#i have repeatedly tried to put the links in this post but apparently the website sucks and always refers you back to the homepage

[beguines]

Danylo Movchan, Archangel Uriel / Archangel Barachiel / Archangel Raphail

[hcneymilkks]

Month

A fake dating au but make it marriage. Two best friends scroll on social media and notice a trend where newlyweds send invites to famous celebrities to see what will happen? An appearance? A gift? Who knows. For the two best friends, as a joke, set up a fake wedding and request the most expensive gifts with the option of money. Sending invites to celebrities ranging from Kim Kardashian to even the Queen, they are surprised and shocked to realize that not only were gifts being delivered nearing the “big day” but a request to be part of the celebration causes the two friends to create a fake marriage in the smallest amount of time they have. 

University AU! Aged-up Haikyuu Characters!

Fashion Designer/Psychologist Oikawa

Humanities Y/N

Rain splattered on the window, causing little droplets here and there to roll down with no hesitation. The quiet hums of lo-fi music made its way around the little bedroom, with vigorous typing accompanying it. 

Backspace.

Enter. 

Click and delete. 

Brain throbbing, a sigh escaping from the lips.

It was no use, the longer the computer was stared at, the more your brain felt like mush.

“Damn him and using me to do his research analysis.”

Speak of the devil.

“Y/n!”

You stood up, turning around and crossing your arms with a glare. There he stood, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe with a sly smirk on his face.

Tooru Oikawa.

“How’s the report going? I hope to see it done by tomorrow?”

“Fuck you,” you strided over and pushed his arms, causing him to slightly lose balance. “Just tell me how you managed not getting kicked out yet. I swear you casted a spell on your professors or something. It's like you don’t do anything.”

He feigned hurt. “I do!” He whined. “Just not class related.” He pushed past you and flung yourself onto the bed, burying his face into your freshly washed sheets. “I’m designing a new clothing line inspired by the different volleyball team colours.”

“Is this your way at relieving the pain from not making it to nationals?” you snickered, remembering how pissed off he was after Ushijima told him he should have gone to Shiratorizawa.

“I-you little shit. This is why I never tell you things.”

“Shut up shittykawa you literally are making me do your research proposal. I know nothing about psychology!”

“I’m helping you learn a new subject! It’s time to look into your own brain and see what’s wrong with you!”

…

Three.

Two.

One.

“OIKAWA YOU LITTLE SHIT!” you flung yourself on top of him, garnering an oomph! sound. You smacked his back repeatedly. 

He let it have your way, already coming up with a counterattack. 

With stinging hands and shallow breaths after saying nothing but curses, you stopped and climbed off of him. Immediately, he’s on top of you. Pinning your wrists and getting dangerously closer to your neck. You couldn’t lie, he was attractive, but knowing him and his two-faced personality, you’d rather stay friends. 

But did you really want to?

A part of him knew you wanted him, but was that a risk you were willing to take?

Deep breaths. 

A low chuckle. “You love me y/n. I know you do, and I also know you’d do anything for me.” He smirked and pressed a kiss oh so close to your lips, getting up and dusting off his black shirt.

“I’m leaving! Remember, the paper has to be done by tomorrow!”

The door closed and for a moment you looked at your ceiling.

Eyes wide. 

Taking a pillow, you screamed into it.

“SHITTYKAWA!”

“Here you hoe, now for once in your life do your own work.”

You stomped into one of the many University studios, aiming the folder at Oikawa’s head much to his dismay.

“Thank you love you!”

You glared at him and waved a hand. “You definitely owe me like five bowls of ramen after what you put me through. I can’t believe you made me read so much on children’s brains and development.”

“I mean they said to choose something I liked, so children and volleyball worked together. Plus, if I actually had to conduct the research, my nephew’s volleyball club would have been perfect.” He finally turned around after pinning the teal fabric to the mannequin, striding towards you and ruffling your hair.

You mumbled incoherent curses as Oikawa picked up his sketchbook, writing down a quick note before closing it.

“Let’s go, I’m starving.”

The fragrant air of spices and creamy broth filled the little shop, making you drool. Grateful that Oikawa was rich, you took the opportunity to order almost everything on the menu.

“Y/n isn’t that-” you growled at him and he smirked.

“Feisty, you know I love that.” he winked and you gagged.

While waiting for the food, both of you were scrolling on Instagram. Having most of the same friends, it was no surprise that your timelines almost looked identical. Rolling his eyes, Oikawa saw a group photo of most of the volleyball players Hinata was pictured with, wanting nothing more than to squish the little one. 

But then something caught your eyes. 

You looked up at Oikawa who seemingly had the same expression, eyes wide, yet confused.

The dead groupchat came back to life with a link sent by Matsukawa, something about a bet.

matthewkawa 

Look at this lol

Sent a link

[Youtube storytime: The Time I Invited Drake to My Wedding (Spoiler Alert: He Came!)]

hannamaki

Wait why would someone invite a celebrity? Aren’t they hard to ask?

nishinoyya

Wait that’s cool! Asahi-san can we invite Jason Derulo to our wedding?

acai

Wait...what? What wedding?

y/n

Waittt i’ve seen that video

Apparently as a joke the person sent lots of invites to different celebrities. Most of them gave gifts or money but I guess Drake went

iwachew

LOOL IMAGINE Y/N AND CRAPPYKAWA DOING THAT

yoyoinata

I can see that woah!

milkyama

Psh! Flattykawa and y/n. I can’t see it. y/n deserves better lol

fabkawa

OI TAKE THAT BACK STUPID

y/n

Oi don’t talk back to my child like that shittykawa

fabkawa

Shut up y/n and eat your ramen

You glared at him before saying thank you to the waiter. Both minds now occupied with the creamy ramen and soft boiled egg. 

Flipping a page, you smiled. There it was, the fake couple who both fell for each other, breaking so many rules. But who couldn’t resist?

Oikawa scrolled on the computer, typing and clicking. He swiveled around in his seat and went over to you, peering over your shoulder.

You smacked his arm. “Personal space excuse me!” He put his arm up in defence, smirking.

“Remember the post Matsukawa sent?

“Yeah. So what?”

“I made the wedding on May 14th and invited some celebrities. Who did you want to send an invite to?”

You dropped the book. “Say what?”

Oikawa dragged you from his bed and sat you down on his uncomfy chair. Indeed, the computer screen showed a cheesy website where people rsvp to weddings. Already half of the groupchat accepted and you know this had to be a joke.

