MASSIVE ASTROTURF campaign behind the "reopen" movement





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Dr_Midnight

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7 hours ago

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edited 1 hour ago

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There's an imperial ton of astroturfing going on, and it's quite visible in how those groups popped up literally overnight (hint-hint). The thing is that they targeted groups who were... how does one say... more receptive to the message who wouldn't be inclined to look any deeper into what they were joining.



As an example, right now, this is happening in Los Angeles.



Now, " target="_blank">here's a screenshot of the description of the "Operation Gridlock Los Angeles" group when it was first spotted by Buzzfeed News.



Concurrently, " target="_blank">here's a screenshot of the description of the "Operation Gridlock Tennessee" group.



But, hey... it's Buzzfeed News right? Cool-cool-cool-cool-cool...



Here's a link to the group "Pennsylvanians Against Excessive Quarantine" - sitting 55,281 members deep at the time of this post.



Okay...



Now here's a link to the group "Minnesotans Against Excessive Quarantine" - presently with 18,938 members.



Why do these groups have the exact same description?



Let's not stop there. Following their own links: one is from the "Pennsylvania Firearms Association", and the other is from the group "Minnesota Gun Rights" - both with the exact same layout.



Both of these domains are registered with the same registrar and were registered on the exact same day at the same time.



[ ~]$ whois reopenmn.com

[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]

[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]

[Querying whois.godaddy.com]

[whois.godaddy.com]

Domain Name: reopenmn.com

Registry Domain ID: 2512322197_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com

Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com

Updated Date: 2020-04-08T14:39:18Z

Creation Date: 2020-04-08T14:39:17Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-04-08T14:39:17Z



[ ~]$ whois reopenpa.com

[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]

[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]

[Querying whois.godaddy.com]

[whois.godaddy.com]

Domain Name: reopenpa.com

Registry Domain ID: 2512322050_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com

Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com

Updated Date: 2020-04-08T14:37:30Z

Creation Date: 2020-04-08T14:37:29Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-04-08T14:37:29Z

The rest of the whois information is obscured by a proxy organization that provides privacy for whois records (I even use them myself as do many others for privacy reasons), so I cannot tell who owns these domains.



Following the pattern of their sites, I checked for "reopenmd.com", but it never resolved to anything. That said, the DNS lookup itself didn't result in a NXDOMAIN error which tells me the domain does exist.



[ ~]$ whois reopenmd.com

[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]

[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]

[Querying whois.godaddy.com]

[whois.godaddy.com]

Domain Name: reopenmd.com

Registry Domain ID: 2515645280_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com

Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com

Updated Date: 2020-04-17T04:19:17Z

Creation Date: 2020-04-17T04:19:16Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-04-17T04:19:16Z

Registrant Organization:

Registrant State/Province: Florida

Registrant Country: US

Registrant Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=reopenmd.com

Admin Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=reopenmd.com

Tech Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=reopenmd.com

Registered a little more than week later with the same registrar. The thing is, they didn't actually complete their whois information this time, and whoever set it up cheaped out or forgot to pay for the Domains by Proxy service. Although whois information is literally a public record, I'm not inclined to place my account at risk by opening myself up to accusations of doxxing. That said, anyone who feels inclined to can go to https://whois.godaddy.com and search for reopenmd.com. I myself would be personally curious as to why someone in Florida is registering domains claiming to be gun rights organizations in other states.



Seriously, even without that information - who or whomever is responsible for this astroturfing couldn't make this more obvious if they tried. It honestly took me longer to type all of this up to present here than it did for me to find this all. Yet people have taken the bait hook-line-and-sinker.



Meanwhile, the President then starts tweeting "LIBERATE MINNESOTA", "LIBERATE VIRGINIA...", and "LIBERATE MICHIGAN"; and one of the major forces behind the group in Michigan was a political group that has direct ties to and has historically been heavily funded by the family of the Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos (though said family denies direct involvement in last weeks protest)?



In that regard, I'm not alleging some major conspiracy here, but l-o-fucking-l.



Edit: for the record, reopenva.com also exists and has the exact same registry info as reopenmd.com.



[ ~]$ whois reopenva.com

[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]

[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]

[Querying whois.godaddy.com]

[whois.godaddy.com]

Domain Name: reopenva.com

Registry Domain ID: 2515650132_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN

Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com

Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com

Updated Date: 2020-04-17T04:43:47Z

Creation Date: 2020-04-17T04:43:46Z

Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2021-04-17T04:43:46Z

Registrant Organization:

Registrant State/Province: Florida

Registrant Country: US

Registrant Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=reopenva.com

Admin Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=reopenva.com

Tech Email: Select Contact Domain Holder link at https://www.godaddy.com/whois/results.aspx?domain=reopenva.com

Edit 2: Apparently, others have found that a domain for pretty much every other state was registered in the same pattern at the same time.



Edit 3: Holy crap, this blew up! Thanks! I really just have a strong dislike for disinformation, and want people to be empowered to know who is involved with what; and I also want people to know to always apply critical thinking to these things.



OK. Back to your regularly scheduled flame wars. on Reddit, a guy named DR. Midnight has assembled the evidence of the "grass roots" origins of the latest idiocy. I present it here for your consideration. Amplified by a deluge of Russian social media and using the Tea Party email list, the useful idiots have emerged encouraged by Agent Comrade Trump. Some of the links are broken, but you get the idea. This, like Charlottesville and everything else in Trumpworld, is bullshit held together by lies.OK. Back to your regularly scheduled flame wars. 89 Tweet