The website for an organization calling itself Demand Protest made its mission pretty clear: “When your strategy demands paid protest, we organize and bring it to life.” Billing itself as a group that generated the “appearance of outrage” on behalf of left-wing causes, the existence of Demand Protest became an attractive story for many right-wing media outlets. The group, it appeared, was proof that dissent against Trump was manufactured by shady leftist organizations, and could be lucrative: one Backpage.com ad placed in Demand Protest’s name promised a full-time job that paid a $2,500 retainer, plus $50/hr., and benefits.
It was the perfect story to share, if you’re inclined to believe that anti-Trump protesters must be getting paid to be there. Something to that effect has long been in the canon of largely unsubstantiated rumors circulating on the Trump Internet. A well-known fake news writer even fabricated an “interview” with a protester who said he was paid $3,500 to protest at a Trump rally — a story that was shared on Twitter by Trump’s then-campaign manager. And like that made-up story, it also appears that Demand Protest is a made-up group, one that fooled quite a few news sources before being dramatically debunked on-air by Tucker Carlson.
Here’s an incomplete look at how we got here: a few days ago, the Gateway Pundit wrote a piece titled “BREAKING: Far Left Group Is Paying Activists a Monthly Salary to Stop TRUMP,” and cited 4Chan in mentioning a possible link between Demand Protest and George Soros.InfoWars was a bit more skeptical, hedging their story on Demand Protest as a “report” and writing that “it’s unclear if the DemandProtest.com website is actually legitimate.” The Washington Times also credulously reported on the Backpage ads. Breitbart, meanwhile,used the ads as evidence in an article that suggested that fears of pro-Trump inauguration violence was “fake news.”
“The facts tell a different story,” the Breitbart article says. “The left is gearing up for war, and hiring mercenaries.”
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1 comment:
One of the stories during the election cycle made the troll $1000 an hour in ad revenue while the story was hot. Obviously there are people who like to troll through the internet waters. News sites that want to be taken seriously will do a little investigation into these stories and those who report them.
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