“Oikawa are you dumb? Who are you marrying? Wait no, who would want to marry you?” you looked at him and he pouted.

“Iwa-chan said no, Mad Dog scares me, Ushijima is definitely a no, so you’re left.”

“Who said I would do it?”

“I invited Stray Kids.”

Are you kidding me?

“This isn’t real, we’re not gonna really get married right? I mean if we were technically speaking, the wedding is less than a month away and we don’t have money, a reception place or any other sappy wedding shit.” You looked at the list and sure enough, Stray Kids was there.

“No y/n nothing is going to happen trust me. Plus, who doesn’t like free gifts? I tried to ask for expensive gifts and money because someone’s wardrobe and apartment looks ugly as hell.”

“You better not be talking about me bitch. I’m gonna set that sketchbook on fire.”

Oikawa chuckled. “Add some more people on the list, I wanna see how far this can get.”

“I never said I agreed to it,” you mumbled but nonetheless added in a few of your favourite celebrities, including the queen. 

After all, if this worked, free money. What’s the harm in that?”

A lot went wrong after that.

It was three am a week after the planning and your phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Grumbling, you answered the call without looking at the number…..which was a stupid mistake.

“Y/N! HOW DO I CANCEL THE WEDDING?!”

“Relax Papi you said nothing would happen? Free money right?” you yawned not even realizing what you said.

Oikawa sputtered on the other line, shaking his head and ignoring how you called him Papi for some reason. “Yeah but uh...we have a little problem.” 

“Hm…”

“Jason Derulo accepted the invite ...and he can’t wait to see the ceremony.”

From that moment, you were fully awake. “WHAT?!!”

“What do you mean you can’t cancel the wedding?” you rubbed at your temples, losing more brain cells by the minute.

"Okay so apparently my last name is common around celebrities, seeing as my father owns different restaurants. So it’s not a surprise to them that they wouldn’t attend the wedding.’

“Fuck.” you breathed out. How did the both of you not realize this?

“Okay so um..what now?”

Oikawa ruffled his air. “We go through with it.”

"Fuck no.” 

“What why?”

You’re the one who thought of this crazy idea! It’s all your fault!” 

“But you’re the one who put Jason Derulo in there!”’

You smacked your forehead. “It was a joke and for free money! Look what you got us into.”

Yells back and forth, each blaming the other. It was like the night wasn’t going to end soon. Tired from the arguing, you smacked Oikawa’s chest. “Stupid,” you mumbled. “I don’t want to do this!”

Oikawa scratched the back of his neck. “But what if I want to?” You looked up at him confused. “You know, like how Hinata and Tobio fake dated but then became boyfriends.”

“Oikawa, that’s different. That’s dating, this is marriage. It’s adult stuff, I can barely cook!”

“I’ll cook for you.”

You walked away from him, going towards his balcony. The view was beautiful, seeing various stars and the lights shining from Tokyo. “This is too much for me to handle. You're a pain, you know that?”

He wrapped his arms around you and instinctively you snuggled closer to his chest, facing the view so he wouldn’t see your red cheeks.

"Remember when we were children? And we had a whole promise that we would be with each other forever?” you laughed. The classic child marriage pact. It was as if almost all friendships started with that promise. A promise to love and stay with each other no matter what.

“That’s child play.”

He started to rub circles with his thumbs on your arms, you feeling relaxed. “One month. Give me one month after the wedding. We’ll go on a honeymoon to London, I'll teach you how to cook, you can live with me, we can adopt a puppy.” Oikawa gulped and looked at you. “And if you don’t like it, we can pretend none of this happened. In fact i’ll stop bothering you with my assignments and my presence.”

One month. That sounded like a challenge. A challenge that Oikawa was willing to risk everything for. A month to make you fall for him.

“...so we’re splitting the gifts and money equally then, right?”

A/N: I’m back! This has been in my drafts for months. At first it was supposed to be Yuto from Pentagon but after getting into Haikyuu I was like fuck it and changed it to Oikawa. Also because yes LMAO. I hope you all liked it and let me know your comments! Part two will be in the works if people want it, for now its a oneshot aha. 

Much love!

tags: @babyworld , @bakuhoes-dumbass

[rachelthompsonauthor]

What is social proof? It’s a marketing concept that we are all inadvertently, unknowingly contributing to every time we click on, retweet, like, reply or comment, and share any kind of social media, article, or blog post on the net. Technically, social proof, as defined by Sprout Social is:

The concept that people will follow the actions of the masses. The idea is that since so many other people behave in a certain way, it must be the correct behavior.

Social Proof and Me

As an author, social media is a hugely important part of my author platform, as it is for any writer or blogger. This is how we connect with readers now, even before the pandemic. Virtual, online events are now the norm. Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube Live video discussions are the new book signings. Twitter chats are weekly on any number of topics; I have two of my own, in fact, #SexAbuseChat every Tuesday at 6 pm pst/9 pm est and #BookMarketingChat every Wednesday at 6 pm pst/9 pm est.

All important for visibility, branding, and most importantly, connection.

However…there’s a limit. I reached my limit over the course of this past year. It didn’t come all at once. It came, little by little, reaching a peak this past month or so.

Why? How? Me, the so-called social media expert?

Access. Like many people, I have issues with the incredible level of access Facebook gives people once we friend them without our consent. PMs (private messages) are automatic, now with the ability for people to call, voice, and video message us, with no option to shut these options to OFF unless we unfriend the person (we can, however, mute a specific conversation). Technically, we do give them consent in the legal mumbo jumbo we all agreed to when we joined back in the 2010s.

I am not okay with this. And Facebook doesn’t care. Nobody cares. You’re probably thinking, “Geez, Karen. Shut up, already. Stop your whining, white lady.” I get it. I do. First-world problems.

I counter with: I hear you. It’s also part of my business. A huge part. Here’s why:

As someone who manages over 70+ various social media accounts as part of my BadRedhead Media business, plus my own accounts as well, Facebook requires I have a personal account in order to manage all those other Pages. I do understand why, particularly with all the ridiculousness of the past four years with the abundance of fake accounts, fake news, and such.

As a survivor of sexual abuse and stalking, this is ultra-concerning to me. So, what happened this past month or so? Suffice it to say, one person repeatedly tried calling me. I never pick up Facebook calls, especially if I don’t know you. Another left me a few voice messages saying they were offended by something.

