Is #Brexit Do-Over Petition the greatest internet troll ever?

Is #Brexit Do-Over Petition the greatest internet troll ever?

Our 4th most read post in 2015 was Kemberlee’s now classic Feminists Fall For #PissForEquality Hoax in which 4Chan users trolled feminists to get them to pee their pants for equality.

If reports are accurate, 4Chan users may have outdone themselves with regard to the Brexit ReDo Petition to the UK Parliament, which now shows over 3.5 million signatures.

The sharp run up of signatures fit perfectly with the instant mainstream media and political view — that the passage of a referendum for the UK to exit the European Union was just a lark, a mistake, something the British people done when drunk.

But is it as it seems?

First off, the Petition was started months ago by a Brexit supporter, as Sky News reports, Second Referendum Petition Was Set Up By Outer:

The petition for a second referendum on EU membership, which has now topped three million supporters, was set up by a leave campaigner a month ago when he thought his side would lose.

Oliver Healey has disclosed that because there was “no guarantee of a leave victory at that time” he set up the petition “with the intention of making it harder for ‘remain’ to further shackle us to the EU”.

In a Facebook post, the English Democrats member said he felt it was time to “clarify my position on the issue even if it looks bad” and stressed that the remain side had “hijacked” the petition on the government website.

Here’s his Facebook post about it:

If that were all there was, it would be a historical quirk, but nothing more.

But the more important question is how did the Petition run up those numbers so quickly, were the signatures for real, and were the signatories eligible to “vote” in the Petition?

There is serious concern that there has been manipulation. The Guardian reports, Petition for second EU referendum may have been manipulated

However, the petition’s data showed signatories from countries around the world, including Iceland, the Cayman Islands and Tunisia, and in some cases there are more signatures than total population.

Despite Vatican City, a tiny city state, having a total population of just 800, over 39,000 residents of Vatican City appeared to have signed the petition….

The website’s only identity “test” is a simple checkbox asking to confirm you are either a British citizen or that you are a resident of the UK. While postcodes are required, street addresses are not and no proof of ID is needed.

People from different countries have been tweeting that they signed the petition. Mark Mennell, who is Australian and used to live in the UK, used his old postcode to sign. He said: “Anyone in the world can do it, it seems … It’s a complete farce.” ….

Meanwhile, some UK residents have been tweeting to encourage followers from other countries to use their postcodes in order to let them add their names to the list.

The Telegraph adds:

In isolationist North Korea, one of the least internet-connected countries in the world, 23,778 people had apparently gone online to express their frustration at the UK’s decision to quit the EU.

Located 800 miles south east of the Falklands, and with a permanent population of zero, the South Atlantic British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the Sandwich Islands was responsible for more than 3,000 signatures

That was some 300 more than those coming from the British Antarctic Territory, which though home to some 400 researchers also has no settled population of its own.

Signatories are also recorded in places as far flung as the Caribbean island of Aruba (101), Bermuda (564), China (432), Hong Kong (2,089), Japan (742) Venezuela (24) and the South Pacific Islands of Tuvalu (18), Wallis and Fortuna (8) and Vanuatu (31).

Overall, close to 2.5 million signatures had been added from within the UK by midday on Sunday, making up an overwhelming proportion of the whole.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKD4LdsRdUM&feature=youtu.be

This YouTube video purports to show a fraudulent sign up, and how easy it is:

The parliamentary office that runs such petitions has started removing names, but denies the site was hacked:

We have removed about 77,000 signatures which were added fraudulently. We will continue to monitor for suspicious activity.

— Petitions Committee (@HoCpetitions) June 26, 2016

Read a statement from our Chair on the second referendum petition. pic.twitter.com/TzrtQXTwTE

— Petitions Committee (@HoCpetitions) June 26, 2016

The petitions website has not been hacked. Fraudulent signatures have been and will continue to be removed, to ensure the site’s integrity.

— Petitions Committee (@HoCpetitions) June 26, 2016

Assuming there was such fraud, did it just happen?

According to Heat Street, this was another 4Chan operation:

The 4 Chan Bots represent the ultimate failure of the Remainstream Media.

The BBC’s desperate shilling for Remain will come under increasing scrutiny as we exclusively reveal that the supposed ‘popular petition’ for a second referendum – wholly illegal and unworkable, and unprecedented in British history – is a prank by notorious sh*tposters 4 Chan.

The BBC, the UK’s national broadcaster, gleefully reported, as real, with no basic journalistic checks, an online petition that appeared to be growing at a colossal rate. By 1:30 pm, it was one of the fastest-growing petitions in history.

So fast, in fact, that somebody should have checked for bots and scripts. The BBC is failing totally in its Charter Duty to perform basic journalistic research. Here is the actual script:

Heat Street can exclusively bring our readers the proof that the spamming of the petition is a magnificent 4Chan prank that the Chads and Stacys of the BBC and liberal media swallowed whole.  Heat Street does the basic journalistic work that the BBC failed to do….

Heat Street then goes on to detail other proof that this is a 4Chan troll job.

I don’t feel qualified to assess that evidence. Perhaps readers can help with that in the comment section.

But if the massive run-up of signatures, creating a media firestorm and narrative, is the work of 4Chan or other trolls and spammers, it would make the #PissForEquality Hoax seem … well, so small time.

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