Whodat. Who’s that? I’ve had a couple of MAGA-ish DMs from the guy (I’m making the assumption whodat doesn’t use she/her or they/them pronouns), but this is the first time he’s left a comment on my blog. I almost deleted it, thinking it was comment spam.
The reason I thought it was comment spam is that he posted it to my Air-Minded Index page, not to any of my You Can’t Read That! banned book posts. Instead, he added it to a page of links to aviation posts. Since that index lists hundreds of titles, you’d have to scroll way down to even see the comment, and it’s unlikely anyone ever would. The only reason I saw it is that, as the creator of this blog, WordPress alerts me to new comments.
Comment spammers typically post their shit to old entries buried deep in the archives of a blog or website. The point is to propagate commercial links online … comment spammers earn a few cents from the seller every time they post a link to a blog or website, whether that site’s readers will likely see it or not. I guess it has something to do with gaming Google, but how exactly the seller benefits eludes me.
Whodat’s comment spam doesn’t have a commercial link. Instead, it links to what looks like a TV interview of an author who says his book’s listing has been removed by Amazon, and interestingly, that book just happens to be critical of Kamala Harris. So, yeah, it’s still comment spam, only it’s selling a message; specifically, right-wing propaganda. I don’t know if anyone paid him to post it, or if he posted it to other websites and blogs.
I decided to let the comment stand, not that anyone will ever see it, but also do a little digging and add a response of my own, sort of like those “readers add context” corrections you see below misinformation posts on social media. Not that anyone will ever see that, either. I get to do that because it’s my blog, right?
You can read what I said below whodat’s initial comment. What looks like a slick TV interview is actually an amateur YouTube video. The interviewer & YouTube creator is popular in anti-vaxx/anti-Fauci circles. The author of the book, a hit piece on Kamala Harris, is employed by Russia Today. The book in question, contrary to claims, is listed on Amazon. I easily found all this information online.
Today, whodat responded to my response. I haven’t got the energy to research whether the Harris book was removed from Amazon and then reinstated. Facts, however, are hardly boilerplate. Insult? Not my intention, but when I said whodat’s comment was unworthy I meant it, because it was and is.
As with every presidential election, lies and misinformation, some of it concocted by our enemies (did you get the part where the author of the Kamala Harris hit piece works for Russia Today?) but spread by willing helpers right here at home, are going to flood the zone. We’re going to see it everywhere, even buried in comment spam on virtually unknown blogs like this one.
So I made another decision: to put our exchange, as an example and a warning, into a fresh blog post readers might actually see. I’ll be keeping a close eye on future attempts to spam Paul’s Thing with political ratfuckery, meanwhile keeping a heavy finger on the “delete” key.