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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.'"
. . . unify the country.
For the lazy among us, here's a direct link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bombs+away!&btnG=Google+Search
Hmmmm I couldn't find the links to the original 9 articles. Could someone post them here? ;)
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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.
Caveat Utilitor
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*
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
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.
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
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
Obviously, it is manipulating
bingo
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.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
Seems to me that this is basically a result of this asshole believing Obama can't win without such underhanded tricks.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
I.O.U One Sig.
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.
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.
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.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
How very 'progressive'.
What if my hl isn't en you insensitive clod!
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
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?
This is just another example of the socialistic ideologies that have taken over the democratic party. This sounds similar to information control, like that which is seen in North Korea and China.
I also like the part where Bowers says there's no bias, but yet only focuses on the negatives of McCain. If he's unbiased, then an anti-Obama Google bomb will be announced in the coming week. Yeah right.
CAPTCHA: unified
That dishonorable jerks exist across the entire political spectrum. Regardless of your political affiliation, restrict the "fights dirty" label to individuals. Do not generalize the distasteful actions of a few to the entirety of your political opposition simply because it makes things more convenient for you.
If you don't believe and work for this, you will never have it.
Intellectual property was the desert property of the twenth century.
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.
It's true that this could backfire, but it could also cause a massive arms race. 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.
I'll even go as far as to say that the United States of America will be better off in any of the two possible outcomes.
Hey, I voted for Kodos.
$
I don't want to be unified with supporters of McCain.
I think anybody who votes Republican after the past eight years is morally bankrupt, lacks patriotism, and lacks a commitment to basic American values.
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.
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:
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.)
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You already posted in this article with three different accounts. Would it bee too much to ask to only use one? Is it really that difficult to make your point without pretending you're multiple people? Why do you insist on gaming Slashdot this way?
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
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.
Anti-Slash hasn't been active since mid-2005 that I can see from their comment database.
The twitter monologues. Click on my homepage and be amazed.
The other things you mentioned about Conservatives - smaller government, originalist intent to the constitution, reduced spending - check.
But you CANNOT be a conservative, look at the big picture in the middle east, and be against the chance to have a stabilizing influence there (stable Iraq government with perhaps some US presence as in Germany or Japan). You might say we are spending a ton of money now, but if the middle east devolves into chaos we will all pay a far higher price - in capital and human suffering - than we are today.
To shorten that, I cannot imagine you could be a conservative and take only short-sighted views that may in the end result in greater impacts on your economy than if you had not acted.
As a Libertarian as much as a conservative, I also take the view that a proper role of government is rather like that of the individual, with the world being a small neighborhood. A libertarian would rather neighbors help each other - well on the world stage, nations are neighbors and we are all too connected to sit idly by while governments treat whole groups of citizens unjustly.
Governments should stay out of the affairs of the populace where possible. But they should also try to ensure that OTHER governments can be held away from the affairs of individuals as well.
You may not believe that costs now are lower than what we would face later, and that is a fine point to argue. But you cannot simply dismiss someone who disagrees with you as not being conservative because they disagree with a singular premise of your own.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"unless you act to use them for your own benefit, your opponent's information is going to get out there,"
I find this quote to be one of the scariest things I have read in awhile. the idea that suppressing another persons opinions and views is a desirable goal. Personally I dislike both candidates. I find both of their campaigns to be hollow and wouldn't trust either enough to vote for them. I find Obama's views on gun control to border on insane. I would however fight to the death to preserve both parties right to there own opinions. This kind of attitude is exactly whats wrong with our country today.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary