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Monday, October 3, 2011

Corporate social-media engines track Occupy activists

Corporations who grab marketing data from Twitter, Facebook and other social media posts are curious about who's behind the Occupy Wall Street protests and the mobilizers of spin-off demonstrations in Boston, San Francisco, and (maybe) Philadelphia.

Here's how it looks to one veteran data miner: "We've been watching it for three weeks. Over the weekend, with the arrests in New York, it's really taking off," he told me. "The volumes have increased 20X, 30X. There are millions of communications."

What's the message? "Politics this year, it's going to be the workers against the rich."

Who's behind it? Legacy socialists? College-town anarchists? Professors? The Democrats? "I don't know if the Democrats are involved. I have no evidence of that. It really looks like labor," he told me. "We're picking up that there's staff guys from the Transport Workers' Union in New York, and people close to (Rich) Trumka," the United Mine Workers president who heads the Change to Win union federation. 

Does that mean unions are behind the demonstrations - or just fellow-traveling with people they can send against their class enemies? "Unions, it's in their best interest to have someone else carry the banner." he told me. "This isn't really aimed at Wall Street so much. It's aimed at corporations."
 
So who's Occupying? "It's this generation of people who've been graduating since '08 and don't have jobs," he told me. "They are having a tough time because the economy's been bad. They don't know what they want to do about it really. You get a beautiful girl in a Harvard T-shirt, she's saying 'education should be free, we want our student loans paid.'

"And then you have these activists who have learned to do social media. And some people mixed in who remember the 60s. And you have a tremedously heated rhetoric. And you have people who may do irrational things. There is the potential for bricks in windows. Man, you are playing with gasoline."
Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 12:07 PM  Permalink | 20 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:22 PM, 10/03/2011
    Joe D, jump onto reddit.com (r/news) and you will see the type of individuals out there. Personally, I think these children have read too much about the goings on with the UK riots and the so-called "Arab Spring" and think they can bring the same to the US. They are out there protesting against their 1st world problems and every other "social cause" they can think of. Eventually, the Democrats and unions will hijack the occupations. That much is inevitable.
    — psyrus
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:54 PM, 10/03/2011
    GLOOM! DOOM! STAY HOME! DO NOTHING! ALL IS WELL! EAST ASIA IS OUR FRIEND. DRINK VICTORY GIN.
    — Jah_Kitsch
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:26 PM, 10/03/2011
    workers against the rich, retirees against the rich, unemployed against the rich. Citizens who are appalled, dismayed and disgusted at a congress that has ZERO concern for the public constituency and 100% for the corporate. It is people who make more and less than $250,000 per year who have watched the politicians and the corporate ceo's sell out their employees, the communities and the country. It is the middle-aged person laid off from a reasonably paying job who has not and can not find work that pays a liveable wage. It is college students or students who want to go to college who can't afford it and are leery of student loans that they may not be able to pay back. And some are people who demonstrated back in the 60's and 70's and some are the children of those who demonstrated back in the 60's & 70's. ... You can try to make it union but public and private unions represent all of 12% of the work force (public sector unions represent only about 30% of government workers). ... And lets not forget a press that has forgotten how to investigate or even how to write more than what they have been given.
    — nebulus
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:31 PM, 10/03/2011
    BTW, some are republican!
    — nebulus
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 3:44 PM, 10/03/2011
    occupy wall street is a bunch of losers. stop wasting your time and start spending your time LOOKING for a job or bettering yourself for employment. sorry, just because you want to major is some esoteric field, doesn't mean there will be a good paying job there upon graduation!
    — main liner
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:34 PM, 10/03/2011
    ... Go back to being a good little sheep and watching Faux News.
    — Jah_Kitsch
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:42 PM, 10/03/2011
    There is nothing wrong with making money. However, it's about HOW that money is being made. People in other countries are being harmed by this behavior. Capitalism needs to be regulated more. Capitalism is a fundamentalism more engrained in America than religion. There is nothing wrong with investing, smart investing, intellectual capital, but it MUST NOT HURT OTHER PEOPLE
    — DonAspy32
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:52 PM, 10/03/2011
    Here come the inane and ignorant retorts by the usual cabal of internet tough guys who've love sucking up that Koch.

