook gamemaker's users together.

It's this third method that an anti-reform group called "Get Health Reform Right" is using to pay gamers virtual currency for their support.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/health-insures-caught-paying-facebook-users-virtual-currency-to-send-letters-to-congress-opposing-reform-bill-2009-12

[Blue_Tires]

1. despicable, but part of me admires their ingenuity...

[w4rma]

2. Bribery isn't very ingenius. (nt)

[customerserviceguy]

5. What's ingenious

Is being able to get something (grassroots support) for nothing. I guess that's why they call it "astroturfing".

[Go2Peace]

12. It's illegal to buy votes. Isn't this illegal?

[Boxturtle]

26. Is it illegal to buy votes?

I was just thinking about this on my drive into work this morning. My dad works for Harley Davidson in York where the employees just had to vote on a new contract. Harley paid everyone who voted in favor of the new contract $1,000. My dad voted against the contract, so he did not get any money. I would assume that Harley consulted its legal department before doing this. It seems illegal, but maybe it is not?

[TwentyFive]

35. Not illegal? Then MAKE it illegal.

Votes should be on the basis of issue at hand. The ONLY reason Harley would pay is that it's in their own selfish interest.

[ret5hd]

45. Tell us, how did HD mgt know how each individual voted?

Contract votes are regulated by NLRB, which I believe requires secret ballots.

[Boxturtle]

68. That is what I thought as well.

I did not get a chance to talk to my Dad since the vote. I got this information last night from my mom. I asked her how Harley would know how people voted. As far as I could gather, it must have been a roll-call vote (i.e. your name is called and you vote yes or no). I won't know for certain until I talk to my dad.

[Gormy Cuss]

51. Thank you for exposing this. I forward a link to this post to the IAMAW

IAM will be most interested to hear that Harley spent 1.5 million influencing the vote.

[sharp_stick]

62. Aren't contract votes secret there?

How would they know how he voted. Shit, I'd tell the pricks that I voted against it just to get the thousand bucks for Christmas.

[Boxturtle]

69. Actually, most if not all of the contract was written by HD.

So, you would need to vote in favor of the contract to get the money.

One example of this great contract...

No more sick days. If someone gets sick, they have to call in and get hit with an "occurance". This means an unpaid day off of work. If an employee gets more than 3 occurances in a year, they are to be fired.

[ret5hd]

72. Which party "writes" the contract is irrelevant. Your posts make no sense, then veer off...

on tangents. How does the company know who voted for or against the contract?

[Boxturtle]

81. Sorry, my last post went off topic...

In answer to your question, from what I have been told, the vote was not secret. I'm guessing the union reps had the voting results and then turned that over to the company. My dad has been working lots of overtime, so I have not gotten a chance to talk to him. All of the information has been second hand through my mom.

[ret5hd]

82. If by results you mean "passed/failed by xxx votes" that doesn't answer how mgt...

is able to distinguish how an individual voted.

If by results you mean they handed over to mgt how each individual voted (and having been involved in many contract votes, i do not see how this is possible because every contract vote i have ever seen has been a secret ballot by law) then i think your father should consult a lawyer.

But I don't think that happened.

[Oldtimeralso]

88. I Agree

Having been involved in many contract votes in my 25+ years as a union representative the votes on any contract issues be they local or national must have a secret ballot. There is one caveat the labor organization has to be able to verify the the vote came from a current member.

[mstinamotorcity]

83. I am a union member of IBT

you have some dirty corporate ass kissers in unions too. One simple way is to record an open vote. New spy cameras are small and can be placed in a purse. Or someone could have told. There is no loyalty to the dollar. But it does sound like it is time for an investigation.This is all IMHO.

[mstinamotorcity]

84. i DON'T THINK IT IS

it may be called lobbying look at the health care fight. It bought the s--t out of the Senate.We have a country that pays for its stake in corruption on Capitol Hill.

[zbdent]

33. no, it's not ...

but getting the public to buy into the idea that it's "freedom of speech" ... that's ingenious ... but still wrong ...

