Stephen Brook has written a second article for the UK Guardian about the Huffington Post Troll controversy. The Guardian is the equivalent to the New York Times in the UK.
I'LL HUFF AND I'LL PUFF...
By Stephen Brook / GUARDIAN
Love it, loathe it or ignore it (as I do), in the blogging world the Huffington Post is hot. Which is what makes the current "troll and mole" controversy, that engulfed the site and led to the Post banning its own blogger Peter Rost, such a doozy.
For those who came late, the Post has banned Peter Rost for, in the words of the site co-founder Arianna Huffington "his refusal to act as part of our online community".
Sounds a bit Stasi, doesn't it?
Dr Rost got the boot after he exposed the identity of a persistent hostile poster to his blogs, known in the industry as a "troll", as in fact being the Post's own technology manager.
He also accused the troll, Andy Yaco-Mink, of manipulated the Post's voting system to get his hostile posts voted into the readers' favourites section.
Cue widespread panic at the Post. It took down Dr Rost's blog, then put back it up, then took away Dr Rost's password allowing him to blog.
Arianna herself has now been moved to blog on the snafu, apologising for the removal of Rost's blog, denying there was any manipulation of the readers' favourite vote and digging herself deeper into the mire by attempting to explain why the site had deregistered the good doctor.
Continue reading here.
11 comments:
Glad to see the world has caught up with what many many of us have been complaining about(to no avail) for months. It's obvious the blog, at it's inception, was never going to be an honest forum of conflicting opinions and dialogue. It was always going to be a stage where the spotlight was going to shine on one person alone, Mz Huffington. To recount the number of times her minions censor, manipulate, delay, delete and generally use the input of readers as fonts to pick and choose whatever point of view they're promulgating that day. The rest are simply discarded. To go on with listing the abuses of this site would be like reciting the abuses of the Bush admimistration...never ending. I have written over two dozen emails to her "contact us" link asking, in a heartfelt and sober manner, to respond or explain these problems. Rather than respond to loyal, but peplexed, fans she uses the inquiries to flag as "troublemakers" those who question the process.
Why not just go elsewhere, one could rightfully ask? Well, many of us have, but that's not the point. She has used her fame and money to propagate a fraud on millions of of naive but well meaning people, bloggers and posters alike. Her "George Clooney" incident, brushed off as a mis-step, should have raised all kinds of red flags. It was a rare glimpse into the modus operandi of her real motives: to glorify herself, and provide legitimacy in her obsessive desire to be accepted by the hollywood beautiful people.
What author, politician, or prominent person, with an ounce of self respect, would now want their good name to be associated with this sham?
Hopefully the implosion now taking place will accelerate, and bury this hoax in the trashbin, where she can find suitable friends like Paris Hilton, The Gong Show, and Hee Haw.
The anger now growing, as people are realizing they have been used as cannon fodder is welcome and long overdue. The sad part of it all is, to paraphrase Marlon Brando, "Arianna, you coulda been a somebody."
Great article and one does have to wonder if Arianna in her jet setting days recently has been made aware of the situation in an honest manner.
As well I agree that Huffingtonpost has turned into the Jerry Springer of blogs. The trolls over there have just taken over almost all the comments.
IF this is how Huffpo wants things then they are welcome to them.
I was hoping the place would be a more honest and open debate with mostly liberal/progressive views but possibly even honest back and for with conservatives. Silly me, how could that ever happen.
Now the place has just degenerated into trailer trash, ala Jerry Springer. Without Steve to keep things partially civilized. And the trailer trahs has taken over the place.
Advertisers beware.
Hello, I found your personal blog via the HuffPost -- so it DOES have its uses :-)
This is a comment I wanted to post at the previous post/thread. I think the fundamental TECHINCAL problem is that if you start a community site like the HuffPost (or DailyKos or BoomanTribune or...) you either have to be just a little bit tech-savvy yourself
in order to follow the fine details of technology that do tend to affect content and site management politics. Or, if you are a floating-above-the-waters-hands-off CEO type than you'd better make goddam sure that you can trust your tech staff come hell and high water. None of which seems to be the case at HuffPost.
Also, if you are confronted with hard facts (and even statistics) you'd better face them, and, as we Hungarians would say, swallow the frog. Trying to save face with spin and obfuscation and blaming the messenger just does NOT wash. Even when encased in pretty Brussels and Liege embroidery.
