Talk about head-scratchin’ mystery. After his prankster status gets called out, suddenly Senate candidate Jay Stamper has surged in Facebook popularity, with his “Jay Stamper for Senate” page growing from about 3,000 “likes” to over 10,000 in just the last week of May. That must mean the convicted felon has recently worked behind the scenes to drum up a lot of support from South Carolina voters, right?
Wrong. It’s just another last-minute prank by Stamper to make his campaign appear legit. And one that might shoot itself in its own foot, too.
Check out the stats from that Facebook page. On May 25, it had 3,248 likes. That number began growing by leaps and bounds over the next few days, reaching 10,428 by May 30.
When you examine those stats demographically, though, you’ll see that only 3,236 of those likes came from folks in the United States. Where did the rest come from? The far-off, Middle Eastern country of Turkey, that’s where (7,150 of his current count, to be precise). In fact, he has more likes from the one city of Istanbul than from the entire state of South Carolina.
How did he achieve that misleading high count? Easily. There are online “services” that trade likes amongst users of Facebook and other social media, such as
like4like.org and
givemelikes.com. You sign up to swap “likes” and “follows” with other site users through these automated services, and your numbers soar in just a few days. Stamper’s apparently used this same trick on his primary Twitter account, which also now lists over 10,000 followers.
But there are problems with these practices, though, as Stamper is finding out right now. For example, the U.S. has less than 10 percent of all Internet users worldwide; those “like” services, then, will only generate obviously foreign followers. While no discrimination against a nationality is intended, a dominance of “fan” names in Turkish script doesn’t exactly give voters any interest in an American politician.
Moreover, it leaves a campaign subject to identification with others who use such services for the same questionable reasons. Check out his many Twitter accounts, for example (which include jay_stamper, GunSenseSC, ACAProud, Defeat_Lindsey, SCProgress, and Elect_Stamper). Not only will you find many of the same foreigner-follower status, and not just with accounts using the “follow4follow” and “followpyramid” hashtags – you will also find porn accounts. They even bear questionable photos of those account holders. (Warning: a quick scan of the “followers” will leave a leave a viewer subject to images of topless women, pants-less men, and couples in the act. I would never include any of such images on this site, of course, but have saved screenshots to verify my statements, in case Stamper deletes those follows/followers and then attempts to deny this fact.)
You might think that Stamper would have learned about the risks of these pranks by now. He was called out by media in 2003 for his stunt of purchasing website domains using politicians’ names, then having those sites forward to questionable sites, and then demanding ransom for those domains through Ebay. In 2007 he was convicted on three felony charges for his illegal “investment” firm. In 2009 national media questioned him about his PersonRatings.com scam, which allowed folks to anonymously spread Internet rumors about others without any verifying sources and without any recourse.
But he’s still at it now? And in therespectful, Southern-grace state of South Carolina? If he’s going to keep us these antics, maybe Jay Stamper should try them somewhere else. Like the location where he’s getting all those “likes” from, maybe.
Here are few images of Stamper's many Twitter accounts, showing exactly who make up his recent surge in likes/follows:
Also see:
Fake Democrats and Funky Elections in the 'Insane Asylum' of South Carolina
Pseudo-Democrat got pulled from the Tea Party closet
South Carolina Democratic Party endorses one candidate, rejects another