[sasquuatch55]

29. Slime balls; they are slick, evil manipulators!

nt

[sojourner]

89. your honesty appreciated. but that's one of the problems with today's culture of win at any cost.

ingenuity, creativity ....... the ability to figure out how to sucker the masses into "buying" your product. EVIL -- PURE and simple. Sorry, you would have learned that as a youngster in some other age.

[jtrockville]

3. What does it say about your position if you have to bribe people to agree?

[No Elephants]

23. Ask your Congressional Rep and your Senators.

[jtrockville]

40. Excellent suggestion.

[Hawkeye-X]

4. I haven't paid Zynga a dime since they fucked up Mafia Wars

BIG time. And there's a growing discontent on MW.

I'm a member of the LCN clan, and many concur with the discontent.

OfferPal is going to go bankrupt because of the fuckups of Zynga as well as Zynga itself if they don't fix MW back to its old sttandard.

Hawkeye-X

[RKP5637]

6. Damn, just how crooked is it all going to get... n/t

[LynnTheDem]

7. But those are GRASSROOTS health insurers paying bribes to make people

oppose their own best interests and support the interests of wealth corporations!


:eyes:

Wake the fuck UP, rightwingers.

[frazzled]

8. Could that possibly explain ...

some of the rabid anti-HCR posters here? There always seem to be a few inflammatory threads that sound like they were written by some post-adolescent, stoned gamers, who appear to have no understanding of the policy debates. Perhaps that is what they really are.

[Hekate]

13. Some of us are pretty sure that's the case. Disgusting, isn't it?

:grr:

Hekate

[axollot]

67. Hello again Hekate - I've been thinking the same thing but much

longer than the HCR Bill has been out. I've noticed a "surge" in weird posts from peeps that joined pre-election 2008. I think they came on board after the * admin failed everyone. But at heart they are true RW despite any votes for Dems.

Huffington (puffington sometimes) just posted "The Public Option is Dead"
to be exact here is the 1st paragraph

The public health insurance option died on Thursday, December 10, 2009, after a months-long struggle with Senate parliamentary procedure. The time of death was recorded as 11:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/10/pelosi-backs-off-public-o_n_387197.html

Cheers
Sandy

[KoKo]

31. ....hmmm and many of us thought they were just Freepers...turns out they

are gamers. Wonder if there are any games that offer money to support war. Seems quite a few pro-war forever folks on here lately.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

9. Are you fucking kidding me?

People are willing to sell their souls for computer generated money? No wonder we are fucked. People can't tell reality from fantisy. If there was a God, I would pray to it, but there isn't so I have to watch idiots fall for this shit.

No wonder we are so fucked up. People still believe this pre-historic crap. Why do I have ANY faith in humans?

We are doomed.

[RKP5637]

10. Ditto!!! n/t

[pengillian101]

15. Triple-oh.

Ditto!!! n/t

[Bette Noir]

11. I'm glad I got out of Facebook.

I only tried one of their games. The "offers" were pure scams. They infected my computer with 150 kinds of malware, and changed my phone service to boot.

[mwb970]

34. I am Facebook free and proud of it.

Who needs it?

[nicky187]

87. I spend enough time here...

... and on Twitter, that I wouldn't begin to use FB. Oh, ok. And looking at LOLCats.

[MilesColtrane]

14. Why didn't they just buy them a couple of extra bags of Cheetohs?

[KansDem]

74. ...oh, and orange-favored drink.

Don't forget the orange-favored drink.

[grahamhgreen]

16. Don't worry, when they get cancer they can get virtual chemotherapy

:sarcasm:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

27. exactly

[defendandprotect]

17. I think, if we reflect over the last decades, our feeling that things don't make sense . . .

this is why --

It's all faked --

[azurnoir]

18. Thanks you gave me a reason to post something

on my FaceBook page, otherwise I think FaceBook is a study in banality

[kestrel91316]

53. Facebook IS banal. I only use it so I can play Farmville, lol.

[bdamomma]

76. my girls are addicted to farmville.

