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Social Networks The Internet United States Politics

K-Pop Stans' Trump Prank Ratchets Up the Internet Wars (bloomberg.com) 346

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Optimism about the internet's role in politics peaked around the time of the Arab Spring, then steadily collapsed into alarm and despair until this weekend, when it ticked up again after President Donald Trump held a disappointing campaign rally. From a report: There are various ways to interpret the lower-than-expected turnout at the Tulsa, Oklahoma event, but among the most intriguing was the claim from a group of Korean pop fans that they'd undercut the campaign by coordinating to reserve thousands of tickets, then not showing up. They are likely giving themselves too much credit. Still, the narrative took hold for online observers as an example of a rare bright spot in the social media hellscape. The surge in activism from young Korean pop music enthusiasts has been one of the stranger plot lines of a uniquely unsettled time in American politics. Working together, they've rendered Twitter hashtags like #WhiteLivesMatter useless by filling them with music video clips, and they crashed a mobile app established by the Dallas Police Department to collect evidence of illegal activity at protests by overwhelming it with data.

This has gripped the imagination of some internet commentators, who noted how young people have reconstituted their "lightning-fast coordination and prodigious spamming abilities" for what the fans believe are righteous political causes. But spamming has historically been seen as a bad thing. When right-wing trolls coordinate to do things like pollute hashtags, pile onto people they dislike or disrupt the process of government it's regularly described as a serious threat to democracy. The tactics are remarkably similar, though the end goals are different.
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K-Pop Stans' Trump Prank Ratchets Up the Internet Wars More

K-Pop Stans' Trump Prank Ratchets Up the Internet Wars

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  • Foreign election interference (Score:5, Funny)

    by Train0987 ( 1059246 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:10AM (#60216784)

    It's good to know the Left supports foreign interference in our elections now.

    • Re:Foreign election interference (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SirAstral ( 1349985 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:15AM (#60216804)

      There is always foreign interference in elections there will never not be.

      And yes... they only hate it when it works against their interests. Both parties only care about what serves their interests. They active promote and vote for corruption in their own ranks because it gets them what they want. They only hate corruption when it exists on the other side.

      Governments are a reflection of its people, a near "Picture Perfect Reflection"

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      A bunch of K-pop fans reserving tickets to a rally they didn't plan to attend is election interference?

      It's a fuckin' rally.

      Besides, Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale said it had no affect on attendance:

      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html

      “Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work,” Mr. Parscale said in a statement on Sunday.

      • Re:Foreign election interference (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:47AM (#60216986)

        A bunch of K-pop fans reserving tickets to a rally they didn't plan to attend is election interference?

        It's a fuckin' rally.

        Besides, Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale said it had no affect on attendance:

        https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/style/tiktok-trump-rally-tulsa.html

        “Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don’t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work,” Mr. Parscale said in a statement on Sunday. “Registering for a rally means you’ve RSVPed with a cellphone number and we constantly weed out bogus numbers, as we did with tens of thousands at the Tulsa rally, in calculating our possible attendee pool.”

        A bunch of people as thin skinned and egotistical as Trump and his campaign would say that. Keep in mind, even after he bankrupted six casinos, flew an airline into the ground, messed up a football league beyond repair and set up a University that got sued out of existence for fraud, Trump still considers himself to be a 'winner' and that illusion is as fragile as glass.

        • he bankrupted six casinos, flew an airline into the ground, messed up a football league beyond repair and set up a University that got sued out of existence for fraud, Trump still considers himself to be a 'winner'

          Well, he also made billions in real estate, was a successful reality TV star, and got elected as president of the United States. Some people may consider that "winning".

          • Well, he also made billions in real estate

            No, he didn't. He was involved in some large transactions but he's never been an actual billionaire and he certainly never "made billions".

            was a successful reality TV star,

            Not nearly as successful as he claims. He brags his show was #1 "for years" but it was not.

            and got elected as president of the United States.

