Over on Twitter, FreedomWorks was exposed by PA Spotlight for using an army of fake twitter accounts to promote “Paycheck Protection” in Pennsylvania. The bill legislation that FreedomWorks is advocating for would make it illegal for public sector unions to automatically deduct dues out of their members’ paychecks. Essentially choking the funding for public sector unions. PA Spotlight fired the opening shots in this fued with:
Koch funded @Liberty4pa are using a bunch of bots to push their anti-union bills in Pennsylvania. #papolitics #pahouse pic.twitter.com/8GEh8fMyZT
— PA Spotlight (@PA_Spotlight) December 5, 2017
And then the day of tweeting between PA Spotlight and employees from the Commonwealth Foundation and FreedomWorks off to the races. The exchanges between the combating parties devolved towards the point where a FreedomWorks employee posted a selfie of himself holding today’s Wall Street Journal to prove that he is not a “bot.”
Pam Know (@PamKnox82210053) an account that was created in January 2017 tweeted for the first time last night. The same goes for Ron Kunda (@rck1248). That Twitter account was created in March 2011, but the time stamp for its first tweet was “6:21 PM 4 Dec 2017.” The tweets coming from this army of bots and FreedomWorks employees said ” Please support paycheck protection (SB 166 and HB 1174)!,” and shared a link promoting the Commonwealth Foundation’s current efforts to gut public sector unions.
Its still 2017 and this is how absurd attacks against the working class have gotten. FreedomWorks, an organization that has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Pennsylvania’s very own Sarah Scaife Foundation and other Koch Brothers organizations, creates this Twitter campaign that uses fake accounts and specifically targets Pennsylvania Republican leaders to support the legislation. And to tie it all together, these accounts promoted content from Commonwealth Foundation, which is connected to the Koch Brothers through State Policy Network.
Here are some of the tweets:
@PA_Spotlight is shredding the right wing disinformation campaign rn. https://t.co/sPMUMLHnS7
— KeystoneProgress (@KeystoneProgres) December 5, 2017
Here’s Maurice Corkery, a totally real person with 0 followers and no avatar…, whose account has only shared @Liberty4pa petition content. #papolitics pic.twitter.com/6WHL4a2oH7
— PA Spotlight (@PA_Spotlight) December 5, 2017
I think is proof that I’m not a bot. Waiting for evidence @PA_Spotlight isn’t. pic.twitter.com/fYgPt46WMM
— FWJonM (@FWJonM) December 5, 2017
