"mark as spam"

[me b zola]

That is what I have been doing at youtube to all of the insidious "Ron Paul '08!" messages that add nothing to the conversation to the video it is responding to, they are clearly spam. You can't read the comments of a Dem political video without being assaulted with this. I haven't been marking them as spam if they at least pretend to be participating in discussion--that is until tonight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlmgKQTkRM8

[orleans]

1. ron paul...john paul...wasn't he one of the beatles? n/t

[me b zola]

2. You would think he was a Beatle as fanatic as his spammers are

Tonight I found out that they are more than annoying, they are vile.

[orleans]

6. is it illegal to defame a political sign someone sticks on a public parkway

or grassy meridian dividing a street? i'm seeing several around here and i've about had it with that shit. (but this is republican country--figures. they're suck ASSHOLES!)

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. I was unaware of this. Makes sense though, paul seems to have fired up

a flock of dimwitted teenagers who think he's a libertarian progressive, I'd guess he must be pro legalization of pot or something else tantalizing to the legions of the stupid.

[Naturyl]

4. God bless you

I always try to mark down Ron Paul spam on YouTube, but it's a never-ending battle. There must be terabytes of the crap on there.

And "most viewed" in News & Politics is becoming nearly wortless because it is always clogged with Ron Paul videos.

[Naturyl]

5. I also made a little something for the Ron Paul fanatics...

http://ronpaulreligion.ytmnd.com

Yeah, it's a bit juvenile, but I have a silly sense of humor sometimes. :)

[MADem]

9. Someone oughta do a bit with THIS R. Paul

Who would get my vote before that other clown did, if it were down to the two of them:

[me b zola]

10. lol,

Their homophobic little heads might explode. :rofl:

[soothsayer]

12. He was on Howard Stern the other day. Very entertaining and

thoughtful.

[me b zola]

7. I've considered beginning a spamming campaign of my own

I've thought about going to Paul videos and saying things like "my earwax for president 2008!", but I doubt that they would get the message.

[EST]

8. I'll bet that's terribly irritating!

I can only imagine, being limited to dialup, how frustrating it must be to try to engage in a frank, courteous discussion about something that's really hot, and have a bunch of loud, inarticulate intruders to deal with.

As a point of understanding how people work, I would crave a question:

Surely the number of negative impressions from such tactics must be at least equal to the number of converts they hope to gain. If that's the case, could it be their whole purpose for jacking a thread, like most hackers', is merely to disrupt and irritate?

I wonder if they are loosely connected to Paul's campaign and whether he knows about it-unlikely.

Oh, well, at least it will be a time limited aggravation and, with those advocates pissing off as many potential supporters as they recruit, he's unlikely ever to accumulate sufficient votes to pose a serious challenge.

[me b zola]

11. I tend to think that they believe they are doing Paul a favor

I think that they are (mostly)operating under the mistaken assumption that because many of us were glad when Paul spoke out forcefully against the war that we see him as an option for us to vote for. After a poster let them know that we wouldn't vote for him because of his uber republican domestic stances they went away. Of course it's late and they may just have packed it in for the night, but I think maybe they just need to be told that they are wasting their time, that they should focus their energy on republican minded voters.

What got me riled up tonight was one of the ron paul brigade made a homophobic remark in response to a Kucinich video. It was kind of the last straw for me. It was two of the most annoying things about youtube bundled together--ron paul spamming and hate speech (there's a lot of it over there, just not usually together).

[EST]

13. Good points, all.

One other thing, though: maybe we are ascribing far too much logic, humanity and thinking ability to them. Maybe they really are just nasty, inconsiderate, hopelessly adolescent jerks who take perverse pleasure in urinating in someone else's barbecue.