            Did he though? Did he really? I agree he's the 'president', but was he actually elected?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        Why would you believe anything the alleged administration says? They think so little of you they will lie to your face and then lie again by saying they didn't lie. The usual excuses are slopped about, "he was only joking", "yes, but Obama", "Antifa!!", etc.

    • Yes, I guess all the discussions here on /. about Venezuela, Arab spring, UN, Brexit, etc were also interferences in foreign political operations.

    • TFA pretty much says the same thing you do, but without assuming that these K-pop "stans" are foreigners as you do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wiredog ( 43288 )

      How do we know they were not Americans? I'm a fan of British Invasion music, but I'm not British.

    • K-pop stans are American bro.

    • Why would you assume K-pop fans are foreigners?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      Are you saying no k-pop fans are American?

    • Re:Foreign election interference (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @10:50AM (#60217322) Journal

      Yes, because a group of (mostly American) K-pop fans spamming a political rally signup is exactly the same as government intelligence units running covert propaganda campaigns, with a candidate's invitation I might add. No different from a President withholding military aid until a foreign government launch a baseless investigation into a political rival either! Exactly the same.

  • A news story that wasn't widely reported (Score:5, Funny)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:15AM (#60216802) Homepage

    Before the Tulsa rally, Melania had 6200 tiny little deer tatooed on her back. Donald said "You look like a million bucks!"

    • The Fox News broadcast was 7.7 million viewers alone. A record for the station and all cable news channel broadcasts. Other streaming sources early estimates are over 4 million. So yeah, other candidates should be doing the same. Seems effective. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]

      • Re:A news story that wasn't widely reported (Score:5, Informative)

        by ClickOnThis ( 137803 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @10:51AM (#60217342) Journal

        Out of curiosity, I flipped between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News while the rally was on. The difference in coverage was very telling. CNN and MSNBC had talking-heads, and only showed Trump talking in a background frame with no audio and occasional shots of the two-thirds-empty arena, cutting to excerpts with audio now and then. Whereas Fox covered the whole thing live, being very careful to crop all of their shots so as not to show the large blue areas of empty seats.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      Before that, from a book on golf no less (turns out the Whiner-in-Chief cheats at golf), The Whiner introduces his wife to (I think) the author and tells him (paraphrasing) "and they're real!!".

      Another choice bit, the Whiner is leading Lee Travino around one of his golf deserts, and every time he introduced Travino to a new group, he makes a claim about how much under par Travino shot. The number kept increasing with more introductions. Travino said he had to leave before he set a course record.

  • They are? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:17AM (#60216816) Journal

    though the end goals are different

    How are they different? It sounds pretty much like the EXACT SAME hecklers veto tactic to me. Seems like a perfect example of its okay as long as it happens to someone I don't like.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by stabiesoft ( 733417 )
      Except Biden did not "ask" the K-pop fans to do it. Do you not see a difference between Trump asking a foreign leader(s) for help to win and some fans of K-Pop (many in the US) who got together and trolled trump?

      • Questions: When did President Trump "ask" for foreign assistance? When were the e-mails made public on Wikileaks?

        Answers: end of July 2016. Mid March 2016.

        If you can't draw the conclusion from that (the e-mails were already leaked and known and read by the public well before it was even an issue in the campaign), then you're willfully blind.

        • You are confusing different leaks. A good summary of the timeline is https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/13/mueller-russia-hacks-timeline-686521 [politico.com]. From that article:

          On July 27, 2016 — the same day Trump urged Russia to find the deleted emails that Clinton had sent and received on her private server as secretary of State — the Russian hackers launched their first attempt to spearphish email accounts belonging to Clinton’s aides “at a domain hosted by a third-party provider.”>/quote>

      • Biden is asking me for help every time I try to watch a video on YouTube, what's the difference?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Seems like a perfect example of its okay as long as it happens to someone I don't like.

      I don't see a problem, the Trump org just failed to do any basic checks on who was signing up so of course people took advantage of that. Next time they will make more effort.

