Social Media Proves Too "Real" For Corporate Astroturf

Wow... big wind sycophants are wasting time and money trying to come up with complicated explanations and expensive solutions for a "problem" that can be explained in one simple sentence and solved by failure to participate.  How easy and cheap is that?

Social media, like Facebook and Twitter, are too transparent to sustain corporate astroturf because real people keep getting in and sharing their honest opinions.

How can anyone take this person seriously when they write stuff like this, which is nothing but one big ad hominem attack on the communities who object to having their landscapes littered with big wind infrastructure?  It's not really constructive or informative in the least.  It's just one more false accusation and personal attack. 

Let's count the ad hominem attacks here:

1. NIMBYs.  It's right in the headline.  NIMBY stands for "Not In My Back Yard."  The implication is that people only object to energy infrastructure because it's in their own backyard.  Not true.  Objections come from far and wide.  But let's turn this around to where it's more apt, shall we?  The ones who love new energy infrastructure do so only because it is NOT in their own backyard.  Or they love it because they stand to personally profit from it.  Most of the folks who say they love "clean energy" only love it until it encroaches upon their castle.  Then they hate it, or argue that it should be in someone else's back yard, someone else who is less politically connected and smaller in number.
2. "The people who virulently hate wind energy. The irrational ones who ignore the clear science that shows that it’s perfectly healthy, that windows and cats kill orders of magnitude more birds, and who refuse to accept the evidence from around the world that it’s cheap and easy to integrate into grids. Often they are global warming deniers as well."  Hate.  Irrational.  Ignore science.  Refuse to accept evidence.  Deniers.  This is nothing more than an ad hominem attack, as if making these people socially unacceptable is sufficient argument to support wind power.
3. "It’s all too easy to recirculate fake news about wind energy on Facebook. There’s a small group of people who do it from the time they get up in the morning to the time they go to bed."  Fake news from people who spend all their time on the internet and do nothing else?  Calling something you disagree with "fake news" is just another ad hominem.  And I assure you, these people you believe do nothing but sit on the internet have plenty of other things to do.  There's just a lot of them, and growing daily.  They have professional jobs, own companies, and most importantly they are engaged in the backbreaking daily task of producing food to stuff in your ungrateful piehole.
   
4. "It is understandable as social and digital media for anything controversial demands constant attention. First, you have to build a following of supporters and then you must police the comments until the supporters stand up for wind and chase the anti-trolls away. It can get ugly and it’s no fun but is necessary. Our public opinion research around the nation finds nearly 7 of 10 citizens throughout the United States in favor or wind, yet the anti groups are bolder and have been able to dominate the discussion making approvals harder and harder."  Trolls?  Ad hominem name calling doesn't make you right.  And it's just unfortunate that people are speaking up to disagree with the plentiful piles of bullshit the wind industry serves up daily.  Deal with it.  It's inherent to social media.  You cannot present a cherry-picked, one-sided version of "facts" when you open the door for public comment.  If you ask for public comment, you will get it, both favorable and unfavorable.  And here's the thing... I think your own pro-trolls are actually having fun with their arrogant, clueless arguments and gang attacks on any naysayers who do manage to get into the room.  This very article is case in point.  It looks like someone showed up to disagree with the subject article and was gleefully insulted and told his arguments were wrong.  However, this person's comments seem to be hidden (not approved by the moderator).  Therefore, if you don't click on each instance of a comment not approved, it looks like these jerks are arguing with the Invisible Man, or simply themselves.  And they do it en masse with such arrogance and glee!   They're having fun! This isn't helpful discussion or reasoned persuasion.  It's bullying, plain and simple.  Approvals of wind projects are harder and harder because the communities affected are getting more numerous.  Sly tricks and local government payoffs and bullying aren't working any longer to secure approvals.  It's like a snowball rolling down hill.  The more invasive big wind projects you build, the more evidence builds against them.  Creating more pro-trolls isn't going to help that because nobody really pays these angry bullies any attention.  They're irrelevant.
   

After a few paragraphs of look at me and all my accomplishments, the author suggests wind companies spend money creating an army of bots and professional trolls to scour social media sites in order to respond to "disinformation."

New technology and new businesses hold out hope. Twitter bots exist for good and evil. Just as there are Russian bots spreading fake news, there are bots which respond with carefully selected and edited reality. It’s possible to build social media responses with mixtures of professionals and automation now, and to respond without rancor to disinformation campaigns. There are social-media savvy firms which know how to mobilize effective pro-development efforts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

But how would a fake astroturf campaign win the social media war?  Astroturf depends on silencing other points of view.  No matter how companies try, they simply cannot have a public social media presence that is free from dissenting opinions.  This is why corporate energy initiatives have given up on social media, as well they should.  They have figured out that it's just too time consuming and expensive to engage in this battle.

Score one for the people.