This blog is dedicated to the memory of David Weintraub, who took on insidious astroturfers and won.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Nuclear Catastrophe In Japan And Are Astroturfers All Over Yahoo?


Japan nuclear crisis escalates

Yahoo has implemented a new moderator tool to hide anti-social posts, but it now appears that sytem is being gamed by internet fakes.

Here's one article with a few brief excerpts.

U.S. shows growing alarm over Japan nuclear crisis By Jeff Mason and Tom Doggett
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States showed increasing alarm about Japan's nuclear crisis on Wednesday and urged its citizens to stay clear of an earthquake-crippled power plant, going further in its warnings than Japan itself....

A United Nations forecast projects the radioactive plume from the Fukushima facility would reach the Aleutian Islands on Thursday and hit Southern California late on Friday, The New York Times reported.
This is how the new yahoo system works for public comments. Those which get the most thumbs up are shown first. In theory, this is a splendid idea. However, like with the Daily Kos' similar approach, it is clearly opened to the prospect of being manipulated. What some may assume is community moderating could actually be a rigged platform. I'm not saying Yahoo is doing the rigging. I think they have nothing to do with the voting.

Here are the first ten results, all sounding the same and very pro-nuclear power. What are the odds? I'd say beyond the laws of probability.

William Randolph Hearst: One of the big problems in the US today is that there is too much media with too much air time to fill. These"reporters" are always talking about things they know nothing about. Sensational headlines are the norm.

George: Jackass! Retire already!

Scott B: Why do we always have to have knee jerk reactions to everything that happens these days?

John: We should be full steam ahead. No waiting on Nuclear, we should have been here years ago. We know they will be located on land bought and sold by congressman, but we should still be proceeding.

Dicky: Well mr LIEberman which is it, CO2 free nuclear power, or CO2 petroleum which you say is causing global warming and that a cap and tax on the US and Europe, (not China, or India) will not only line carbon gangsters pockets, but will start the global cooling cycle and cool and heal the plane

TexasRebel: Lieberman needs to shut his big yappy muzzle and do some research on Integral Fast Reactors and then do all he can to get some of them built. IFRs are a much safer reactor design and their waste is about 1/20 (or less) as radioactive as the current reactors. Reagan funded a prototype unit in '84, but Clinton shut it down in 1994 when it was almost completed. It cost more to end the project than it would have to finish it.

W.: Since 1979 here, so much has changed! Maybe time to retire... How much can we afford to pay for Electric,Gas Food? Wind is good as long as wind BLOWS!Ask any sailor...WE NEED FUEL NOW! Not 20,30 years! Get yor your @#$% together! NOW, NOW ,NOW!! Just don't build them along major fault lines! Duh...

Ted: This idiot is what's wrong with washington! We have never had a death from nuclear power in the USA including our nuclear powered navy our guy's have lived in submarines with a nuclear power plant for 50 yrs. We don't have to put ours on the ocean shoreline or in a earthquake prone area.

dave1971: Wow, another politician with a knee-jerk reaction, go figure....Thank god we have such "leaders"...Go back to sleep joe, we'll wake you up for your next fundraiser.

barry: Yup and the next time somebody has a car accident, everybody stop driving. He needs to go. If you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem.

Another drawback to this new Yahoo system is that replies made to each of those from the top ten list aren't seen unless someone clicks on them. Those might be getting gamed also but it would take further time to confirm. If someone has the time, they might want to compare replies to the top rated posts with those much further below. If a tree falls in the forest, do astroturfers care if it's heard by merely a few?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Waiting for Alex Constanteen to blame it all on the CIA.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Things like this are blamed on HAARP for the kooky, conspiracy theory angle. Though maybe Constantine can find proof a manchurian candidate has infiltrated the weather wars. No one should hold their breath waiting. Japan was due an earthquake and tsunami. That's what happened. With Chernobyl and now this, it's time to put a moratorium on nuclear power. Yeah, coal is a mess, and we need to figure out clean energy yesterday. Japan is in some big trouble, and the world is not an island. I heard each of us has a bit of radiation in our bodies from Chernobyl. People were increasingly starting to live into their 80's to 100's. Now we are headed the other way.

no_slappz said...

Ah. I see that with your own blog you're one of those cowardly types that fears a lot of uncensored comments, so you enable moderation.

Tokyo Shemp said...

You're making assumptions there, Rush Limbaugh. You try getting your ass cyberstalked and then get back to me.