Don’t F*ck Around With Love
We’ve all been wondering what happened to Deadenders over the weekend. Today, thank the gods, the site is up and running again with this explanation:
“When my internet went out on Friday I thought it was just another one of BellSouth’s pain the the butt outages. When it was still out on Saturday morning I called and was told, “No it’s just you, your account has been flagged for spam and suspended. You need to call back on Monday.”
After spending an hour on the phone this morning with BellSouth begging to reinstate our service, they told me it was emails to me from WordPress, lots of them in a short period of time. When someone posts a comment WordPress sends an email to let me know it’s there or if it needs approved (first time poster).
The hate comments had been heavy on Friday and I guess they got heavier. 11,000+ delightful FU you damn RACIST, our president is black, suck on it comments, a poof goodbye internet.”
Ordinarily, I would just attribute this to a WordPress glitch, and assume that the high volume of hate mail caused the trigger mechanism to kick in. But I read DE’s post shortly after hearing about the new FORTUNE MAGAZINE cover (a picture of which is predictably nowhere to be found) that boasts of a new article called “Obama & Google (a love story)”
The header of the article alleges: “The President relies on Google Execs for tech and economic advice as his own regulators scrutinize the online-ad behemoth. Is the romance starting to sour?”
Maybe so, but what about this other article printed in the New York Times in June of last year that might explain things a little further?
Google and the Anti-Obama Bloggers
By MIGUEL HELFT
Did Google use its network of online services to silence critics of Barack Obama? That was the question buzzing on a corner of the blogosphere over the last few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger service.
The bloggers in question, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all of them opposed to Senator Obama, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential “spam” blogs. “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog,” the Google e-mail read.
The article names several websites that were affiliated with “Just Say No Deal” who said they believed that Google had fallen prey to the whims and wiles of campaign activists who supported the (then) Senator from Illinois. (click on the link above to read the full piece)
Google’s explanation reads as follows:
“It appears that our anti-spam filters caused some Blogger accounts to be blocked from creating new posts,” a Google spokesman, Adam Kovacevich, said in a statement. “While we are still investigating, we believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the ‘Just Say No Deal’ network of blogs, which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam. We have restored posting rights to the affected blogs, and it is very important to us that Blogger remain a tool for political debate and free expression.”
The NYT article goes on to say:
“Some blocked bloggers have reported that their sites have suddenly become unblocked. Yet some have already moved their blogs to WordPress, a rival blogging service, and remain angry about what they call Google’s “guilty until proven innocent” policy.
So now what? Is the same “Guilty until proven innocent” policy going on here at WordPress? Or have we truly become “One Nation Under Surveillance”?
Anthony, thanks for the concern.
I’m still trying to figure out why my blog went into privacy mode. I was trying to block a few dozen IP’s when I was cut off, but who knows. I did change my password this AM, but if someone had gained access to my account they could have done that and locked me out too. So I’m guessing that was a glitch, but the spam emailing was evil genius. I’m just wondering how they sent so many so fast.
You’re welcome, DE.
I’m just wondering if it had anything to do with the articles featured in my post?
When I wrote for SAVAGE POLITICS, this sort of thing happened regularly – the site would go down for a day or more because of a barrage of emails.
Curious to me is that if your WP settings are to screen all new comments, how do they become designated as spam? and attributed to your site?
It was just the flood of emails coming from WP all at once. Sending my email account way over the bandwidth I’m allowed. My email is tied to my ISP so they cut me off.
Over 11,000 emails within an hour, the ones I checked before deleting had masked IP’s.
I’m impressed, DE! Pissing off that many Bots in one hour is truly an art
YES!
IMPRESSIVE!
Their lil’ heads must look like smashed pumpkins now!
I must back-track to DE’s site and see his articles that are getting to the Precious – the Baby!!!!!!!!
Wow, POTUS redefines “crybaby.”
Hey, there must be some type of award for pissing off bots. Forget Weblog, this is much better.
You know, mcnorman, I’m firing up photoshop right now to make that award….
I know it is going to be good.
Childish the email spam behavior.
Truth hurts.
Investigate the email senders. Revise the antispam filters. But don’t block out the sites.
Like Chairman Zer0 with Fox, Goggle and now WP will only invite some serious inspection about their policies if they do not mend their ways.
I hope you’re right about that.
Wonder if this is what happened to “Shh…ithitsthefan”?
This is truly creepy.
Everything about Obamaspammer, bots and administrators, Czars, etc., IS childish. They whine, complain, blame, buy up, shut down, condemn, point fingers and cry….they do ANYTHING but support the country and act like “winners” and of course, their Dear Leader Oilsoc, it the least Presidential person EVER.
Like father, like sons……
You bring a knife, and they bring their guns.
Freedom is ONLY on their side,
The right to dissent?
You made them cry.
I can hear Prince singing in the background “This is what it sounds like…. when Bots cry”
I thought it was Gwen Stefani’s “Don’t Speak’
You and me
We used to be together
Everyday together… always
I really feel
That I’m losing my best friend
I can’t believe
This could be the end…
bwahahahaha
Good one, Nom!
I think the Ospambots do this on twitter too. I think if you have 100 blocks, you’re auto-banned ? How simple it would be just to go through the #tcot group and block or report them as spam?