1. Bot-based propaganda wars
Donald Trump has been accumulating new Followers at the rate of 100k a week for a number of weeks now. The interesting factoid is how many of them appear to be bots.
Trump: 400K new "followers" over the last few days.
The bots are lined up and ready to go, folks.
Be prepared.#MuellerMonday #TrumpRussia pic.twitter.com/pzneBKGvEQ— Steve Marmel (@Marmel) October 30, 2017
2. DisInfoCon
Somebody at that conference summarized the fundamental issue with the internet quite well:
A challenge for the disinformation age, via Mozilla’s Mark Surman #misinfocon pic.twitter.com/cPg3aROJzx
— Mike Hind (@MikeH_PR) October 25, 2017
3. The NFL defense against collusion over Colin Kaepernick
Unless a “smoking gun” piece of evidence is uncovered that proves collusion between two or more teams to deny Colin Kaepernick a job, the arguments for collusion are going to turn on circumstantial evidence.
A lawyer representing a defendant will almost always tell the defendant to stop talking about the case in public. This is in order to avoid any communication that prejudices the defense.
Unfortunately, the NFL, being a loose collection of 32 business owners, many of whom have large egos and an approach to publicity that often revolves around self-promotion and promotion of their teams, is not currently doing a very good job of stopping owners from talking about issues related to the Kaepernick grievance.
When a team owner like Bob McNair complains about “the inmates running the prison” in reference to player rights under the CBA, he s playing right into the hands of Colin Kaepernick’s lawyers.
Remember that Kaepernick and his lawyers are not just trying to win a grievance hearing. They are trying to win in the court of public opinion (since the grievance evidence may by itself be insufficient). Team owners shooting off comments that are racially insensitive at best, and at worst can be interpreted as downright racist, are slowly building an image of the NFL as an organization full of privileged white owners who are determined to get their way most of the time, and who think that the players should STFU and just do as they are told.
This is not good from a defense standpoint, and it is even worse from a PR standpoint. The NFL’s approach to this whole issue is starting to look like a case study in how not to manage PR.
