Spammy “investor ads” accompany pot push in South Dakota

Pat Powers

This probably should not come as a shock. But, spammy ads are already popping up in relation to the push to legalize pot in the state. Had a note from a reader this AM:

Good morning Pat,

I though you would want to see what popped up on my Yahoo feed this morning. You posted an article on 9-16 about the big money coming in to help with the petition push, and I think this Yahoo.com fake news post is part of this big money push. Keep in mind that I am in Missouri, and while I keep up on SD news, this isn’t being generated because of my IP address.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/m/c3f99a2b-b3a7-3e0f-8bcd-c9fd9bde657b/marijuana-legalization%3A-south.html This is just on the front page of my Yahoo.com news feed.

Once you click on the link it takes you to the actual propaganda which is located: Marijuana Legalization: South Dakota Does What Trump Said!

I thought this would be of interest to you and possibly to your readers. I also attached a screen shot of my yahoo.com feed. Keep up the good work, I have been reading your site since it’s inception. I appreciate all that you do with the war college. It helps me stay connected to SD politics.

Thank you,

And his yahoo feed absolutely had the above ad, which leads people to a spammy market investor site encouraging people to invest in pot. Wow.

What do you think?

10 thoughts on “Spammy “investor ads” accompany pot push in South Dakota”

  2. What do I think? I think neither of you have any understanding of how retargeting ads work. Your location is just a small part of it and it generally relies on search criteria or browsing history. This is nothing new for either party using out of state money to push proposals. The last ones I was bombarded with were Marcy’s law and that was pushed by out of state money and in state Republicans.

    1. Another thing, these ads could be completely unrelated to those pushing for the passage of Marijuana. In fact, I bet this ad has nothing to do with them and it is just a 3rd party doing good as work to find the demographic who may invest. If I am trying to find investors in women’s clothing, I don’t want my adds listed on menshealth.com. This isn’t rocket science and there is no conspiracy behind it. This is how targeted marketing works. Trying to create a correlation makes you both look ignorant.

    2. Hi Anon;

      Thanks for enlightening me on how the Internet works.

      In terms of of information systems software works, there are many ways to exploit it. That’s why FaceBook, Amazon, Google, and Apple are all in the news lately. Despite how they are advertised or supposed to work, exploit vectors allow the implemented algorithms to be gamed sometimes pleasing our electronic overlords as with the censorship of Alex Jones, sometime angering them as was the case with Donald Trump, whose team masterfully employed targeted ads to help win the election (although rallies with hundreds of thousands of attendees didn’t hurt).

      There are a hundred ways to do these types of ads dishonestly including misleading content, having insiders helping get around censorship, boosting ads beyond the paid limitations, and limiting or boosting targeting of most impressionable/important/applicable ad recipients.

      In this case, we have a misleading ad that does not mention CC4L, which is the pro-gun, pro-family initiative, while boosting the two SD initiatives that are not pro-gun, pro-family. In addition, I suspect the reach of these ads, run on behalf of South Dakota Democratic Party adjuncts, is being boosted by the thousands of pro-democratic operatives within FaceBook, Google, and other third party advertising affiliates.

      When South Dakota legalizes, it should be in keeping conservative constitutional principles. This vision runs agains the grain of other states that have over taxed cannabis, created sprawling government and law enforcement management programs, and limited the means of production and distribution while providing cover for the cannabis/coke/meth/etc black market.

      If nothing else, I’ll reiterate these ads and publications from in-state media outlets have told an outright lie that there are only two in state initiatives. This is not disputable.

      Ask me why.

      1. The NRA bought ads with Russian money as well. Does that mean we can apply your same logic to that as well? You are throwing crap at the wall at this point unless you can provide more data that Democrats have anything to do with that as. As I said, there are many 3rd parties that are completely unrelated who could be doing the ads for other motives.

        1. “The NRA bought ads with Russian money as well”

          How is this equivocal?

          Was this proven via some due process?

          Were there verifiable omissions or provable falsehoods advertised by the NRA?

          1. Who needs proof? You didn’t when you “suspected” this was being pushed by democratic operatives. Can’t I do the same? (Also, it was proven that Russian money landed at the NRA. The NRA put out proTrump ads so I actually have more proof on that than you do on this)

  3. Anon;

    I’ll keep conversing with you if you sign your name to your posts (that’s only fair).

    I’ve been involved the SD cannabis legalization space for about 5 years now.

    Would you be willing to place a wager on whether or not New Approach South Dakota has support of mostly SDDP supporters? 🙂

    I departed from their group when the leadership leveled veiled threats toward me for wanting a more libertarian/conservative approach to legalization.

    I splintered and formed CC4L:
    https://PlainsTribune.com/cc4l

    Sincerely,

    John Dale

    1. I can’t sign my name because my posts will be removed. Pat censors dissenters and in a way to make him look good. I am a moderate republican. I find Trump and his supporters despicable. Many in my generation who follow republican principles do as well. In my circle it’s about 80-20 Repub to Dem. Everyone supports legalization that I am around. The rest of my family are all die hard Catholic Republicans. They have been anti-drug for as long as I can remember. My mother now brings cbd oil back from legal states for 3 relatives and she drives her friends to pick up legal marijuana for their dying spouses. Everyone in my family supports legalization. I know this is anecdotal, but a majority of the anti legalization crowd are grey hairs and I was pretty amazed to see my own elders change their tune after watching their friends die. For people under the age of 35, it is highly slanted in favor of legalization. It’s only a matter of time, even here in SD.

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