[parts]

19. seems as if they didn't even know that the letter was being sent

Let's not blame the players as people "willing to sell their souls", eh?>

Moreover, they're kids, they hardly knew what they're doing. It's the organizers of this disgrace that ought to be ashamed.

[sasquuatch55]

30. I see plenty of "adults" playing farmville and mafia wars.

nt

[parts]

52. that's true too, though.

good ways to pass time

[quark219]

20. They also gamed the Yahoo Movie reviews on "Sicko."

The health insurance industry is using a hefty chunk of their obscene profits to game the system every way they know how. They have highly-paid ivy-pedigreed executives sitting at conference tables on a weekly basis brainstorming every possible way to influence public opinion and to make it appear--however deceptively--that a majority of Americans want to continue with the status quo. If you didn't already suspect this, Wendell Potter, who chaired many such meetings, has told us.

Go back and take a look at the many, many hundreds of 1-star reviews of *Sicko* on Yahoo Movies that were published the week before the movie was released. The reviews typically have titles like, "DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!" or "SEE ANOTHER MOVIE--MY ENTIRE FAMILY HATED THIS!" and are authored by usernames such as "RegularGuy1970" or "SoccerMom1975." Curiously, these users registered on the site just prior to the movie's release and have never written another review, before or since.

[Lerkfish]

21. I'm confused/ I thought the HCR was benefitting the insurance lobby

:shrug:

[laughingliberal]

41. Just read the letter. It was about reform that doesn't create a new government run program

The message was that a new bureaucracy would cause people to lose their wonderful employer sponsored health care.

[democracy1st]

22. K & R

[Hubert Flottz]

24. Congress is full of "Gamers" and the name of their game is...

Screwville. They virtually get rich screwing you and me out of anything of value that we have left.

[City Lights]

25. Fuck the insurance industry.

:nuke:

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. One more reason to avoid Facebook

There also appears to be a porn problem. I am now receiving emails from FB claiming friends are leaving me messages and those 'messages' turn out to be porn videos.

[KoKo]

32. Not just Facebook. Huffpost had downloads for porn to your I-Phone.

The porn and soft porn business seems to be doing very well in this economy. They are everywhere and in places one wouldn't expect. Tiger Woods antics seem to have ramped it up even more. Photo's of his cocktail waitresses in mainstream sites have pop ups leading to sites that try to push porn.

[Jefferson23]

36. Oh this is rich, and we need to keep this industry alive for what reason?

[laughingliberal]

42. Why, to get all those lovely campaign contributions, of course nt

[newtothegame]

37. I don't understand the "caught" part. It doesn't sound like they were hiding anything. n/t

[dugaresa]

38. so people's health care premiums help buy virtual junk so that people can play games

[nytemare]

39. I would use the virtual money to buy donkeys for my farm

then send the letters in support of the bill, instead of against it.

How would they know?

[laughingliberal]

43. It was a form letter sent automatically at the end of the survey nt

[tjwash]

44. Oil lobby has been doing that with global warming denial.

Same cut-n-paste AGW talking points are all over facebook right now.

[guitar man]

46. Good grief

"Mafia Wars" indeed... :eyes:

[RaleighNCDUer]

48. It does seem particularly apropos. nt

[guitar man]

50. yep, every year

at open enrollment at work, it's like I have a gun held to my head. Higher premiums and decreased coverage. When I look at what they are doing here it makes me want to go gangland on their ass. :grr:

[mikelgb]

47. Well then, give them more subsidies!

:think:

[Kajsa]

49. Oh HELL!

Just when I thought Farmville was a nice, stress releasing pastime,
there's RW bullshit attached to it!

Damn them to hell!!
Bastards!

[kestrel91316]

54. Farmville IS fun. Just don't click on those "offers". I'm still getting spam after

looking into them a month ago.

[Kajsa]

56. Thanks for the heads up!

I have resisted so far.

I've gotten up to level 16- Finally!

It took a LOT of soybeans to get there.

