Reddit | byu/Soarel25 – The WordPress website for fine artist Rob Scholte’s art museum doubles as an unhinged conspiracy blog: What’s going on?
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The WordPress website for fine artist Rob Scholte’s art museum doubles as an unhinged conspiracy blog: What’s going on?
Internet Oddity
The WordPress website for fine artist Rob Scholte’s art museum doubles as an unhinged conspiracy blog – what’s going on?
For some reason, the official website Dutch fine artist Rob Scholte’s art museum (built on WordPress software) doubles as an unhinged conspiracy blog.
The site’s “admin” (Scholte himself? I have no idea) posts all of the crazy shit.
https://robscholtemuseum.nl/author/admin/
Here’s Scholte’s Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Scholte.
And confirmation that this is the legit website of a legit museum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeuFv073fY
https://nltimes.nl/2018/03/28/artist-asks-prime-minister-save-den-helder-museum
https://robscholtemuseum.nl/contact/
It’s possible that some sort of spambot may be attached to the site and whoever owns it hasn’t noticed. The main reason I think this is because all the conspiracy articles are in English, and some appear to be copy pasted from other sites, while all the articles to do with the actual artist and his museum are in Dutch. However the same “admin” account posts both the conspiracy articles and the regular ones.
Reddit, November 10 2020, 07:43
Reacties
MutedMessage8
I think the website has been hacked and he most likely hasn’t realised yet. Those articles are extremely bizarre.
Soarel25
That’s definitely possible.
RetiredDildo
If you go into his Twitter you will find in the middle of normal museum announcements conspiracy theories, so this is more than a website hack (also he has found this thread https://twitter.com/RSMuseum/status/1326778757286391815 and has posted it on the site https://robscholtemuseum.nl/reddit-byu-soarel25-the-wordpress-website-for-fine-artist-rob-scholtes-art-museum-doubles-as-an-unhinged-conspiracy-blog-whats-going-on/).
And yeah you’re right, most of the articles are copy and pasted from other websites. Maybe this is one of Scholte’s projects? Still, it doesn’t explain why do some of those posts have comments from users supporting these claims. Also, the site has recently posted an open letter and an explanation for it (all today) and it has lots of comments (the open letter has 101, and remember, it was only posted today). Well, I’m going to keep investigating and if I find something important I’ll edit this comment.
Soarel25
This seems to confirm several things.
(1) The process of mirroring the conspiracy articles from other websites (all the conspiracy articles originate from other sites) seems to be automated.
(2)The mirroring process is almost definitely searching for keywords. One of them seems to be “Rob Scholte”, hence why my post got mirrored, but why conspiracy articles specifically keep getting mirrored, I have no idea. Is there some keyword the bot is looking for that coincidentally appears almost exclusively on conspiracy sites? Did a conspiracy obsessed hacker crack into the bot?
I think the Twitter account is just sharing whatever is first posted on the site. However, it may have been hacked directly as well – it follows a whopping 31 thousand people at the time of writing this and among them are a number of both conspiracy accounts and anti establishment (both left and right) political accounts (just from going through the most recently followed hundred or so accounts), some in Dutch and some in English.
https://twitter.com/rwiersma70
https://twitter.com/EvertvanVliet
https://twitter.com/Humph_T
https://twitter.com/Blackboxtrends
https://twitter.com/LolaaPaloozaa
https://twitter.com/L3onIam
https://twitter.com/DutchCryptoEnt
https://twitter.com/LeeCamp
https://twitter.com/IrmaSchiffers
https://twitter.com/RReek4
https://twitter.com/goort1409
https://twitter.com/VerumBellator1
https://twitter.com/LeoCast999
The rest appear to be completely random people. It’s highly likely that the Twitter account’s follows are also automated. All of your explanations about bots and hacks of this site, is an conspiracy!!
All the posts are from Rob Scholte Museum.
I don’t think you see the issue. Why would the Rob Scholte Museum have a bot on it’s site that reposts conspiracy articles?
You make an issue what dont exist. There is no Bot, posting this articles.
There is no conspiracy about his Art or Work. He is great living Artist. With an even greater message for human kind. “You al got fucked up blindly.”
https://i.redd.it/lhpgz6t8npw51.jpg
Rob Scholte posts the articles himself. If you understand the dutch language, you can listen to him while he explains the Rob Scholte Museum website. This website is the remainings of his Museum in Den Helder, from where he is deported.
Here is the actual interview. https://robscholtemuseum.nl/the-post-online-bert-brussen-solocast-3-rob-scholte-de-kunstenaar/
Soarel25
The claim that there is no bot is a demonstrable lie given the automated reposting of articles that mention Scholte or conspiracy stuff, including my Reddit post.
SwagMasterBDub
Meanwhile, this account seems to have been created for the sole purpose of arguing with your Reddit post on the topic. Clearly, he is somehow involved.
Soarel25
Of course.
RetiredDildo
OK, I have managed to speak with the owner (?) of Rob Scholte Museum Twitter page posing as Stephan Valar, and this is our conversation. I’ll use italic for his replies and bold for mine.
Note
This conversation was in Dutch and I had to use Google Translate to translate this conversation into English so some sentences may be off or weirdly worded.
Dutch version
Stephen Valar
Hallo
1:04 PM
Stephen Valar
Kunt u alstublieft uitleggen, of dit deel uitmaakt van een kunstproject?
1:08 PM
RSMuseum
Ja!
