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

Yeah, that'll help . . .

[PeeAitchPee]

. . . unify the country.

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[Opportunist]

Since when has that become the goal of politics?

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[Wrath0fb0b]

The faults of some candidates do not, by themselves, make other candidates worthy. It's about time we learned that.

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[Ian Alexander]

Unify the country? Why is that considered a good thing? I think it's because partisan politics in the States revolves more around mudslinging and villifying people who disagree with you and less around, perhaps, coming to agreements and bipartisan cooperation. It's typical American political "problemsolving": identify a problem and propose a boneheaded solution that won't fix anything. Instead of settling down and being civilized about the other party, why don't we just get rid of bothersome "other" parties?

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[Metasquares]

No, but at least it might help Google fix its search engine.

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[Entropius]

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.

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[letxa2000]

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.

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[Original Replica]

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

The validity of you statement depends strongly on the quality and accuracy of the articles in question. If the articles are mostly just "noise" then yes you are quiet right, but if the articles contain information pertinent to gaining a better understanding of the true character of a presidential candidate, information which might otherwise get buried by the whims of Big Media, then these bloggers are providing a service where our "free press" has failed us.

As to whether this is smearing or not, is again dependent on the accuracy and relevance to the qualification and quality of the candidate. If Obama had pushed an earmark through that funded eugenics research, pointing that out loudly and repeatedly would not be smearing. If someone wearing an Obama '08 shirt threw a brick off an overpass at McCain's motorcade, trying to proclaim that as a gauge of Obama's character would be a smear.

Re:Yeah, that'll help . . .

[badasscat]

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.

So your argument is that one misguided follower serves as an indictment of Obama himself?

I'm sure you could dredge up plenty of assholes on McCain's side too. Here's one now.

So I'm guessing your vote in November will be "none of the above"? Or possibly Montgomery Brewster? (Bonus points if you get the reference.)

Everybody's got idiot followers with misguided ideas about how to promote them.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Raises tough questions

[clang_jangle]

I find the practice of SEO to be a bit questionable in any event, but soliciting volunteers to essentially manipulate google search results in order to favor a given political agenda just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. Sure, it can argued that the right fights dirty, but where is the honor in stooping to this sort of thing?

Well, I am old enough to remember the sixties -- maybe I'm just becoming obsolete.

Re:Raises tough questions

[Entropius]

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.

Re:Raises tough questions

[Entropius]

The McCain of today isn't the McCain of then.

In the last two years McCain has solidly thrown his lot in with Bush.

Against the Principles of Democracy

[DeionXxX]

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

[rthille]

If 10 million people give $10 each, that's $100 million of democracy.

If one person gives $100 million, that's 'big money'

Re:Against the Principles of Democracy

[markkezner]

While I can see the point you're trying to make, it has its flaws.

The problem is that once you remove folks from the decision making process, you open the doors for abuse of the system. Such a system that you suggest would have to be implemented with extreme care to prevent elites from disenfranchising voters to promote their own agenda.

Hod does the nation decide who is qualified to make decisions on what issues? How would you resolve disagreements about who is qualified to vote?

That said, I do not believe that our current system is immune to abuse and manipulation of the ignorant. Not by a longshot.

Re:Links?

[dunnius]

Thanks. I was hoping that one of the nine would be McCain violating the campaign finance laws. Oh well, so much for exposing corruption in politics.

Disclaimer: I am a Libertarian and I hate the two main political parties.

What a dick.

[saintlupus]

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.

[FleaPlus]

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.

what a douche

[Alibaba10100]

This is a perfect example of how political types can't see anything outside of their petty us vs. them mentality.

"We're just using McCain's own words -- everything we are targeting are things McCain has done or said himself. There's no bias at all. No bias? By what definition is emphasizing the things someone says that suit your purposes not bias? In fact, this is the most insidious kind of bias. If the pieces being ranked up were opinion pieces, at least viewers would be aware that what they are reading is someone's opinion. But this way, the ordering of the news stories itself contains some random guy's personal bias and the majority of searchers will not know to put their guard up.

Obviously, it is manipulating
bingo

Re:what a douche

[Alibaba10100]

I absolutely agree with that. But placing responsibility on readers to sort out fact from opinion does not exonerate people who try to deceive them.