Yet another left me another message in ALL SHOUTY CAPS that she didn’t find what I posted inspirational enough and she expected better from someone who is “supposedly on the side of authors.”

Oh, and there is the one lady who started replying on ALL my posts to the kind people who did comment that she didn’t think I replied often enough or to her satisfaction.

Well. I’ve been criticized before. You should read some of my 1-star reviews. There’s plenty!

But, for whatever reason, this struck a chord. I got up in my feels. I cried. I talked with one of them and we worked it out because we like and respect each other’s work in the mental health space. The others I blocked. It’s darn frustrating to donate hours of my time each week to helping writers solely because I want to, only to be told it’s not enough. Like, seriously? Fuck off.

My blood raged. My heart sank. Understandable, right?

But what really made me angry is that I put myself in that position by being available. I accepted that ‘it is what it is.’ This is what the social media platforms have given us, so that’s what I have to work within.

I’m too available. It’s too easy to leave me shitty messages. This is why people hire people like me – to handle this crap for them! So they don’t have to read these ridiculous criticisms from judgy people who apparently have nothing better to do or are having a bad day.

And I get bad days. It’s a damn pandemic. We’re all struggling. Where’s the damn compassion for one another?

I have a dislike/hate relationship with Facebook anyway, since about ten or so years ago when I discovered that a past love had died by suicide by going to his personal profile and seeing, “RIP dude,” messages there. We had spoken early that day. It still haunts me.

So…what to do? I’m claiming my time. I’m not posting to my personal Facebook profile right now. I’m ignoring it. I am checking my Pages and of course, my client Pages. When I feel like I can face it again, I will cull my ‘friends’ down from *checks real quick* 4385 people to maybe, I don’t know, the few hundred in my groups, many of whom I do know and treasure.

Social Proof and You

If you’re a writer, social proof matters. This is the world we live in. Publishing is not only writing.

You need to be ‘findable,’ not only on Google, but also on each individual social platform, so your readers can learn more about you and hopefully, buy your books. If you go the traditional route, publishers and agents want to know how many followers you have (easily upped by buying fake followers or likes from Fiverr or wherever). I suggest not doing that, because:

1) fake followers don’t buy books 

2) it’s usually pretty obvious when you have fake followers because they’re all foreign names, have questionable bios, and no tweets

3) do you really want to start your publishing career with a lie? 

They also want to know what you post, how often, and what your branding is. If you’re an indie author, honestly, the same applies. Social proof is about connection, building relationships, and authenticity. I’ve believed that since I started my business and writing career way back in 2011, and I stand by it now. Start slow, grow slow. It’s not a race.

I’m the furthest thing you’ll even find from a conspiracy theorist – I don’t believe in chemtrails, pizza parlor cabals, or that the earth is flat. However, I am a realist. Watch The Social Dilemma sometime. These huge tech companies share our data without our knowledge or consent (Cambridge Analytics, anyone?). Younger generations are so used to this, they don’t really care – ask them.

(My kids think having a chip implanted in their hands with all their data is a fabulous idea. “So much easier than having to talk and repeat everything over and over. Just scan me and be done with it,” says my daughter Anya (21). “Agree,” grunts my son, Lukas (15). Buy stuff, go to the doctor, whatever. Scan and go. Talk with any GenZ kid, you’ll likely get a similar answer. They’ve been tracked since birth everywhere. They don’t know life without a computer, tablet, or phone in their hands.)

Know that whatever we do, it’s all part of each platforms’ AI, and they share data, which is why that darling pair of shoes you just saw on Amazon is now showing up on Google, Facebook, Twitter, and every website you visit going forward. It’s all about the money, and they all get a piece of that affiliate link.

Every bit of every click is recorded, even when you’re watching videos on YouTube, or a subscription service like Netflix, or perusing goods on Amazon. It’s all connected. I’m not shocked or surprised by any of this, are you?

It’s Not Personal

What people say to us and about us is ultimately incredibly revealing about them. We know this, at an intellectual, psychological, and emotional level. Still, when people say mean things, it hurts. We’re human.

Does it matter in the overall scope of our lives? Who can say. It matters at that moment. It can matter when it comes to overall visibility when you’re marketing your book(s) or trying to get that book contract or interview. Only you can say if it matters to you.

Already a longtime fan of THE FOUR AGREEMENTS by Don Miguel Ruiz, I took a moment to reorient myself with this one agreement: Don’t take anything personally. I also stumbled across an excellent short and entertaining TEDTalk by Frederick Imbo. His main message to stop taking things personally is two-fold;

It’s not about me. Look at the other person’s intention and

It IS about me. Give yourself some empathy. Speak up. Ask questions. Pay attention to how you feel and be vulnerable with your needs.

I’m glad I was able to, inadvertently, employ point #2 and work out some issues with one of the people by telling him what he said made me cry. He apologized. I apologized. We talked it through and we’re still friends.

Ultimately, social media is what we contribute to it. What we make it. How much we allow of it into our lives. Social proof is going along with the tide. I’ve been in this space since 2008. Being connected to others is a big part of the work I do to help and support not only other writers, but also other childhood sexual abuse survivors. However, I’ve reached that point. I knew it was coming.

I’m not shutting my doors. I’m just adding a screen. With a strong lock.

***

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

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The post What Is Social Proof and Does It Matter, Really? appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

via Rachel Thompson

[duggardata]

GrandBates #7: Zoey or Everly?

As y’all probably know, Gil and Kelly Jo are expecting two new grandkids in the next month or so:

Zoey Joy Webster is due to join Alyssa + John’s older girls—Allie and Lexi—on April 2, 2018. The Webster Family announced the pregnancy with US Weekly on November 9, 2017.

Meanwhile, Erin + Chad are expecting Everly Hope Paine—also their third, and a girl—a few weeks later, on April 28, 2018. The Paines shared Erin’s pregnancy news with PEOPLE on October 17, 2017.

Which one will arrive first, Zoey or Everly? Based on the data, it may not be the one you’d expect! (And at any rate, it looks like they’ll arrive within days of one another. We might even get a joint announcement.)  

Zoey Joy Webster

Since Alyssa is due first, let’s start with her. Zoey Joy’s due date is April 2, 2018, according to Alyssa herself. That’s just 11 Days away! As you know, Alyssa and John already have two daughters—Allie Jane (b. 2015), and Lexi Mae (b. 2017). So, how close did each arrive to her due date?

