If influencer corruption is inevitable, what exactly should Dems & the Left do, Leo?

[Elliott]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

 

The YouTubers participating in this program literally have a meeting EVERY DAY where they get talking points for the day's news from this Chorus group which is funded by dark money. It's outrageously corrupt.

The dark money aspect of Chorus was NOT disclosed until Taylor broke this story. That's the story. The Chorus group was public knowledge, but the dark money funding and other details was not.

This is corruption 101. The excuses these creators have is cringe nonsense. They did not debunk Taylor in any way.

Not true.

And Brian Tyler Cohen announced Chorus a year ago publicly when he started it. Pakman has been posted on their website, along with the others.

https://youtube.com/shorts/f6uwmKZ8_3I?si=UpBcHMil6KwW1Wv1

 

 

 

 

Edited 23 hours ago by Elliott

[Leo Gura]

@Elliott Again, Chorus was public but the dark money aspect of it was not. And their contract terms and details were not public.

It's also disingenuous to say that this group supports progreszives. They only supports centrist progressives who will tow the moderate party line. There are many progresaive influencers who were not invited due to their leftist views.

Plus, personally I was not aware of Chorus. If I had known about it earlier I would have also found it problematic. Coordinating news coverage is already a problem. Taylor has done a service just by making this Chorus thing widely known. It's not like we follow the inside baseball of these creators. How many people have ever heard of Chorus before this week? Zero.

[Elliott]

19 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@Elliott Again, Chorus was public but the dark money aspect of it was not. And their contract terms and details were not public.

It's also disingenuous to say that this group supports progreszives. They only supports centrist progressives who will tow the moderate party line. There are many progresaive influencers who were not invited due to their leftist views.

Plus, personally I was not aware of Chorus. If I had known about it earlier I would have also found it problematic. Coordinating news coverage is already a problem. Taylor has done a service just by making this Chorus thing widely known. It's not like we follow the inside baseball of these creators. How many people have ever heard of Chorus before this week? Zero.

The cohen video on Chorus i posted was from a year ago, when he first started it. It's a donation organization for Pete's sake, he asks for donations publicly.....

I don't think you even watched the videos you posted, watch your second video. Even Lorenz debunks you.

I barely watch Cohen and I remembered Chorus popping up back then. I mean they have a literal website where you can sign up to join Chorus. Even Lorenz was part of it.

 

https://nypost.com/2022/06/04/washington-post-adds-two-corrections-to-taylor-lorenz-piece/

She's always been a hack attention whore.

Edited 23 hours ago by Elliott

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, Elliott said:

The cohen video on Chorus i posted was from a year ago, when he first started it. It's a donation organization for Pete's sake, he asks for donations publicly.....

I don't think you even watched the videos you posted, watch your second video.

I watched all the videos, and more, and I watched the creator denial and debunk videos and attacks on Taylor.

Taylor's story is solid. Nothing has been debunked. These creators take dark money to coordinate propaganda for corporate Dems.

[Elliott]

 

Wired already made 5 edits.

Edited 22 hours ago by Elliott

[Elliott]

7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I watched all the videos, and more, and I watched the creator denial and debunk videos and attacks on Taylor.

Taylor's story is solid. Nothing has been debunked. These creators take dark money to coordinate propaganda for corporate Dems.

Even Taylor debunked your claim you're making here, in your second video.

Edited 22 hours ago by Elliott

[Joshe]

You need coordination in information warfare. I hope they are coordinating. 

Edited 21 hours ago by Joshe

[Leo Gura]

2 hours ago, Elliott said:

Even Taylor debunked your claim you're making here, in your second video.

No.

I encourage you guys to read the original article for yourselves. Nothing in the article has been disproven, in fact, proof of the contracts has been shared.

https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secret-funding-democrat-influencers/

[Hardkill]

31 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

No.

I encourage you guys to read the original article for yourselves. Nothing in the article has been disproven, in fact, proof of the contracts has been shared.

https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secret-funding-democrat-influencers/

I thought David Pakman and BTC were the kind of sensible, pragmatic, and mature progressives that you approved of as opposed to the far leftists who are too whiny, too populist, and too anti-mainstream like TYT or Hasan or Breaking Points?

Also, what about the fact that BTC also works with Pod Save America, another one of your favorite high-quality, wise, and balanced left-wing channels out there?

In fact, all of the Pod Save America bros have been part of the idea of building up their left-wing/progressive media ecosystem including getting Democratic aligned wealthy donors to fund their project for it.

Edited 19 hours ago by Hardkill

[Apparition of Jack]

Without getting into the ethics of it all, I feel like this isn’t really all that surprising in the first place?

