Textusa article - influencing public opinion

The following is from Textusa:


New Career Opportunities
9:03 AM Textusa

On Saturday, June 2nd, 2012, Correio da Manhã (CM) published a piece of news that I think to be of the greatest importance, if not of an historic one.

Unfortunately it went unnoticed by most if not all bloggers.

This was particularly sad to have done so, especially by all those involved in the Maddie Affair. They should’ve picked up the importance immediately because they were the first to witness, or be victims of, the novelty referred in the article.
“RETAINER SERVICES WITH ONGOING
Setestrelas has a monthly retainer service with Ongoing of 10 thousand euros, the CM found.”
“DELETE COMMENTS
In one of the reports Setesetrelas advances as an objective the elimination of negative comments from "the comments first page" of a site.“ unquote

Note! I have snipped extensively in the first part of this article - the full article can be read on Textusa. From here on the article continues with again various snips:

Quote Textusa:
This post is about :hat is referred in CM's news article above and that is the birth of that profession: the disrupter.

Someone whose job is to hover like a vulture over the internet, looking over social networks, websites and blogs so they can, thorough spam-commenting, alter the readers’ opinion and undermine the credibility of both content and authorship.

In the Maddie Affair we’ve all always suspected that there were people being paid by the Black Hats to disrupt the various Maddie Affair sites.

Many blogs, including ourselves, have written about the strangely illogical quantity of “Pros”. Those people that apparently are supportive of the McCanns and who used a mixture, in huge amounts, of stubbornness, absurdity and aggressiveness to put down all those who dare lift a finger against the couple.

Don’t call them Black Hats, because the BH’s have many shapes and forms. The “Pros” are just a slice of the whole BH cake. But it is about the “Pros” that this post is about.

We took them to be mercenaries, hired freelancers with little or no moral values or scruples.

Bur the CM article proves that reality is totally and completely different.

We’re not talking about a heterogenic pack of wild dogs that run after a bone thrown at them regardless of it having come from an ostrich or from a human leg.

Setestrelas is a fully set-up legal commercial company.

It has a mission, clients to satisfy, objectives to achieve, profits to make.

As we can see, it does self-evaluation and provides assessment reports to its clients describing methodologies and results.

I’m not making any sort of connection between Setestrelas and the Maddie Affair as there isn’t apparently one. But we’re saying that some British “Setestrelas” types of company are certainly involved in it.

However, one can’t discard the possibility of Setestrelas itself having been hired by the Black Hats to disrupt in Portugal. It would certainly help to explain the inexplicable “Pro” comments in Portuguese that appear from time to time.

After all it is a business and anyone can hire them.

Whoever came up with the “Pro” term (I’m excluding the blog from this because we particularly disliked the Anti/Pro terminology) was inadvertently correct. They weren’t Pros as in “Pro-McCanns” but they were very well named as the “Professionals” they indeed are.

We, back in 2008, were absolutely right when we called them employees.

Their work environment is the various social-networks on the internet.

By social-networks we’re including, besides the various profitless blogs and forums, also the online newspapers where popular comments are allowed.

The disrupter targets only wherever the common citizen may provide his/her opinion.

With the advent of the computer, the hacker was born. With the social networking, we have the disrupter.

It would be deeply insulting to hackers to make any sort of analogy between both. One requires brains, creativity and excellence, the other just the ability to write.

We don’t know any professional hacking company, mainly because they would be illegal but we’re not naïve to the point of thinking that the big companies don’t have these people on their payroll.

Who doesn’t envy the intellect and the knowledge of a hacker? Look at all latest TV Series and you see that there’s always “the hacker character”, the one with the brains, who dominates all technology and is able to penetrate any computer and reveal its secrets while explaining it all in a language equivalent to a neurosurgeon speaking about the details of his most recent surgery.

Who envies a disrupter? No one, not even whoever is paying. The clients may be genuinely grateful for the services provided but one only envies one who one wishes one could be, and no one wishes to be a disrupter.

snip

A disrupter is nothing but a gun totting idiot, with a cigarette gripped between the teeth, only seeking havoc.

A hacker invents, introduces and spreads a computer virus, while the disrupter is the virus himself.

The other novelty from this piece of news is the need for such a business to have been created.