LOL- :) :hi:

[Harry Monroe]

55. "Virtual Currency". I wonder if I can pay for it with Monopoly money?

[Harry Monroe]

57. They may be on to something!!

When they get sick, they can use their virtual Health Care that they paid for with their virtual currency. It doesn't exist in the real world, but may the power of the internets virtually cure these idiots!! Will there be a virtual death as well? Something tells me no, it will be real as always.

[benld74]

58. Virtual currency to go buy virtual health insurance!!

[krispos42]

59. I give them credit for having an excellent and well-run ground game

Too bad it's in support of such a shitty idea.

[drm604]

60. I signed up for facebook for business, political, and family connections.

It does work for that, plus I've connected with people I haven't seen since grade school.

The games don't hold much interest for me. A few people have sent me virtual Christmas and Hanuka "gifts" and I accepted them and responded in kind but I stay away from the offers and I haven't gotten involved in things like "Farmville" or "Mafia Wars". I do notice that some friends seem to spend a lot of time playing the games (you see your friends' game play cluttering up your screen) and, as the article says, they mostly seem to be middle aged women (I can't fathom why that's the case.)

This astroturfing practice is despicable.

[juno jones]

61. OH GOD.

Phil Dick was right. We've wound up in the miniature world of Perky Pat where the damn fantasy is just as real, if not more, than our constricted, pathetic lives.

That someone could sell out their best intrests for game points...jeeesus!

It reminds me of a quote I read recently:

Warning

Malfunctioning bullsh*t loops, resulting in an overflow of malignant bullsh*t, have caused severe distortions in the fabric of local spacetime. Consequently, you are currently inhabiting an inherently unstable tangent universe. This tangent universe will be collapsing soon

Don't let the wormhole hit your ass and all that.

[valerief]

63. Wow! Only proves, if it can be done, it will be done. nt

[ashling]

64. Facebook users: Go to the link and post to your facebook accounts

:)

[azurnoir]

70. That's exactly what I did

I never post but this was just too good or bad depending

[anonymous171]

65. Someday someone will finally stand up to these guys. nt

[SemperEadem]

66. Why am I not surprised?

there is no way you can mobilize a bunch of doughy-waisted couch potatoes to put down the remote and get up off their lard-asses, go out of the house, get in the car and do anything without having bribed them with mammon.

[liberation]

71. Only in America...

... you could find a people so fundamentally stupid, as to work hard to defeat their own interests in exchange for "virtual" money. We're not even talking normal money, which is kind of virtual in a way, but actual made up funny money you can't even use to wipe your own a**.

We're done, we're just f*cking done as a country. Someone should tell the last person to leave to shut the door and turn off the lights... in less than 4 decades we have gone from putting people on the moon, down to this. I don't think there has been an empire which rose as quickly to the level of power like the US managed to do, but now I am seeing us trying to break all sorts of speed records on our way down too....

[V_Byl]

73. Agreed.

Don't worry though, pretty soon all these corporate execs will take their paychecks in the form of virtual money too, since none of the geniuses in this country will have any real money anyway...

Not that federal reserve notes are 'real money'... ;)

[liberation]

78. Sometimes, I just think about the utter ridicule that will ensue when/if aliens contact us

and we have to explain ourselves to them.


Alien overlord: "Let me see if I understand this correctly earthling, you had other earthlings die and turned your whole planet into a dump... for what reason exactly?"

Earthling: "Well, We did it so that I could have all these numbers in this thing we call bank accounts which exist only in computers"

Alien overlord: "Wait, while we were mastering the secrets of the universe to travel 10 million light years to find you guys, you were just stabbing each other in the back and shitting the whole place, all you have are these silly numbers in a computer to show for it?"

Earthling: "Actually, before that we were just stacking up these pieces of paper with funny pictures, random colors, and arbitrary numbers on them. But we decided that was just silly. So we computerized it, because we're the most advanced species in this solar system."

Alien overlord: "You are the most advanced species, good grief! So this is it, that is basically all you guys have done with all this time and this beautiful place? Did you even try to get out to see what was out there?"

