Confession: I yell at my TV while watching The Ed Show and Morning Joe because Twitter spambots are also boosting those programs.
Apparently the use of spambots to boost Rachel Maddow's show which was revealed here on Saturday now includes at least two other MSNBC programs: The Ed Show and Morning Joe. This revelation was made by liberal blogger Paul Bibeau at the Goblinbooks blog. First he establishes his liberal bonafides in no uncertain terms before presenting his Twitter spam case against those programs:
Since I'm a Communist who voted for Obama and hates America, I usually don't read Free Republic. But I stumbled onto a post about how Rachel Maddow was supposedly "busted" for using multiple fake Twitter accounts to boost the Twitter profile of her show.
Okay, we get it, Paul. You are definitely a liberal. Although he does leave open the possibility that Maddow had no knowledge of the Twitter spammers boosting her show, he claims that the case against The Ed Show is much stronger:
...It certainly hasn't been proven that Maddow's show hired these people. They might just be trying to build traffic for themselves. It's easy to see how they might think they'd get a reply from Maddow or some other prominent person, and this would increase their own prominence.
Also, the blog Help The 99ers has examples of Twitter spam involving the Ed Show... and these accounts are different. In these cases there's a connection to an actual company that offers web promotion services.
Here are phrases promoting the show that seem to involve spammers:
Hahahahahaha, what threatening e-mails. #edshow #p2 #p21
Oh boy, Michael .E.Dyson is here-time to get my dictionary! #edshow
#edshow I sure hope the deal gets done! I'm ready to move on to my New Year's Resolutions! Sick of the Cliff!
When you click on the accounts of these people - I've done this repeatedly - you find the same profile: low tweets and almost no followers. Plus... these accounts link to the same website, a service named http://followersdelivery.com/ that sells packages to increase your followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube.
Uh-oh! Bibeau might have to turn in his Liberal/Communist Party card for daring to practice real journalism. Of course, he does make a bow to his inner liberal by suggesting that Maddow might not be actively involved in Twitter spambot activities before continuing his investigation of The Ed Show astroturf boosts:
I have not found the same connection to Maddow's "fans." And the important point is that none of these people are actually following the Ed Show - they are commenting on it. I contacted the service as an interested blogger who might want to get someone to talk about my blog/possible Youtube show, and I received an email saying they did not offer a "comment service." There are services out there that actually advertise re-tweets, and the service linked to Ed Show "fans" has nothing like this on their website. But discretion is part of the package here. Followers Delivery promises that it's "100% Safe, No Risk, Anonymous."
I'm no fan of Drudge or the Freepers, but it may be time for these shows to comment on the matter. Something is happening.
Yup! Something is definitely happening and as Bibeau later posted in this update, it involves yet another MSNBC show, Morning Joe:
Morning Joe has links to people repeating a promotional message, and they in turn are linked to the same company - http://followersdelivery.com/ - as the possible spammers who promoted the Ed Show.
This is the message I found:
Woodward to show on #morningjoe soon as he finishes his conversation with Bill Casey concerning the threat level of the Sperling E-mail.
And this is a link to a search showing the retweets. Check out the people's pages. They have links to Followers Delivery.
Morning Joe seems to follow the same pattern as The Ed Show.
And in the latest episode of Spambotgate, it appears that Someone Erased Links Between MSNBC Spam and Promotion Company:
The Tweeters whose spam seemed to plug MSNBC shows Morning Joe and the Ed Show now have different links than earlier, when they were connected to a social media promotion company. This is the search for phrases which apparently promoted Morning Joe. These are searches connected to the Ed Show.
As you can see, these Tweeters now link to a dead page on a service called Host Gator.
And when you directly try to link http://followersdelivery.com, the promotion company in question, you reach a dead page on the same hosting service.
What the hell just happened?
Um. I'll give you a hint as to what just happened, Paul. Does the word "coverup" ring a bell?
