How Elon Musk is disrupting US elections to boost Trump
How Elon Musk is disrupting US elections to boost Trump
State investigators and watchdogs are closely monitoring whether the world’s wealthiest man is potentially defrauding voters while disinformation floods his social media platform, Alex Woodward reports
I was wondering how one can defraud a voter...
The 15-second ad ends with a message to “REGISTER TO VOTE NOW.”
Users are asked for their address, phone number and age. After they hit submit, they’re told “thank you” — and that’s it.
By the end of their visit to Musk’s PAC website, not only were they not registered to vote, they also ended up handing over extremely valuable data to a billionaire-backed operation.
It’s unclear whether the stunt broke any campaign finance laws
That does seem like it goes beyond mere lying and into fraud, but I'm not a lawyer.
I see no law broken, and also INAL.
Nothing was offered in exchange for anything. The message was, "Register to vote now!" Didn't say they would help you with that.
We need legislation regarding things like this, can't imagine what that looks like. Law doesn't have, "that doesn't seem right" provisions.
The interesting question is, "How do we tackle shit like this that suckers idiots?" American law is distinctly against the notion of, "I didn't know better!"
Does contract law apply in any way? I'm rambling here, someone step up with facts and precedence.
Also not a lawyer, but OPs article is less complete than this article as far as Musk's operation went.
According to CNBC, the PAC asked website visitors who entered zip codes in battleground states to enter personal data — including dates of birth, full addresses and phone numbers — claiming it would help them register to vote through the site. Users in non-competitive states, however, were directed to their states' official voter registration pages.
Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia were among the battleground states where visitors to America PAC's website did not receive help submitting their voter registration despite the site claiming it would provide assistance, CNBC noted.
The site said it would help them register, took their information then, if they weren't from a battle ground state, forwarded them to their state's voter registration page. If they were from a battleground state, the site harvested their information, said thanks, and then failed to register them. That is likely fraud according at least two different states that are investigating the matter.
The dangerous thing about disinformation campaigns is that by the time something is done about it, the damage is already done.
A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting On Its Shoes
And unfortunately all of the liars seem to be rooting for the orange guy. The only one we’ve got is the couch rumor starter.
Part of any punishment should be the requirement to personally visit every person who was misled, with a Notary Public present, and bring them an official voter registration form to ensure they are allowed to vote.
Then dissolve the fucking PAC and ban its creators from forming another one for life. We need to stop tolerating the intolerance.
I mean, at minimum.
If you look at a successful disinformation campaign like a natural disaster, it's much worse than it appears. After a tornado, earthquake, flood, etc, you can just rebuild. But getting people to "un-learn" something they want to believe, no matter how much you prove it was based on lies, is damn near impossible.
I'm going to be repeating this whenever this ad blitz is mentioned because it is MUCH WORSE than you think. America PAC is partially funded by Musk and his old pals at Palantir. They sell data and analyses of it. You might get registered to vote if your state is a solid red or blue, but CNBC reports (archive):
[...] users who enter a ZIP code that indicates they live in a battleground state, like Pennsylvania or Georgia, the process is very different.
Rather than be directed to their state’s voter registration page, they instead are directed to a highly detailed personal information form, prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age.
So that person who wanted help registering to vote? In the end, they got no help at all registering. But they did hand over priceless personal data to a political operation.
“What makes America PAC more unique: it is a billionaire-backed super PAC focused on door-to-door canvassing, which it can conduct in coordination with a presidential campaign,” Fischer said. “Thanks to a recent FEC advisory opinion, America PAC may legally coordinate its canvassing activities with the Trump campaign — meaning, among other things, that the Trump campaign may provide America PAC with the literature and scripts to make sure their efforts are consistent.”
The America PAC raised more than $8 million between April 1 and June 30, according to FEC records. It has received donations from veteran investor Doug Leone, cryptocurrency investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and a company run by longtime venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, according to FEC records.
They also quote the NYT in saying Lonsdale is one of Musk's political confidants -- which is interesting because he's at Palantir which was you'd think of as his buddy Peter Theil's gig. Again, Palantir sells information, so in all likelihood they are going to take that input to figure out exactly how to target people to 'vote Trump' using the very information the public gave them for free!
He's going to lose the company if he can't deliver this election for Trump.
Saudis didn't buy it for nothing.
Either that or he'll end up losing his government contracts, imagine if we gave those subsidies to companies to convert old cars to electric rather than tesla. I can garuntee you as well most of said old cars would be better made.
Shitbag needs to be kicked out of the country.
Don't forget to delete your Twitter account folks. Nothing of value there that you can't get elsewhere.
but what about my stupid-ass sports updates or apparently weather updates or some shit
Muskrat's existence should be disrupted to boost humanity.
And how nothing can legally stop him
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Good bot
LOUD NOISES! Bad bot.
Stop with the double layer drop downs that interrupt reading comment feeds and makes for a click/tap minefield.