Allie Jane   |   Born  4–11–15   |   Due  4–10–15   |   Announced  4–13–15  

Allie Jane arrived on April 11, 2015. I’d always heard that she was due April 10; however, I had a hard time finding a good, non–second hand source for it. This Instagram post (from Alyssa) is the best I found...  (And it’s fairly convincing.)

Week 27, Day 5 is Day 193. That’s calculated: 27 Weeks * 7 Days = 189 Days + 4 Days = 193 Days. (Note that you add 4 Days, not 5, because—if I understand correctly—each week of pregnancy begins on “Day 1,” not “Day 0.”) The baby’s due date is set at Day 280, or forty literal weeks (“40 Weeks, 1 Day”). So, at Day 193, Alyssa had 87 Days left. Adding 87 Days to the date of the post (1–13–15), we get April 10, 2015 for Allie’s due date.

Some of Alyssa’s other, less–specific Instagram posts corroborate the April 10 date. Further, The Bates Family Blog—a usually–reliable fan blog run by friends of the Bates (and Duggar) family—said repeatedly that Alyssa was due April 10. 

But then Alyssa posted this on Instagram on April 9... 

So I’m not 100% sure now, but let’s just say that April 10, 2015 is correct. Allie was born April 11, 2015, so she was 1 Day late.

Alyssa’s father–in–law, Rep. Daniel Webster, posted on Facebook about Allie’s birth the day–of, but then hastily removed the post. After OK! Magazine ran its exclusive first photos, he put the post right back up. As for Allie’s parents, John and Alyssa each posted a link to OK!’s photos on their Instragram 4–13–15, the day of the exclusive. I think it’s fair to say that the Websters tried to wait 2 Days to announce Allie’s arrival.

Lexi Mae   |   Born  1–26–17   |   Due  1–27–17   |   Announced  1–27–17  

Alyssa + John’s second daughter, Lexi Mae, arrived on January 26, 2017. This time, there was no question about the due date. Please refer to the pregnancy announcement photos, and Allie Jane’s oh–so–informative chalkboard sign...

So, Lexi was due on 1–27–17, and arrived on 1–26–17, 1 Day early. Apparently, UP TV broke the news the next day but, in typical UP TV fashion, the link is now broken. Regardless, Alyssa took to Instagram that day as well...

So, Allie was 1 Day late; Lexi was 1 Day early. Averaging that, our best guess is that Zoey Joy will be exactly on time, arriving on April 2, 2018. If Alyssa delivers before April 1 or after April 3, Zoey will set a new record as least timely Webster. (Note: April 1 is Easter.) As for when they’ll announce, Alyssa + John held off for 1 Day with Lexi and 2 Days (sort of) with Allie, or an average of 1.5 Days. If Zoey arrives 4–2–18, we will probably know about it on April 3 or 4.

Everly Hope Paine

Moving on to Chad + Erin’s soon–to-arrive “blessing,” Everly Hope Paine is due on April 28, 2017, per her parents’ Instagram...

Like the Websters, The Paines have two previous “blessings”—Charles Stephen IV (“Carson”) (b. 2015), and Brooklyn Elise (b. 2016). Unlike the Websters, Erin + Chad’s kids have not arrived right on time.

You see, Erin suffers from a PAI-1–related blood clotting issue, which makes her high–risk during pregnancy. (She and Chad discuss it in detail here.) The Paines suffered three miscarriages as a result of the condition. Now, Erin takes Heparin injections twice daily during her pregnancies. Some OBs will induce labor early when a woman (like Erin) is on Heparin because—as far as I understand it—it’s a blood thinner, and thus it’s not ideal to have in one’s system during childbirth due to bleeding risks. Anyway, after a scary (and fairly early) labor with Carson, Erin opted to be induced with Brooklyn, and delivered almost a month early.

Here’s the data...

Carson Stephen   |   Born  5–14–15  |   Due  6–8–15   |   Announced  5–15–15

After several miscarries, the Paines revealed they were expecting (again) on 1–22–15, on the Bringing Up Bates episode “Training Up Bates.” A few days later, Erin + Chad told PEOPLE that the baby was due June 8, 2015.

But Baby Carson, apparently, had different plans. He arrived on May 14, 2015—25 Days early—at 36 Weeks, 5 Days gestation. The scary, painful, absurdly fast labor left Erin absolute, 100% determined to get an epidural next time.

PEOPLE misreported Carson’s birthday when they reported the birth a day later, on May 15, 2015. Despite this awkward error, the Pained linked to the article on their Instagram, so it served as their public birth announcement.

Brooklyn Elise   |   Born  8–6–16   |   Due  8–30–16   |   Announced  8–8–16

Finally, Brooklyn Elise Paine was due on 8–30–16, but Erin opted to be induced early, per the Paines Instagram...

As a result, Brooklyn arrived on August 6, 2016—i.e., 24 Days early. UP TV did the official press release, announcing the birth, on 8–8–16 (2 Days later), but it’s no longer available on their website. (But the Paines linked to it, and posted an image, on their Instagram!) 

So, Carson was 25 Days early, Brooklyn was 24 Days early. Overall, this means Erin’s children arrive 24.5 Days early, on average. What is more, an early birth was planned for Brooklyn (and it went far better than Caron’s birth), so it’s very possible Erin is planning an early induction again. With this data, we can guess Everly may arrive April 3 or 4, 2018. If she does, we’ll probably hear about it 1–2 Days later, since the Paines wait to announce for 1.5 Days, on average.

So, the data suggests that Alyssa will deliver on April 2, and announce April 3 or 4. Meanwhile, Erin will deliver on April 3 or 4, and announce April 4, 5, or 6. All in all, the first week of April is going to be hectic for the Bateses!

[sinrau]

UPDATE (7:46 p.m. PT) — In the early hours of July 15, after a night spent protesting at the Multnomah County Justice Center and Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, Mark Pettibone and his friend Conner O’Shea decided to head home.

It had been a calm night compared to most protesting downtown. By 2 a.m. law enforcement hadn’t used any tear gas and, with only a few exceptions, both the Portland Police Bureau and federal law enforcement officers had stayed out of sight.

A block west of Chapman Square, Pettibone and O’Shea bumped into a group of people who warned them that people in camouflage were driving around the area in unmarked minivans grabbing people off the street.

“So that was terrifying to hear,” Pettibone said.

