Blogger Launches 'Google Bomb' At McCain

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.'"

Comments

Re:Links?

[martinw89]

http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6422

Seems like this is a Match on a Fire

[CaptainPatent]

Honestly, the generation that gets their information from the internet (instead of cable or newspapers) is going to have a much more liberal bias in general. All you have to do is look at age group demographics for any polling done and you'll see the heavy liberal skew to the younger ages.

With that being said, there are already going to be many, MANY more blogs with a pro-Obama, anti McCainb standpoint than the alternative already. Having a few more people bump some anti-McCain articles may bump them up a couple slots, but I guarantee with the demographics of internet users, those articles probably weren't doing badly on their own.

Besides, republicans already have their propaganda machine too *cough* Fox News *cough* Ann Coulter *Cough*

Re:Seems like this is a Match on a Fire

[klingens]

Honestly, the generation that gets their information from the internet (instead of cable or newspapers) is going to have a much more liberal bias in general. All you have to do is look at age group demographics for any polling done and you'll see the heavy liberal skew to the younger ages.
  There is a saying here (paraphrased): "A 20 year old liberal will end up a 70 year old conservative and doesn't have to change a single of his views".

So I don't fear for the conservative parties of the world just yet.

Defeated

[shird]

Apparently Google already has protection against such "bombs":
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/01/quick-word-about-googlebombs.html

I have no idea how the algorithm detects such a bomb, but it appears to be pretty effective.

Re:Defeated

[assassinator42]

This isn't really a Google bomb though, at least not like the kind discussed in that article. Those aimed to return a site from an unrelated query, by doing something like miserable failure. This is aiming at queries of "John McCain" or "McCain", phrases the pages actually contain.
Although actually looking at the page, he does seem to be going at it in the same way: Linking "McCain" or "John McCain" to the articles. An earlier poster linked them as "article 1" and such, which might be less apt to trigger their Google bomb detection.

Tag?

[dreamchaser]

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?

[dreamchaser]

True, he is a bit of a RINO (Republican in Name Only). He's hard to classify because his positions keep shifting.

Re:Against the Principles of Democracy

[maxume]

That's why we have a representative democracy. Public elections are more about picking a representative you can stomach than they are about deciding issues in an informed manner (sure, there are all sorts of issues that go to the ballot, but they are rarely more about information than they are about 'feelings').

Re:Against the Principles of Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent said "big-money", which isn't quite the same thing as "money". The problem with "big-money" support is that such donors tend to expect something (e.g. favourable legislation) in return, whereas someone who gives a few hundred bucks isn't expecting anything.

Also, while McCain co-sponsored McCain-Feingold, he also violated it by requesting public financing for the primary, getting certification, using the certification both as collateral for loans and as a means to get on various state ballots without having to meet signature requirements, then said he wasn't accepting it (which isn't allowed once you have actually derived any benefit from certification) and breached the associated spending limits.

Fortunately for McCain, the FEC lacked a quorum to actually do anything about this.

Re:Raises tough questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has a lot of techniques in place to help limit this sort of practice. Google gives limited value to links placed on unrelated sites. For example, a link from Slashdot is much more valuable to a technology blog than a political blog even though Google's PageRank is 9.

Re:Against the Principles of Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Whitewater was something. It's just that the Clintons were smart enough to destroy the evidence.

Re:Raises tough questions

[corbettw]

I certainly hope you don't think you can counter the likes of Karl Rove simply by being honorable... Rove isn't McCain's campaign director. It's unfair to tarnish McCain for Rove's actions (especially when he was a victim of them, himself, in 2000 and 2004).

Re:What a dick.

[je ne sais quoi]

Oh jeez, come on! That's like asking when the last time water was wet. Just the other day on Fox they were talking about how when Barack Obama bumped fists with his wife and they called him a terrorist (link). Or how about that picture of him when he was dressed up in traditional Somali garb (=90% Christian), claiming he was dressing up as an muslim (link, etc. etc. etc. Face it, the modern conservative political view is synonymous with character assassination. You can thank Rove, and the other Republican attack dogs for that.

Re:Raises tough questions

[Anonymous Coward]

Rove seems to be involved in McCain's campaign.

