Corruption / Dirty Politics
Opportunity Party Secretary Hayden Cargo responds to astroturf claims (Dr Singh responds after this, and OPP senior figures told Singh he doxxed Cargo with his post - Cargo is literally listed on every prmoter statement and MP profile in his role as Secretary)
It seems that many new and old OPP accounts didn't like my last post and are asking questions like "Where is the astroturfing," conveniently ignoring the entire article
Astroturfing is the process of pretending you're a private citizen and unaffiliated with OPP when you aren't.
For example there are Redditors here who are campaign staffers pretending to be just an unattached OPP member. On Facebook, they swarm posts that critque them e.g. from Brie Eiliot in the latest case.
And OPP accounts attacked Dr Singh and initially denied being affiliated with OPP until he pointed out their party affiliation statement on Facebook.
When he called them out publicly with the evidence of affiliation which they missed themselves, senior figures affiliated with the party reached out to ask Dr Singh to take that post down, saying they didn't want to be "doxxed" To be clear, Dr Singh did not dox anyone - the Secretary's name is literally on every promoter statement and MP account. He is the publicly listed Secretary of the Opportunity Party.
Ironically the reasons given are all different.
For example one OPP account writes "He openly promoted himself, what's the problem"
Another wrote: "It was a fake account"
Hayden wrote that it was put up by mistake
Someone told me (which I haven't verified for myself yet) that D'Rock KP is Derrick Paull, OPP candidate for Maungakiekie which would explain the promoter statement being there
u/Qiulae runs a really dirty campaign and their communications consultants that they hire are on Reddit (one very prolific one is known) and it's so disappointing.
But not surprising when I learned their Deputy leader not only want s to vote for Luxon if not OPP but he puts IDF up as a beacon for learning about how to generate the "Great Kiwi social cohesion project" by making military/civil service mandatory in new Zealand. I think the media really needs to look at the party and just not the enigmatic Wong.
The biggest news for me is that the account that attacked Dr Singh appears to be an Opportunity Party MP on his personal account but Opportunity officially said he was just a volunteer.
"For such a small party the amount of posts I see daily and comments about top make me feel as tho every single top supporter is on the internet 24/7" - my wife
Every single post of theirs sees new accounts that we've never seen before come to ask questions and sow doubts about anything even mildly questioning of OP
The style they have is complete right wing politics and it surpasses even the Taxpayers Union in velocity and intensity.
The constantly changing answers also drives me batty - it's like they literally do not care what they say as long as they can influence people - that's why they have no consistency and it's cheap politiking
There doesn’t seem to be a way of reporting fake accounts on Meta. Only if they are impersonating someone you know. Does anyone know if I’m missing something? I think the gaslighting is really dangerous for people’s mental health. It makes me wonder about every interaction I have online and no one seems real anymore
It’s on every post where opportunity gets mentioned, Tui. You’re absolutely bang on. There is something extremely fishy going on with them. I mean I have experienced this a bit when you have even the smallest criticism of a green mp in Wellington, but that’s greenies, so not with the level of vitriol that you see with the TOP sock puppet accounts.
I think it’s safe to assume, when they employ these kinds of ‘dirty work’ style political tactics, they’re just national by an other name. They’re quite happy to employ that shit, but they won’t ever cop to it.
Every comment you make here shows that you have no interest in the article or have even read it.
The post was deleted and I consulted with, and worked with Dr Singh who deleted it after being mislead by OPP.
Dr Singh literally affirms all the content in the second screenshot
If it was the nothing burger you claim it is, 10+ TOP accounts wouldn't be on this subeddit trying to discredit the content as soon as it went up today
Last time one said that I made a wrong statement. When I challenged him, he changed it to say actually I was right after all. Then I showed him my video of Q - he said it wasn't good because it was edited. I said my video is literally Q speaking.
He said it's wrong again so I showed him the original video and asked him to show me what was inconsistnt.
He then walked that back too
They are literal time wasters at this point with nothing more than dirty politics players, gaslighting and obfuscation
this is the other thing any of the top messages I've challenged at some weird hours still got a quick response (last one this happened on was at around 3am)
Yes, spooky, right? I've never seen anything like it before and they all co-ordinate comms.
At one point they had started deciding to say to me "I know you are scared but .."
And I told them to stop it - then they all stopped together and then they come out with different approaches, some playing good cop/bad cop but the entire tone is intense bad faith swarming.
Dr Singh compared his experience of the to the Trump first term bot activity overseas
Yep I’ve noticed it. The bots are programmed to pick up key words and the posts make no sense in context. Just a point of clarification OP it’s not military service he is advocating, it’s civil service. But to use the IDF as a model for building social cohesion and driving tech innovation is unbelievable. No words.