They had barely made it half a block when an unmarked minivan pulled up in front of them.

“I see guys in camo,” O’Shea said. “Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, ‘Oh shit. I don’t know who you are or what you want with us.’”

Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.

The tactic appears to be another escalation in federal force deployed on Portland city streets, as federal officials and President Donald Trump have said they plan to “quell” nightly protests outside the federal courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center that have lasted for more than six weeks.

Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, while others have been arrested and released, including Pettibone. They also left one demonstrator hospitalized with skull fractures after shooting him in the face with so-called “less lethal” munitions July 11.

Officers from the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and Customs and Border Protection’s BORTAC, have been sent to Portland to protect federal property during the recent protests against racism and police brutality.

But interviews conducted by OPB show officers are also detaining people on Portland streets who aren’t near federal property, nor is it clear that all of the people being arrested have engaged in criminal activity. Demonstrators like O’Shea and Pettibone said they think they were targeted by federal officers for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.

O’Shea said he ran when he saw people wearing camouflage jump out of an unmarked vehicle. He said he hid when a second unmarked van pursued him.

Video shot by O’Shea and provided to OPB shows a dark screen as O’Shea narrates the scene. Metadata from the video confirms the time and place of the protesters’ account.

“Feds are driving around, grabbing people off the streets,” O’Shea said on the video. “I didn’t do anything fucking wrong. I’m recording this. I had to let somebody know that this is what happens.”

Pettibone did not escape the federal officers.

“I am basically tossed into the van,” Pettibone said. “And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn’t see and they held my hands over my head.”

Pettibone and O’Shea both said they couldn’t think of anything they might have done to end up targeted by law enforcement. They attend protests regularly but they said they aren’t “instigators.” They don’t spray paint buildings, shine laser pointers at officers or do anything else other than attend protests, which law enforcement have regularly deemed “unlawful assemblies.”

Blinded by his hat, in an unmarked minivan full of armed people dressed in camouflage and body armor who hadn’t identified themselves, Pettibone said he was driven around downtown before being unloaded inside a building. He wouldn’t learn until after his release that he had been inside the federal courthouse.

“It was basically a process of facing many walls and corners as they patted me down and took my picture and rummaged through my belongings,” Pettibone said. “One of them said, ‘This is a whole lot of nothing.’”

Pettibone said he was put into a cell. Soon after, two officers came in to read him his Miranda rights. They didn’t tell him why he was being arrested. He said they asked him if he wanted to waive his rights and answer some questions, but Pettibone declined and said he wanted a lawyer. The interview was terminated, and about 90 minutes later he was released. He said he did not receive any paperwork, citation or record of his arrest.

“I just happened to be wearing black on a sidewalk in downtown Portland at the time,” Pettibone said. “And that apparently is grounds for detaining me.”

In a statement, the U.S. Marshals Service declined to comment on the practice of using unmarked vehicles, but said their officers had not arrested Pettibone.

“All United States Marshals Service arrestees have public records of arrest documenting their charges. Our agency did not arrest or detain Mark James Pettibone.”

OPB sent DHS an extensive list of questions about Pettibone’s arrest including: What is the legal justification for making arrests away from federal property? What is the legal justification for searching people who are not participating in criminal activity? Why are federal officers using civilian vehicles and taking people away in them? Are the arrests federal officers make legal under the constitution? If so, how?

After 7 p.m. Thursday, a DHS spokesperson responded, on background, that they could confirm Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf was in Portland during the day. The spokesperson didn’t acknowledge the remaining questions.

“It’s like stop and frisk meets Guantanamo Bay,” said attorney Juan Chavez, director of the civil rights project at the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Chavez has worked on litigation surrounding the weeks of protests and helped lead efforts to curb local police from using tear gas and munitions on protesters. He called the arrest by federal officers “terrifying.”

“You have laws regarding probable cause that can lead to arrests,” he said. “It sounds more like abduction. It sounds like they’re kidnapping people off the streets.”

Ashlee Albies, a civil rights attorney with the National Lawyers Guild, said Pettibone’s detention is an example of intimidation by federal law enforcement, and noted that people have a First Amendment right to demonstrate. She also said law enforcement officials have to follow procedures when they detain someone.

“I would be surprised to see that pulling up in an unmarked van, grabbing people off the street is an acceptable policy for a criminal investigation,” Albines said.

In a letter released Thursday, Wolf said, “Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city.”

“A federal courthouse is a symbol of justice,” Wolf wrote, denigrating protests against racism in the United States’ criminal justice system as an angry mob. “To attack it is to attack America.”

KOIN was first to report Thursday that Wolf was visiting Portland to view damage to the federal courthouse.

This week, Trump has repeatedly spoken out about what he calls lawlessness in the city. He praised the role of federal law enforcement officers in Portland and alluded to increasing their presence in cities nationwide. Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan called the protesters criminals.

“I don’t want to get ahead of the president and his announcement,” Morgan said, “but the Department of Justice is going to be involved in this, DHS is going to be involved in this; and we’re really going to take a stand across the board. And we’re going to do what needs to be done to protect the men and women of this country.”

Early Thursday morning, Portland police tried a new approach to stop the protests. Officers cleared Lownsdale and Chapman Squares, including Riot Ribs, a barbecue stand that had been cooking free food since July 4. The city said it was closing the parks for maintenance. By early afternoon, fences had been installed around both parks.

Police arrested nine people during the closure, including three of the people who ran Riot Ribs. They face a variety of charges, including trespassing and disorderly conduct.

Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office declined to offer comment on the latest events involving federal officers, but reiterated a statement from earlier in the week, saying federal officers should be restricted to guarding federal property.

“We do not need or want their help,” Wheeler said. “The best thing they can do is stay inside their building, or leave Portland altogether.”

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkely said if Wolf is coming to inflame the situation in Portland so the President can “look tough,” the acting DHS leader should leave.

“Federal forces shot an unarmed protester in the face,” Merkely said in a tweet. “These shadowy forces have been escalating, not preventing, violence.”

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown similarly called for federal law enforcement officers to leave Portland. She added, Wolf is on a “mission to provoke confrontation for political purposes.”

“This political theater from President Trump has nothing to do with public safety,” Brown said in a statement. “The President is failing to lead this nation. Now he is deploying federal officers to patrol the streets of Portland in a blatant abuse of power by the federal government.”