Take David Pakman for example. While I broadly agreed with his worldview, I always felt his videos were kind of “safe” and corporatised, if that makes sense. Like he was coordinating with people beyond just a handful of independent online leftists.

The fact that he is taking money from the Dems seems kinda self-evident all things considered. I really don’t see the problem with it so long as his messages are still reasonable and grounded.

[Joshe]

1 hour ago, Apparition of Jack said:

Without getting into the ethics of it all, I feel like this isn’t really all that surprising in the first place?

Take David Pakman for example. While I broadly agreed with his worldview, I always felt his videos were kind of “safe” and corporatised, if that makes sense. Like he was coordinating with people beyond just a handful of independent online leftists.

The fact that he is taking money from the Dems seems kinda self-evident all things considered. I really don’t see the problem with it so long as his messages are still reasonable and grounded.

I always got that sense about Pakman too. In fact, I’ve always thought that if coordination was going on, Pakman and BTC were the main ones in on it. That’s not to say anything bad about them - I think it’s wise given the situation. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Pakman would intentionally spread information he doesn’t agree with, although I’m not sure.

There isn’t anything unethical about coordinating talking points. It can be highly effective for spreading ideas when multiple influencers are using the same language and memes. I noticed Kyle K. and Pondering Politics using very similar language lately, and some of the words are too obscure to be coincidence. 

For all we know, this initiative by Chorus is our best bet at removing these lunatics from the heads of our government. In a war of ideas, what’s a better marketing channel than influencers? I can’t think of any.

Edited 18 hours ago by Joshe

[Hardkill]

4 hours ago, Apparition of Jack said:

Without getting into the ethics of it all, I feel like this isn’t really all that surprising in the first place?

Take David Pakman for example. While I broadly agreed with his worldview, I always felt his videos were kind of “safe” and corporatised, if that makes sense. Like he was coordinating with people beyond just a handful of independent online leftists.

The fact that he is taking money from the Dems seems kinda self-evident all things considered. I really don’t see the problem with it so long as his messages are still reasonable and grounded.

Pakman has interviewed Leftists like Cenk, Noam Chomsky, and Hasan Piker. He seems to be genuinely aligned with their viewpoints. 

BTC has interviewed and supported Bernie Sanders and AOC.

Guys like them are pragmatists who have a realistic understanding of how politics and business work, but also seem to be committed to fighting for our democracy, freedoms/rights, and progress.

Pakman made a fair point when he said that the progress of human society happens incrementally to varying degrees even when you look at FDR's New Deal.

Edited 14 hours ago by Hardkill

[Hardkill]

6 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Elliott Again, Chorus was public but the dark money aspect of it was not. And their contract terms and details were not public.

It's also disingenuous to say that this group supports progreszives. They only supports centrist progressives who will tow the moderate party line. There are many progresaive influencers who were not invited due to their leftist views.

Plus, personally I was not aware of Chorus. If I had known about it earlier I would have also found it problematic. Coordinating news coverage is already a problem. Taylor has done a service just by making this Chorus thing widely known. It's not like we follow the inside baseball of these creators. How many people have ever heard of Chorus before this week? Zero.

I was aware of it months ago. They always said that Chorus was about putting together a mega network of Democratic aligned influencers to help fight against Trump, MAGA, the radical right-wing, and the Republican party.

[Elliott]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No.

I encourage you guys to read the original article for yourselves. Nothing in the article has been disproven, in fact, proof of the contracts has been shared.

https://www.wired.com/story/dark-money-group-secret-funding-democrat-influencers/

In the second video you posted, the author of the Wired article Taylor Lorenz said, 'I never suggested that the influencers are told what to say', 'I never said Democrats were behind this'.paraphrasing.

She's a hack, she bamboozled you with her "dark money" talk.

Cohen said at the launch of Chorus that it was to fund creators, in the video I posted from a year ago, that makes it not "dark", the funding was made public from the launch, it's funded by donors that Cohen requests donations from regularly in his videos.

Edited 15 hours ago by Elliott

[Leo Gura]

22 minutes ago, Elliott said:

it's funded by donors that Cohen requests donations from regularly in his videos.

No. That's just chump-change and window dressing. It is funded by wealthy people who are dark so we don't even know who they are.

Influencers are not necessarily told what to say but influenced what to say.

This is as silly as a politician saying, "I took the money but I wasn't told exactly what to say".

Her WIRED article speaks for itself.

"To fund creators" is not necessarily a problem. The problem is who is doing the funding, why they doing it, what their agenda is, and their level of influence.

