Must read this: Newsweek poll manipulated

[madmax]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4205947/

Click on 'Special Interest Group' in red.

[JohnLocke]

1. Oh, my!

[madmax]

Great PR

for the freepers, NOT!

[rucky]

2. That's hilarious

there was a 50/50 chance it would've been us on the other end of that link, tho.

[ronnykmarshall]

3. How DARE THEY??

I love it!! Freepers BUSTED!!

But of course MSNBC is a left wing liberal mouth piece.

[WilliamPitt]

4. Busted

[Leilani]

5. Wow!!

Caught the Freepers & the GOP in the act of freeping.

First time anyone has called them on it.

[Goldmund]

13. As much as I have to pinch my nose and ask this question...

...how is "freeping" fundamentally different from "DUing"? They simply got to this poll before we did. They beat us to it this time. Nothing wrong with that. Of course internet polls are going to be manipulated by "special interest groups", due to the abundance of political messageboards like DU or FR. The only way for these polls to make any sense at all is for all "special interest groups" to be vigilant, and make their input cancel out the input of an opposing group. In this very case, the freepers were more enthusiastic or more vigilant than we were. Let's make sure it doesn't happen next time. But to chastise them for "freeping" is a little hypocritical, don't you think?

[girl gone mad]

23. The difference is..

"cheating" tactics such as using bots or removing cookies to vote over and over are encouraged over at freeperville while I have never seen that type of behavior condoned at DU.

[Goldmund]

25. I think this is grasping at straws.

I am sure it's not official policy of FR to encourage e-cheating. I'm sure someone has posted something to that effect on both DU and FR. Even in the freeper thread in question, the one that MSNBC links to, I didn't see a single post encouraging this kind of a thing. Also, Newsweek's complaint isn't about this kind of cheating, but about a "special interest group" disproportionately participating in the poll.

[CatWoman]

29. *groan*

where have YOU been????

They promote it all the time, and then brag about it.

I am sure it's not official policy of FR to encourage e-cheating.

Many of us here have WITNESSED it.

[Goldmund]

31. Easy with the *groan*ing

and enlighten me here. What exactly have you witnessed?

[madmax]

38. I looked for all the info I saved during 2000

but, I must have deleted the files. :(

[CatWoman]

39. see response 34

[Mountainman]

48. They coined the term freeped!

To Freep a poll means to manipulate a poll so the results are in their favor.

[CatWoman]

52. which is the exact opposite of "DU" ing a poll

when we DU a poll, we just vote.

We don't cheat.

[madmax]

32. They become even more intense closer to the election

During 2000 I called CNN several times to tell them their polls are bullshit. I d/l pages from FR and sent them to a producer.

I'm not saying that what I did had any affect but, you'll notice now that anytime there is an online poll Wolf Shitzer or however will state, 'this is not a scientific poll'.

[girl gone mad]

33. No.

If you read a little bit more carefully, you'll see that their concern lies in the uniformity of responses of a large percentage of respondants. In other words, cheating may be involved.

Also, a post on the FR thread in question states that the White House is encouraging freepers to take the poll. That's a bit different that someone on DU posting a link to a poll and asking DUers to participate.

And I've never once seen poll cheating encouraged on DU.

[Goldmund]

36. The "white house" line is most likely bullshit.

Since freepers are more easily mobilized by their masters than by their own free will (if individual thinking were an ingredient in the mind of a freeper he/she would most likely not be a freeper in the first place), this was most likely an attempt by the original poster to get the highest number of people possible to vote in the poll. A lie by the original poster, of course, but it doesn't make the participants cheaters.

On Edit: And as far as "uniformity of responses", what else would you expect from freepers? Bush good. Democrats bad. It was pretty clear in all of the question on the poll which option a good Bush-licker should pick.

[enki23]

34. actually, they definitely *have* condoned that in the past

whether that was the position of the site administration, i don't know. but they allowed to occur on occasions numerous enough that even a casual browser noticed them. they may have backed off on the explicit "how to delete your cookies in order to vote again" postings lately, i don't know. i haven't been bothering to read the crap lately.

[Monument]

51. I completely agree....this is just like DUing a poll

come on guys, let's get real here. I see people trying to manipulate polls ALL THE TIME on this site. It's one of the reasons why online polls are NEVER to be trusted, because people like us get involved.

O'Reilly was talking about how an internet group of neo-Nazis manipulated one of his polls to be ridiculously in favor of racial discrimination.

[krkaufman]

50. Yes, it's a plus that MSNBC called them on it.

But I doubt that it will cause them to stop doing Internet-based polls or irresponsibly reporting their results.

We should take this opportunity to try convincing MSNBC to end the practice of reporting or posting Internet polls, with or without the mild "unscientific" disclaimer.

[Union Thug]

6. They freeped it....

so lets counter their freepage and DU it!

[boobooday]

7. Yikes

And thus the sheeple make their bleating heard . . .

baaaah baaaaah

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[displacedtexan]

8. ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!

The White House sent out the alert to the GOP chairwoman (OKLA)!!


And Newsweek even included the freeper link in the article!

Jeezus on a pogo stick!

[mhr]

9. I Thought I'd Never See The Day That Freeper Manipulation Was Outed!

eom

[revcarol]

10. Bunny Chambers, National GOP committeewoman from OK

the White House requested that FReepers vote in the poll.

[AngryYoungMan]

19. And THAT'S the difference between them and us.

For those who were asking.