      No one needs to be censored, nothing needs to be made illegal, freedom can be preserved. You are making a mountain out of this molehill.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        Seems like a perfect example of its okay as long as it happens to someone I don't like.

        I don't see a problem, the Trump org just failed to do any basic checks on who was signing up so of course people took advantage of that. Next time they will make more effort.

        No one needs to be censored, nothing needs to be made illegal, freedom can be preserved. You are making a mountain out of this molehill.

        The campaign said they weeded out several hundred thousand requests that were clearly fake, and that roughly 300k people that voted republican requested tickets. They also estimated that only a few 100k were even within driving distance of Tulsa. So they did what they thought was their due diligence. But they were screwed from the outset, because Trump sees everything as a popularity contest and loves big numbers, so it was inevitable that he would have hyped it up.

        The bigger picture is that they never s

        • > But they were screwed from the outset, because Trump sees everything as a popularity contest and loves big numbers, so it was inevitable that he would have hyped it up.

          Exactly. Trump is a hype man. Which isn't necessarily *bad* - Elon Musk is a world-class hype man, and you see where it got him. It got Trump the presidency, so I'm not knocking it, just stating a fact about his personality.

    • though the end goals are different

      How are they different?

      The goal of Russia's interference was to sow discord within US society and possibly sway an election.
      The goal of these kids is to have fun by trying to embarrass a public figure they do not like.

      Neither is okay but they are done for wildly different reasons.

      If you think these kids are trying to do anything more than have a bit of fun then you are sadly mistaken.

  • um, yeah (Score:2, Insightful)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 )

    Still, the narrative took hold for online observers as an example of a rare bright spot in the social media hellscape.

    Um, yeah, that's great. Shouting down others and preventing them from speaking is such a bright spot.

    • Still, the narrative took hold for online observers as an example of a rare bright spot in the social media hellscape.

      Um, yeah, that's great. Shouting down others and preventing them from speaking is such a bright spot.

      What are you talking about? That's what social media is all about.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

      Shouting down others and preventing them from speaking is such a bright spot.

      - Nobody was prevented anyone from speaking.
      - Disrupting the unfettered propagation of hatred and bigotry is a noble ambition.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Trump gave his speech unimpeded. It was streamed live and is on YouTube too.

  • The way I understand.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:24AM (#60216866)

    ...is that the online reservation really was just a way to trawl for donations/contact info, and that the actual event required no tickets and was first come/first served. All the brats did was pollute the contact database, and vastly overinflate the level of interest. They didn't stop one person from entering the building....

    • If any of them gave real info, they will now get trump emails and some may be converted. If not, it doesnt matter because sending a million emails is no more cost than sending 500k.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        It might matter if any polling organizations try to use these numbers to estimate GOP support.

      • If any of them gave real info, they will now get trump emails and some may be converted.

        I don't think you understand how conversion works.

    • Re:The way I understand.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @10:01AM (#60217086)

      They didn't stop one person from entering the building....

      Well, technically protesters did get 1 gate shut down for a couple hours. Of course there were plenty of other gates so people had no problem getting in. There just weren't that many people wanting to get in.

      The campaign is also trying to blame the media talking about violent protesters for families not showing up, even though Trump was the one tweeting about protesters getting a violent reception.

    • Re:The way I understand.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @10:10AM (#60217126)

      and vastly overinflate the level of interest. They didn't stop one person from entering the building....

      Given the pictures of the rally in its peak at a half empty stadium and comparing it to Trump's normal rallies, I would wager concern about a coronavirus was on people's minds. An overinflated interest complete with a campaign bragging they have 1000000 people RSVPing and promising to even hold a second event outside for those who couldn't get into the first should have given people a reason to pause if they have even half a brain.

      Mind you I'll let you try and draw a Venn diagram of people who attend Trump rallies and people who believe COVID-19 is just a common cold, so maybe you're right and it didn't affect anyone.