The business world reacts and adapts itself very quickly to the random tides of the various new requirements that keep surfacing and demand satisfaction. Where there’s a need, very quickly someone is profiting by satisfying it.

So there was a need felt for the existence of disrupters so that such a business was set up.

Why? I see the need for the creation of this new business for the following two reasons:

Firstly because the internet turned everyone’s PC into a personal limitless library.

Yesterday, yesterday’s paper was literally paper that 24 hours later became literally litter. Today, today’s online paper will, as of today, always just be a mouse click away.

It can be retrieved and shown as quickly and as opportunistically as any other news, which maintains one always updated but mainly it enables the enhancement of contradictions of what was said in the past.

The Maddie Affair has proven this point quite well countless times.

In those days, who would have remembered, today, what was published last Saturday? Today, today’s post is based on what was last Saturday’s news, isn’t it?

Up to now, the “opinion makers” owned the "opinion" and because they owned it, they owned the "truth". That stopped being so from the moment you, the common citizen, were able to intervene in real time.

As they then stopped being able to mould the “truth” unhindered they reacted with the only thing they could do and that was to act on the convictions with which you believe the truth to be, thus the need for a professional disrupter.

Someone paid to make you turn away from your own convictions. If these aren’t yet cemented in, they’ll go about it by simple persuasion, but if these are already deeply set in they’ll resort to the only thing they can which is to bully you away from other readers before you contaminate them.

If they see that you can’t be bullied away then they’ll turn their viciousness on to all others they can to isolate you from them, something Textusa’s readers are well familiarized with.

Each reader a blog loses has double value. He’s one less to be accounted for in the numbers of truth believers in the truth and one more they can say believe in what their “truth” may be.

Secondly, the literacy of the average blog reader is usually higher than average. They’re intelligent people who go out of their way to seek information. That’s the most dangerous sort of citizen for any “truth owner”. One who thinks for him or herself and cannot simply be told what is “correct” to be thought is completely unacceptable and must be "removed" as quickly as possible.

We are a few in numbers, yet we’re obliging the other side to a significant use of resources. If you take into account the ratio in question then their expenses are irrationally unbalanced.

But they aren't. Each penny that is spent is stamped with a reason as these people are cold-bloodedly rational.   

They spend what they spend because they fear you and they fear you because they understand your importance.

You are the one that most likely haven't yet understood your own importance. You know what it is? It’s the fact that you’re “the opinion”.

Most people fail to realize this importance they have. They can easily understand that the powerful are “opinion-makers” but overlook that it’s only through them that the “opinion” flows.

A fish can only swim if there’s water, take that away from him and it will flap agonizingly to death.

The more clear and unpolluted the water is the fish able to swim stronger and faster. In this case, pollution is illiteracy. Stupid people are poor messenger bearers. They lack credibility. It’s the literate that are best to spread a message.

But you must abide by the rules; otherwise you have to be curtailed.

So if they can’t silence you by reason, they will tire you out methodically, relentlessly and most of all efficiently.

And if that fails then they will tire out methodically, relentlessly and most of all efficiently all those around you away from you, thus the need for a professional disrupter.

The two reasons seem to be identical. After all they have three common factors: you, the others (as in readers) and the truth.

The difference between them is that in the first instance the objective is to separate you and the others from the truth so that their truth prevails; and in the second, for the exact same reason, they want to separate you from the others and the truth.

It seems to a little complex but just like with the Maddie Affair is quite easy to understand.

But although we loath the kind, we must recognize that in the Maddie Affair the disrupters have done a brilliant job so far.

One just has to look at how the attention and dedication to the Maddie Affair is waning.

Do you remember the days when thousands came daily to discuss the issue, demanding justice and showing how guilty the McCanns obviously were?

And do you remember how much time you wasted discussing neglect, discussing the sole guilt of the T9, assuming for certain the Tapas dinners? Freemasonry, scientific experimentaition... All the brilliant work of extremely well directed spam-commenting and spam blogging. We discussed and discussed and then discussed some more, and the issue lost novelty, attentions got distracted and people left...

It’s certain that in a fight between me holding a baseball bat and dressed in an armoured suit like Joan of Arc and you barehanded, the likelihood of me winning is great, and the disrupters had, and have, the full support of all possible governmental agencies of two countries including the governments of both, but we all must agree that they did do a pretty good job...