[On the Road]

11. Wow -- That's Priceless!

This is why I have encouraged DU to oppose multiple voting and individuals not to encourage or discuss it. These things do get around, and they make the perpetrator look bad.

Kudos to MSNBC for putting the direct link in.

------------------
On Edit: Proof? You want proof? Here's a comment from the freeper thread:

Dear linked readers from the unscientific MSN poll
Please check out these comments from the 'other side of the fence', so to speak.

Post #1 on referenced thread linked below: "Should We Report Freepers Whenever they try "Freeping" polls? Why should we let Freepers vote up to 10 times on the same poll. We should report "Freeps" to the webmasters of the sites conducting the polls. I remember a few months ago we got a poll shut down because it was being Freeped."

Post #2 in answer in thread referenced in link below:"And yes we should continue DUing polls There is a need to help people from making stupid mistakes and if a poll result might influence even one person from supporting these idiots in charge then I have no qualms with it."
You caught that they admitted to messing with the unscientific polls, and admit to wanting to think for you? So, the friendly people at MSN must also link to the page at DU where these statements can be found so they can be honest in their statements.
Page can be found here unless it's been deleted already.

Thank you for reading and understanding.

------------------

That's why we shouldn't be doing freeping polls. We're already tarred with the same me brush. Thanks a lot to whoever did this.

[madmax]

14. I agree

Unlike the Repugs and the freepers we can win with honest votes ;)

[On the Road]

17. Did the White House Order the Freep?

Seems far-fetched, but that's what they're claiming. Cut and pasted from the freeper discussion:

From: Bunny Chambers Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 11:21 PM
Subject: ALERT--Action Needed

We have been requested by the White House to click on the following link and participate in the Newsweek Poll: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4205947/ Please do it as soon as possible. Please pass this on.

Bunny Chambers GOP National Committeewoman for Oklahoma

[MurikanDemocrat]

28. I caught that! Requested by the White House!!

[ronnykmarshall]

40. Good ol' Bunny!

Fine woman.

[jburton]

42. Can you just picture this person...

Bunny Chambers GOP National Committeewoman for Oklahoma

Bunny Chambers!?!?

[ronnykmarshall]

44. And here she is!

Mrs. Bunny Chambers


http://www.rnc.org/GOPDirectory/StateDirectory.aspx?State=OK&x=26&y=6#

[Bunny]

55. The rest of us bunnies may have to take a vote

and kick her out of the club. She's giving us a bad name!

[salin]

12. good catch - and very funny. n/t

[BootinUp]

15. Ha Ha Ha Ha

Check out Hillary's numbers.

You can see why Gay marraiges made it into the SOTU speech. Even the repugs can read polls :dunce:

[damnraddem]

16. I 'voted.'

But I haven't been able to view the results.

But at least they've caught on to the Freepers.

[Loki]

18. How long has this been going on

and Newsweek is just now finding out? The scam is up - poor widdle freepers. :evilgrin:

[EarlG]

20. Ha ha

"One would hope that individuals voting in an online poll would have the personal integrity to vote only once - not multiple times." - The Traditional Values Coalition

http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/04/141.html

:)

[maddezmom]

21. best laugh I've had all day :)

[MsUnderstood]

22. Best post from the special interest group

In response to the quetion "Thinking about the last four American first ladies, who comes closest to your image of what a first lady should be?"

The freeper site says "Not only does Clinton (c) come before Laura Bush (B) but you notice that they have ONE Democrat versus the 3 most popular Republican women. We get to split our vote 3 ways and the Dems get one choice. UNREAL"

Okay these women are listed IN order and the last 4 women are shown--3 of which happen to be female.

Lord, their stupidity amazes me!

[Goldmund]

24. Ha ha ha

"Okay these women are listed IN order and the last 4 women are shown--3 of which happen to be female."

Which one of these women is male?

[zonmoy]

53. Why are you assuming that they mean male

and not android.

[boxster]

26. "We have been requested by the White House"

Interesting.

[rbnyc]

27. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Fuckin' freepers. Thanks for posting this. Very funny stuff.

[Renew Deal]

30. Morans

:)

[reprehensor]

35. Heh! ;)

[Fenris]

37. THAT made my day!

[adadem]

47. Me, too

they're outed!

[LynneSin]

41. This is their leader

[CrownPrinceBandar]

43. Looked over the FR posts...

and I still don't see a smoking gun. I see a lot of finger-pointing at DU for mobilizing on these polls, but thats about it. I see no evidence for the bots that were mentioned or the "clearing of cookies" that would allow multiple votes by the same person.

If I'm missing something, somebody please point it out. FR is using the "DU this poll" tactic as ammunition against DU in the court of public opinion. Using the fact that we DU a poll as fertile grounds for cheating. We need to make it very clear that one vote per person equals one vote per person. I haven't seen anything on the FR posts that would convince me otherwise. And believe me, I've looked hard.

Thanks,

Foamdad

[NewYorkerfromMass]

45. I'm shocked! scho.....

LOL!!!!!

[Snivi Yllom]

46. just s few lines above is a DU post calling for voting at an online poll

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=358162

[tobius]

49. GOSH! you mean INTERNET polls aren't reliable?

For crying out loud, just about any forum I see across the political spectrum calls for piling on to a petition or poll somewhere online.
Most polls have a prominent disclosure "not a scientific sample". This has gone on for years, where's the story?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

54. BUSTED!

Finally.