Some people still seem confused about why I believe that Dan Wolfe (middle aged arch conservative who hates Anthony Weiner!) and Nikki Reid (high school student who loves Anthony Weiner!) are the same person. This has never been particularly confusing to me because both — and actually all the sock puppets involved in the story — are after exactly the same thing: information.
This is crucial to understand. The person behind the sock puppets is trading information, specifically information about the former congressman and his love life. The different personas make it much easier to gather information. Gennette Cordova wasn’t opening up to Dan Wolfe but maybe she would talk to Nikki Reid.
But gathering information is only part of what these characters have been doing. The significant and often repeated tactic of all of them – PatriotUSA76, JohnReid9, NikkiReid, MarianelaAlicea and others — is to also quietly spread information behind the scenes. And another clear tactic is to get other real people to help spread this information to the outside world.
Want to know why the Puppet Mistress hasn’t gone away? She’s still playing the information game.
Dan Wolfe and John Reid seem to be the main characters who use this technique. They have been having private conversations, sending e-mails and going out of their way to contact literally dozens of people, all of whom are being used by the Puppet Mistress to post information about Congressman Weiner. Wolfe and Reid have befriended people on the left and right. They befriended people who are bloggers, journalists and just plain bystanders. All of them are being used and manipulated by the person behind Wolfe, Reid and the other characters.
This is exactly how journalist Tommy Christopher got burned — and he actually took precautions to try to make sure he was talking to real people. Most of the people having these clandestine conversations with Wolfe, Reid and the other characters are exchanging information with someone who doesn’t really exist.
Some of the real people are having conversations with these sock puppets would argue that in many cases the puppet has good information.
Well, yes of course — information that they got from other people. That’s the game; you get information from one person and then share it with others behind the scenes.
A simple example of the recent information dumps by John Reid. Much of the “good information” is nothing more than transcripts of conversations that Nikki Reid had with Gennette Cordova. Interestingly, the value of this information only exist because Cordova chose to keep that information private herself. In other words, she created the scarcity. Ironic, no?
But this "information” isn’t actually very useful on its own. It’s used as an entry ticket; a way for these fake personas to get in the good graces of real people…people that will in turn be used to gather other tidbits that will then be passed on behind the scenes to other people.
This clandestine information give-and-take is done with no concern whatsoever for the negative affect that may have on the real people involved. Take PatriotUSA76’s technique of using Mike Stack to Tweet information. Rather than Patriot putting out information himself, he would have Mike Tweet something and then Patriot would often re-Tweet it. This has created a historical narrative that has had grave consequences for Mike Stack. And this is not the only case of a major breakthrough in the story being transmitted from The Puppet Mistress to another person, who in turn put that information out without mentioning that the source was Patriot/Reid.
Anyone communicating behind the scenes with any of these puppets should seriously reconsider the value of what they are doing. Your conversations are the fuel that Patriot / Reid and other characters need to operate. If these information sources are cut off, I think we’ll all find that suddenly these characters have absolutely nothing of value to say.
I don’t exist, but I do make it a habit to gather information from certain places on the internet and share it in other places on the internet. I am not alone in these practices. Last time I checked I was not being controlled by a puppet master.
Keep in mind, Lee, that there could also be several people working in unison, which I think is much more likely, especially given the devotion in time that this effort would have taken.
When JG says she is not Nikki Reid, she may technically be correct. Diffenet people could have been assigned different sockpuppets.
So lee,
Do you think the sock puppets motive was getting rid of Weiner, or blackmail?
I think the person behind this has a personal obsession.
Kaffir — there’s no reason to believe there are several people, at least not at this point. Everything is pointing to one person.
Given that it does appear to be a woman, that’s also a logical conclusion. But why go to such lengths to hide an obsession? Something stinks of criminal activity.
Given all the recent death threats, just be careful. I’m not saying give up. Just be careful.
What I find interesting is how everyone in the new media and old media have the same attitude. Preston tells Lee to stay out of the story and then Lee tells everyone else to stay out of the story.
The Puppet Mistress hasn’t gone away because no one has definitively linked the Puppet Mistress to this whole sham. When they/you do she isn’t going to go away then either. She’ll find another venue to do her thing. You can’t really just expose someone on the internet and then think they’ll go away. Proxy servers give trolls infinite lives.
Who is getting burned exactly the same way as Christopher? Who else has gotten ID’s from the Reid family, then turned around and published all information about them as fact?
The trouble is Lee, is that the new media approach to figuring these stories out involves everyone who’s willing to participate. They all act on their own interests and out of their own curiosities. I guess what I’m getting at is it sounds like you’re trying to heard cats.
Where did I tell anyone to stay out of the story?