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Blogger Launches 'Google Bomb' At McCain
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Jun 22, 2008 11:22 AM
from the everyone-needs-a-hobby dept.
from the everyone-needs-a-hobby dept.
hhavensteincw writes "A liberal blogger has launched a 'Google bomb' project aimed at boosting Google search results for nine news articles showing Sen. John McCain in a negative light. The Computerworld article notes: 'Chris Bowers, managing editor of the progressive blog OpenLeft, is launching the Google bombs by encouraging bloggers to embed Web links to the nine news stories about McCain in their blogs, which helps raise their ranking in Google search results. Bowers is reprising a similar Google bombing effort he undertook in 2006 against 52 different congressional candidates. "Obviously, it is manipulating, but search engines are not public forums and unless you act to use them for your own benefit, your opponent's information is going to get out there," Bowers said.'"
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Technology: New Campaign Tactic - Google Bombing 252 comments
jeian writes "My Direct Democracy, a liberal group blog, is trying out a new campaign tactic — Google bombing. From the New York Times article: 'Searching Google for Peter King, the Republican congressman from Long Island, would bring up a link to a Newsday article headlined King Endorses Ethnic Profiling.' Google's policy has typically been to not intervene and let the algorithms work by themselves, but could this change if Google-bombing becomes a common tactic?"
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Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when has that become the goal of politics?
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
The goal of politics should be to do what's best for the country. The goal of politicians is to gain power. So apparently the liberal blogger in question is a politician because he's doing what's best for his candidate, not what's best for the country. Making it hard to find the best information (even if it's not information the liberal blogger wants people to see) about a candidate is not in the spirit of a free society and democracy. Basically, this liberal blogger is decreasing the signal to noise ratio rather than providing useful and compelling reasons to vote for his own candidate.
Seriously... if Obama were as amazing as we were supposed to believe he is, it would be more than enough to promote his virtues rather than trying to smear the opponent. Guess Obama isn't all that great stuff.
Parent
Arms race? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true that this could backfire, but it could also cause a massive arms race [reputation...erblog.com]. If politics weren't messy and dirty enough already, imagine if both campaigns were spending massive amounts of time and energy to control the other side's Google results. McCain supporters would link to dirty articles about Obama, Obama supporters would link to dirty articles about McCain, and the whole Internet would be filled with even more political links than it already is.
Heck, a really smart campaigner would just outsource the whole thing to India and have thousands of staffers constantly building links to positive and negative results.
Politics might be the one thing strong enough to overcome all of Google's attempts to stop Googlebombs [searchengineland.com].
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Unify the country? Why is that considered a good thing? A significant portion of the American public are in favour of the Bush administration, the Iraq war and torture. You aren't going to change their minds. The only way you will unify the country is to meet them half-way. Is that a good thing?
I've never heard of this "unification" nonsense until the Republican Party started becoming unpopular. Until then, in pretty much every democratic country, it was understood that there is room for disagreement in politics and that this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But now they seem to be feeding you the idea that all parties should be striving for the same thing (which is basically no different to a one-party system) and the American public seem to be lapping this bullshit up and asking for seconds. WTF is up with that? Can you really not see that it's just a desperate lie told by people who fear losing power in the near future? It's not transparently obvious to you?
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:It doesnt work (Score:5, Insightful)
You aren't describing conservatives, you are describing the Republican Party. The Republican Party are not conservative in any way, shape or form. Conservatives would be against the Iraq war. Conservatives would be against increasing the size of the government. Conservatives would be against wiping their asses with the Constitution. Conservatives would be against spending far more money than the country has.
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want a unified country.
I want a just, upstanding, ethical, and prosperous country.
If "unity" means "agreeing with people who advocate theocracy", then I'm against it. If it means "Americans working together to make their country and the world a better place", I'm for it.
Unity isn't something that you *make* happen. Unity is something that happens as a result of good governance and an educated and civic-minded citizenry.
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, much unlike those warm, loving, caring exemplars of humanity and civil service, Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The faults of some candidates do not, by themselves, make other candidates worthy. It's about time we learned that.
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Funny)
*Badoom Crash!* Thank you, I'll be here all week. Be sure to try the quiche!
