Decision ‘08

Campaigns Discover Dangers Of Social Networking

Web 2.0 has come to the 2008 presidential election, and the outlook is decidedly mixed. While I suppose there are some people who enjoy having blogs ‘hosted’ on official campaign sites, it’s hard to see how this can be allowed to continue without at least some oversight. There WAS a post on Barack Obama’s site called “How the Jewish Lobby Works” (it’s gone now, but I caught it before it got yanked, and I can verify it did exist) that stirred up a minor blogstorm on the right for its pretty blatantly anti-Semitic overtones (you never see sinister paranoid posts about how the teachers union lobby works).

The left fought back by finding offensive comments on the McCain site (a little weaker case - i.e., comments rather than a post, but you can see the results here). Now, I freely admit that I used to play the ‘find offensive comments’ game pretty regularly with the Daily Kos, and I got some of my biggest traffic days from flogging those posts. I finally became convinced that there was something fundamentally dishonest about that, though - sure, I can screen MY comments for offensive content and respond to most of it, if not remove it, but I get a fraction of the traffic that Kos gets.

You can imagine the millions of people who have visited the campaign sites of the two nominees, so it’s a daunting task to filter for offensiveness, and the campaigns have responded with the usual weak controls (click here to flag offensive content, etc.). It’s not my call whether the risk of being associated with knuckleheads is outweighed by the sense of community created among supporters by allowing them to shape the content of the website; presumably, the campaigns have decided the rewards outweigh the risk.

Here’s what we can do, however: we can control our own actions. So, a proposal and a promise: I will not hold Barack Obama or John McCain responsible for idiotic comments made by people who are not affiliated with the campaign staff on their respective websites. That’s the promise…the proposal? That you join me in doing (or rather not doing) the same…how about it?…

9 Responses to “Campaigns Discover Dangers Of Social Networking”

1 mikebdot Says:
June 10th, 2008 at 8:09 am
I’ll go one step further. I will personally not be offended by the stupidity contained in the comments at either campaigns site. Why should one be personally offended by someone else’s stupid statements on a website? There are sites I go to where I simply ignore certain people that post there. For instance, remember, Dmac? I literally stopped reading his/her comments.

Furthermore, if someone’s blog on a campaign’s website, why not just refrain from going to their blog? If someone has an opinion, the market will speak. If he/she gets no traffic, they will be forced to act. Like when people stopped watching Tucker Carlson. Or, rather, when people didn’t actually tune into Tucker Carlson in the first place. I’d much rather have people speak their mind on the campaign’s site so you know who each candidate’s agenda really speaks to.
2 Aaron Says:
June 10th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
What bout the groups that are created on Barack Obama’s website that must be approved by a moderator before they become public?

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/29347_New_Black_Panther_Party_on_Obama_Site_-_Approved_by_Campaign
3 Aaron Says:
June 10th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Actually, the groups at the official Obama website must be approved.

And while many of the groups are being deleted, several are being allowed to stick around.
4 Sean P Says:
June 10th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Aaron: Even LGF admits that this could be a new policy, and in direct response to this (non) issue.
5 mikebdot Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Aaron: Also, sometimes the spam filter is finnicky anyway. Anecdotal evidence like this says nothing about policy changes that have happened. You know Mark’s spambot sometimes captures random crap you wouldn’t expect it to. So it goes with any forum/blog with spam filters. How DOES my email server know that I don’t need those “extra centimeter” emails? Good programming occasionally works…
6 mikebdot Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
The crap that Aaron takes without a grain a salt from LGF befuddles my mind.

http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/06/cleaning-out-th.html
7 Aaron Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Well, LGF is hardly an extreme rightwing blog. I suppose you’ve never been there or at least never read much of anything that’s been posted. Maybe you ought to take a helping from the salt shaker yourself with your leftwing blog there.

But now that they’ve started casting groups into oblivion, why haven’t they gone after the troofers and Marxists?
8 Aaron Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I can’t find it now, but there’s an entry from a few months ago in a non-partisan/non-ideological organization determining the political leanings of various blogs. LGF was center-right.
9 Aaron Says:
June 11th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
In any case, after further reviewing the leftwing blog entry, I can’t find anything in it that contradicts what was in the LGF blog entry. They just have evidence that the guy who started one of the DOZENS of fringe groups on the Obama website used to support Ron Paul (which doesn’t necessarily preclude him from supporting Obama now).

Let’s review the facts Charles presented since you didn’t catch them the first time:

There is (among others) a Black Panther group on the mybarackobama website — not even addressed by the leftwing blog.

As of now, at least, groups must be approved by a moderator.

Thus, if a group is currently on the website — especially after all the house-cleaning they’ve been up to — it has received (at the very least, retrospective) approval from Obama campaign staffers.

Thus, the Obama campaign accepts the support of 9/11 Troofers and Marxists, like Obama’s buddy and campaign rally-host, former terrorist Bill Ayers.