Federal Law Enforcement Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab Protesters Off Portland Streets #web #website #copied #toread #highlight #link #news #read #blog #wordpresspost #posts #breaking news# #Sinrau #Nothiah #Sinrau29 #read #wordpress

[brandsmagazinepakistan-blog]

Brands Magazine

http://monthlybrands.com.pk/scientists-link-selfies-narcissism-addiction-mental-illness/

Scientists link selfies to narcissism, addiction and mental illness

Psychiatrist Dr. David Veal said, “Two out of three of all the patients who come to see me with Body Dysmorphic Disorder since the rise of camera phones have a compulsion to repeatedly take and post selfies on social media sites.”

“Cognitive behavioural therapy is used to help a patient to recognise the reasons for his or her compulsive behaviour and then to learn how to moderate it”, he told the media reporters.

Apparently, once the high trend of selfies began, a British male teenager tried to commit suicide after he failed to take the perfect selfie. Teenager Danny Bowman got so obsessed with capturing the perfect selfie that spent 10 hours a day taking up to 200 selfies.

Danny, 19, lost nearly 30 pounds, dropped out of school and did not leave home for over six months in his mission to capture the best possible selfie. He would take 10 pictures immediately after waking up and after being frustrated at his numerous attempts, Danny eventually tried to take his own life by overdosing, but was saved by his mom.

“I was constantly in search of taking the perfect selfie and when I realized I couldn’t, I wanted to die. I lost my friends, my education, my health and almost my life”, he told The Mirror.

Danny was treated for his technology addiction as well as OCD and Body Dysmorphic Disorder. His treatment included taking away his iPhone for intervals of 10 minutes; this increased to 30 minutes and then an hour. “It was excruciating to begin with but I knew I had to do it if I wanted to go on living”, he told.

Following the excessive selfie addiction, officials of Public health department in the UK said that addiction to social media such as Facebook and Twitter is an illness with more than 100 patients being treated every year.

“Selfies frequently trigger perceptions of self-indulgence or attention-seeking social dependence that raises the damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t spectre of either narcissism or very low self-esteem”, said Pamela Rutledge in Psychology Today.

The excessive selfie addiction with the rise of digital narcissism results in enormous pressure on people to achieve unfeasible goals, without making them want more. On the urge to becoming Beyoncé, Jay Z or a model is hard enough already, however when you are not prepared to work hard and achieve your goals, then you are well off lowering your inspirations.

Nevertheless, online mainstreaming of narcissism might just be a little more than self-presenting strategy to fit into a very low and fragile self-esteem. But once these efforts are enforced and awarded by others, they sustain the twist of reality and put together narcissistic delusions.

The addiction to selfies has also alarmed health professionals in Thailand. “To pay close attention to published photos, controlling who sees or who likes or comments them, hoping to reach the greatest number of likes is a symptom that ‘selfies’ are causing problems”, said Panpimol Wipulakorn, of the Thai Mental Health Department. The doctor believed that behaviours could generate brain problems in the future, especially those related to lack of confidence.

The word “selfie” was elected “Word of the Year 2013” by the Oxford English Dictionary and is defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”

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The Bernie Sanders Campaign Faced A Fake News Tsunami. Where Did It Come From?

WASHINGTON ― Last June, John Mattes started noticing something coursing like a virus through the Facebook page he helped administer for Bernie Sanders fans in San Diego. People with no apparent ties to California were friending the page and sharing links from unfamiliar sites full of anti-Hillary Clinton propaganda.

The stories they posted weren’t the normal complaints he was used to seeing as the Vermont senator and the former secretary of state fought out the Democratic presidential primary. These stories alleged that Clinton had murdered her political opponents and used body doubles.

Mattes, 66, had been a television reporter and Senate investigator in previous lives. He put his expertise in unmasking fraudsters to work. At first, he suspected that the sites were created by the old Clinton haters from the ‘90s ― what Hillary Clinton had dubbed “the vast right-wing conspiracy.”

But when Mattes started tracking down the sites’ domain registrations, the trail led to Macedonia and Albania. In mid-September, he emailed a few of his private investigator friends with a list of the sites. “Very creepy and i do not think Koch brothers,” he wrote.

Mattes and his friends didn’t know what to make of his findings. He couldn’t get his mind around the possibility that trolls overseas might be trying to sway a bunch of Southern Californians who supported Sanders’ run for president. “I may be a dark cynic and I may have been an investigative reporter for a long time, but this was too dark ― and too unbelievable and most upsetting,” he said. “What was I to do with this?”

By late October, Mattes said he’d traced 40 percent of the domain registrations for the fake news sites he saw popping up on pro-Sanders pages back to Eastern Europe. Others appeared to be based in Panama and the U.S., or were untraceable. He wondered, “Am I the only person that sees all this crap floating through these Bernie pages?”

He wasn’t. Bernie supporters across the country had been noticing dubious websites and posters linked back to Eastern Europe long before Mattes did ― and even before The Washington Post reported in mid-June that Russian government hackers had stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee. They had been warning each other that something weird was going on, posting troll alerts and compiling lists of fake news sites.

There is enough real news to fight over, they thought, without arguing over anti-Hillary conspiracy theories from Macedonia.

Sometimes it was hard to tell who was doing the trolling and for what purposes. Aleta Pearce, 54, who lives in Malibu, California, was an administrator of half a dozen pro-Sanders Facebook groups and a member of many others. In May 2016, she posted a memo to various Facebook groups about the fake news issue, warning of bogus sites.

“The pattern I’m seeing is if a member is repeatedly posting articles that are only from one URL that person is just there to push advertising,” Pearce wrote. “They probably have a sock account with little to no content. They are often from Russia or Macedonia.” (A “sock” or “sock puppet” account uses a false identity to deceive.)

Pearce added, “Please share this with other Bernie groups so we can put an end to this spam bombing that’s filling up our pages and groups. It’s time to chase the mice out of the hen house and send them a message. They don’t know who they are messing with.”

The first tidal wave of spam was mostly anti-Bernie, Pearce recalled, posted by Clinton backers. (David Brock’s Clinton-backing super PAC had likely paid for some portion of those.) But after Clinton became the Democratic nominee in July, Pearce noticed a switch to anti-Hillary messages with links to fake news and to real news with obnoxious pop-up ads.

“Every site publishing those ― you clicked on the article, you would be slammed with ads and strange articles,” Pearce told HuffPost. “It was overwhelming. It was 24/7.”

