Twittergate: How Internet Jerks Pranked the Tea Party

[PeaceNikki]

http://gawker.com/5659351/twittergate-how-internet-jerks-pranked-the-tea-party

The best way to deal with jerks online is to ignore them. But when prominent Tea Partiers on Twitter started being harassed by a group
of Internet trolls, they launched a twitter militia and concocted an elaborate conspiracy theory.Twittergate is the hottest new conspiracy theory out of the conservative blogosphere. Yesterday, Glenn Beck's news site, The Blaze, posted an epic YouTube video which purports to expose a massive conspiracy by Democrats to take over Twitter: "DID DEMOCRATS HIRE A ‘TWITTER-THUG' TO SMEAR THE TEA PARTY?" The Blaze asks.

If you don't feel like watching 13 minutes of scrolling text and Twitter screenshots set, inexplicably, to a pounding soundtrack of Daft Punk and MGMT, the basic outline of Twittergate is this: Democrats have hired a cadre of menacing "E-thugs," led by a progressive social media consultant named Neal Rauhauser. The gang's mission: to identify prominent Tea party Twitter users and harass them, ideally goading them into tweeting offensive things which can then be used to smear the Tea Party.

"Democratic campaign funds are being used to front this," Twittergate's lead theorist, Greg W. Howard, told me over the phone. "Follow the evidence and let it lead you where it may. The links between these people are very clear." Howard is a financial planner and conservative blogger from Alabama who says he's been to Tea Party events but considers himself a Libertarian. With over 14,000 followers on Twitter and 100,000 tweets, he's been described as the "Glenn Beck of Twitter."

Like a conspiracy spun out by Glenn Beck, Twittergate has sparked many sprawling blogposts outlining the conspiracy, and frenzied discussion on conservative message boards and Twitter. "Democrats PAY e-thugs to harass you," tweeted ResistTyranny Democratic operatives exposed as the thuggish KGB to Obama's Kremlin!

More hilarity at link

[Democat]

1. Democrats are planning to take over the internet!

Facebook will be next. Get the tinfoil!

[PeaceNikki]

3. As a Gawker commenter so eloquently put it:

"i cant help it...i find everything about this funny. the conspiracy theory, the name of the tormentors, the fact that they find friendship with some left-winged blogger, the fact that the tea party folks cant control themselves, the fact that the beandoggers are disappointed they dont get credit

my god i love you, internets"

[Hello_Kitty]

2. What's the going rate for this Twitter thuggery? I could use some extra $$.

:shrug:

[monmouth]

6. Yes, no SS COLA this year? Haha, I'd love to do this. What's a twitter????

[47of74]

7. Me too

[mrcheerful]

4. Wtf? Goad tea baggers into saying something racist? That is beyond defence, no one can

goad one into making a racist comment. I have been in many on line battles with wing nuts and never once did I ever say anything close to a racist comment in the heat of battle, though wing nuts did tend to use welfare queen a lot or nut check which both have a racist tint to them. To say that racist crap one has to be a racist because only a racist brings race into a battle of words with a person they have never seen or know little about because unless it is a cam thing you never see posters, so unless the person your going after claims to be a certain race, you have no clue on that persons race, unbelievable that race would ever be an issue with cyber war.

[Ian David]

5. Phase One: Annoy Greg Howard. Phase Two: ?? Phase Three: Total Control of Twitter! n/t