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at this;
This is a list of crap email received on Obama. Note the themes and quantity of emails... Really a bit telling to the mentallity of the people sending them out, as well as the people who forward them on and on.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp [snopes.com]
Now; Here's the same for McCain.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/mccain/mccain.asp [snopes.com]
That said, I'm more then a little pissed at this idiot for the google bomb. These were funny once, but trying to manipulate politcs with them isn't. I view the 'good guys' as being above this.
That said however, I'm at the point where I'd sacrifice some of my personal views on that to prevent what happened in 2000, and then 2004. If that's the only way to get the idiot vote, go for it... because at this point the idiot vote has to be 50%
Parent
Re:Yeah, that'll help . . . (Score:5, Interesting)
I also have to wonder how many of those Obama-bashing emails were sent out by Hillary supporters.
I'm a little fed up with the whole thing - here we are are again with no choices - only the lesser of 2 evils - to vote for in the presidential race. I think the idiot vote will be well over 50% this year, because only an idiot would vote for either one of these globalist elite career politicians.
Parent
Links? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Links? (Score:5, Funny)
Article 1 [aol.com]
Article 2 [msn.com]
Article 3 [nwsource.com]
Article 4 [latimes.com]
Article 5 [motherjones.com]
Article 6 [cnn.com]
Article 7 [salon.com]
Article 8 [usatoday.com]
Article 9 [cbsnews.com]
Hope that helps
Parent
It is not Gogglebombing! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a political blog and you are linking to articles about a political candidate on other web sites, how is that Googlebombing? Isn't that actually the way the web is supposed to work?
Parent
Re:Links? (Score:4, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I am a Libertarian and I hate the two main political parties.
Parent
Open left of what? (Score:4, Insightful)
One vote for the democratic party of america is one less vote for the republican party of america, but is it really a vote to the left?
http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008 [politicalcompass.org]
Re:Open left of what? (Score:5, Insightful)
True - we've got two major parties in the U.S., one representing the center of the right wing, one representing the right wing of the center.
It's no wonder that, until this charismatic upstart Obama came along, the "sure winner" of the Democratic primaries was a woman who had been the president of her campus's chapter of the College Republicans, and whose husband was called "the best Republican president we've had in a while" by Alan Greenspan.
Parent
Raises tough questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I am old enough to remember the sixties -- maybe I'm just becoming obsolete.
Re:Raises tough questions (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Raises tough questions (Score:4, Insightful)
The McCain of today isn't the McCain of then.
In the last two years McCain has solidly thrown his lot in with Bush.
Parent
Re:Raises tough questions (Score:4, Insightful)
The trouble is, because the idiot vote in the USA is so large, you're never going to get anyone elected who *doesn't* make some attempt to be underhanded.
That doesn't justify it. That doesn't make it honorable, or the right thing to do. But, depending on how pragmatic you are, it just might make it inevitable.
Parent
Against the Principles of Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't one of the tenants of democracy that everyone have access to all information and then they decide who's best for themselves? This is poisoning the available information so citizens don't have all of the information about a candidate.
Pretty surprising come from the left, you know, with their morals and such.
Re:Against the Principles of Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
If 10 million people give $10 each, that's $100 million of democracy.
If one person gives $100 million, that's 'big money'
Parent
What a dick. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's always a lot better to make sure that you taint the conversation.
This is an excellent example of the juvenile "us vs. them" mentality that national US politics has devolved into. I'm a bicycle-riding urbanite liberal stereotype, I still find this sort of idiocy appalling. Let people make up their own minds and hunt for their own information.
--saint
Re:What a dick. (Score:4, Insightful)
If the left consistently acted in that way, they'd never elect another person to office, because the Right isn't going to stop doing what they're doing just because the left is.
Could you elaborate on what dishonorable attacks have been coming from the Right so far in this election? As far as I've seen, the vast majority of the attacks on Obama so far have been from the Clinton camp. McCain on the other hand has (somewhat surprisingly) been trying to take the high ground and has on a number of occasions criticized those who've tried to use spurious claims again Obama.
Parent
Re:What a dick. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
what a douche (Score:5, Insightful)
bingo
Re:what a douche (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:what a douche (Score:4, Interesting)
And that differs from the Democrats how?
Parent
Informed Vote? (Score:5, Insightful)
Will this even work? (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought Google had put in place controls to prevent exactly this kind of thing from tainting search results. Even if he does get a lot of people linking, it seems like Google's own corrective algorithms would prevent it from really making an impact on search results.
It might be interesting to see what degree other search engines end up being affected as well, as a study in how manipulatable the various engines are.