  • But spamming has historically been seen as a bad thing

    anything done by the other side is bad, and anything done by your own side is good. Thats how the two party system works. The USA will be a one party system soon (liberals, obviously because McCarthyism and violence works).

  • Idiots (Score:3)

    by DatbeDank ( 4580343 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:34AM (#60216926)

    They do realize these events are free and first come first serve right?

    All they did was blow out their estimates. No one who wanted to go was denied from attending.

    Frankly, they probably were going to get more but most people got scared off. There's still the great chimp out of 2020 and 'rona still going on.

  • The official cap of the location was 19,200. The Trump site was allowing no bounds reservation. They even setup a stage outside and big screens for the overflow. So let's say 50,000 k-pops/edge lords run the reservation count up and then didn't show up. If 20,000 folks still actually showed up physically to the location, they'd still be let in, it's a first come/first served for the inside seating. And even if the tickets were tagged for which spot. Then you would have seen an empty stadium and a pack

  • Korean Pop Fans or Fans of Korean Pop? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @09:43AM (#60216962) Journal

    Apparently there are a lot of American K-Pop fans.

  • more credit than they deserve and link this Vice article. [vice.com]

    TL;DR - Trumps campaign manager is an overpaid idiot who didn't do any vetting at all after bragging about the fake # of reservations.

  • Bad "Prank" Hurts Everyone (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eepok ( 545733 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @10:12AM (#60217136) Homepage

    Disclaimer: I a hippie leftist who hates Trump.

    Disclaimer aside, I'm also a pragmatist and anyone who knows anything about Congressional history is that people hold grudges for very, very long times. Remember that whole "we're not going to confirm a Supreme Court justice because Obama was "on his way out"? Ya, that was an explicit revenge tactic for what the Democrats did to Republicans during the Bork confirmation back in the '90s.

    As righteous as the cause was, this was not a productive means to oppose Trump. His bogeyman story of international interference is now being celebrated and now we should expect the same to happen to Democratic conventions. And we don't know if either side will ever stop.

    If you put a new weapon on the tables, expect your enemy to use it just the same.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      As righteous as the cause was, this was not a productive means to oppose Trump. His bogeyman story of international interference is now being celebrated and now we should expect the same to happen to Democratic conventions.

      Foreign interference? While the music may be foreign there are millions of Kpop fans in the US. Mostly teenagers, who have been stuck at home bored for months. It was Americans that did this.

  • Summary says "But spamming has historically been seen as a bad thing." Political spamming is the modern equivalent of filibustering, a well established political tactic dating back to the Romans.

  • "When you talk about Destruction ... " (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fish_in_the_c ( 577259 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @11:47AM (#60217690)

    There once was an idea of 'peaceful' protest and making what you wanted known without destroying other people property. The idea was that in the 'market place of ideas' that those ideas of merit would eventually overtake less useful ideas because of the truth which they contained. For a very long time it was one of the lauded tools of classical liberalism and agents of Change. Responsible for sayings matching the formula "I may be personally opposed but ... ( I support so and so right to choose xyz). Those ideals have been used to legalize everything from pornography to abortion , but people no longer feel any need to respect others who have different view points then their own ( after all only _legitimate_ view points need be accepted).
    The problem is violence begets violence. So you have antifa on one side and Bagaloo on the other and the more pain and damage they do to each other the greater the divide becomes.

    • Peaceful "take a knee" protests against police violence have been going on for a few years now, and they didn't have as much concrete effect in changing the policies and public stance of influential institutions as a couple of weeks of less-peaceful protests in the streets have. One recent conservative opinion [nationalreview.com] about the failure of our institutions to change in response to police violence when change was needed quoted this bit from conservative philosopher Edmund Burke:

      A state without the means of some chan

  • about time (Score:3)

    by doginthewoods ( 668559 ) on Tuesday June 23, 2020 @02:10PM (#60218404)
    The Russians have been doing this for years and the Chinese have piled on. But oh how butt hurt the right gets when some group does it back to them. What goes around comes around..

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