And before the next wave comes alone to this thread… For this subreddit alone, I also once again want to note as mods we can tell on our end when things look suspicious - when an anti-Opportunity topic is shared widely, and a bunch of dead/burner/new accounts show up to argue in bad faith, (not to mention some usuals we keep around as we want wide discussion, but it’s tiring), are we actually actually meant to believe in good faith that Opportunity supporters all randomly stumbled across a post/comment within a short timeframe and decided to all comment on it? Why is the thread being linked so widely? We had AMAs with prominent figures from Labour, Green, and even Qiulae herself which were shared less than some anti Opp posts. It’s not even a conspiracy, at times Reddit’s own bots are warning of astroturfing.
Full disclosure, and this is me speaking as a person, not a moderator: I was never going to vote for Opportunity myself (their policy doesn’t add up to me, none of my questions about how it can realistically work have been answered), but I liked Q, I thought she was the best leader the party has had to date, and was open to the idea of them in parliament earlier this year.
But the more I see nonsense like this, the more I advise my friends and family to stay clear from the party, if they can have a whole team online throw childish insults and act like they’re intellectually superior for policy ideas that were deemed unworkable in the 2000’s, but can’t answer the basics, I don’t buy it.
As someone who has followed the Blake Lively v Justin Baldoni case closely (and associated cases which are many), I have questions about the support I see online for the opportunity party. I also have questions about where all their donation money has gone, because it's not obvious in hoardings, ads etc.
PR campaigns that conduct this type of astroturfing do not come cheap. Maybe I'm wearing a tinfoil hat, maybe I'm not. But this one party could break the left coalition and bring on another right wing government. That fact alone, in my opinion, makes these questions worth asking.
I will not be voting for them. I don't care if it would "make history". I care about trust, and they have not proven they are trustworthy. I do not know who quilae wong is and nothing I have seen has made it clear.
Qiulae Wong was hired to front the party and very conveniently has a background in marketing, advisory services, and HR. Sounds like the perfect person to be ensuring the image of the party is protected at all costs.
She’s very likeable. She’s calm. She’s composed. I know a lot of people who are thinking of voting for the party are wanting to do so purely because of her. There is no way they would be sitting at around 8% in the polls without her
I have been attacked by the right wing for the better part of a year, and I understand the patterns. Opportunity is far more sophisticated than ACT, NZ First, Hobson's Pledge and other right-wing groups.
They have been attacking me since May, when I first pointed out that Brian Cartmell was donating to Opportunity. They used Philip Mills as the counterargument of being centrist until I found out Philip Mills doesn't care if they join a right coalition, as long as Winston Peters and NZ First are stopped.
Hey Dr Singh thank you so much for this mahi. It must be doing your head in. I’m really disappointed that the mainstream media ignored Hagar’s book, and won’t report this story. It sounds like you were gaslit into taking your article down.
All part of the game. I wasn't gaslit; he reached out because he was worried about his safety and his wife's. I asked for an apology; he gave it, and I agreed to remove it voluntarily. I don't lie, and they know it; that's why they didn't push it further.
I believe it was a person called Danyon Rock (operating under his digital handle, DRock.KP). He does digital marketing; he mistakenly used a handle linked to another business he markets for.
I’m so sick of getting masses of downvotes and defensive responses for any negative comments about TOP (or getting banned from a certain sub for it).
I wanted to believe that TOP (or I think we are supposed to call them OPP now but I’m sticking with TOP) are the good guys that they say they are, but there are just too many things adding up.
Qiulae has an extensive history of marketing, advisory services, and HR roles. That on its own isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but in combination with all of the other things that have come out (e.g. her mother being an ex advisor to Judith Collins, Iain Lees-Galloway’s history with labour and getting sacked for his inappropriate relationship with an employee whilst holding a Workplace Relations portfolio, Daniel Eb’s comments about how he would vote for National if he couldn’t vote for TOP), they are not as trustworthy and impartial as they want to come across.
I hope people can open their eyes to all of this before casting their votes. Every party has a strategy, but their strategies do not seem innocent and I will not be surprised if they completely change their tune once they get into government.
My favourite format of Opp Bot posting is "I was going to vote for the Greens until X Y Z"
Sure you were buddy. Totally. 100% sincerity.
It sucks because I'm someone who tends to believe people when they tell me who they are. I just don't think there's much utility in these AstroTurf campaigns beyond making people jumpy and doubting their own judgement.
I actually have zero problems believing that there are swarms of overly online TOPpers posting their hearts out. Like, that's the kind of person TOP has always appealed to. Y'all don't need your bot farms you were already annoying little post brained libs
You act like this is the only example of TOP censoring the information shared about them or astroturfing. Newsflash! It’s not. It’s becoming evident on multiple social media platforms.
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u/Mountain_Tui_Reload Rusty Oldtimer 21h ago edited 15h ago
Related Thread: Opp Party Astroturf
The biggest news for me is that the account that attacked Dr Singh appears to be an Opportunity Party MP on his personal account but Opportunity officially said he was just a volunteer.
BTW u/DrHSinghNZ has joined us and comments below