Numbers started to fall because people got tired of the impotence felt by the absolute perversity of justice and the shamelessness of those from which we expected the exact opposite.

Are we before a lost war?

How many times have each of us thought “Enough is enough, I’ve no more patience for the issue...” or “What’s the use? They’ll never be brought to Justice anyway so why continue banging the head against the wall?”

I say we’re very far from defeat.

Firstly because the creation of companies like Setestrelas is the recognition by the establishment of the importance of blogs and other social networks. If they feel there’s a need to defend themselves that’s because they feel that they’re really threatened.

In 2008 we wrote here about the strategic importance of blogs.

Secondly, because the Maddie Affair may fall into "a silence" but it won't go away, it will always be there, dormant. Permanently lurking the BHs, never allowing a day's rest on that side of the fence.

And in between them, there will always be that look into each others eyes, a constant reminder of favours done and favours owed. Names have been forever blemished. The names of those who thought they were just providing a "little help" but now find out that what they really agreed to was to be pushed into a blazing fire and no one likes to be burned for no reason. Those looks are each tagging a price on the other. Trust is something that was lost with innocence and with Maddie's life.

Thirdly, about the Maddie Affair in particular, we have for us a surprisingly factor that feeds our hope and give reason to our actions: passion. Yours and ours.

Our blog is basically made up of long and complex posts. Like this one.

They’re “meaty” and do take some time to assimilate. They’re full of details and linkages with what has been written before and they do mention many, many characters as well reference many documents, all public, mind you.

As the BHs like to say, Textusa´s posts make the eyes bleed and not many are able to get past the first paragraph (see now and understand the technique?)...

Add to that, we’re not exactly predictable of when we post next. The three of us have somewhat busy lives and the blog is but minor part of it. So we write when we write, and publish only after the issue at hand has been filtered by all of us. Besides, as you know, we tend to be a little too crabby sometimes...

It also has very little “publicity”. We're scarce on the use of tag words and very few are those that tweet our blog. I would like to take this opportunity to tell them how much we appreciate them and are grateful for all their effort and faithfulness.

So, on all counts Textusa is, understandably, a "tedious" blog.

Our readership numbers should diminish much like we’ve seen happen with other blogs much less “tedious” about the Maddie Affair.

Yet our readership remains stable in the hundreds daily.

Modesty aside, I would say that Textusa and Joana Morais have proven to be exceptional in this aspect.

This tells us that although the “warfare” that we’ve been fighting is immensely asymmetrical and not in our favour, it is producing results because our “opinion-followers” seem to be steadfastly defending their ground.

And even though Textusa is hardly mentioned outside “these walls”, today, among the various fora discussing this issue there’s a common agreement that there was no neglect and that the T9 dined at Tapas as many times as the rest of us.

And slowly the message spreads because you are as clear and unpolluted as any “water” could ever be.

That’s why we together are able to tie up the hands of a (former) prestigious institution like the SY and show how it is as permeable to “instructions” as any police from any poor third-world country.

About the companies like Setestrelas that we’ve long become accustomed to their "fire", let me just say the following: we can’t control our opponent’s actions, all we can do is to anticipate them and prepare ourselves for them. The better we understand the adversary, the better we can do that. Today we got to know our opponent a little better.

They’re not amateurs, they’re professionals, and thus much well organized than we thought them to be.

Now, we either waste time analyzing each and every comment we receive, or we continue to concentrate on what matters and go on writing.

I think you know what our option will always be.

We still have so much to write about. All of which is out there, right before your eyes.


Textusa unquote

Anonymous said :
Jun 9, 2012 2:10:00 PM
There is a unit in the UK- RICU- Research Information and Communications unit, set up in June 2007, by the government. Volunteers work on internet blogs and forums to manipulate opinion.
The now defunct Sargeants Inn, Who's Outside the Box covered its activities.