Defeated (Score:5, Informative)
Apparently Google already has protection against such "bombs":
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/01/quick-word-about-googlebombs.html [blogspot.com]
I have no idea how the algorithm detects such a bomb, but it appears to be pretty effective.
Backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
I think if they could have shut up their most ardent supporters, the Democrats would have won the last election.
Re:Backfire (Score:5, Insightful)
I think if they could have shut up their most ardent supporters, the Democrats would have won the last election.
That's a load of crap. It wasn't the ardent democrat supporters who lost the election, it was the ardent Republican supports being more underhanded. They turned "swiftboating" into a verb. Stuff like this doesn't backfire because the majority of the population just looks at the message and not the messenger.
Parent
Tag? (Score:5, Informative)
Why is this tagged 'Republicans' when it's a Democrat doing the deed?
I expect both sides will engage in this kind of thing though to be honest.
Re:Tag? (Score:4, Informative)
True, he is a bit of a RINO (Republican in Name Only). He's hard to classify because his positions keep shifting.
Parent
Re:I have to say it (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I have to say it (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Not sure how this is a bomb (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Not sure how this is a bomb (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. It's a pretty shitty thing to do, although, with all the people saying things like "McCain WANTS troops to be in Iraq for 100 years", it's not surprising.
Parent
Re:Not sure how this is a bomb (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, let's forget about getting balanced results and letting people make up their own minds when presented with ALL the facts.
Nobody ever gets ALL the facts. You have a finite amount of time on this mudball and most people do not want to spend it studying the minutia about the two idiots who happen to be running this year (and, yes, I have a clear preference, but after the FISA debacle, he's still an idiot). Google's page rank reflects the reality of the situation vis a vis relative web link importance at a particular current point in time. If McCain's opponents are more web-savvy or more energetic, they will have an advantage in this arena and they will have earned it. If you want more "balance", get McCain's people as motivated as Obama's. If they can't be as motivated, maybe that says something about his importance.
The bottom line is that bitching about the lack of some mythical "balance" on the web is about as useful as complaining about the lack of a mythical immortality for people. It may make you feel better in some strange, warped way but, in the long run, it makes no difference. People have finite time and have only finite means for managing the information they take in over this finite time. Deal with it.
Parent
Re:Not sure how this is a bomb (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Seems like this is a Match on a Fire (Score:4, Informative)
So I don't fear for the conservative parties of the world just yet.
Parent
Re:Seems like this is a Match on a Fire (Score:5, Interesting)
Big picture, on a global scale, that's true: politics have been getting steadily more liberal ever since the Middle Ages, and so those who hold to political views acquired in their youth always seem more conservative as they age. The interesting thing is that in American politics over the last couple of generations or so, the opposite is true. Eisenhower would be considered a mainstream Democrat these days, while Nixon, seen at the time as representing the hard right, would today be a "Blue Dog" Democrat or maybe a "RINO" Republican. Conversely, both Clintons, and Obama, support policies largely in accord with the Republican party of Eisenhower's day. Carter is remembered today as an extreme leftist, but by the standards of the day, he was actually seen as a solidly conservative Democrat. Even Saint Reagan, no matter how much today's Republicans venerate him, would be considered suspiciously leftish by modern Republicans if he were a new candidate running for office today.
It's a blip, of course, kind of like in the stock market. In the very long term, stocks always go up. But they do so on a jagged line, and those downward dips sure can make a lot of people's lives miserable.
Parent
Re:Seems like this is a Match on a Fire (Score:5, Interesting)
The unfortunate side of all this, all of these talk machines, including Boortz, Rush, Hannity, etc will be repeating, over and over, about how this is a fine example of leftist propoganda, the liberal conspiracy, etc.
Don't get me wrong. I think Bill Maher and the rest of the leftist paid-to-talk types are complete twits as well. Nothing like seeing someone from either side ignorantly pressing points only for the sake of them being right, left, or endlessly playing devil's advocate.
Too bad there isn't a fiscal conservative, socially liberal person to vote for. Too bad there isn't a news network without slant anymore. I recognize slant was always there, but CNN learned a little from Fox's ratings and starts coming across as ridiculously liberal when elections near.
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Re:Seems like this is a Match on a Fire (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:A vote of no confidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
And, so, his answer is disinformation?
Imagine the outcry if a conservative blogger made such a statement.
Parent