Bloggerheads

Marketing Week – Tory rebels under fire over ‘happy slapping’ viral ads: The campaign, created by viral production house Asa Bailey, uses real mobile footage to “demonstrate the darker sides of life in modern Britain” under Labour. Asa Bailey, founder of his eponymous firm, says: “Conservative backbench MPs commissioned the campaign, but I cannot identify them.”… The two virals are the first in a series of films that will be seeded over the Net in coming months and will be supported by a television ad campaign in the north of England once a prospective General Election has been called.

1. Real mobile footage? Perhaps, but it’s borrowed. The first video bears a bloody website watermark, and thanks to Rachel, I can do this with the second:

Footage of the girl pole-dancing from this ‘campaign’ video can also be seen here, here and here.

2. Conservative backbench MPs commissioned the campaign? As much as I’d like to believe that, I seriously doubt it. For one thing…

3. A television ad campaign? There’s a ban on paid political television advertising in this country. Is he suggesting that the Conservatives are going to waste their party-political broadcast recycling Teh Interwebs Funniest Home Videos, or are we dealing with someone who knows their patter better than their politics?

I call ‘shenanigans’. Again.

(Though I’m happy to be proved wrong. What harm can it do to let the world know that there are people in the Conservative party who are dumber than this?)

Regardless of its official status, this is merely existing material with political slogans slapped onto the end. Even if the 125,657 views in 4 days were an authentic reflection of interest (I suspect some YouTube gaming and/or whoring is going on) it’s interest in someone else’s material, and it’s as likely a pathway to sensible debate as Numa Numa.

Speaking of ‘debate’, you’ll love this; here, YouTube user gratex makes an observation about the recycled nature of the clip and hangs an anti-Tory rant on that same hook.

The response from Asa Bailey under comments (via SexyBritain, one of many YouTube profiles created for this exercise) reads as follows:

Respect! Good points intelligent response, thank you, this starts the video debate. Again big respect.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pull up to a stop right there before I stab something. Repeatedly. In the eyes.

Related bloggage:
Liberal Democrat Voice – How not to campaign on YouTube
Chris K – SexyBritain: Tory viral marketing… or nothing of the sort?

I thought we got just a little bit lucky when Google cached this snapshot of Nich Starling’s tracking data from http://norfolkblogger.blogspot.com and decided to keep it for a few days.

You can see from the screen capture below that it caught two visits from the IP address 82.118.116.193.

Nich was kind enough to set his comment timestamps to display both time and date, and from there it was a short and simple hunt to see if there were any comments with similar timestamps to either or both visits recorded by Nich’s extremetracking.com account.

There was one, and here it is:

James Becks said…

I know for a fact it was a UKIP activist trying to use the group to stitch up Norman Lamb and when everyone realized it was fake they would turn on his rival Trevor Ivory. The person wanted the Eastern Daily Press to blame Trevor and then when it is revealed that it couldn’t have been him no one would believe a word the Eastern Daily Press says about Norman Lamb. It was a long shot way to reduce the credibility of the Eastern Daily Press too making it easier for the UKIP candidate to get elected. By the way the UKIP candidate knew nothing about this.
2:40 PM, August 15, 2007

Unfortunately, all this gives us is a confirmed repeat of this comment, which has reported here as the work of the entity currently known only as 82.118.116.193

No love for UKIP, supports Conservative candidate Trevor Ivory, has issues with the Eastern Daily Press… nothing new there.

But still, better than a poke in the eye with the blunt stick, eh?

It sure beats the hell out of sitting on your arse and doing nothing about it except bitch and moan about how unfair it is that people think you couldn’t give a flying monkey’s either way.

Iain Dale says; “Whoever has done this deserves all they get when they are found out.”

When they are found out?

Well, there’s genuine outrage for you. Iain’s so annoyed about this that he’s going to sit back and wait for whoever did it to be found.

(rolls eyes)

I think Iain Dale can do better than that… if he wants to.

I think Iain Dale can identify Norman Lamb’s impersonator(s). At least, I think he’s got a better shot at it than most of us put together… and I’m about to explain why:

[Note – As the possibility remains that more than one person is involved, I’ll be referring to the impersonator(s) by their static IP address – 82.118.116.193 – and using this as a name to identify an individual or team/group.]

1. Judging by the varying disinformation 82.118.116.193 has been putting out (i.e. naming/blaming everyone but the Tories), we are almost certainly dealing with a Tory source.

2. Judging by the local knowledge (and support of Trevor Ivory) shown in the Wikipedia edits, we can be reasonably certain that 82.118.116.193 moves in the same circles that Iain moved in when running as a candidate in the same area.

