Rep. Dan Branch Has a Sock Puppet in His Office
“Socket puppetry,” in the online sense, is the practice of making anonymous comments about someone or something in which you have a professional interest. The most famous recent case of sock puppetry was perpetrated by John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, who used a fake identity on Yahoo message boards for years to attack his competition and pump his company’s stock.
With that background, I point you to a FrontBurner post last month about Rep. Dan Branch’s horrible parking job at Love Field (and thanks again to the FrontBurnervian in the field who sent the pic). Here’s the first comment on that post, from someone using the handle “frequent flyer”:
Has this person parked at Love recently? They’re ALWAYS out of spots- I’ve used the end of the aisle a number of times (when it’s available) because there’s no signs prohibiting it. Must be a slow news day…
To be sure, this is a small matter — inconsiderate behavior on the part of an elected official (or someone driving that elected official’s car). But that comment from “frequent flyer,” I believe, is a case of sock puppetry. A tipster told me that the post was made by a senior Branch staff member. The IP address of the computer used to make the post appears to confirm it. The post definitely came from a Texas Lege computer.
I wanted to ask Candice Shapiro, Branch’s chief of staff, about this. She hasn’t returned my call or e-mail.
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Wow, Is “D” big brother now?
Jack,
No, they are not big brother. It is THEIR web blog — they can look up who sent entries to it anytime they want.
Quick – check Jack’s IP address!
BLM,
A little touchy aren’t you? Did I reach a sore spot with you?
It’s always nice to be reminded that you can’t hide anywhere.
Privacy is a fiction, a mere ruse. Just ask Max Moseley.
Often I see moving/parking violations by vehicles with “State Judge” or “State Official” plates. Unless it’s an actual emergency (you know, those annoying audio tests from the Emergency Alert System), I think our elected officials and judges should have to find a legitimate parking space just like the rest of us.
I know this is just a blog, but even by blog standards this seems like poor reporting:
“A tipster told me that the post was made by a senior Branch staff member. The IP address of the computer used to make the post appears to confirm it. The post definitely came from a Texas Lege computer.”
How does that confirm anything? There are 150 members of the Texas House, and literally thousands of staff and computers. Just because it came from a computer within the Capitol, how does that “confirm” that it came from Branch’s office? For example, you can go “big brother” on me and see that I am typing from a Lege computer, but I assure you I am not typing from Branch’s office.
Weak, weak.
I heard Dan Branch once was engaged to Don Henley. Dan apparently parked illegally at the Hell Freezes Over concert stop in Dallas.
Jack,
Not touchy. Actually, I was amused by your logic — “How dare someone try and find out who sent a ludicrous email to their own blog?!?!”
oxox
Why not send an FOI request and see what else came from that IP address?
My head is spinning trying to figure out who’s whose sock puppet in the comments.
I thought a sock puppet covers Elliot Smith.
Tim, I think you could derive a lot of amusement – and occasionally break some news – if you double checked the IP addresses of your various commenters to the more controversial posts on this blog (think Trey’s Neil Emmons-related posts or your Dan Branch story). I’m actually surprised you don’t already do this and that you apparently needed a 3rd party to do the legwork (and that it took a month to figure out!). Presumably, your ISP logs the IP address of every visitor (not just commenter) and you should have access to this information in real time. A simple whois.com search would confirm the owner of the IP address. Sock puppetry is pretty common and the only way to stop it is to call out those who do it. But who says you can’t have some fun and embarrass a few people along the way?
Honestly, Neal, we don’t have the time to look at IP addresses in a systematic way like that. It’s tough enough just reading the comments, much less trying to figure out who wrote them.
That’s not sock puppetry — it’s a loose use of the term, or a subset of it at best. Sock puppetry is posting by different names, giving the impression of more than one identity in the same thread/community. For instance, if “Bethany” and “Rawlins in Blunderland” were actually the same individual — there would be the earliest known or primary identity … in our example, let’s say that’s Rawlins. Bethany would be his sock puppet. (Thus elucidated, the humorous analogy becomes clear.) The site administrators, of course, would be able to discern this, but only if they were exceptionally vigilant or became suspicious enough to investigate.
A real-life example: Many people have voiced suspicions that Marty Cortland is, in fact, the sock puppet of one of the D crew (the most common guess being Tim).
[/didacticism]
Tim,
Prior to making the original post on this issue, did you call Branch’s office for a comment or explanation or was the intent of the post to embarrass Rep. Branch from the beginning? If you are going to post stories such as this while having a policy of anonymous comments, then you shouldn’t engage in a witchhunt on those that leave them, especially those that take issue with the content of the post itself. Since you have decided to make issue with the identity of someone that reads and participates in your blog, I wonder if you will also uncover the identity of the “alert, iPhone-wielding FrontBurnervian”?