Did Some Web Designer Troll Rick Santorum? 4chan's Moot Pictured On Santorum's Website

from the hilarious dept

This one is just funny. First noticed by folks on Reddit, former Presidential candidate Rick Santorum -- perhaps most well known among internet kids for the Google bombing of his name to associate it with... something unpleasant -- apparently has a picture of Chris Poole, better known as moot, the creator of the web's most popular home for internet trolls, 4chan (and yes, there's much more at 4chan, but... ). The folks over at Betabeat investigated and confirmed that a web design firm built the site, though it's unclear if moot's picture was the work of a sneaky, trolling web designer... or just an attempt to find "regular-looking" people to populate Santorum's site.

Patriot Voices used the startup Nation Builder, a web tool kit for community organizers, as a platform for the site. A representative for Nation Builder told Betabeat that the site was designed by an outside designer at the Pittsburgh-based political consulting and advertising firm Brabender Cox.

Dubbed “the premier Republican spin doctors,” Brabender Cox has a longstanding history of working to promote Republican candidates. In addition to doing work for Mr. Santorum, they’ve also created viral videos and advertising content for politicians like Republican Senator Tom Coburn and Republican Mayor of Indiana Greg Ballard.

Betabeat reached out to the organization but hasn't heard back yet.

Oh, and if you're wondering, it seems likely that the use of the work is copyright infringement. It was pulled from Poole's Wikipedia page, and the image is Creative Commons licensed, but part of that license is that attribution is required. There doesn't seem to be any such attribution. Oops.

Filed Under: chris poole, moot, pictures, rick santorum, trolls