She kept a list of fake news sites to watch for ― it grew into dozens. There were posts on the Clinton-has-Parkinson’s conspiracy and the Clinton-is-running-a-pedophilia-ring-out-of-a-pizza-shop conspiracy.

On the Sanders campaign, it was Hector Sigala’s job to connect with all the organic Facebook groups. He recalled seeing “a lot of trolls” try to convince people of something “that was obviously fake.”

Many of the interlopers, Sigala said, claimed to be Sanders fans who had decided to vote for GOP nominee Donald Trump or Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the general election and tried to convince others to do likewise. “It made it seem like the community as a whole was supporting that, but that wasn’t the case,” he said.

Sigala thinks most of them were just your average internet trolls. He said he found many were members of 4chan, a gathering place for the alt-right, white nationalists and plain old nihilists from which has sprung all manner of mischief.

The Sanders campaign had begun seeing this particular brand of fake news starting in early 2016. “The first time that we kind of fell for it, for like two minutes, was this link from what seemed to be ABC News,” Sigala said. It turned out to be ABC.com.co, a fake site that has no affiliation with the real news network. It had “reported” that the pope himself had endorsed Sanders.

It came in like a wave, like a tsunami. It was like a flood of misinformation. Bev Cowling, who administered Facebook groups for Sanders supporters

In trying to wade through the flood of fake news, Sanders supporters had some serious trust issues. There was good reason to be skeptical of Clinton and the WikiLeaks dump of DNC emails was real, after all. But a steady diet of stories fabricated out of thin air can also feed into paranoia and flame wars.

Bev Cowling, 64, saw a sudden deluge of requests to join the Sanders Facebook groups she administered from her home in Toney, Alabama. All of a sudden, they were getting 80 to 100 requests to join each day. She and the other administrators couldn’t vet everyone, and the posts started getting bizarre. “It came in like a wave, like a tsunami,” she said. “It was like a flood of misinformation.”

Cowling, a retired postal worker, said some of her Facebook group members were ready to believe the bogus news links. “People were so anti-Hillary that no matter what you said, they were willing to share it and spread it,” she said. “At first I would just laugh about it. I would say, ‘C’mon, this is beyond ridiculous.’ I created a word called ‘ridiculosity.’ I would say, ‘This reeks of ridiculosity.’”

But Cowling got pushback. She was called a “Hillbot” and a Trump supporter. She ended up removing dozens of members who refused to stop pushing conspiracy theories. “I lost quite a few friends,” she said.

Matthew Smollon, a 34-year-old copy editor and page designer based in Knoxville, Tennessee, noticed an influx of posts linking to fake news as early as January 2016. So much of it, Smollon noticed, came from the same accounts. Almost all the sites he traced went back to Veles, Macedonia, which Wired magazine has since dubbed the “Fake News Factory to the World.” There wasn’t a single link he found that went to a pro-Clinton fake news story.

None of the fake stories stood out to Smollon. He described the Facebook groups as “being in a room filled with blasting televisions.” It was hard to pick out the loudest noises. “The ultimate goal of this wasn’t so much misinformation as distraction from valid info,” he concluded.

But Smollon had a hard time convincing other Bernie supporters that they were being played. “No one cared,” Smollon said. “At that point, you were a Hillary shill. It was like an echo chamber of anger.”

Even when pointing out that something like NBCPolitics.org was a fake site ― the real site is NBCNews.com/politics ― he drew criticism. He was eventually removed as a moderator from one of the pro-Sanders Facebook groups. “It’s the closest I’ve been to being gaslit in my life,” he said.

In June, Smollon posted a piece on Medium with the headline, “Dear Bernie Supporters: Stop sharing posts from dumpster fire websites.” He urged his fellow Sanders fans to wake up:

Guys, I sincerely love you. I love your passion. I love your fire. I love all of that. But when 400 people are circle-jerking clickbait links in between wondering how Hillary Clinton is behind the FEMA Earthquake drill that happens on several days with one of them being primary day?

Holy shit.

You are allowing yourselves to be manipulated. Through the practice of taking anything that agrees with your opinion at face value, actively refusing to believe anything but what agrees with your narrative and following that up with blatant disregard for doing two minutes of searching to verify the information: you become the myopic Trump supporter that you so vocally loathe.

Some people “liked” his Medium piece on Facebook and posted it on their walls, he said. Others did not. Smollon later updated his article to say he’d been banned from the group “Bernie Believers” because of it.

“This is a pretty solid case for admins/mods being part of the spam,” he wrote. “Not all of them obviously, but it only takes one person running with an ulterior motive to ensure the whole thing goes to shit.”

In San Diego, Mattes was intrigued by a Facebook user named “Oliver Mitov” whom he saw constantly posting anti-Clinton propaganda.

Mattes first noticed Mitov posting in his Facebook group in September. But when he searched the page’s archives, he found that Mitov had been in the group since late July. He soon realized there wasn’t just one Mitov but four. Three had Sanders as their profile picture. Two had the same single Facebook friend, while a third had no Facebook friends. The fourth appeared to be a middle-aged man with 19 Facebook friends, including that one friend the other Mitovs had in common.

All combined, the four Mitovs had joined more than two dozen pro-Sanders groups around the U.S., including Latinos for Bernie Sanders, Oregon for Bernie Sanders 2016 and Pennsylvania Progressives for Bernie Sanders. Together, those groups had hundreds of thousands of members.

The Mitov posts would have been explosive if they’d been true. In one Aug. 4 post to Mattes’ page, Mitov wrote, “This is a story you won’t see on Fox/CNN or the other Mainstream media!” He then linked to a post claiming falsely that Clinton had “made a small fortune by arming ISIS.” On Sept. 25, he posted on several pro-Sanders pages a link promising game-changing information: “NEW LEAK: Here is Who Ordered Hillary To Leave The 4 Men In Benghazi!” The link went to a fake news site called usapoliticsnow.com.

The aim of Mitov’s activity seemed pretty obvious to Mattes: to depress the number of Sanders supporters who voted for Clinton in November.

“He was a ringer,” Mattes said.

Mattes tried to friend the various Mitovs and message them. None of them responded, he said. Attempts by HuffPost to reach Mitov were similarly unsuccessful.

Keegan Goudiss had a different perspective on the trolling. As head of the digital side of Sanders’ presidential bid, Goudiss launched paid campaigns on social media and around the internet, so he was very familiar with the way that money can drive a meme.

