Meddling

It would’ve worked, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

There are 614 posts filed in Meddling (this is page 36 of 62).

Facebook Runs Strange Political News Quiz, Says It Was A Test

Last night Facebook gave me this customer feedback quiz which morphed into a political quiz. I, too, thought it was quite bizarre.

Facebook claims it was a “test survey” that has since been removed, but it doesn’t say whether the results were destroyed or not. While its bizarre shift from customer feedback into politics was startling, the questions seemed fully-formed to me and I’m somewhat skeptical of Facebook’s claims that this was actually a “test survey.”

Did you get an invite on Facebook to be surveyed about your experiences on the social network, only to find the actual survey turned into a bizarre political news quiz? I did, as did others. Facebook’s now stopped the survey, saying it was an incomplete test that got out into the wild.

via Facebook Runs Strange Political News Quiz, Says It Was A Test.

Also, see CNET’s coverage of this issue.

Statistical Probability That Mitt Romney’s New Twitter Followers Are Just Normal Users: 0% – Alexander Furnas and Devin Gaffney – The Atlantic

Last week Zach Green of 140Elect, noticed some strange goings-on with Mitt Romney’s Twitter account (@MittRomney). Romney’s account, which had been averaging around 2,000 to 5,000 new followers a day, gained 141,000 followers in two days.

This observation prompted speculation – from Green, Slate,The Huffington Post, CNN, and many others – that the Romney Campaign was buying robot followers, or perhaps (conspiratorially) someone else was buying them to make Romney look bad.

via Statistical Probability That Mitt Romney’s New Twitter Followers Are Just Normal Users: 0% – Alexander Furnas and Devin Gaffney – The Atlantic.

Republican paid voter registration operation linked to fraud « gregflynn

My friend Greg Flynn has unearthed some interesting links between a firm hired by the North Carolina Republican Party to register voters and other similar firms alleged to have destroyed and changed voter records. The firm apparently tried to cover its tracks but not before Greg found it.

Good sleuthing, Greg!

An effort by Republicans to register voters with paid workers is underway in North Carolina and across the nation. In the past month various ads have appeared on Craigslist, Facebook and other online job listings offering amounts from $11 to $13 per hour and in some cases internship credit to help Republicans and Mitt Romney win in North Carolina in November by identifying conservatives and registering them as voters. The operation is linked to an Arizona company with a history of fraud allegations including the destruction of Democratic registration cards.

via Republican paid voter registration operation linked to fraud « gregflynn.

Sarah Wenger infographic

Remember when I discovered all the dubious infographics that are being posted to various websites? I got another one in this morning from a “Sarah Wenger.” The text of the invitation is similar to the earlier ones:

Hey Mark,

I recently developed another infographic that could be a good fit for your site. I just wanted to reach out and share it with you. It highlights and illustrates the use of corn in American and how it can affect a persons health.

You can check it out here:

Title: Big Bad Corn
Graphic: http://www.LearnStuff.com/big-bad-corn/

Let me know what you think, I would love for you to publish it if you find it suitable for your site.

Thank you,

Sarah
wenger.sarah77@gmail.com | LearnStuff.com

Continue reading →

St. Louis columnist gets hacked by Mitt Romney


Pat Gauen, a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, became a victim of Mitt Romney’s Facebook profile slamming. He thinks it happened when he hovered his mouse over Mitt Romney’s Facebook ad.

If this is the case, it would be extremely hard to blame this trickery on anyone other than Mitt Romney’s campaign.

This is my first presidential election as a member of Facebook, which I joined for kinship with family and friends and now find overrun with moronic political rants. I never comment there on anything except for occasional innocuous messages to those I hold close.

So I was surprised last week to be informed that I had “Liked” Mitt Romney.

For the uninitiated, clicking “Like” on a Facebook message is a public show of support, shared with all your online “friends” and heaven knows who else. I “Like” cute pictures of my grandchildren but never candidates for office.

So I posted a disclaimer and found a way to “Unlike” Romney (which is not the same as “Dislike,” for which there is no option, nor would I want to say that anyway).

via Facebook 'Like' for Romney doesn't mean much : Stltoday.

More Romney hacking victims come forward


Having given up on Facebook’s less-than-ideal search box, I thought to use the Google to find more unwitting Mitt Romney fans. It turns out there are a lot of them. (Click here to see an earlier list of responses.)

