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New Campaign Tactic - Google Bombing

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the politics-unusual dept.

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?"

6 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Miserable Failure is the classic example by xmas2003 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The classic example is a Google Search for miserable failure that returns the WhiteHouse.gov biography for George Bush. Not surpisingly, Michael Moore's page also comes up in the first page of results in the tit-for-tat. Read more about how "ugly" Democrats and Republicans are using Political Google Bombs at Wikipedia.

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    1. Re:Miserable Failure is the classic example by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 2, Informative

      Can't believe nobody's mentioned Santorum yet.

      Santorum - not just for breakfast anymore!

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  2. Re:Probably not by davechen · · Score: 2, Informative
    It's not slander and insulting if it's TRUE.
    Yup. All the links in MyDD's google bomb are to news organizations (mostly local newspapers) or Wikipedia. It's not like they're linking to SpreadingSantorum or something.

    You can see the links here.

  3. Google won't do anything until ... by SengirV · · Score: 1, Informative

    .. this is used against Democrats. AS long as you can find GWB when you search for 'miserable failure', it's A-OK. But once you begin finding Barack Obama when you search for 'style over substance', for example, THEN and only then will Google do something.

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  4. If you RTFA carefully by benhocking · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, if you RTFA carefully (I know), you'll see that it starts with the phrase "If things go as planned for liberal bloggers in the next few weeks," when referring to "Jon Kyl", and "would bring up a link to" for Peter King. The article states what Direct Democracy hopes to happen and not what has already happened. To be fair, I misread it the first time, as well.

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  5. Google has a PAC by funwithBSD · · Score: 3, Informative

    Google has recently registered a Political Action Committee.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1930008,00. html

    So we will see how they react to it. The claim is that it is for advocating the free distribution of information so it will be interesting to see if they intervene and if they do, how they intervene.

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