By now your own blog must surely have acquired a critical mass of audience --- still, would you see any harm in appearing in other online communities? I have DailyKos, BoomanTribune, PoliticalCortex or MyLefWing in mind. Or, maybe there is a spinoff of DailyKos's science caucus, led by one DarkSyde. How about European Tribune, which is a judicious mix of Americans and Europeans? (http://www.eurotrib.com)
Just asking...
All the best, AgnesBF
You should make the site Huffintonrost.com
Dear Mr. Rost,
I was able to get in a post or two to your blog at Huffingtonpost.com (the one about the Rendon Group as I posted the Rolling Stone article link and the additional links about Bamford as well). Huffingtonpost.com has been banning me for making posts about Mearsheimer and Walt (and similar) like the following one:
Why aren't we discussing this Mearsheimer/Walt segment on the pro-Israel lobby which aired on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' this morning?:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=54755
Interesting that you compare the Guardian to the New York Times. The "paper of record" in Britain is generally considered to be the Times of London, the parallel to the NYT. The Guardian prides itself as being the most left-wing of all major British newspapers, practically a Communist organ.
The following includes the comments page at which I posted what was mentioned above:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-rost/how-a-public-relations-fi_b_22912.html?p=2#comments
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/g6jkk
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com
Huffingtonpost.com just banned me again within minutes for posting the following to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/the-freedom-to-blog-on-th_b_23712.html?p=2#comments as there is incredible censorship going on there:
The following was posted in the comments section of the various blog entries by Peter Rost via http://peterrost.blogspot.com
Dear Mr. Rost,
I was able to get in a post or two to your blog at Huffingtonpost.com (the one about the Rendon Group as I posted the Rolling Stone article link and the additional links about Bamford as well). Huffingtonpost.com has been banning me for making posts about Mearsheimer and Walt (and similar) like the following one:
Why aren't we discussing this Mearsheimer/Walt segment on the pro-Israel lobby which aired on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' this morning?:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=54755
6/24/2006
The following includes the comments page at which I posted what was mentioned above:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-rost/how-a-public-relations-fi_b_22912.html?p=2#comments
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/g6jkk
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com
By: HPcensoringtruthhere on June 24, 2006 at 03:01pm
Just noticed that Huffingtonpost.com even removed the above post from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/the-freedom-to-blog-on-th_b_23712.html?p=2#comments after I was banned for making it just minutes ago.
Anonymous said...
They are censoring anything on Israel because, the Zionists know the jig is up thats obvious.
Israel and the Zionists can't hide or play the blame game now that they've ruined our country, via neocon intervention.
Those losers are all the same now, just like the trolls such as returnofdrevil2, Al Rogers, Nan Ellen of the Daily "KOS" propaganda press.
6/25/2006
Very much agree with the above.. My HPCensoringBigTime Username was just banned at Huffingtonpost.com for posting on pages 1 and 2 of the comments at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/06/24/excia-aide-reveals-new-d_n_23738.html about the Zionist war for Israel agenda and the Mearsheimer/Walt paper on the pro-Israel lobby segment which aired on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' program this past Friday..
Abraham Foxman (of the ADL) was hammered hard by the caller (a lady with the Brit accent calling from London) on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' this morning as she mentioned the USS Liberty attack/cover-up (http://www.ussliberty.org) and Paul Findley's 'There Dare to Speak Out' book and Jim Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book as well (both the Mearsheimer/Walt and Abraham Foxman segments can be viewed online via the links at the following URL):
http://www.c-span.org/videoarchives.asp?CatCodePairs=Series,WJE&ArchiveDays=30
Here is the tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/dl5na
Additional at following URLs about how MSNBC's Keith Olbermann dissed the Mearsheimer/Walt paper:
MSNBC's Olbermann Disses Mearsheimer and Walt Critique:
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=412
http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/stopcollection.htm#james_morris
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com
I got banned again minutes after posting the following at Huffingtonpost.com via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/06/25/dem-senator-now-it-tur_n_23773.html and other blog entries there (incredible censorship still going on as mentioned prior):
JINSA/PNAC Neocon Richard Perle: Why Did Bush Blink on Iran?:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=54827
http://nomorewarforisrael.blogspot.com
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