Right-wing youth indoctrination outfit Turning Point USA (known to us as Trump-Jugend) has been paying teenagers sub-minimum wages to fill social media platforms with attacks on Democratic candidates and disinformation about coronavirus. Twitter and Facebook noticed and shut down the adolescents’ accounts last month. Yesterday, Facebook removed more “inauthentic accounts”and banned Rally Forge, the political marketing firm that helped Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk turn out the teen trolls. Rally Forge is owned by Arizona Republican official Jake Hoffman, who is also behind a phantom campaign called “Navajos for Trump.”
More:
“Facebook bans marketing firm running ‘troll farm’ for pro-Trump youth group,” Isaac Stanley-Becker, Washington Post
Astoundingly, “on-shoring,” one of Donald Trump’s political promises, is happening. His 2020 campaign’s troll farms have moved from Russia to Arizona. A branch of right-wing youth indoctrination outfit Turning Point USA (known to us as Trump-Jugend) has been paying teenagers sub-minimum wages to fill social media platforms with attacks on Democratic candidates and disinformation about coronavirus. Twitter and Facebook finally noticed and shut down the teen accounts this week.
Turning Point Action, an arm of the nominally-nonprofit Turning Point USA, contracted right-wing social media company Rally Forge (get it?) to coordinate the teen trolls’ spamming. Funding may have flowed through shadow political action groups Turning Point PAC and/or RallyPAC. Turning Point USA, Turning Point Action, and Students for Trump are all headed by Charlie Kirk. Rally Forge and RallyPAC are both run by Jake Hoffman. Turning Point Action and Rally Forge are also behind a phantom campaign called “Navajos for Trump.”
More:
“Pro-Trump youth group enlists teens in secretive campaign likened to a ‘troll farm,’ prompting rebuke by Facebook and Twitter,” Isaac Stanley-Becker, Washington Post
Related:
“Turning Point USA co-founder dies of coronavirus-related complications,” Daniel Lippman and Tina Nguyen, Politico
“Pro-Trump super PAC backed solely by bank executive used donations to fund Facebook conspiracy meme campaign,” Brian Schwartz, CNBC
“Push For Pizza sounds like something a stoned teenager would come up with while weighing the pros and cons of ordering food late at night: ‘I’m super hungry, but I don’t want to interact with people or decide between a bunch of options. If only there were another way…’”
— “Push For Pizza Is Yo For Food Delivery,” Kyle Russell, Techcrunch
Two teenage girls from Maine put an 8-week-old kitten in a microwave oven and turned it on. What next? They put the video on Twitter, of course. Talk about your mean girls ….
The kitten survived and was taken to an animal shelter. The 15-year-old girls, South Portland High School students, were charged with animal cruelty.
Kitten in a microwave! Where’d they get that horrible idea?
“Researchers from Germany and Sweden found that … entrepreneurs … have a tendency to display anti-social behavior as teenagers. There wasn’t a link between entrepreneurial tendencies and severe crimes, but those who later founded their own companies were more likely as teenagers to have been truant, ignored their parents’ rules, cheated and shoplifted minor items, compared with others in the sample.
A picture went on view in Geneva Thursday that is said to be by da Vinci, a portrait of young Lisa Gherardini. Leonardo painted her after her marriage to merchant Francesco del Giocondo, and that painting is known as La Gioconda, and also as the Mona Lisa.
The newly-revealed painting of the teen beauty is called the Isleworth Mona Lisa. Is it by Leonardo da Vinci? Is it an early painting of a young Lisa Gherardini? Opinions differ:
New evidence suggests that a 1789 painting by Ozias Humphry is a portrait of a 13-year-old Jane Austen. Using digital photo analysis, Stephen Cole of Acume Forensics discovered faint written inscriptions on the canvas identifying the budding author and the artist.
Wealthy lawyer Francis Austen had his portrait painted by Ozias Humphry, and young Miss Austen probably sat for the artist while visiting great uncle Francis in Kent. Perhaps she snuck away from her uncle’s house to hang out with other teens at the Sevenoaks Shopping Centre food court.
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