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Hardkill said:

I thought David Pakman and BTC were the kind of sensible, pragmatic, and mature progressives that you approved of as opposed to the far leftists who are too whiny, too populist, and too anti-mainstream like TYT or Hasan or Breaking Points?

Also, what about the fact that BTC also works with Pod Save America, another one of your favorite high-quality, wise, and balanced left-wing channels out there?

In fact, all of the Pod Save America bros have been part of the idea of building up their left-wing/progressive media ecosystem including getting Democratic aligned wealthy donors to fund their project for it.

I don't particularly even care that liberals are organizing against MAGA and fighting fire with fire. I'm not some fool who expects politics to be squeaky clean. I still consider establishment Dems allies. I still consider Pakman, Destiny, BTC, and Kamala Harris allies. Centrists are needed to defeat MAGA. Realistically Dems need dark money to defeat MAGA because MAGA are ruthless barbarians who will stop at nothing to corrupt society.

My blog post was about a larger issue about how easily social media influencers can and will be corrupted going forward. My points are never about some one political issue like defeating Trump.

The issue is that this money and influence will be used to create biased propaganda that poisons the epistemic ecosystem. So my concern is about the ecosystem, not defeating Trump. Although of course I want to defeat Trump too.

If all I cared about was politics, I wouldn't mind this Chorus thing because it can help win elections. But I don't like epistemic cost.

[Elliott]

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

No. That's just chump-change and window dressing. It is funded by wealthy people who are dark so we don't even know who they are.

Influencers are not necessarily told what to say but influenced what to say.

This is as silly as a politician saying, "I took the money but I wasn't told exactly what to say".

Her WIRED article speaks for itself.

"To fund creators" is not necessarily a problem. The problem is who is doing the funding, why they doing it, what their agenda is, and their level of influence.

Theres barely anything in the article. Kat Abughazaleh, is also in Chorus by the way.

This is loony, the article says the max is 8k a month, the Pakman show makes 90k a month, this is not "dark money" bro. Dark money has a specific meaning, secret money to influence elections, ad campaigns, buying people.

And the article does not say "daily meetings" it says "daily meetings on "rapid response days"". "Otherwise it's twice a month".

Edited 7 hours ago by Elliott

[Husseinisdoingfine]

 

7 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I still consider establishment Dems allies. I still consider Pakman, Destiny, BTC, and Kamala Harris allies.

I definitely disagree that the establishment Democrats are suddenly our "allies", and the proof of this is what's going on in New York.

When Sanders lost in 2016 and in 2020, the motto was "vote blue no matter who". The idea of course being that progressives had to put aside their policy objections, and be okay with voting for the Democrats who receive large donations from the donors who manage the party and pick the leadership. 

And when I mean pick their leadership, I mean that literally. The donors, party operatives, and volunteers, decided that Biden was the preferable nominee, that they didn't want Sanders to be the nominee, so they coordinated with the other candidates in the primary to withdraw from the primary election. 

 

Now hypothetically, if a Socialist were to win a Democratic Primary, would they still be chanting the motto of "vote blue no matter who" ? What we're seeing in New York is that the answer is no. The donor class, and even sitting Democratic members of U.S. congress, are not supporting Zohran Mamdani, rather they are supporting Cuomo and Adams, even though those two are independent. They expect us to vote blue no matter who, but they won't extend the same courtesy when one of our guys wins a primary.

'Democratic socialists are not Democrats,' - Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J

The ultimate reason why the establishment are not our allies is because they represent vastly different class interests which can never be reconciled. The job of the Democrats is to find the find the middle ground between what the constituents can tolerate, not want they want, and what the donors want. Not what the constituents want. 

They coordinated to stop Sanders in the primary and now won't support Zohran.

Allies? 

 

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

I definitely disagree that the establishment Democrats are suddenly our "allies", and the proof of this is what's going on in New York.

They are allies relative to fascists.

I am not saying they don't undermine far leftists. Of course they do. But MAGA wants to execute leftists. Just keep that in mind while you battle with centrists.

Of course Dems will oppose socialists. This is not something to be outraged about. This is exactly as expected.

Edited 2 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Hardkill]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

They are allies relative to fascists.

I am not saying they don't undermine far leftists. Of course they do. But MAGA wants to execute leftists. Just keep that in mind while you battle with centrists.

Of course Dems will oppose socialists. This is not something to be outraged about. This is exactly as expected.

I find it odd that Democrats claim to be a big-tent party—welcoming center-right, centrist, center-left, and left-wing voters—while today’s Republican Party largely embraces only the right and far-right, with few true center-right voices. Yet the Democratic Party often tries to undermine Democratic Socialists.