Hillary PAC spending $1m to ‘forcefully correct’ social media trolls
A pro-Hillary Clinton Super Pac is spending serious money to tackle negative Clinton comments across social media.
Describing its focus as being “to defend Hillary Clinton from baseless attacks,” Correct the Record is launching a digital taskforce and investing over $1million to “push back on online harassment.”
“Correct The Record will invest more than $1 million into Barrier Breakers 2016 activities, including the more than tripling of its digital operation to engage in online messaging both for Secretary Clinton and to push back against attackers on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram,” said the PAC in a statement released Thursday.
The statement says “lessons learned from online engagement with ‘Berni Bros’ during the Democratic Primary will be applied to the rest of the primary season and general election – responding quickly and forcefully to negative attacks and false narratives.”
The PAC also says it will be “pushing out information to Sanders supporters” to encourage them to support Clinton.
Super PACs aren’t normally allowed to coordinate with candidates, but FEC loopholes mean Correct the Record can – a move discovered by the Sunlight Foundation's Libby Watson.
“The whole reasoning behind (Supreme Court decision) Citizens United rests on (PACs) being independent, but Correct the Record claims it can coordinate,” Watson told The Daily Beast.
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“It’s not totally clear what their reasoning is, but it seems to be that material posted on the Internet for free – like, blogs – doesn’t count as an ‘independent expenditure’.”