Leven en werk! Groet, R
1:12 PM
Stephen Valar
Dus, kunt u enkele van mijn vragen beantwoorden, als u tijd heeft?
1:13 PM
Stephen Valar
Mijn excuses voor mijn ruige Nederlands, ik ben geen moedertaalspreker.
1:14 PM
RSMuseum
Ruig Nederlands is geen probleem. Spreek zelf ook een hartig woordje.
VVanwaar de belangstelling.
Vanwaar de belangstelling?
1:17 PM
RSMuseum
Nog nooit getweet?
1:19 PM
RSMuseum
Zelf een bot?
1:24 PM
Stephen Valar
Ik heb de webpagina van je museum gevonden via een bericht op de sociale media Reddit, waar de originele poster raar vond, dat de museum website artikelen over complottheorie postte en me afvroeg, of de website was gehackt, of dat het een bot was, die die artikelen zonder medeweten plaatste van de eigenaar. Ik werd nieuwsgierig en ging wat dieper en vond dit Twitter profiel, waar hetzelfde soort dingen gebeurde.
Mijn vragen zijn
Post een bot al deze dingen of is dit een persoon die deze artikelen doorzoekt en op de site plaatst?
Als dit een kunstproject is, wat is dan de boodschap, die u aan het publiek wilt meegeven?
Wat was uw inspiratie voor dit project?
Trouwens, bedankt voor je snelle antwoord.
Nee, ik ben geen bot
1:27 p.m
Stephen Valar
Ik zou het erg op prijs stellen als u deze vragen zou kunnen beantwoorden. Ik neem daarna geen tijd meer van je.
1:49 PM
RSMuseum
Oké, het is geen bot, maar een mens van vlees en bloed, die al deze berichten post. Namelijk ikzelf.
Het is, zoals ik al schreef, leven en werk.
Dus deel van mijn gedachten goed!
Boodschappen, zei Paul Verhoeven al, doe je in de supermarkt.
Mijn inspiratie voor al mijn activiteit vind ik in de leerschool, die mijn leven is.
2:08 PM
RSMuseum
Al 25 jaar slachtoffer van groep stalking, begonnen met een autobom in de Jordaan in 1994, waarbij ik beide benen verloor!
2:10 PM
English version
Hello
Could you please explain if this is part of an art project?
Yes!
Life and work! Regards, R.
So, can you answer some of my questions, if you have the time?
My apologies for my rough Dutch, I am not a native speaker.
Rough Dutch is no problem. Speak a hearty word yourself.
Why the interest.
Why the interest? He probably repeated this because the first time he wrote it with some grammatical errors.
Never tweeted before?
A bot yourself?
I found your museum’s webpage through a post on social media Reddit, where the original poster thought weird that the museum website was posting articles on conspiracy theory and wondered if the website had been hacked or if it was a bot posting those articles without your knowledge from the owner. I got curious and went a little deeper and found this Twitter profile, where the same sort of thing happened.
My questions are
Does a bot post all these things or is this a person searching and posting these articles on the site?
If this is an art project, what is the message you want to convey to the public?
What was your inspiration for this project?
By the way, thank you for your quick reply.
No, I am not a bot.
He didn’t reply for a while so I sent this:
I would really appreciate if you could answer these questions. I won’t take any more time from you after that.
Okay, it’s not a bot, it’s a flesh and blood human who posts all these messages. Namely myself.
It is, as already wrote, life and work.
So share my thoughts well!
Groceries [messages = boodschappen in Dutch, this is groceries], Paul Verhoeven already said, are done in the supermarket.
I find my inspiration for all my activities in the school, which is my life.
Victim of group stalking for 25 years, started with a car bomb in the Jordaan in 1994, where I lost both legs!
Thank you very much for the explanation!
Okay, good luck! R
Epilogue
RSMuseum
Sorry, I got hacked!
6:45 PM
Stephen Valar
What?
You got what?
7:17 PM
Stephen Valar
Ben je gehackt? Ik begrijp het niet.
You got hacked? I do not understand.
7:20 PM
Stephen Valar
Hello?
5:23 PM
Reacties
So, from what I managed to understand, this is an art project. There is no bot, the admin on the site and the Twitter page owner is a collective of people including R (which I assume is Rob Scholte) which post these kinds of things, appearing to be bot behaviour. Due to language barriers, I am not able to fully understand the message of this art project, maybe “life and work” have a different meaning in Dutch? Or maybe it is an expression?
Anyways, this was a fun little mystery.
A side note. I found pretty weird the mention of group stalking in the last message, since it reminded me of another rabbit hole that I dove into a few weeks ago, about a man who made weird videos, some also conspiracy related. This individual belonged to a group of schizofrenic people who, due to hallucinations, think they are a victim of gang stalking (also called group stalking) by the government and are spied on and tortured by government agents. These individuals call themselves “Targeted Individuals“. If Rob is one of these people, that could answer some questions that I have after speaking with R. This is also supported by the fact of in a news report of that time (https://apnews.com/article/81c4f602d6fa6f25e464b3efd41a09ce and https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-26-mn-1552-story.html), the car bombing happened but the target most likely wasn’t Scholte, what makes his claim of group stalking not make any sense. Again, this could be a misunderstanding due to language barriers.
Soarel25
I’m familiar with both gang stalking delusions and Scholte’s car bomb injury, but the rest of this is fascinating.
Do you think you could ask him why he reposted my Reddit post? Link his repost of it.
Meer informatie
https://robscholtemuseum.nl/?s=Conspiracy