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[Updated] TeleScam Exposed: Who Really Runs NoNetBrutality.com?

Phillip Dampier May 11, 2010 Astroturf, Editorial & Site News, Net Neutrality, Public Policy & Gov't, Video 27 Comments

NoNetBrutality characterizes itself as a "grassroots campaign," but new evidence suggests it's actually just another telecom industry-backed astroturf group pretending to represent consumer interests.

On April 12th, a new voice joined the opposition to Net Neutrality reforms.  That was the date someone registered the domain name NoNetBrutality.com.  Just a few short days later, the group launched a basic website with a mission:

NoNetBrutality.com is a grassroots campaign with a triple mission. It seeks:

(1) to raise public awareness for the imminent threat of government take-over of the internet,
(2) to bring all net neutrality opponents together under one common banner,
(3) to petition the FCC not to go ahead with its attempts to regulate the internet.

NoNetBrutality.com was initiated by six liberty-minded activists from six different countries who fear that the current attempts of the U.S. government to restrict access to the internet might soon be followed by other governments if we don’t fight these flawed and dangerous ideas now – before they take root elsewhere.

The NoNetBrutality.com campaign was created by Kristin McMurray (United States), Yolanda Talavera (Nicaragua), Vincent De Roeck (Belgium), David MacLean (Canada), Huafang Li (China) and Aykhan Nasibli (Azerbaidjan), and formally launched in Washington D.C. on April 14th, 2010.

The group’s talking points about Net Neutrality are eerily in lockstep with those distributed by large phone and cable interests who oppose net freedom:

  • Net neutrality will take away incentives to invest and innovate – that means the internet will stop improving. Do you really want an internet czar to run the worldwide web and bureaucrats in charge of cyberspace?
  • Net neutrality will literally put the internet in “neutral.” Demand for Youtube, Bittorrent and streaming will grow, but who will pay for additional bandwidth if they aren’t allowed to charge for it anymore? Less options and less freedom for the consumers will be the ultimate consequence of these flawed ideas.
  • The FCC and others aim to regulate the internet in the same way as they control the television… There’s the real censorship! What will be the next step? Once the government has the mechanism in place to restrict internet access and to set prices, it is only a tiny step towards content control and taxes on internet use.
  • Everybody agrees that the internet is a resounding free market success story. If it isn’t broken, why fix it?

You know what that means — that “grassroots campaign” is in reality yet another corporate-backed astroturf campaign desperately trying to hide its true backer — the telecommunications industry.

Here’s what NoNetBrutality left out of its “facts”:

  1. YouTube is owned by Google, which is a strong believer in Net Neutrality.
  2. No online service has suffered more at the hands of Internet Service Providers’ throttles than Bittorrent.  Net Neutrality would ban those throttles.
  3. The group ignores the multi-billion dollars in profit the broadband industry earns today from Internet service that is increasing in price at the same time costs to provide it are rapidly falling.
  4. The FCC proposes no content controls for broadband — only consumer protections to prohibit providers from manipulating broadband traffic for money.
  5. Everyone does not agree that the Internet is a “resounding free market success story.”  In fact, the United States has lost its former lead on Internet speed and adoption, and today is still dropping.  We now have worse service than many Asian and East European countries, and providers are trying to test new Internet Overcharging schemes t0 limit consumption and increase prices even higher.  That’s success?  Only for them.

So who is NoNetBrutality.com and Kristin McMurray, the American creator of the campaign?

McMurray's day job is to develop and run social media campaigns for corporate interests seeking to build support for their public policy agenda

Kristin McMurray is a social media strategist — a hired gun for corporate interests that want social-network-street-cred but don’t exactly know how to create an authentic-looking campaign that fulfills their corporate agenda.

McMurray has a history with corporate-backed conservative think tanks, particularly Americans for Limited Government, a group the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity reports is 99 percent funded by three unnamed sources.  The group has routinely denied requests to identify where their backing comes from.  She also was hired to run a campaign for a climate change denial group.

McMurray tracks her site visitors carefully with Alterian’s SM2, a social media monitoring and analysis solution designed for PR and Marketing professionals. Alterian SM2 “helps you track conversations, review positive/negative sentiment for your brand, clients, competitors and partners across social media channels such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogs, social networks, video/photo sharing sites and real-time alerts.”

Grassroots this isn’t.