    They (predictably and boringly) confuse naked corporatism with capitalism and social programs with communism.

    They are more confused than a pig looking at a wrist watch.

    — Jah_Kitsch
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 4:53 PM, 10/03/2011
    Why is this an anonymous source? Makes you wonder if any of it is true. What is this guy using to track the messages? Why wouldn't he give his name? Scared of the Unions?
    — PFCzar
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 5:21 PM, 10/03/2011
    I tend to consider the capitalist economic model as one consisting of economic winners and losers. And in our game of monopoly the 1% along with corporations have all the hotel--they directly or indirectly control, what is it? 60-70% of the country's wealth? Probably more now.

    Clearly this game of global multi-national capitalism is unsustainable. This is a national security issue--and police beatings of young Americans are not helping the situation.

    Corporate lobbyists have written the rules in a revolving door arrangement with federal government agencies charge with overseeing business and industry.

    The model of "dog eat dog" feeds of the greed and egotism of the corporate managers, who feel justified destroying the environment, outsourcing jobs, committing white collar crimes. With the corporation, there is no social responsibility; their only accountability is to the shareholders and bottom lines. Is it any wonder we are at this point?

    Since this game is the only one we have to play with, either the game is reset or we: 1) quit the game 2) disrupt the game 3)other
    — Yodude2
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 5:52 PM, 10/03/2011
    GEORGE SOROS, foreign socialist, Democrat party sugar daddy. He also funds MoveOn.org, ObamaACORN, "America Coming Together", Ford Foundation, "Center for American Progress", and other Democrat party front organizations. He also gave NPR money to hire reporters to insert his propoganda on public airwaves, and the unethical liberals in charge at NPR gladly took his money.
    — Ghost of 0bamaRemorse
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:23 PM, 10/03/2011
    Cite your Fox source. Which reporters were hired to propagate his liberal views? Name names. Otherwise you're just foxing us with your brand of ignorant, subtly-racist, misinformed jingoism.

    Please explain, in precise terms, if you can, exactly what reporting, is liberal at NPR. I dare say people who know journalism know that NPR has the most objective reporters in US, without the indignant voice inflections so often heard at Fox, ABC and the like. I am an Independent voter and a corporately-trained journalist, for what its worth to your closed mind.

    You mock and libel Soros for exercising his 1st Amendment Right. You must surely be upset now that corporations are "people" who will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on electing their candidates next year. Who do you think will benefit from all this new corporate money? Bet on Fox News. Everyone knows Fox is an propaganda arm of the GOP.

    Obama will be our next president.
    — Yodude2
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 7:33 PM, 10/03/2011
    ghost: are you serious? Has your brain erased all memory of Rupert Murdoch and his manipulation of his world wide press? Rupert makes billions from big corporations who place ads in his media empire. Do you really think that Rupert only prints the truth? I guess in your brain Rupert and the Koch brothers don't contribute to media outlets like Fox, the tea baggers propaganda machine?
    — nebulus
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 6:32 PM, 10/03/2011
    burn down the hatches
    — BingoBongo
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 6:39 PM, 10/03/2011
    These "activist" childern will at some point get a job. When they get their first paycheck and discover what we all have, especially those of us who were "activist" childern back in the day, that 30% of their pay is gone they will learn the lesson we all have. The government takes our money and we don't know where it goes until we see a person who is fully capable of getting a job using their government "paycheck" to buy beer and popcorn so they can go back and jump on the couch while the rest of us bust our butts on a daily basis. That will be the day they realize how dumb they were during the "Wall Street" foolishness!
    — sarah89


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About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
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