CNBC Forced to Take Down Poll Because of Ron Paul Spammers
Back in May I wrote an article regarding Ron Paul supports spamming polls at different websites, including mine. I stated at the time that it may prove to be harmful to Dr. Paul’s campaign as those who host the polls become annoyed that the results do not accurately reflect the general consensus among the websites visitors. Since that time, many conservative blogs have ceased including Ron Paul in their polls for this reason. As it turns out CNBC has been having the same problem:
Dear folks,
You guys are good. Real good. You are truly a force on World Wide Web and I tip my hat to you.
That’s based on my first hand experience of your work regarding our CNBC Republican candidate debate. After the debate, we put up a poll on our Web site asking who readers thought won the debate. You guys flooded it.
Now these Internet polls are admittedly unscientific and subject to hacking. In the end, they are really just a way to engage the reader and take a quick temperature reading of your audience. Nothing more and nothing less. The cyber equivalent of asking the room for a show of hands on a certain question.
So there was our after-debate poll. The numbers grew … 7,000-plus votes after a couple of hours … and Ron Paul was at 75%.
Now Paul is a fine gentleman with some substantial backing and, by the way, was a dynamic presence throughout the debate , but I haven’t seen him pull those kind of numbers in any “legit” poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.
The next day, our email basket was flooded with Ron Paul support messages. And the computer logs showed the poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar fashion. Congratulations. You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can’t help but admire that.
But you also ruined the purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest “show of hands” — it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum. That certainly wasn’t our intention and certainly doesn’t serve our readers … at least those who aren’t already in the Ron Paul camp.
Some of you Ron Paul fans take issue with my decision to take the poll down. Fine. When a well-organized and committed “few” can throw the results of a system meant to reflect the sentiments of “the many,” I get a little worried. I’d take it down again.
Sincerely,
Allen Wastler
Managing Editor, CNBC.com
Ron Paul’s supporters should take note of the above letter along with the many other warnings they have received to cease spamming internet polls. If you are a regular reader of my blog and happen to be a Ron Paul fan (which as I have said previously, I am a moderate fan of his myself), I have no problem with you casting your vote for him in any poll I conduct. However if you end up on my blog because you followed a link from the Ron Paul Press Hub, and came here simply to cast a vote and leave, your vote means nothing to me.
The constant spamming is not increasing Dr. Paul’s standing among Republicans, if anything it is hurting it. It is a classic guilt by association which is occurring now that has conservative bloggers, and now even CNBC, removing Dr. Paul from polls in an effort to keep them honest.
Sphere: Related ContentIf you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
The term you are looking for is poll “swarming”, where supporters of a candidate regularly check their newsfeeds for articles about their candidate - online poll locations are frequently posted, and the supporters proceed to the website to vote for their candidate. IMHO there’s nothing wrong with this - every candidate’s supporters have equal opportunity to organize in this way. Thus, the online polls tend to measure a candidate’s ability to inspire Internet users rather than reflecting a scientific sample of popular support. Really people just need to realize an online poll is a different measurement than phone polls, and stop whining because they got different results than they expected.
Well said good sir. People don’t see the truth anymore, even the ones who say they “tell it fair.” They’re worthless… if they only knew what some of us did, our society would be in reform and being fixed as we speak.
Spamming is not the correct term. Spamming indicated 1 person casting many votes. In actuality these are many people casting individual votes. CNBC took down their poll because they were unhappy with the results. They felt they the result were based on a well organized internet community of Ron Paul supporters rather then random individuals who stumbled upon their poll. Like the Fox texting polls, which only allow a single text per cell phone number, they claim their polls are “spammed” by the “Paulie”. In actuality, this isn’t spamming. Individual are casting individual votes. The thing that these news agencies hate is that the internet is the absolute domain of Ron Paul. Dr. Paul has something like 70%-80% of internet users’ backing. The real question is how far does this extend from the internet.
Truth be told, there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are polls. News agencies have consistently played games with polls in pre-elections. This is done by leaving names off of polls, asking questions in a specific way manner in order to prod the individual of a certain answer, and/or asking people in target areas, i.e. if I poll a wealthy area I am more likely to get republican based answers. In the past 5 presidential election, 3 of candidates that ended up getting their parties nod weren’t remotely the front runners a year out. Polls: telling you what you should think.
Fire Society experiences much what you do , and we who support Ron Paul ARE avid supporters , but the term “spam” is the electroni “N” word and should only be used when documentation is at hand . Ron Paul supporters can help clean up if you can show where it is proof positive that anyone is in fact “spamming” . The support and the growth of the following has even amazed the good Doctor , and I can see where you might not believe some numbers are credible (especially if you follow outdated , poorly organized or even leading (mis) polls which are rampant on the media outlets . But you do your due dilligence and we will correct anything you can come up with , so long as it is proof postive and not hearsay .
Oct 30th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
[…] http://constitutionallyright.com/2007/… […]