Accidental Evidence: The Consequences of An Exposed PowerPoint Presentation

Someone left their PowerPoint slides laying around for anyone to pick up and review.  That turned out to be about as foolish as the guy who left his field test version of Apple’s newest iPhone in a bar.

Now the truth can be told.

Think Progress managed to obtain a copy of the presentation, and it says quite a bit about just how much grassroots are actually growing at NoNetBrutality.com.  Let’s put it this way, if you were allergic to actual grass, you’d have no problems at all rolling around in NoNetBrutality’s astroturf.

It turns out NoNetBrutality is the creature of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, itself heavily backed by corporate interests.

And you thought it was “six liberty-minded activists from six different countries.”  Not so much.

Atlas, which counts among its proud moments a corporate strategy to protect Big Tobacco, helps corporations coordinate their front group strategies.  Norquist takes corporate agendas and spins them into grass roots efforts in return for money.  He was caught up in the Jack Abramoff scandal when the disgraced lobbyist promised one of Norquist’s front groups $50,000 in exchange for “grassroots” support.

Of course, you aren’t supposed to know any of this.  Groups like NoNetBrutality are designed to hide their true ties and claim they are run by ordinary concerned citizens making their individual voices heard.  Too bad that PowerPoint presentation blew the lid off by telling a much different story.

One of the PowerPoint slides that wasn't supposed to become public knowledge

Net Neutrality is like what China does: “Putting policemen on every corner, on the street or on the Internet.” — Grover Norquist

Norquist’s bizarre interpretation of Net Neutrality shines through in NoNetBrutality’s own campaign.  On one of the PowerPoint slides, NoNetBrutality even cooks up a Chinese blog to underline Norquist’s world view that Net Neutrality can be compared with Chinese government censorship.

Every astroturf group has a target audience.  NoNetBrutality is no different:

Target Groups

  • Libertarian like minded Internet users and video gamers
  • Fiscal and Social Conservative Activists, Campaigners and Think Tanks
  • Internet Service Providers and Communications companies
  • Policy makers (Legislators, Regulators, Public officials)

For groups like NoNetBrutality, getting corporate and conservative support means being a cog in the wheel at Grover’s infamous Wednesday strategy sessions.  One of the PowerPoint slides calls attention to just how important these meetings are in the effort to coordinate opposition to consumer-friendly broadband reform.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, outraged consumers have invaded the group’s primary social media outlets.  Their Facebook page is now loaded with comments from those upset about the fact the entire effort is little more than another bought-and-paid-for deception effort from the telecom industry.  Twitter is now used more to expose the group than to promote it.

The ironic part is that the very group that seems so alarmed by the prospect of “government censorship of the Internet” has no problems censoring its own Facebook page to remove posts that it determines are “off topic” or “not polite.”

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[Update Wednesday 3:20pm — This “group” came out of the closet this morning as a “class project” funded by Atlas, and attacked Think Progress for overreaching as to the group’s own importance in the Net Neutrality debate.  You can read my extended thoughts on today’s developments in the Comments section.  In short, I think today’s revelations may actually do even more damage to their credibility than earlier thought.  What does it say about a group of people willing to attend a “school” (and the “school” itself) that actively teaches how to develop and launch highly-deceptive fake grassroots campaigns designed to fool consumers?  Today they are downplaying the entire affair as “funny,” but if you were a visitor to their website, would you be laughing to learn the group isn’t really run by “six liberty-minded activists from six different countries” but rather those budding to learn the craft of sock-puppetry?

I think it’s sad some people have a moral code that says intentional deception in a public policy fight is just fine.  When you lie to your supporters and opponents about who you really are, and then say it’s “funny” when you come clean later,  they are left with little more than to ponder whether you were lying to them then or lying to them now.]

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SAL-e
SAL-e
13 years ago

Looks like that more and more corporations are trying to build reality-distortion field. They build ‘corporate blogs’ with comments, but delete any comment that criticize them or exposes them. They leave comments that only support their own agenda. There is tool that could help. Sometime ago Google introduced SideWiki. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsjJOsx84MA Using SideWiki we can leave exposing information to fake groups like nonetbrutality.org. The best part is that information is stored on Google servers and Lobbyist can’t delete it. I hope that Google starts to index SideWiki and show it in their search results. What we can do to become effective… Read more »