Anonymous said :
Jun 11, 2012 7:09:00 PM
An excellent article Textusa, I have often wondered about these posters that attempt to change opinions on the Maddie blogs. There are some that come across as being not at all genuine, they do not accept other opinions and when facts are presented to them can become abusive and argumentative as they know they are wrong.
When the Mccanns came back to UK after fleeing Portugal I recall a PR firm was employed to change public opinion in favour of the Mccanns, obviously this type of PR company simply see’s £ and has no scruples as to finding the truth concerning Madeleine.
I do however feel that events are moving quickly now, Murdoch was once a staunch Mccann supporter, they sold newspapers for him and he ensured he printed what was wanted by team Mccann but now Murdoch’s reputation lies in tatters he has been ridiculed, lost out on the lucrative BSkyB deal that was practically his, he and his son have been shown for the liars they are. The freedom of speech given us by the internet ensures that we can continue seeking justice for Madeleine, eventually I believe we will find the truth.
Perhaps this case will bring down corrupt individuals, close companies that operate outside the rules of common decency by denying justice these things take time. When Gerry and Kate were made suspects Kate states in her book Gerry said ‘we are ruined’ why would he say that if he was innocent, it’s the little things that catch people out. The Mccanns have become a small part of what has become a corrupt political media circus but one by one they are all falling and facing justice and ultimately so will Kate and Gerry. They cannot silence the internet, they cannot change our opinion and they cannot influence us into believing they were ever innocent no matter how much money they throw at PR companies.
Well done Tex and sisters.
Anonymous said :
Jun 11, 2012 10:25:00 PM
Trawling through my archives in response to this post, I found the following hard copy.
It appeared in Express online comments in October 2007 and the poster was Alias.
This is an extract of the relevant paragraph.
" Julia Hobsbawm was a partner in Hobsbawm McCauley Communications with Sarah McCauley, now known as Sarah Brown, the wife of the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Julia Hobsbawm is now the founder and chief executive of media analysis and networking company Editorial Intelligence.
And this is where it gets really interesting.
Julia Hobsbawm's new company Editorial Intelligence specialises in analysing and exploiting comment and opinion, in both print and online media. In simple terms, EI helps realise the potential of controlling the shape and fabric of public opinion and debate by controlling what is published in comment areas, forum areas, letters pages and message boards. They have even coined a new word for the online/published British public; they call it the Commenteriat, (a play upon the word Proletariat, originally coined to describe the lower or working classes).
Julia hobsbawm's EI describes itself on its website:
" EI opens a door to a vital and growing world of print and online comment and opinion. What the "Commentariat" says and affects and influences the direction of public opinion and policy alike and with it, corporate reputation.."

With kind permission from Gillyspot here is her comment and the link to Textusa: textusa.blogspot.pt/2012/06/new-career-opportunities.html


Quote Gillyspot:
Textusa has made a great point here. Basically he is stating that there is a paid contingent to spread disinformation & dishearten those who seek the truth for Madeleine.

One of the comments below the article referred to a department of a government agency Wilton Park "Research, Information and Communications Unit" (RICU)

Interestingly the name is all I can actually find about this on the Wilton Park site.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

A bit more about Wilton Park

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

So perhaps Greenink does work in "Online Interaction and Abuse" 

ETA The Wikipedia page has been altered several times by someone calling themselves "Wilton-park-authentic" & their sole purposes has been to remove things they might not want & put a positive spin on what's left.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
unquote

We apologise for our long silence but the three of us have decided to enjoy our holidays in different times and this means that one of us, which I’ll refrain to name, is still having a jolly good time somewhere out there.

I’ve decided to “interrupt” the blog’s break due to the forthcoming the McCanns vs Amaral Trial scheduled to supposedly take place this month in Lisbon starting this week.

Much has happened since our break. I’ll just write some lines about what we think to be relevant and can be bridged over to the Maddie Affair before giving our opinion about the McCanns vs Amaral Trial.

First, the Tia Sharp murder, where, once again, an abduction made-up to cover the family involvement in the death of a child. Tia's death is alleged to be at the hands of her grandmother's partner.

The fact that a body recovery dog found the body when a specialist search team didn't is, in our opinion, very relevant.

The McCann's silence on the subject was deafening throughout, especially taking into account the recently nominated Ambassador for Missing People Charity, Kate McCann. The most important thing about this particular silence was how embarrassingly audible it was.

Rest assured that this awkward silence will now become a trademark which we can call as the “McCann Curse”.

From now on whenever a child disappears the foul play will be either from those near the child, which will always be most likely, or the child will have been genuinely abducted.

