Fox Nation: Stupid or lying?
September 30, 2009 11:46 am ET by Ben Dimiero
Fox Nation has a thought-provoking question for their readers:
That is a good question. I've got a quick follow-up question of my own: Does Fox Nation not understand the difference between someone who writes a program and someone who uses it, or are they just making things up again?
Fox Nation is clearly implying that an Obama supporter authored this poll. But, as they are wont to do, they helpfully link to an article that completely undercuts that suggestion:
Jesse Farmer, of Bumbalabs in Palo Alto, Calif., has given permission for Facebook to reveal that he was the developer, but, significantly, not the author behind the poll that nauseated many Monday.
Whoops. The article goes on to point out that Farmer is an Obama supporter. However, as Farmer further explained in a diary posted on Daily Kos yesterday, he had nothing to do with authoring the poll itself and removed it as soon as it was brought to his attention:
Polls are created by other Facebook users, not me, anyone affiliated with me, or Facebook.
[...]
Thousands of polls are created daily, sometimes as many as 10,000. Each poll has as many as 2MM votes and 200k comments. Of those thousands of polls, most are gibberish and a few are offensive, libelous, or otherwise beyond the pale.
[...]
The poll was created Sunday evening and I deleted it first thing Monday morning.
Just to run through this again quickly: Jesse Farmer develops an application that allows Facebook users to create their own polls. The application becomes very popular, leading to thousands of polls created daily. Someone uses the application to create an incendiary, outrageous poll about President Obama. Fox Nation blames Jesse Farmer for posting the poll.
If Fox Nation is suggesting Farmer is at fault because he should have checked each of the several thousand polls first, I would just like to point out that Fox Nation would have had to read only the one article they link to in order to realize it disproves their headline.
I guess "Why Would An Obama Supporter Develop A Program That Someone Could Eventually Use To Post A Crazy Poll About Obama?" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
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BTW, I was recently very integral to getting a certain town hall constituent video publicized on the national level, and yes, it did feel very good to enjoy that success, but I did it as a link in a chain to make a difference about something important to the nation, as I saw it, and not for the first time. I don't believe Laffy's motivations are any different, although I can't help how other people's posts are sometimes perceived.
After all, Franklin is responsible for the electricity that powers the Internet.
After all, Franklin is responsible for the electricity that powers the Internet.
After all, Franklin is responsible for the electricity that powers the Internet.
...
Yep. Sounds about right.
The Fox followers will buy that...
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Mum Is The Word
I use FB , and it's pretty useful for keeping in contact with old friends and business contacts, but there are a good number of people with time on their hands using these templates to create endless polls and quizzes.Fortunately, users are able to delete specific apps, which blocks them (along with the bored souls who spend their days sending hearts, rainbows and smiles to everybody on their "friends" list).
I do notice a conservative tone in a lot of the FB surveys, for example, I've seen several "yes or no" polls on health care, and they all referred to "government run" or "government controlled" health care.
The strangest one I've seen was (as closely as I can remember the wording);
"Should Obama be given a national holiday, regardless of his performance in office, simply because he's the first black president?"
If anybody is campaigning for this, it must not be very mainstream, as it was the first time I'd heard it suggested. It seemed to be an excuse for the "race card" crowd to vent and rant at more imaginary offenses.
However, I believe that Obama should be given a holiday, with my preference being December 25. My birthday is December 27th; and everyone ignores my birthday, so the Obama holiday would likely be ignored as well. Of course Fox (in the absurd thought that this could actually happen) would say it was because Obama supporters thought the first black president was considered by those who like Obama to be equated him with Jesus. While that may be true, it wouldn't be enough reason to get rid of the holiday.
Just kidding, of course; but I thought I would make it explicit.
Just don't send me any surveys asking me to name the Happy Days character pictured, or expect me to send a "fuzzy hug" back to you. :0)
I mean, it's entirely possible that some evil entity might create such a poll then bring it to the attention of Fox News, since it was known that the poll app was written by an Obama supporter.
One wonders if such a thing is what occurred here.