Hah!
Hah!
13 years ago

Hey, Nice scoop there Phil… Astroturf huh? Why don’t you go to their website and read what’s posted there. If by “astroturf” you mean the whopping $200 in funding this STUDENT got for her CLASS PROJECT then have it at it my paranoid little friend. You guys are a hoot with your “investigations.” Maybe you guys should get real jobs instead of posing as investigative reporters. Leave the investigations to the professionals like Declan McCullagh rather than 2nd rate, unemployed, paranoid, utopian muckrakers sitting around their basements in their boxer shorts “exposing” astroturf. ‘Secret’ telecom anti-Net neutrality plan isn’t by… Read more »

Mike
Mike
13 years ago

This so called student project doesn’t quite add up, how is it a lady with Kristin McMurray’s professional astroturfing credentials involved in creating it? How little money they got handed by a lobbyist funded think tank that financed this project that just happens to echo the industries talking points doesn’t invalidate any attempt to expose their sham. Given the backlash after their so called grass roots campaign was discovered and exposed on Facebook, Twitter, and the web.. their credibility is burned and useless as there’s no way they can cash in on any further lobbyist money or make any legitimate… Read more »

Carl Hardwick
Carl Hardwick
13 years ago

Nice pivot. Your story went from “We have secret documents from the telecom industry showing their net neutrality strategy” to “The authors were part of an student astroturf campaign”. That’s an enormous fall from grace. One second you’re crowing about finding secret telecom strategy documents. Documents so secret that even you admit that they were left online for “world+dog” to find and read. Wow, that’s what I call a secret! Next second you’re whining (whinging?) about how those “students” were somehow engaged in a nefarious corporate plot. Look, you blew it. You didn’t have secret telecom documents. You didn’t have… Read more »

Jason
Jason
13 years ago
Reply to  Carl Hardwick

The Think Progress group is the one that sourced the Power Point presentation and much of the over the top language was taken from, not stopthecap. I’d suggest reading it over again more carefully? So far these purported “amateurs” and students appear to be working professionals already in or looking to enter the astroturf “new media” business of which developed this anti-NN project and formed the strategy in the power point presentation. Why should this be dropped? I’d like to see a lot more investigation on the people and course, rather than the people just trying to seize on the… Read more »

Michael Chaney
13 years ago

So they claim to have spent $125 ($25 over-budget) for this, so will they keep paying DreamHost $9 a month to host this site? If it’s still up in a month then we’ll know that these “student” continue to get funding. Unless they’re doing this out of their own pocket, and we all know how college kids have tons of extra money.

Thomas Stewart
13 years ago

Lefty Blogs, Duped By Student Project, Claim to Unearth ‘Secret’ Astroturf Campaign
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2010/05/12/lefty-blogs-duped-student-project-claim-unearth-secret-astroturf-cam

Anonymous for a Reason
Anonymous for a Reason
13 years ago
Reply to  Thomas Stewart

I ran across Stop the Cap because of the Newsbusters article. While I dont believe in government ever getting anything right and am not a supporter of net neutrality I think your website has gotten a bad rap being thrown in with Think Progress socialists. AFAIK, you don’t seem to really be a lefty blog because you seem to be non-partisan on broadband. Just be careful about signing up to causes from the Center for American Progress, which is as lefty as you can get. Let me share with you my own secret. I applied to attend the last Atlas… Read more »

Jim C
Jim C
13 years ago

Anon…. this says everything that has to be said. After all the BS spinning from the people trying to milk sympathy for this poor “student” it turns out from someone who should know this whole thing is just a seminar to teach people how to set up websites that lie about who they are and who gives them the money. Kristin deserved to win an A. She lied about who her group was, that Atlas coughed up the candy to pay for it, and that its not the grassroots she promised. ATT and Verizon will love her.

Smith6612
Smith6612
13 years ago

It’s ironic that I came across this article and saw the page of the PowerPoint Presentation mentioning video gamers. I’m curious to know if they are aware that video gamers such as I are very easy to get enraged if things such as our Internet connections are messed with.

