'Fix the Debt' reaches out on Twitter, gets massively trolled

By Michael Hiltzik
October 17, 2013, 3:39 p.m.

To the chronicles of misbegotten corporate adventures with social media, we can add a new, sterling event.

The anti-deficit lobbying organization "Fix the Debt" staged a question-and-answer chat on Twitter Thursday. Its goal presumably was to reach America's smartphone-savvy youth with its message that Social Security and Medicare payments to their grandparents are going to land them in the poorhouse a few decades from now.

It's fair to say that "Fix the Debt" got more than it bargained for. Twitterers from all over responded to the invitation with pointed, tactless and downright impolite questions. Many of them aimed to discern how paring social insurance benefits for the elderly and infirm will make society stronger, which is the core of the organization's worldview. Those so inclined can still post their thoughts at #fixthedebtqa.

Among the choicer comments: "Can you explain why anyone chooses to be born poor? Why should the rest of us be responsible for their flawed decision-making?" (That's from Twitter user @jefftiedrich.)

More, including links to compilations of the best comments: http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-trolled-20131017,0,6377768.story