Bots and trolls that spread fake news shouldn’t be ignored, he said, but “it’s like pissing in the ocean. There’s a lot of noise online.” One way to help your message cut through the noise is to spend money with Facebook, Google or an ad targeting platform that spreads links all over the internet, often at the bottom of stories. (Scroll down far enough on this page and you’ll probably see some of them.)

Goudiss recalled one telling example of how this worked: A Clinton ad appeared in the middle of a row of links, clearly paid for by a pro-Clinton group targeting potential donors and voters. To its left was a story making bogus claims about an illegitimate Clinton child. To its right was a piece on presidential mistresses. “There seems to have been a concerted effort to tarnish Hillary and people in her campaign’s reputation using paid placement,” he said.

He can’t prove who was doing that, Goudiss said, but it’s probably worth trying to figure out.

“Was there a Russian entity supporting those websites that popped up?” he said. “That’s important and people deserve to know who influences our democracy.”

Some level of foreign participation in spreading disinformation about the left was comically apparent. The names of a few suspect Facebook groups reek of poor translation. One group with more than 80,000 members, claiming to be from Burlington, Vermont, is called “Bernie Sanders Lovers” ― the kind of name a non-English speaker might think makes sense, but that sounds wrong to native ears.

Throughout the campaign, the Bernie Sanders Lovers page saw heavy engagement, and nearly every article it shared was from Bients.com, the pieces posted there by one Maximilian Gottlieb. Gottlieb, in turn, pulled articles from other sources, some more and some less reliable.

On Oct. 29, for instance, he put up 11 articles. A few praised Trump or gave Trump’s advisers space to attack Clinton. Others attacked Clinton’s campaign directly: adviser Huma Abedin had ties to radical Islam (false), the DNC email leak was authentic (true), campaign manager Robby Mook had deleted his entire Twitter feed (false).

Since the election, the Bernie Sanders Lovers page has shifted to urging the senator to run for president again in 2020. It no longer shares Bients.com stories. Instead, they all come from ThePredicted.com. Both sites were registered by a person name Hysen Alimi in Albania. (Feel free to check out the sites yourself, but Chrome will warn you your connection is “not secure,” so don’t enter any information there.)

There had been rumblings that the Russians were specifically behind the DNC hack since last June. In early October, the U.S. intelligence community said it was “confident” that President Vladimir Putin’s government had both directed the hack and made sure the emails found their way to WikiLeaks. In January of this year, a more detailed intelligence report concluded that the Russian government had blended covert intelligence operations with overt efforts by, among others, “paid social media users or ‘trolls’” to try to influence the U.S. election.

A separate dossier on Russia’s role, assembled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele and made public by BuzzFeed, claimed that the DNC leak had been an attempt to “swing supporters of Bernie Sanders away from Hillary Clinton and across to Trump.”

“These voters were perceived as activists and anti-status quo and anti-establishment and in that regard sharing many features with the Trump campaign, including a visceral dislike of Clinton,” Steele wrote.

The intelligence report also said that the DNC hackers seemed to have financial ties to the Internet Research Agency, a Saint Petersburg, Russia, company that has taken state-sponsored trolling to an industrial level. Its likely financier is “a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence,” the report stated.

“Russia’s information war might be thought of as the biggest trolling operation in history,” wrote The New York Times in a 2015 profile of the firm, “and its target is nothing less than the utility of the Internet as a democratic space.”

The “Internet as a democratic space” is the very thing that allowed the energy of the Sanders campaign to snowball into a movement for change. It was also the thing that allowed Oliver Mitov and his ilk to thrive.

Could the fake news tsunami have swung the election? It’s impossible to say for sure, but a YouGov survey recently asked people who voted for Sanders in the primary how they thought other people they knew who backed Sanders ended up voting in the general election. Thirteen percent said all of those folks voted for Clinton, and 48 percent said most of them did. But 20 percent said only some, 9 percent said just a few and 4 percent said none voted for Clinton.

In the survey, only 7 percent said that most or all of the Bernie people they knew wound up helping raise money or otherwise volunteering for Clinton. Fifty-four percent said that applied to just a few or none of the Bernie people they knew. Sanders backers were by far the most energized element of the Democratic coalition during last year’s campaign. Clinton’s inability to motivate them more broadly to back her candidacy undoubtedly hurt.

Asked what they themselves did, 12 percent of those who voted for Sanders said they went on to volunteer or raise money for Clinton. Only 16 percent of those who voted for Clinton in the primary said they also volunteered for her.

Of course, the propaganda didn’t create the chasm dividing left-wing voters. The belief that the DNC favored Clinton was widely held. Fifty-eight percent of all the survey respondents agreed on that. Among Democrats, the number was 55 percent. In the Midwest, which essentially elected Trump president, 67 percent agreed. Even 62 percent of those who voted for Clinton in the primary said that the DNC favored her.

But the legitimate skepticism opened the door to believing the more demented propaganda. And the more the fake news was passed around, the harder the divisions became. Clinton backers would charge Sanders supporters with being obnoxious, sexist “Bernie bros.” Many of those bros may have been trolls, not real Sanders supporters. Tell that to a Clinton backer, however, and you can be accused of dismissing the hostility they faced.

Aidan King set up a popular Reddit page for Sanders beginning in 2013 and went to work for the campaign in January 2016 as Sigala’s deputy. He dealt directly with many of the Facebook groups. After the Democratic convention, he said he noticed a strong shift away from the party in the tone of many of those pages.

“I’ve gone back and forth on it,” King said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying with any authority it’s a coordinated effort by trolls, but also wouldn’t feel confident saying it was exclusively pissed-off Bernie supporters.” 

It might not actually matter if Vladimir Putin or a kid in Macedonia masterminded the flood of fake news. What matters is that it happened ― and it is still happening. People are deliberately seeding misinformation into the left-wing conversation. That’s a real fact. (Trying to measure the size and scope of the operation could make for a useful political science dissertation.)

For a wide swath of Sanders backers, the primary is still far too raw to even start to think about Russia. Mentioning foreign sabotage sounds like you’re throwing up a smokescreen to obscure the Democratic establishment’s own failure. But Mattes has tried to argue that two things can be true at once: Clinton was a terrible candidate and Russia intervened in the U.S. election.

“It’s wildly distressing that we were played,” Mattes said. 

After reading this story, we’re curious what your view is on Russia’s role in the election. Take this brief survey, and we’ll post the results here on Sunday night.

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