THE BLOG

Hurrah! I'm Back On HuffPo!

My blog about the Huffington Post, which disappeared from the Huffington Post today, is back up again!

I don't know what made this happen, but I think HuffPo just made a brave move. After all, what makes this site so great is that it is open to all kinds of opinions, in a way most newsmedia would never dare to operate.

Here is the link to the blog that went missing for a number of hours: A Troll* inside Huffington Post?

The fact that the blog disappeared didn't go unnoticed.

Here are the reader comments I received on my private blog :

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gaspee said...
Well, don't that beat all. Your post disappeard from Huffpo while I was trying to leave a comment.

So here's my comment:

Isn't it lovely to know that the technology guy for huffpo is a snarling, rabid right-winger. Huffpo started to lose all credibility with me a few weeks ago when the most obnoxious mouth-breathers' comments kept getting ranked as reader's favorites. Now we know why.

I don't have a problem with huffpo emplying someone who is rabidly anti-american (as all right-wingers are) but when their position allows them to bully others and to change ratings... I do have a problem with that.

And now I'm sure that this post won't go through.

---- and it turns out my post didn't even get a chance to disappear because yours did!

6/20/2006
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kharma said...
Looks like they got to it.

6/20/2006
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Cinemaven said...
I tried to leave this comment at huffpo but I get this error message "An error occurred
No such entry '23387'." even though your post is still there. Maybe a totally non Yaco-mink related technical glitch but it does add a lot of creedence to your theory.
.............................

Excellent article. I love a surprise ending and a good mystery story but I was a bit floored that your "troll" possibly turned out to be an insider.

The few times I've had to "out" a poster on one of my websites, it's turned out to be the stereotypical pimply 13 year old boy with raging hormones and a predilection for the cap lock key.

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
You're Learning Rost.... you have almost figured it out.

We knew you would finally start telling people about our "watchers"... the problem is that you can't check everyone, all the time.

Digging deeper won't be good, and asking "Am I a crazy paranoid?" will only bump your adrenaline once you realize that you are on to something insidiously real...

We can't wait to see what your next move is going to be... keep it coming
GT

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
some things don't last on the grid.... Remember .... not every posting is good for readers to read...

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
Recently, a dailykos poster (bella?) made a comment that her corrective comments regarding Hillary Clinton were getting edited and re-posted at Huffington Post as her words.

6/20/2006
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Instantiable said...
This all does look rather suspicious.

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
It's a damn shame we can't make them put this back up...it would be very interesting to watch it play out.

6/20/2006
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insider said...
Hi Peter,
Great investigation and reporting.

I wonder where else on HuffPo the "hand of yacomink has rocked the cradle"!?

It all makes my little blog/life seem a bit, well, dull, really!

Who will win in the World Cup tonite? Sweden or England?

Cheers!

6/20/2006
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MsMelody said...
Peter--

Glad you posted here, as I never had the opportunity to read the item on HuffPo. I've commented (there) before that whenever I post a comment that is anti-pharmaceutical or anti-corporation, it is delayed--or not posted at all. It may be true that your posts do not appeal to all readers. However, it just seems more than coincidental that yours--along with other "sunshine" posts that seek to expose corporate elements surviving quite nicely beneath the radar--are so very quickly supplanted by philosophical/political blogs that are little more than "wind."

Keep blogging. I suspect you are onto something, so your tenure at HuffPo may be limited. (Incidentally, if HuffPo did not have such a user-friendly format, I would seek my information elsewhere.)

6/20/2006
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Janine said...
You should make sure Arianna knows about this... I don't care if the guy is left, right or pink, he should not be playing these games and should be fired immediately. If she lets him continue working there she loses all credibility with me (not that she would care much about that :).

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
My post disappear, or do not get posted either, especially not when I offer an opposing opinion from the main thread. And I do get error messages, or, that I am NOT ALLOWED to post, since I am not registered, and so on. The HufPost is changing before our eyes into something stupid. I do not think it is against us bloggers and posters. I think it is against a free voice and opinion. This is a free nation, and free speech, but NO BACKTALK and no individual opinions either. I missed your blog yesterday and today, so I came looking here.

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
Fascinating. I'll admit I was pulled into the blogosphere only recently and had been relying on DailyKos and HuffPost quite heavily. In the last couple weeks (as mentioned above) I too have been turned off by the comments left on HP. Pretty rabid stuff, clearly from the right. Looks like it's being taken over (or diluted to the point of inconsequence). I decided I could visit if I didn't read comments, but now I'm not interested in visiting HP at all. Glad to find you're stuff is posted here as well. It's always interesting.

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
I just saw the whole thing happen. That has got to be the strangest thing I have ever seen happen on a major blog site. I tried to e-mail Arianna about it, but here mail box is full. Absolutly diabolical...

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
Rost,
Any thoughts on what might have started this mess. I mean has this guy done this to anyone else or just you?

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
Peter,

I wonder when HuffPo asked you to blog on their site, did they have avenues where you can file complaints or feedback with them i.e. you informing them of this "Troll"?

HuffPo has lost lot of credibility due to overblogging and a mess of opinions all over site (and I am a liberal). This "troll" seems to add to that.

6/20/2006
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Anonymous said...
I'm not sure if they censored it since I just opened it up without a problem. If they did in fact delete it it may not be censorship, you may have violeted their terms of service by posting someone's private information. It's considered a major faux pas to "out" someone's real identity on the internet.
To me this looks like you got pissed off at someone who wrote nasty comments on your blog and then outed them. The only "weird" part is that the guy works for HuffPo and may have been abusing his position there, although your only evidence is that his comment was voted up quickly, in my book that isn't a lot of evidence but it is at least suspicious. So, have you made any effort to contact this person directly? Or to contact their supervisor?

Also, the guy was right about the internet being public. You will see .gov and .mil hitting your site all the time, they have bored people sitting in offices just like everywhere else. If "they" wanted to read your site you would not know about it.

6/20/2006
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blackdogg said...
Not sure if it was censored? It was the top story on the block just below Arianna's column for about an hour and then it was yanked!! People trying to post positive comments about the article were errored out of doing so and all references to this guys posts were removed from the site. As for outing this guy, he is listed by his screen name and his real name on the huffpost tech page!! He shouldnt even be allowed to post comments on the site at all, or at least have to identify himself has a huffpost employee if he does so. Face it, this guy is a troll and needs to be drug out in to the daylight...

6/20/2006
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And here som e-mails:

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I just tried to post a comment to your article about the troll (agreeing with you) and it was blocked with error messages 3 times, yet a negative post went up at the same time. Somebody in the tech dept. is screwing you. Here was my comment:

"How diabolical! I have noticed that troll posts seem to make it to the top of the "favorites" a lot, but just assumed that that refreshed and re-voted over and over again. It could be that your tech troll is pushing like minded comments to the top on other posts as well...?

As I said, I tried 3 times to post that, and got error message windows on each attempt, while this comment:

Wow! Somebody posted a critical comment about one of your posts, and you did a full background investigation and posted his personal information here.

Do you have nothing else to do with your life?

Some of your recent blog titles may help answer that question: "Am I a crazy paranoid?" and "Now I'm REALLY Freaking out!"

And to get you started checking me out, my handle is aj17, and 17 is my favorite number.

By: aj17 on June 20, 2006 at 09:49am
Flag: [abusive] [best of]

..........was posted immediately.

Talk about a credibility issue, I hope they can this guy publicly or I wont be trusting any of the comment sections again.
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Now your article, which had been at the top of the page, is gone......

What in the hell is going on here? I hadn't even read your other posts, and I am pissed....

You might want to go straight to Arianna with this
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