Re:What a dick.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the other day on Fox they were talking about how when Barack Obama bumped fists with his wife and they called him a terrorist (link)

Dishonest. She was talking about something someone else said.

Or how about that picture of him when he was dressed up in traditional Somali garb (=90% Christian),

You mean the picture that the Clinton campaign released?

But don't let the facts get in the way of your bias.

What about Obama claiming McCain wants 100 years of war, even after being called on it twice? Yes, McCain certainly wants 100 years of war when he says "as long as no one is getting killed." That's the candidate himself straight up lying in an attempt to smear. (But then again, Obama just went back on his public financing pledge. Do we sense a pattern?)

What about 90% of the shit coming out of MoveOn? Anyone who thinks they're not just a smear-machine needs to put the pipe down. They've also went out and used the 100 year war lie, recently in fact. Or the NAACP running an ad in Texas about Bush not sponsoring hate crimes legislation, using the murder of James Byrd, voiced over by his daughter? Bush didn't sponsor hate crime legislation, and in this case, it wasn't needed: two of the three men were sentenced to death and the third was sentenced to life. The NAACP ad didn't mention this, despite being made over a year after the men were sentenced. (Of course, you also don't see the NAACP out shooting to have the men who murdered Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom tried for hate crimes... and that is far worse than the Byrd murder, there's just not a chance to smear Republicans in it for them)

Trying to pretend it's just Rove and Republicans is fucking dishonest.

Re:What a dick.

[je ne sais quoi]

Dishonest. She was talking about something someone else said.

Funny how often Fox finds these people that said something slanderous. Let me explain it to you, they do that to protect themselves from a libel suit. Jon Stewart had a funny piece on it (link).

You mean the picture that the Clinton campaign released?

Bullshit. The Clinton campaign didn't release that, the Drudge report only claimed Clinton staffers released it, but they could easily have lied to discredit Clinton because they hate her more than they hate Obama.

Re:Raises tough questions

[Keeper Of Keys]

If I understood it correctly, they altered the algorithm to promote pages which *discuss* a googlebomb, rather than the target pages themselves. Which is pretty cool, as it gives the victim the context they need. Presumably it detects a googlebomb when the links are consistently out of context with the rest of the targeting page.

Re:Open left of what?

[mdmkolbe]

Ok, so I see three theories what would explain this.

First, you might be looking at the wrong axis. There are many political issues and any one candidate may fall at many different places on those issues. Just because all the parties happen to align on certain issues (e.g. economy, etc.) they can often be quite disparate on other issues (e.g. death penalty, abortion, etc.). Saying that the Democrat's are right wing might be true on some issues (e.g. both Dems and Reps would say they reject socialism), on the issues that most politically aware Americans pay attention to maybe they are not.

Second, keep in mind that political parties do shift from time to time. At one time the Republican's were a liberal third party and Democrats got the religious vote. (I don't know maybe back then it was called the "religious left" instead of the "religious right".) If you think the Democrat's are moving right, then look for either the Republican's or a third party to move into the political niche that is being vacated.

Third, using game theory if we assume:

• there are two parties and
• all the issues collapse down to a one dimensional continuum and
• the voters vote for the person who is closest to their position and
• parties try to maximize the number of votes they get.

Then the equilibrium solution will put both parties in the dead center only a hairs breath apart so that they both get 50% of the vote. In some sense this is a good thing as the government will then always represent the median position of the entire nation. It may not be what you think of as center or moderate, but it will be the median.

(The above are theories, I share them so that others may improve, refute or refine them. Flames don't accomplish that.)

Re:From the United States Declaration of Independe

[willyhill]

This goes way back. I'm not sure why he attached so much importance to that, but he's been blaming "John Marriot" or whomever ever since that happened.

Anti-Slash hasn't been active since mid-2005 that I can see from their comment database.

Re:Raises tough questions

[alteran]

Rove isn't McCain's campaign director. It's unfair to tarnish McCain for Rove's actions (especially when he was a victim of them, himself, in 2000 and 2004).

Point of fact, Rove may not be McCain's campaign director, but he is advising McCain.