Earthling: "We tried, but we needed a lot of those silly numbers to afford space travel..."

Alien overlord: "By silly numbers you mean the tough math and physics problems needed to master and understand the secrets of the universe?"

Earthling: "no, none of the sort... we needed those silly numbers in those silly things we call banks I was referring to earlier!"

Alien overlord: "OK, now I am confused, how did those arbitrary numbers in a virtual conduit like a bank help you? Do they open some sort of space/time portal we are not aware of?"

Earthling: "again, I am afraid that was not the original intent. We just like to make those random numbers, in fact we decided it was better as an overall approach to our lives to simply concentrate in adding more digits to those arbitrary numbers in a computer somewhere... than to pursue silly things like mastering space travel, take care of each other, further our artistic and intellectual abilities, solve our planet's problems, leave our mark in the universe, and crap like that"

Alien overlord: "You liked that approach enough to wage wars against each other, and killing off the planet? Is that what you are telling me?"

Earthling: "Pretty much... hey don't knock it until you try it!"

Alien overlord: "Try what?"

Earthling: "Spend our whole lives worrying about adding digits to your arbitrary numbers that define all our live. It is awesome, we get to not have proper childhoods, we stab each other in the back, we marginalize those who are not able to make their allocation of numbers, we don't see our kids, strain our relationships, and lose all those numbers if fate intervenes like an illness or an accident. Then we die miserable and tired of our lives for the most part. It is a great system really..."

Alien overlord: "Obviously, we made a mistake... you guys are the most retarded species. Can you tell us where the dolphins are? We'd like to interview them instead..."

Earthling: "Why the dolphins? Would you change your mind if I offered you some of these arbitrary numbers that exist as a binary number in a random set of computers?"

Alien overlord: "OK, I have heard enough... Jim, put me with the Death Ray Department, will ya? We have some cleaning to do... I can't believe I wasted all that time and effort mastering human communication methods, what a bunch of retards..."


but we figured out we needed to make more of those silly numbers in order to

[Jamastiene]

92. There is a reason they do not really contact us.

They came. They saw how incredibly stupid we are. They left...continuing their search for other intelligent life in the universe. They marked Earth off their list.

[carlyhippy]

75. ooh yeah, I know what they are talking about now

the "get more cash" link, the one that I never use. I get my farmville money and mafia wars stuff the ole fashioned way, plowing and planting and shaking down rackets ha.
I play Yoville more than the other games, anyway.

[Uncle Joe]

77. "Friends for Sale"

Could there be a more apropos name?:puke:

[KamaAina]

79. Stephen Hemsley needs your help in Mafia Wars.

He'll give you the gravy boat if you help him rub out a few sick people.

:sarcasm:

[orbitalman]

80. Holy Shit

It must be fun. I also think its a sign of weak minds (the virtual money). I agree with sooo many comments here.

[Duer 157099]

85. ...and when these gamers get ill, I hope they'll be satisfied with "virtual health care" n/t

[nicky187]

86. This is as bad...

... as "camping" in Counter-Strike, or Unreal Tournament.

Corporate "bitches".

[TomCADem]

90. McCain's Campaign Encouraged Supporters To Comment In Liberal Blogs

The comments were to be used to earn McCain campaign swag. Looking at some of the comments on this board such as those questioning climate change and pushing to "start from scratch" on health care reform, which are both frequent right wing talking points, you have to wonder. If a person is reiterating a Fox News talking point, are they really a liberal? Probably not.

[joshcryer]

91. Too bad it's not real money, I could make a killing on FarmVille.

:P

[DAMANgoldberg]

93. Rachel had this story on her show tonight.

I'm actually surprised it made air, but then again, it's a slow political news day. Her first two stories on the business aspect of Tiger Woods and Health Care negativity bribed by Godfather Points.

Disclosure: I do play Mafia Wars on FB (lv 194) and MyS (lv 385) plus FarmVille on FB (lv 28-still waiting for 24x24 farm for all my gifts, lol)