Obamamaniacs Try To Shut Down ‘Unfriendly’ Blogs
NYT
June 30, 2008
Did Google use its network of online services to silence critics of Barack Obama? That was the question buzzing on a corner of the blogosphere over the last few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger service.
The bloggers in question, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all of them opposed to Senator Obama, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential “spam” blogs. “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog,” the Google e-mail read.
Many of the bloggers were affiliated with JustSayNoDeal.com a Web site that opposes Senator Obama. They include http://bluelyon.blogspot.com, http://comealongway.blogspot.com, http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com and http://mccaindemocrats.blogspot.com.
In an article that appeared on Bloggasm.com, the reporter Simon Owens spoke with some of the affected bloggers, who said they believed that Google had fallen prey to a campaign by activists supporting Senator Obama. According to the bloggers, the Obama supporters had clicked on a “flag” on the anti-Obama blogs alerting Google that they were spam.
If so, that would be an embarrassment for Google. On its Web page explaining the “flag” feature, Google says that “it can’t be manipulated by angry mobs. Political dissent? Incendiary opinions? Just plain crazy? Bring it on.”
On Monday, Google would not explicitly rebut the idea that it had been tricked but said that the cause of the temporary blockage appeared to be elsewhere. “It appears that our anti-spam filters caused some Blogger accounts to be blocked from creating new posts,” Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said in a statement. “While we are still investigating, we believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the ‘Just Say No Deal’ network of blogs, which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam. We have restored posting rights to the affected blogs, and it is very important to us that Blogger remain a tool for political debate and free expression.”
Mr. Kovacevich would not give further details about Google’s spam monitoring techniques or their relationship to the Blogger service.
Some blocked bloggers have reported that their sites have suddenly become unblocked. Yet some have already moved their blogs to WordPress, a rival blogging service, and remain angry about what they call Google’s “guilty until proven innocent” policy.
“Without any notice, apology, or explanation, my posting privileges has been reinstated,” wrote the author of the blog Come a Long Way, who identifies herself as GeekLove. “Blogger’s ‘guilty until proven innocent’ approach is appalling. As bloggers, it is a good thing we still have choices, and I have exercised my choice to leave Blogger and establish a new home at WordPress.”
Attempts to reach some of the anti-Obama bloggers were not immediately successful.
Carissa Snedeker, of Silver Springs, Nevada, whose Blue Lyon blog was affected by the temporary freeze, said she doesn’t buy Google’s answer and still believes that Obama supporters “flagged” her blog. Yet she is mostly upset at Google.
“What frustrated me was that Blogger didn’t give us the benefit of the doubt,” said Ms. Snedeker, adding that she has been publishing her blog for three years. “It would have taken a human five seconds to figure out we are not spam,” she said. Her blog is now hosted on WordPress.
Be respectful of others and their opinions. Inflammatory remarks and inane leftist drivel will be deleted. It ain’t about free speech, remember you’re in a private domain. My website, my prerogative.
If you can't handle using your real email address, don't bother posting a comment.
This is what Marxists do. Silence the opposition. Destroy all dissent. Use fear and intimidation. Saul Alinsky would be proud of his legion of fools, as would Marx, Lenin and Stalin.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:15 amAdd American spectator to this list. If you use gooogle you are first warned that this site “This site may harm your computer.”If you try to open the site you get a google warning page. I am with Ms.Snedker and others who believe this is deliberate on googles part.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:30 amYes is the answer to this. The muslims have been blocking the Michael Savage website for some time now, making it very hard to refresh or even load from page to page to review an article.
I have tried to send them an email to this but do not know how to do so. Anybody know how. It would be appreciated….
July 1st, 2008 at 6:31 amI,ve had google tell me Pat Dollard,s site was a Virus.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:28 amWhat?!?
More “Google Noodles”??!!??
More like a rather big bowl of squirming worms …
July 1st, 2008 at 7:47 amThey’re up in arms about the 2nd amendment, when they can’t even follow the 1st.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:19 amToday they have Wesley Clark talking AGAIN trying to defend the indefensible. It’s strange–using all this energy trying to make the case that because someone was locked up for 5 years, they lack foreign policy experience? Say what? What about his subsequent experience in the Congress and Senate? Idiots!
July 1st, 2008 at 8:30 amThey now have thier operatives out there pushing this as something the McCain/GOP are keeping alive to avoid talking about ‘the issues’ …
IF that is the case, why am I pretty much only hearing Hussein supporters and ops. talking about THIS?
July 1st, 2008 at 8:37 amIn case I’m not the last person on the planet to find this:
http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaVideos.htm
July 1st, 2008 at 9:14 amGoogle!? Who the fuck still uses Google? - knowing what Iv’e known about it, I use YAHOO, ALTAVISTA…. Fuck google - marxist morons.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:22 amHere’s a conspiracy that the 9/11 Truthers should be sinking their teeth into. Sergey Brin, the founder of Google, is either a KGB plant or has pledged loyalty to Putin and his cronies. The people at that company are no good. Remember the D-Day banner or lack thereof? Check it on Memorial Day & 4th of July because most likely there won’t be any commemoration for those national holidays either. These creeps know exactly what they’re doing and they certainly like to express their political viewpoints. No anti-al Qaeda viewpoints on Youtube but plenty anti-US. This is just one more example.
July 1st, 2008 at 12:31 pmHeres the new logos google will be using to celebrate the holidays:http://www.thenoseonyourface.com/conservative-satire/google-unveils-new-logos-to-commemorate-american-holidays/
July 1st, 2008 at 1:02 pmI suspect that many online dirty tricks have been used by Obama supporters, for in addition to the never ending avalanche of nasty sarcastic posts from pro Obama bloggers … the unprecedented online fund raising by the Obama camp … the online dominance by several pro Obama websites, like Huffington … and, this recent blocking of anti-Obama bloggers, several times, when I posted anti-Obama, Pro Clinton, pro McCain posts to sites who guranteed the aminitiy of my email address … I ended up getting hundreds and hundreds of pieces of spam in my mail box shortly after each time I posted.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:18 am