An example:

A friend from High School let me know that on the side-ads bar, it said that I ‘like’ Mitt Romney! Imagine that?!?!? I DO NOT LIKE MITT ROMNEY AND I HATE THAT THE FB SOFTWARE HAS DONE THAT. I WILL SUE FOR DAMAGES IF I EVER SEE IT! I HAVE A TEAM OF LAWYERS AND THIS IS NOT OVER!

…and this

My page was somehow updated to show I liked Mitt Romney, which I certainly do not. There was no entry in my activity log. I had to go to his page to ‘unlike’ it. There is no indication that it was an account level hack.

Continue reading →

‘Hacked by Mitt Romney’ Facebook page


Thinking that Facebook just might be a good place to find other Facebook users who’ve been profile slammed (i.e. hacked) by Mitt Romney’s campaign, I created a Facebook page called (wait for it) … Hacked By Mitt Romney! We’ll see if it gains any attention.

I went through a ridiculous number of naming attempts before Facebook would let me choose the one I chose. Also, the “Facebook name” (the custom URL of http://www.facebook.com/MittYouDidntBuildThat) was also nearly impossible to choose. A number of obvious choices were already taken. Nothing with Romney in the name would be accepted. I’ve got screenshots of this and will share these when I get more time today.

More stories of Romney’s rise in Facebook


Here are a few links to what people are saying about Mitt Romney’s Facebook page.

26 April – Big Think – Obama vs. Romney on Facebook:

… while Romney is getting a higher rate of sharing from his fans than the president, Obama’s fans have shared his posts 2.24 times more often in absolute numbers. Add this to the fact that Obama’s messages are directly delivered to more than 24,000,000 fans than Romney’s, and it is clear to see that Obama is dominating Facebook so far in this campaign.

20 June – Mashable – Romney gains speed on Facebook:

According to data from both Facebook and SocialBakers.com, Romney has seen a swell in popularity recently. From June 11 to 17, one of his strongest weeks yet, he gained more than 71,000 new fans; according to Facebook, June 10 was his most popular day ever.

Meanwhile, President Obama gained about 77,000 new fans during the same time period. While that is a greater number of fans, it is down from previous weeks, and in the last month, Obama has only had a 1.7% increase in fans, whereas Romney has had a 10.8% increase.

Continue reading →

Does Romney Buy his Facebook Fans?

Two weeks ago, ZoomSphere, a company that analyizes Facebook statistics, identified many fake accounts being added to Romney’s Facebook page. I agree that this data looks very, very suspect.

Today you could see that Mitt Romney crossed the border of 4.000.000 fans on his fan page on Facebook. This is a great milestone for each politician.

Here we can see that around 34% fans of Mitt Romney have only couple of their own fans. It is very unusual and suspicious.

Similarly, a large proportion of such fans is usually an indicator of their shopping over the dubious services.

Check out ZoomSphere.com’s day-to-day tracking of Mitt Romney’s page here.

via ZoomSphere.com • Does Romney Buy his Facebook Fans?.

Other Facebook users report Romney profile slamming


Other Facebook users have been reporting that their Facebook accounts were signed up for Mitt Romney’s Facebook page without their permission. Here are a few quotes from the Facebook help page topic:

“This happened to me, as well.”

“Happened to me too i wouldnt piss on that Douchenozzels shoes if his feet were on fire”

“That keeps happening to me, not only with the Mitt Romney page, but with several other pages–mostly commercial things like Amazon and Target, whose pages I never even visited.”

Here are a few from another Facebook help page on the topic:

“Betcha this year’s tax return’s will show Mitt Romney’s the biggest shareholder in Facebook. My page is flooded with his face”.

“My facebook is also flooded wiyh Mitt Romney posts, how can we rid of them.”

I’ve heard from friends of friends who have had this happen to them. I’ll see if I can get quotes from them, too.

Also, I’m starting to see this topic show up on message boards around the Internet. Word is slowly starting to get around.

Update 12:10 PM: Here’s another response on the Centrist Word blog:

“I had this happen to me, and as an outspoken Obama supporter, I was horrified. A friend spotted it on Facebook and texted a screen shot to me. A whole new low in political campaigning.”