Friday Open Thread

Filed in National by on August 6, 2010

Welcome to your Friday open thread. TGIF!

A conservative cabal is caught red-handed gaming Digg to bury articles from liberal/progressive websites. But, but, Journolist!

A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.

“The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives.”
-phoenixtx (aka vrayz)

Digg.com is the powerhouse of social media websites. It is ranked 50th among US websites by Alexa (117th in the world), by far the most influential social media site. It reached one million users in 2007 and likely has more than tripled that by this point. Digg generates around 25 million page views per month, over one third of the page views of the NY Times. Front page stories regularly overwhelm and temporarily shut down websites in a process called the “Digg Effect.”

…

The DP group searches Digg for any articles from websites they want to drown out, sites such as Salon, News Junkie Post, Talking Points Memo, FreakOutNation, Five Thirty Eight, ThePublicRecord, Rawstory, The Nation, Media Matters for America, PoliticusUSA, Alternet, Fire Dog Lake, Political Carnival, TruthOut, DailyKos, The Joshua Blog, The Brad Blog, Huffington Post, Science Blogs, Smirking Chimp, Down With Tyranny, Crooks and Liars, MarioPiperni, Buzzflash, Bob Cesca’s REALLY AWESOME Blog, and The New York Times.

I’m sure you can guess what this group called themselves – Digg Patriots. Because censorship is patriotic!

Speaking of patriots, a church group that a game where you shoot at an image of Obama was a great idea:

In Roseto, Pa., a carnival company closed down a shooter game called “Alien Attack,” after complaints and news stories that President Obama was one of the targets.

The black “alien leader” is holding a scroll titled “Health Bill” and wearing a presidential seal belt buckle. He also has antennae and a troll doll with a KISS T-shirt on his shoulder.

The owner of the carnival company, Goodtime Amusements, dismissed a complaint, saying the figure is not meant to be Obama.

Of course the amusement group was shocked, SHOCKED that people thought that the target was Obama. It was just an alien! I wonder how they got that idea?

I’m just hoping that one day we’ll all look back at this era and laugh.

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Comments (7)

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  1. anon says:
    August 6, 2010 at 12:56 pm

    Here’s a nice guide to the conservative 501(c)(4) organizations that will be sopping up all that money free speech from corporations this fall (love the title): A Guide To The ‘Shadow GOP’

    …much of the money going into the GOP effort is secret. While a few of the groups are registered as so-called 527 organizations under federal tax code, most are registered as 501-c4 nonprofit groups. That designation means they don’t have to disclose either their donors or where they’re spending all of that money. Unlike contributions to political candidates and parties, individual donations to such groups aren’t capped or regulated. And that makes them very attractive to big-money donors trying to affect the outcome of an election.

  2. Angry Kid Joe says:
    August 6, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    I counted only eleven floors to that structure. They do shadow well.

    “On the 12th floor of this New York Avenue office complex”

  3. Unstable Isotope says:
    August 6, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    Really interesting story about Target and the backlash against them when they used their new power under the Citizens United decision. They gave money to Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, which unleashed a backlash:

    We noted recently that Minnesota-based Target had availed itself of the new freedom created by the Citizen’s United decision to give $150,000 to support far-right Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. And in so doing they reaped a big backlash. Target’s aim seems to have been to support Emmer’s economic policies. But the backlash came over Emmer’s extremely anti-gay policy stands. (He’s also really against waiters.)

    Target’s CEO has now taken the pretty extraordinary step of issuing a public apology for the donation.

    Target, as it happens, has a quite good corporate record on LGBT issues and workplace policies. So it’s a fascinating example of how cross-cutting and complicated Citizen’s United giving may turn out to be.

  4. anon says:
    August 6, 2010 at 1:19 pm

    I counted only eleven floors to that structure.

    You forgot the dungeon level.

  5. Angry Kid Joe says:
    August 6, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    Sorry. Isn’t that where they harvest the “donor” hearts for Cheney?

  6. Joe Cass says:
    August 6, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    Wait a minute! New Invention! New Business Plan! Anon gets a respectable .01% capitalist cut. Donor hearts for Cheney! I’ll buy a box truck and “help” homeless in the inner cities or rural Amerika. Too many in the middle. Forget it. How about those disgusting candy hearts that kids buy for (st.)Valentine’s day? I (we) get a bunch made up with messages like “I love you enough NOT to shoot you in the face” or “Love is war profiteering” or how about “Alternative lifestyles suck”, scratch that one. “Pulling Strings” like heart strings? Bush was a puppet? get it? Maybe “Death tax breaks my heart”. New plan: Death pool! Sorry, I get ahead of myself, what with all the vagina enlarging and penile tightening and gays making the ice caps melt because THEY ARE HOT! Whoa, backing off that one.

  7. delacrat says:
    August 6, 2010 at 6:47 pm

    “nonfarm payrolls fell by a seasonally adjusted 131,000” while
    First Lady Michelle relaxes on Spanish Riviera

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