Hypocrisy at it's best

[wmbetts]

You have to love how the left bloggers love to cry fowl at every little turn. Yet, when they attempt to rig search engine results it's somehow okay. Regardless of a person political affiliations this type of action should be frowned upon and they people partaking in the event should be shunned by their readers.

A vote of no confidence?

[DaveV1.0]

Seems to me that this is basically a result of this asshole believing Obama can't win without such underhanded tricks.

Re:A vote of no confidence?

[DaveV1.0]

And, so, his answer is disinformation?

Imagine the outcry if a conservative blogger made such a statement.

Informed Vote?

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

"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.'" Because clearly, the last thing you want to do is let your opponent's perspective out there. This is brought to you by the 'informed populace makes for poor voters' theory.

Backfire

[Toonol]

This sort of stuff just makes the side doing it seem more juvenile and reactionary... which is an image the democrats need to overcome, not encourage.

I think if they could have shut up their most ardent supporters, the Democrats would have won the last election.

Re:Backfire

[nEoN nOoDlE]

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.

Re:Open left of what?

[Mr. Slippery]

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?

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.

This is progress?

[Asylumn]

"...unless you act to use them for your own benefit, your opponent's information is going to get out there.

Heaven forbid people get all the facts and make up their own mind. Let's just prevent our opponents from being able to make their case in the first place!

How very 'progressive'.

It is not Gogglebombing!

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Seems like this is a Match on a Fire

[Dachannien]

Besides, republicans already have their propaganda machine too *cough* Fox News *cough* Ann Coulter *Cough* What, as opposed to Obama's fanboys comprising the entire rest of the media?

From the United States Declaration of Independence

[ibane]

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government

If you don't believe and work for this, you will never have it.

Re:It doesnt work

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Clearly Works For McCain

[nick_davison]

1. Announce a Google bomb to the world.
2. Hit the Google blacklist in 3, 2, 1...
3. Links conveniently "gone" from Google.

He's either the most moronic SEO manipulator known to man or his goal is to get the links hidden entirely from Google.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Not sure how this is a bomb

[ArcherB]

He's trying to manipulate google, sure, but in a more legit way than doing this: warmongering douchebag. The guy in the article is simply promoting 9 specific articles about McCain and suggesting that others link those articles as well to make sure they climb the search results. It's not that different from just passing the links around and telling people to make sure everyone they know reads them. Whereas doing this charming imposter doesn't just get more people to go to a link; it makes a clear association between that link and a phrase denigrating the object of the link. I disagree. I think it's a bit dishonest. If this guy gets his way, when someone searches for John McCain, they are likely to get negative articles. I mean, let's forget about getting balanced results and letting people make up their own minds when presented with ALL the facts. Nope, let's make sure they only see the facts WE want them to see so they can make up their minds the way WE want them to.

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.

Re:Not sure how this is a bomb

[frank_adrian314159]

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.

Re:Not sure how this is a bomb

[ArcherB]

If it's "a bit" dishonest, it's a lot less so than the actual google bombs. I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, I'm just saying it's not a google bomb. And, in fact, it's only slightly different from what goes on anyway -- you have a blog, you don't like mccain, you post links to these articles, other people read those articles and find them worth linking to, they post to their blogs, and so on ... eventually if enough people think it's worthwhile, it climbs the google charts -- really, the only difference is that they're thinking about the google placing in the first place, which was bound to happen anyway. If someone creates a blog and links to articles, it's no big deal and there is nothing wrong with that. But to INTENTIONALLY do so with the intent of skewing search engine results in your favor is dishonest. You are attempting to limit the amount of data a searcher receives while only forwarding the data you WANT them to receive. It's dishonest. If the government were doing this, it would be called censorship.

Oh and by the way, McCain actually did say the troops could be in Iraq for a hundred years. So for people who think that's important, that fact will be repeated. Yes, he did. Just like in Germany, Japan, S. Korea and a slew of other places we have troops stationed. But saying that troops COULD be stationed there is very different than saying he WANTS troops there for 100 years. Take THIS article for instance. It is titled, "Day 3: McCain Wants 100 Years in Iraq". Sorry, but that is a lie. McCain doesn't WANT troops in Iraq for 100 years. No one does. This is the type of article that we are talking about here. It is blatantly dishonest and if this is the only type of article that appears when searching for McCain, a previously uninformed voter will get the wrong idea based complete, 100% politically motivated bullshit.