3. The fraudster(s) blundered about under multiple/false personalities with a single static IP address… even after it had been discovered. So they play with weblogs, but they’re relatively new at it or not very good at it. As the premier blogger that most newbies and wannabes never tire of kissing up to, Iain Dale is the most likely recipient of an identity-revealing comment or email from 82.118.116.193 regardless of (1) and (2).

So, to summarise and help Iain Dale along…

Tracking Data

I think there’s more than a good chance that Iain’s tracking data (he uses *three* third-party packages, all for the same site) contains a record of the IP address 82.118.116.193 – if that IP address was used to post a comment under a known profile and Iain has a record of it, we’ll have our man. Or woman. Or men. Or women. Oh, you know what I mean.

Some of this data has already been and gone, so he’ll want to crack on with this sooner rather than later, before the trail goes well-and-truly cold.

Email

Iain can also spend some time thinking about likely suspects who might have emailed him, and might even want to start by checking for messages from any Suffolk Conservative Councillors (who use the same provider as our target). It’s also possible that 82.118.116.193 foolishly emailed Iain under their real name promoting the impersonation in some way (by claiming to have ‘found’ it, perhaps).

Of course, it’s not practical that he go through all of his email… just those from some likely suspects. All he needs to do is look at the source data of messages in his suspect shortlist and keep a sharp eye out for the magic number 82.118.116.193… the process is so simple he shouldn’t even need Dizzy to hold his hand.

(OK, that last comment was unfair… and unseemly. Dizzy is a clever chap when he’s not trying to be, so perhaps he can think of some faster and better ways to check records and chip in.)

Iain, no doubt, will wonder out loud why he should do anything I ‘order’ him to do on his own personal property lah-de-dah. To avoid burdening readers of both sites with yet another loaded question, I’ll simply answer it ahead of time:

Because, let’s face it, you’re going to come across as a bit insincere if you utterly condemn something without taking reasonable measures to stop or discourage it.

Right, Iain?

UPDATE (6pm) – Iain appears to be claiming here that he did all of this or better before I suggested he do it. But why does he appear so reluctant to take my advice if it’s so clearly in line with his thinking? Who did he tell about his findings? What were those findings? I’d ask these questions and more, but he’s not answering my emails and he appears to have banned me from his website without telling me again. If he’s playing the not-rising-to-the-bait game he’s got a bloody nerve after dumping that “He insinuated!” post that included its own insinuations.

But I’m not going to link to it because I don’t link to people or parties that I don’t like (or items I feel I might have difficulty challenging in detail).

It doesn’t stop me from being really, really cross about it, though. Here, just look at me being cross:

(seethes)
(blusters)
(threatens)
(insinuates)
(seeeeeeeeethes)

[Heh. Dizzy’s exercise from yesterday now makes a lot more sense. Will Iain deny sending him an email about this, I wonder?]

UPDATE (10pm) – Cute. Iain now appears to be holding back on any comments I submit. He’ll be telling me to ‘grow up’ or ‘engage in a proper debate’ next, just you watch.

UPDATE (11pm) – Sorry. If you’re new here, this is what Iain is most probably bitching about. Still nothing back from Iain yet. Looks like he just wanted to spit his dummy and leave it at that. And not a scrap of curiosity about 82.118.116.193, you’ll note.

UPDATE (22 Aug 10:30am) – Iain has cleared a whole bunch of comments for publication, but not mine. Two comments submitted ask why he’s not clearing my comments and there’s been no answer… so he does want to spit his dummy and leave it at that. In other news, Dizzy is ‘worried’ about me, but only in a casual ‘just thought I’d blog this’ way. No real effort has gone into it or anything…

UPDATE (11am) – Ahahahaha! Look at where Dizzy locks the relevant thread… right after he stupidly spells out something I was honour-bound not to mention. Last month Iain accidentally CCed Dizzy when he clearly meant to alert him privately to our conversation via a BCC… but not in any way that could be described as a conspiracy, of course. Iain only (eventually) admitted to doing this because I promised it would be off-the-record. And that’s the way I kept things until Dizzy opened his big, fat mouth. Thanks, Dizzy.

[BTW, that email exchange was about outright libel (as opposed to ‘almost libel’)… the anonymous kind that Iain Dale and Paul Staines have made a bad habit of tolerating if not encouraging on their websites.]

If the BBC ran this story but also spent a few moments looking into the background of the organisation pushing it (i.e. using the word ‘Conservative’ somewhere and pulling up well short of yelling “Tory front!”), that would be typical of its liberal bias, yes?

UPDATE – A not entirely-unrelated item:

Media Watch Watch – Mail on Sunday forces BBC Jesus bastard climbdown: The Mail can’t resist an opportunity to show off how influential it is while simultaneously highlighting anti-Christian pro-Muslim bias in the liberal media.