Summary
The infamous group based on the site 4Chan may have been behind the biggest troll of the main stream media yet. If it is true, a 4Chan member named "/pol/acks" mailed some fanfiction to Rick Wilson about Trump engaging in the more scurrilous of activities published last night. Rick Wilson sent it to the CIA, which then began looking into it. From there others started adding to the documents that popped up as "related" to the original doc.
What is 4Chan?
One of our writers is a coder and internet wunderkind. He is somewhat familiar on a first hand basis with the culture and has audited the site over the years to study this primordial soup of humor and prank creation. Here is his description
4Chan is essentially a place where people do stuff just because they can. It is a meme factory. Some of the users are in it for the laughs, and some have a goal of raising political awareness. The group is heavily populated by hackers, and was the breeding ground for Anonymous, the hacking group that made waves a couple years ago. Essentially members make stuff up for laughs in this pressure cooker of ideas. Sometimes they filter out. When they do, the original point is frequently lost. For example the Senor Frog meme that had come to symbolize Trump's racist followers did not start as a racist symbol. It was just a frog with orange hair.
4Chan is the pressure cooker website that encourages completely free expression and attracts people who do things just to do them. Some of their less abrasive humor has filtered up to the mainstream web like LOL cats, Can I has Cheeseburger, and the more harmless pranks like Rick-Rolling.- Soren K. Group
Here is the 4chan user explanation of how it went down: followed by a translation:
Translation of the post:
- Pol/acks is the user name. It is a possible play on Pollack, a slur on Polish people. It could also be short for Political Hacks. Point here is you have to know that in the world of 4chan you do things for your own self humor, and if others "like" it then you gain cred.
- Pol/acks mailed anti-trump stuff to Rick wilson, probably masking himself as a Trump hater.
- Wilson took the bait and gave it to the CIA
- The CIA lumped it in with their Russian hacking investigation- There is the first mistake- Soren K.
- It has been out there for a while- Comey received a letter on Oct 30th from a livid Harry Reid
- The CIA had concluded Russia could blackmail Trump with it- more bias, misprioritazion and a lack of due diligence
- Pol/Acks makes a smug but accurate statement- "Look at what we have become"
The Whole 4Chan Chronology Summarized
On january 10, Buzzfeed posted a story under the byline of Ken Bensinger, Mark Schoofs and Miriam elder titled “these reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia” and posted a link to a document alleging, among other things, that russia has been cultivating trump for 5+ years, that trump has been in constant contact with the kremlin for information on his opponents, and perhaps most inflammatory, that there are many recorded instances of blackmail of trump in sexual misconduct. A prominent claim is that trump rented the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in moscow, where he knew that the Obamas had slept in; he them hired a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden shower' (pissplay) on the bed and in the room. https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-dee...https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3259984/Trump-Intelligence-Al...
Noted #nevertrump voice Rick Wilson later commented on twitter, stating that the report “gave a new meaning to Wikileaks” (https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/818982395202379777) and that the report was the reason everybody was fighting so hard against the election of Trump. (https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/818983514335047680)
The remarkable thing? It's all fake. And not only fake; it's a prank perpetuated by 4chan, on Rick Wilson himself. A post on 4chan on october 26 stated “mfw managed to convince CTR and certain (((journalists))) on Twitter there'll be an October surprise on Trump this Friday” along with a picture of a smug face with a hash name. http://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/94704894/#94705224
on november 1, a person without a picture but is assumed to be the same person posted “So they took what I told Rick Wilson and added a Russian spy angle to it. They still believe it. Guys, they're truly fucking desperate - there's no remaining Trump scandal that's credible.” https://archive.4plebs.org/pol/thread/95568919/#95571329
on january 10, moments after the story broke and began to gain traction on social media, a person with the same smug grin face, and the same hash title for the picture, stated “I didn't think they'd take it so far.” http://boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/106514445#p106520376
This story has taken on something of a life of it's own. Going through Rick Wilson's twitter, you can find many different stories from the time that he had shown the story to a wide number of anti-trump news sources, trying to find a news organization that would actually publish the story. During that time period, he referred to it often as 'the thing', and often playing coy with followers on the content with the story with anybody who was not also a #Nevertrumper. Unconfirmed sources has people as high up as John McCain giving the story to FBI Director James Comey to attempt to verify the story. Given that Rick Wilson runs in Establishment circles, it is not an impossible scenario that long-serving senators are falling for what amounts to a 4chan troll trump supporter creating an ironic October Surprise out of wholecloth to punk a GOPe pundit who derogatorily referred to them as single men who masturbate to anime.
Source Pastebin
Just Saying- The Media Deserves Praise.
By and large this material has been around for months. Major credit has to be given the journalistic media for holding back on unverified material. It gives us a good feeling that there are people with integrity who are still on the job. Unfortunately these people are by and large not management.
Even if the 4Chan claim is bogus, what does it say that unverified materials were foisted onto the public by CNN, only to force Buzzfeed to ramp up its own footprint on the topic?
To be clear, it may be true in part or in whole. Noone knows yet. It is a very serious and open issue being studied.it had no business being put out there in the way it was and further objective investigation may be compromised because of the revelation.
h/t zerohedge for pics and some links
Read more by Soren K.Group