Chase
Chase
13 years ago

I see a lot of conspiracy and not a whole lot of truth in all your claims. Few things though. Americans for limited governments donors in 2005, is just the biggest straw man ever seriously. Considering the fact that if you use Fund Race on Huffington Post you can look up all the telecom companies CEOs and notice they all donate to Democrats. Unless you bring up Ivan Seidenberg the CEO of Verizon who weirdly donated to McCain and Clinton in the same quarter in 2007, but the big bad Comcast CEO is a full fledged Democrat. Unless of course… Read more »

Doc_Navy
Doc_Navy
13 years ago

Phillip: “What does it say about a group of people willing to attend a “school” (and the “school” itself) that actively teaches how to develop and launch highly-deceptive fake grassroots campaigns designed to fool consumers?” Hmm, I dunno.. maybe they are training to work for the DNC, or possibly Moveon.org both of whom have sponsored “Astroturf” and continue to support and/or sponsor “astroturf”. That said… I think that Lachlan Markay over at newsbusters answers your question PERFECTLY, “Stop the Cap has reverted to questioning the integrity of the six students who created the project, saying they are “budding to learn… Read more »

Jim C
Jim C
13 years ago
Reply to  Doc_Navy

Newsbusters is a right wing group that would defend this kind of astroturf. I love it when you guys complain about Media Matters or Kos but think nothing of using a site like Newsbusters like it is some authority. Its just another echo chamber.

Hah!
Hah!
13 years ago

Phil, What you and Free Press and others are doing here is thuggery pure and simple. You’re taking shots at a college student doing a class project. You’re dragging her name through the mud and it’s absolutely despicable. Is it because she’s a conservative? Because she has a different point of view than you? Your “scoop” has been completely discredited. Free Press and Center for American Progress are the thuggery units for their foundation masters who are spending millions to have the government regulate the Internet (Ford Foundation alone is contributing $50 million to this effort). You talk about astroturf,… Read more »

Michael Chaney
13 years ago
Reply to  Hah!

And yet her website is still up…..even after the project is over. Why is that? Who will continue to fund the web hosting for this over-budget project next month?

Jim C
Jim C
13 years ago
Reply to  Hah!

Oh c’mon. This woman is not a “college student.” Read her own website. She is a professional PR hack working for conservative groups and is now selling her services to various causes, including this one, to whoever will pay the price. Take a look at Atlas website promotion of the MBA Think Tank School. It costs $500 plus airfare to go for 12 days of ‘intense’ education in how to build your own think tank and astroturfer group. You meet with all the important people who will plug you in to big corporate dollars and also set your career path… Read more »

Hah!
Hah!
13 years ago
Reply to  Jim C

“Tell me how government is going to regulate the Internet with Net Neutrality. It’s total BS. Net Neutrality stops ISPs from regulating your use of the service to reach websites that didnt cough up enough $$$$ to let you through.” “At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.” Free Press Founder and Chairman Robert McChesney There is no socialism… Read more »

Ron Dafoe
Ron Dafoe
13 years ago
Reply to  Hah!

Too bad the majority of us here want better, cap free internet with competition. For all you net nuetrailty naysayers – I bet most of you don’t even really have a grasp of how the internet actually works, how we transistioned from BBSs (BTW, back then the telephone companies wanted to make people pay an additional fee if there was a modem or fax connected to the line) to the internet. Most of you are talking parrots. There are alot of us that actually participated in this stuff – way back in the BBS days. We know the technology. We… Read more »

Michael Chaney
13 years ago
Reply to  Ron Dafoe

This really isn’t a Republican/Democrat or a conservative/liberal issue. It’s an individualism vs. fascist corporatism issue. Government isn’t the only entity capable of stomping on your individual liberties, A handful of large corporations who control the “pipes” is not only capable but is driven to maximize profits at the expense of whatever individual liberty we and our representative government allows. There are bad actors and paid sock puppets on both side of the isle, and we expose and fight them all here at Stop the Cap. Limited government AND corporate intrusion in our individual liberties is a key value of… Read more »

Richard
Richard
13 years ago

It’s hilarious how everyone here is making mountains out of molehills. Could it be within the realm of possibility that Kristin and her colleagues are genuinely concerned about the idea of so-called Net Neutrality and decided to make a website with a catchy name to argue against it? Kristin’s a professional, but what does that matter? She and her team were charged with completing a project over a short period of time, and they did it. Do you think your overreaction was also part of her “master plan?” If so, it’s working pretty well, huh? A+! Falling back from claiming… Read more »

John Passaniti
Admin
13 years ago
Reply to  Richard

I have absolutely no doubt that Kristin and the corporate interests ultimately behind No Net Brutality do genuinely believe Net Neutrality is a bad thing and are “concerned” about it. That doesn’t make it astroturf. What makes it astroturf is that No Net Brutality made specific claims about it being a individual effort when it was not, that it was a grassroots effort when it was not. No mention of their corporate sponsorship was given, and no mention that this was a “class project” was given. It is those misrepresentations that elevate this to astroturf. And no, it is not… Read more »

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