How many Twitter personalities are actually bots? Apparently, a great number. Many, pretending to be human beings, presumptively Americans, are in fact bots created in Iran, China, Russia, or some other likely-hostile country.
The same is true, I think, of mobs. Demonstrators can be turned out for many left-wing causes: today, it’s “Palestine.” Yesterday, it was “No Kings.” The day before, Black Lives Matter. To what extent are these protesters, sometimes violent, the same people? And to what extent are they being paid to protest?
I think they are, in fact, largely the same people. In the summer of 2021, my organization did an anti-Critical Race Theory tour of the state of Minnesota. We had protesters and bomb threats, and at one or two venues arrests were made. So we had armed security at all of those events after the first two. Toward the end of that tour, we did an event in Duluth that drew left-wing protesters, waving signs, chanting, etc. (It was a bit surreal, as the nearly all-white demonstrators accused one of our speakers, a black woman, of being a racist.)
Off-duty Duluth police officers provided security. At one point, one of them told me that they knew the protesters. These are the same people who protested against the pipeline, he said. And, he said, they are being paid. Just watch: at the top of the hour, they will all take their signs and leave. Sure enough, they did.
So, how about television audiences? Bill Maher has a show on HBO that is supposed to be popular. It is filmed before a live audience that responds enthusiastically to Bill’s jokes. But at least one audience member says they are paid to be there:
The same people, week after week, getting $70 plus the thrill of being in a TV audience. If you ask Google’s AI whether Bill Maher’s studio audience is paid, it says:
Yes, Bill Maher’s audience is a paid audience. Specifically, the audience members are paid around $70 for their participation. The company that provides the audience is called Standing Room Only.
That is what the person in the video embedded above says. Standing Room Only does exist; this is its web site. One of the things that company does, per its web site, is supply audiences for television shows. And it seems that Bill Maher’s show is one of them:
So the account by the Maher audience member seems credible.
The moral of the story is, things are not always as they seem. The dozens of negative comments on conservative Twitter posts may be coming from bots, created by America’s enemies. The “spontaneous” crowd of left-wing protesters may be working by the hour for some shadowy group, perhaps a foreign government. And those cheering crowd members at a live taping of a television show may be paid to be there, and judged on how enthusiastically they cheer.
It is a sad thing to always view one’s surroundings with skepticism, but unfortunately, in today’s world it is necessary.