If the foul play is from the family, the McCanns can’t help but remain detached and silent because it will be much too embarrassing and compromising for them when truth is discovered and people start to add up the two and two and the similarities of it with the Maddie case. In this instance the evil doers would welcome the McCann support but the McCanns won’t dare risk providing it.

If the child has been really abducted, then the McCanns can’t help but remain detached and silent because it will be much too embarrassing for the child’s parents to want to see the McCanns in any way related with their case. They'll want to have the couple as far away from them and their sufferance as possible. In this instance the McCanns would love to provide support but no support from the McCanns is minimally wanted or welcomed.

Let us make it absolutely clear that we’re NOT casting or wishing for any sort of curse upon the McCanns. That curse was cast upon them by themselves. Both when they decided to commit the crime we’re absolutely certain they did, which was obstruction of justice to cover up whatever happened beween Kate and David in the apartment that resulted in the death of Maddie, as well as when they decided to become the most visible faces of the case. This last decision may not have been theirs or theirs alone but it’s known a fact that the spotlight centred almost exclusively on them.

We call it the “McCann Curse” just because it befalls solely on the couple. All others involved live with their dark secret and nightmare of the inevitable day the truth shall surface but until then go on with their lives like any other human beings…

Let us also make it clear once again, that we wish no harm to the McCanns nor to any other person that was involved in all this sordid affair. We only demand for them to take responsibility for their acts in the proper forum which is a Court of Law. Them and all those who were involved.

To wish harm to any of them it would be like wishing harm to those who took the life of Tia Sharp. If you do, you don’t seek justice, you just seek blood. They, like the McCanns should be judged by those society has designated for that job. If there is to be any sort of punishment then it should be handed out by those mandated by society to do exactly that in an adequate, proportional and humane manner. Anything else is reprehensible and disgusting mob lynching.

And about Tia Sharp, we noted the irony of The Sun’s headlines August 11: “Neighbour Paul, 39, also arrested – on suspicion of assisting offenders”.


Those who now seek justice, rightfully so, for both those who killed Tia Sharp and for those who assisted the offenders must be coherent and also seek justice for both those who killed Maddie and for those who assisted the offenders under the penalty of loathsome hypocrisy.

Now that on this case criminal proceedings are in progress, the blog will align with the media and say nothing further about the case. We will take but not publish any comments relating to this case whilst it is ongoing.

Secondly, Ruth Breton and Jose Breton, two names, four people Ruth Breton the courageous, resilient and tenacious mother and her unfortunate child, apparently both victims of Jose Breton, the father, and Jose Breton who tragically shared his sister’s fate.



We will not get into the gruesome sadistic facts of this case, but will note that it was another disappearance made up and that, again, close family was involved. One has to highlight the most probable involvement of the father’s parents in covering up for their son and in the disposal of the bodies of their own grandchildren.

Do allow yourself the exercise of bridging the Breton case, within the adequate proportions and circumstances, over to the Maddie case.

Both cases mentioned, Sharp and Breton, seem to confirm that in the vast majority of these cases it’s the ones nearest to the victim who are responsible.

One is entitled to ask how sick mankind, mentioned by the late Neil Armstrong, to whom we here pay due homage, is really becoming.

Now about the McCann vs Gonçalo Amaral Trial.

I think that the McCanns have much more to fear from it then does Amaral. Sticking to the possible event itself, I repeat what the blog has stated many a time before and is that is that the McCanns cannot afford for facts to be discussed publicly in Court. One just has to go back to the Trial about the book and remember how disastrous it was for the McCanns when facts started to be discussed, to the point of making Isabel Duarte speak of unfollowed leads that were never asked to be followed and the willingness of Gerry McCann in reopening the process that was never formally materialized.

I’m not seeing how libel can be discussed without discussing facts, and if facts are to be discussed then it will be a huge embarrassment for the McCanns.

But maybe that’s what is intended after all as we'll try to explain.

You see, we believe that the “Establishment” is getting really sick and tired of the McCanns. Maddie has become a thorn that has gangrened many a limb.

But as we’ve said, the McCanns will not fall down alone. In that order, the SY Review was an unsuccessfull try and that’s why it apparently is to fade away inconclusively.

Let’s suppose that this incapability for the “Establishment” to nail the McCanns is because they hold, like we think they do, a compromising piece of evidence that would prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they didn’t act alone and were indeed assisted every step of the way.

