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Donald Trump supporters artificially manipulated the results of online polls to create a false narrative that the Republican nominee won the first presidential debate on Monday night.
The efforts originated from users of the pro-Trump Reddit community r/The_Donald and 4chan messaged boards, which bombarded around 70 polls, including those launched by Time, Fortune, and CNBC.
In this latest incarnation, multiple Reddit users enlisted the Trump-supporting masses on r/The_Donald, which has over 200,000 subscribers, by posting dozens of online polls that are vulnerable to vote brigading, bots, and other forms of manipulation that make these non-scientific surveys notoriously unreliable.
Polls that were not open to public voting consistently put Clinton ahead of Trump. In a flash poll by Public Policy Polling, Clinton led Trump 51 to 40. A CNN/ORC poll conducted immediately following the debate found significantly stronger support for Clinton, who topped Trump 62 to 27.
http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/trump-clinton-debate-online-polls-4chan-the-donald/
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Wednesday September 28 2016, @05:13AM
Absolutely. It's about time that the press learned something about integrity and ethics as well as the fact that just because you can print something, doesn't mean you should print it.
Freedom of the press exists because allowing the government to set the rules is dangerous, they can easily set rules that prevent the public from ever finding out about various embarrassing things that they're doing. But, that does not require the press to post anything they want to. Part of having freedom is exercising restraint and judgment at times.
In this case, they gave Trump several billions of dollars in free advertising every time he said something ridiculous or outlandish they put it on screen hoping for viewers. On the Democratic side, they spent a huge amount of time covering for Clinton's obvious inadequacies and towing the party line that Clinton's win was inevitable and ignored the serious election fraud in places like CA and RI. They didn't just find that there weren't problems, they actively ignored those stories because they wanted to be on Clinton's good side. They failed miserably to hold her feet to the fire about the months long lack of press conferences and the fact that Clinton was completely absent from the campaign trail for over a month while she went around looking for donations from wealthy donors.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 28 2016, @01:30PM
And there you have it, the raison d'etre for Hillary's campaign. It's all about the dollars. Does that deserve your vote, ye Hillary supporters?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 28 2016, @01:36PM
Francis, that ship has long since sailed. An AC upthread listed all the intimate links between the press and government, who's married to whom, etc. It's that way with nearly every other function of government, too. The revolving door has pervaded all aspects of it. That's why you have corrupt hedge fund guys running the SEC, and who rotate out to plush do-nothing jobs in the hedge funds every couple of years. They are all on the same team together, and that team is always playing against the other team, which is us.
It has to be said again and again until people wake up from the fever dream that is Left vs. Right, Republican vs. Democrat, and accept the reality, which is that it is 1% vs. 99% (for lack of a better, contemporary characterization).
Washington DC delenda est.