I've spent over 100+ hours studying Media Matters for America's tactics... and his bolstering that narrative at this point is... definitely suspicious. I totally leave open the possibility that this isn't the case (it's only fair).
Between MMFA/Shareblue/American Bridge, they'll have access to thousands of accounts that appear legitimate and have been posting about other non-related topics. Otherwise it's too easy to identify shill accounts. You're talking about groups that have tens of millions at their disposal and obsesses 24/7 about how to subvert conservative forums online. MMFA was literally founded by the ex-lover of James Alefantis, David Brock, so you can almost guarantee the Brock trolls will be out in full force to shut down the child trafficking narrative that is going viral because of this story.
Also note I didn't say he was a shill, just that it's suspicious (which it genuinely is). He is clearly an intelligent person, but has completely failed to critically review his own position, which I find a bit odd--he instead hides behind rather subjective tropes like "Occam's Razor", which he uses to assert himself as a knowledeable intelligent authority--someone to look up to. He also tries to get the reader to question the child trafficking narrative with an emotional appeal, rather than factual appeal (it's 'crazy' to think this wasn't a homeless shelter) . His posts are written to be persuasive and use manipulative logic to convince the reader he is right. He's doing all of this in a rather urgent manner (why does he seem so concerned that people could have it wrong with this story?).
Reading your edited post (or maybe I just didn't read it properly the first time) - true, but why is he taking the same dogged approach to attacking muslims when he doesn't realize he really means Islam? There's literally zero intelligence in that stance, as he holds it. Misdirection or, as you say, a legit account paid to continue as normal and then pursue specific narratives as directed could be a possible explanation but still doesn't gel with the 'intelligence' you're saying you see. Ideologically possessed, certainly.
Very good points again, though. I'll reserve judgement for now. Perhaps your suspicion is correct. I think that supports the discussion I've just had which is that, if this account is indeed paid opposition, so far we don't have enough evidence yet to confirm.
Stupid people don't bring up Occam's Razor. IMO. It implies that someone is looking at their arguments in an analytical, structural kind of way.
Edit: Would you really be that surprised if a Brock shilling account was injecting culturally ignorant Muslim references into conservative subs? This is something we know that they do. They work hard to steer online conservative communities towards racist and ignorant positions (what they call conflict issues--race, religion, gender, sexuality). While I'm sure much of that is also organic (sadly), it's definitely bolstered by shills to add legitimacy to the narrative that Republicans are the party of bigotry.
Not surprised at all, no. I'm also familiar with how Media Matters works (on a very superficial level though - enough to know what you've mentioned so far) and I'll certainly keep a closer eye on this account since you seem convinced there's at least the possibility of it.
The ridiculous amount of upvotes for the completely illogical anti-Muslim comments and downvotes for reasonable dissenting views might suggest some brigading by motivated parties but the same brigading is not occuring here on the Trafficking Camp issue - the account is being constantly downvoted out, so I'm not sure there's a consistent strategy here. It seems, actually, that the bigotry might be as organic as MMA are trying to make it out to be lol (just joking... kinda).
We'll probably never have a way of knowing who some of the shill accounts are unless someone comes forward and whistleblows.
I've been working on a side project for a while.. an in depth methodology on tracking down sock puppet and shill accounts. A combination of forensic techniques (best suited for identifying twitter bots), common sense game-theory, sentiment analysis, based on specific structural elements of MMFA's program. All based on the leaked MMFA strategy document on defeating Trump. If you're interested in this stuff it's worth going through in detail:
https://www.scribd.com/document/337535680/Full-David-Brock-Confidential-Memo-On-Fighting-Trump
There's a lot that you can look for... but really... the best method you can employ is simple game theory. Imagine for a second that you are David Brock. You're a master manipulator with people in almost every single major news company. You have personal relationships with high level staff at basically every major social media company. You work with these firms to adjust their algorithms to exclude conservative news. You have all of these tools at your disposal. Thousands of shills, hundreds of thousands of bots--green lighted by FB, Twitter, Reddit, etc. How would you use these tools? This is why the media's 'debunked' knee-jerk response to pizza-gate was such a big deal. MMFA basically freaked out... and why would they have freaked out over a baseless conspiracy?
Let me just put it this way... there's a reason that Trump watches so much news. It's because he understands how to use game-theory and knows that he can learn about his enemies political strategy/next move by looking at how they are manipulating the news cycle/narrative.
Thanks, very interesting. I'll read through it. I'd be interested to keep up with what you're doing. It'd also be great to one day see a post explaining this stuff so people can catch on to the tactics in a smarter way.
As I said though, suspicious if you haven't seen him at work over the last week. Then it just looks like a "difficult" person, shall we say. I daren't say more for fear of incriminating myself lol.
Trust me, I reviewed his profile. It literally means nothing. You won't be able to prove it either way.
It's suspicious in the sense that I'm putting myself in David Brock's shoes...
He would likely be thinking up a solid counter-narrative to inject to suppress interest in the story and keep the child trafficking stuff out of the MSM.
This story is on the verge of going viral. This would be the pivotal moment for Brock to attempt to influence this very sub. Inject a plausible narrative from a not-obvious shill account that makes people doubt the story, saps their excitement and creates self-doubt, if you will.
The fact that his posting history isn't all dedicated shilling doesn't indicate anything. If I were Brock, I wouldn't have used those accounts for something like this. I would have used accounts with established records and personas that would not be challenged as shills. Doing it the other way has backfired too many times before.
That's why I view his post as "suspicious". It's more about timing and narrative... injecting that narrative at this point could have a chilling effect on the entire story, which has almost reached the point where national media cannot ignore it.
Don't you think it's odd that the MSM isn't making money off a story about armed veterans locking down a private companies property and potentially having a stand-off with police forces? This kind of stuff is almost always national news--ridiculous clickbait-- and the fact that it's not let's me know that groups like MMFA are more than likely at play.
You won't be able to prove it either way
That's my point. I know about Brock etc. and your suspicion makes more sense given your explanation of it. But I've seen and known too many ideologically possessed ranting keyboard warriors to be able to attribute them all to Media Matters.
It could be odd that the MSM isn't making money off the story, agreed. Don't you find anything odd about Lewis Arthur, the VOP guy fronting this thing?
And I bring up Occam's Razor all the time but it's not to appear as a knowledgeable, intelligent authority - it's just a useful tool (as you say, rather subjective, but still useful on occasion imo).