Are your blog's visitors coming with additional political spam?

Cartoon from Puzzlehead

Speaking with a fellow blogger this week he complained that his blog is receiving double the amount of spam it usually receives and all of this increase is anti-carbon tax propaganda and right-wing abuse. North Coast Voices also noticed a similar spike, along with a sudden rash of adult content.

Could this be the answer?

The Age 16 October 2011:

AS OPINION polls reveal Labor's worst results on record, largely on the back of plummeting support for the Gillard government's decision to put a price on carbon, ''grassroots'' anti-carbon tax websites have mushroomed.

But what appears to be a proliferation of community-based, anti-government activism sites is not necessarily what it seems. Several sites are part of an orchestrated political campaign by Liberal senator Cory Bernardi and conservative organisations he is linked with.

Using American Tea Party-style tactics, Bernardi has built a network of ''grassroots'' political websites that promote limited government, lower taxes, free enterprise and ''traditional'' values - as well as a campaign against the government and its policies, most potently against the carbon tax.

Bernardi is chairman of the Conservative Leadership Foundation, which has set up at least six websites, including the Conservative Action Network under the name CANdo.org.au and stopgillardscarbontax.com.

While membership is free, the sites do ask for donations. In most cases, it is only when attempting to pay that subscribers can discover who the backer is. The websites do not declare that the South Australian senator is behind them, and the majority do not reveal that the money raised goes to either the Conservative Leadership Foundation or its think tank Menzies House, which was co-founded by Bernardi.

Rumour on the NSW North Coast is that many of these winged monkeys and spammers are actually being paid by the Bernardi propaganda machine.