Imagine, for argument’s sake, that this so-called compromising evidence is a piece of paper. Not discussing its content (although we have a pretty good idea of what it is) just calling it a damning blank piece of paper with which the McCanns are able to successfully threaten the “Establishment” if they wave it publicly around.

So the “Establishment” seems to be stuck between a rock and a hard place wanting to get rid of the McCanns but being unable to do so. The McCanns won’t, obviously, hear any of it, and the “Establishment” can’t do anything about it, can it?

Yes, it can.

All the “Establishment” has to do is to remain absolutely and completely motionless when and if the McCann vs Amaral Trial ever occurs.

If the Trial is to take place, which I believe it will one day, the best outcome that the McCanns can hope for is to be publicly questioned and thus openly ridiculed, further damaging their already irreparable reputation and credibility.

And that is, as said, the best outcome that the McCanns can hope for from the Trial when and if it happens. There are other possible outcomes very unpleasant for them but that would please the “Establishment” indeed.

Once again, if the Trial takes place, when the facts are indeed discussed and if the proceedings don't stop at McCann's public humiliation and further degradation of their public image, then it can progress quickly to the point of proving publicly that the McCanns have lied.

We all know they did and we all know that any discussion outside their control will very quickly expose their contradictions. Gonçalo Amaral doesn’t even need to have any ace up his sleeve. If he has, then the McCann situation will evolve from disastrous to tragic.

If this public proof of perjury happens, as it surely will, it may even force the Portuguese to reopen the process immediately and in such conditions that the couple may not be allowed to leave the Country. Thus the very wise decision from the McCanns in exploring yet another flaw in the Portuguese Law, which allows them to be represented in Court and not be present as they should be.

But would the dam just break only in Portugal? What about when news of this is to break up in Britain? Can it be ignored? I don't think so. Then, would the tabloids persist on betting on such a lame losing horse? Or would they, as we expect they would, very quickly realign their editorial options and guidelines and start a blood thirsty mob lynching campaign against the couple "now" "shockingly" "exposed" as manipulative liars to "everyone's" "surprise"?

Notice that the “Establishment” has done nothing for the above to happen so there’s no reason for the McCanns to turn against it in self-defence. This would all have been a disgrace brought on them by themselves when they decided to sue Amaral.

The “Establishment” wouldn't have contributed in anyway for these turns of events, so for the McCanns to wave the abovementioned compromising paper in these circumstances would only make them to be seen as utterly desperate, further confirming their evilness and manipulative traits, two lunatics who’ve ignominiously fooled us all (including poor, poor “Establishment”) about their daughter’s unfortunate fate.

Then maybe, just maybe, the SY Review would just find a conclusion suitable to all except the McCanns and the remainder Ts, all this with the “Establishment" just being an innocent (very motionless) observing bystander.

I imagine how much lately the McCanns have been frantically and desperately lobbying for the Trial to be adjourned to a later date. It’s said that they've been able to do just that.

This time.

I can just imagine the amount of sympathetic assurances of actions they got that ended in nothing but dead ends, inexplicably. We’re absolutely certain that the “Establishment” will continue, for obvious reasons, to be cooperative and helpful, however the words cynical and hypocritical seem to come to mind…

If you haven’t understood by now, let me tell you that Kate McCann was correctly nominated Ambassador for Missing Persons. She has a very important job to do. Not related to charity or to go help find all those unfortunate souls who’re indeed missing but to assure that they, the McCanns, make certain that they start, once and for all, to become “missing”. The "Establishment" is fed up with the embarrassment that their visibility causes and has decided to have them "shelved" for now, just like Portugal did with the Maddie case.

Let’s wait and see. I for one am curious on how the game will be played.

If the Trial is, at it seems it will be, adjourned, then it just confirms the rightful fear that the McCanns have. They have placed themselves in a position from which they’re unable to back down without being totally compromising and unable to let it happen.

Amaral with his tenacity and resilience (reminding us of Ruth Breton) will continue to be a key player by pursuing that this Trial effectively takes place.

When the Trial does take place, Amaral will have done his job due to his courage, honesty and integrity. Then he can rest because the game will be played in other much more important and efficient playing grounds.