On June 3, 2010, Dissident Voice published one of my articles titled “Yahoo and AP Caught Manipulating User Comments.” In that article, I let be known that I had an audit trail to prove my contention that Yahoo was porting tens of thousands of comments from one AP article to another. A day later, Dissident Voice published documentation backing up my allegations. Since the publication of the DV article, Yahoo has ceased porting the string of comments I used for my audit. Before Yahoo retired the string of comments that dated back to March 08, 2010, the count had crossed 50,000 comments.
On further probing, I have uncovered even more damning evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this practice was not a software error as some of Yahoo’s defenders are claiming.
On June 3, Yahoo published an AP article titled “US-Turkish man killed in Israeli flotilla raid” by Matthew Lee and Robert Burns, Associated Press Writers. June 3, 4:35 pm ET.
By the time I checked the comment string on that article, the number of comments has reached 2911. So, I decide to go through the whole lot of them. The first one is posted by ‘John.’ You can see the date stamp is Mar 14 and the comment apparently relates to Biden’s trip to Jerusalem where Netanyahu snubbed him by announcing the construction of 1,600 units. As I strolled down the comments, none of the first 2800 comments had anything to do with Furkan Dogan, the 19 year old American who was murdered by the Israelis on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Not only that, the comments had been ported backwards and forward since March 14. But as you go through the exhibits, you’ll see that’s not even half the story.
Exhibit 1: The first comment is related to the Biden’s trip. You can’t find the original AP article, because while the comments get ported around, the AP articles get removed from Yahoo’s site after a week.
John Sun Mar 14, 2010 06:45 am PDT
I support Israel’s existence as a Jewish State, and remain committed to its security. But as a proud American, it’s refreshing to see the tail not wagging the dog for a change in this relationship.
Exhibit 2: By the time you get to comment 911-920, something interesting happens. There is a four day gap between comments. Check the break in the dates of the comments exhibited. Also notice that the subject matters changes to Iran’s nuclear program. Notice the abrupt break after the comment posted on March 18 which is apparently also connected to the spat between the Obama administration and Netanyahu’s treatment of Biden. By March 22, the date of the very next comment, the subject has been changed – and the discussion has turned to Iran’s nuclear program. What accounts for the 4 day gap?
Thu Mar 18, 2010 04:20 pm PDT
Israel flipped the middle finger at the US and now wants to make up?
Let them fight their own battles, let’s fix the US.Michael Mon Mar 22, 2010 06:18 am PDT
IF YOU ARE NOT DONKEY LISTEN: Iran nuclear program is intended only to generate electricity.
Exhibit 3: As of this writing, the last comment on the ‘Furkan Dogan murder’ is a reader’s response to the breaking AP story about Israel’s rejection of a proposed international inquiry. It’s posted on June 5 and doesn’t have a time stamp because it’s less than 24 hours old.
Jane 1 hour ago
Why am I not surprised that Israel “rejects” an international investigation! The hell with Israel’s “rejection” of an investigation, let the investigation begin immediately.
I have no confidence of any findings from Israel after they investigate, any more than I do when the US begins an internal investigation of happenings here in the US
Exhibit 4: As I scroll through the comments, I notice that I’m not the only one aware of what’s going on. A poster notices that an AP story has just been posted and has this inquiry – “How come Yahoo and the AP always start a complete new story, with the same discussions from last week or even last month, like in order to keep current you have to start with message 2811”
Exhibit 5: Now, we will go to the first two comments related to the murder of Furkan Dogan. You have to wade through 2800 plus comments to get to them. They are comments 2810 and 2811.
Joe Thu Jun 03, 2010 08:16 am PDT
Good. The only good muzzie is a dead muzzie. Until they accept Christ as their personal savior and radiate his light-and-love, muzzies need to be treated as dangerous insects.
Partheneon Thu Jun 03, 2010 08:35 am PDT
American media is full of BIAS news. THIS BOY GOT KILLED BY 5 BULLETS IN HIS HEAD, from a very close distance. AMERICAN(in fact jew!sh) media is not talking about this. SEE THE PICTURES IN THE NEWS. ALL THE PICTURES TO IRRITATE AMERICANS, EXTREME DARK RELIGIOUS PEOPLE PICTURES FROM THE ARCHIEVE.
Exhibit 6: This exhibit displays the last two comments remotely related to the murder of the young Turkish-American activist. They are comment 2895 and 2896 and they both relate to the headline. The comments after them apparently relate to Israel’s refusal to accept a UN Inquiry. So the almost three thousand comments ported to this article on the killing to the Turkish-American teenager, only 85 of them had anything to do with the AP story. And those comments are now sandwiched between comments from a dozen unrelated AP stories relating to Netanyahu’s insult to Biden, the construction of 1,600 illegal housing units in Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s warm reception in Congress after humiliating Biden, and Iran’s nuclear bomb.
Guido Fri Jun 04, 2010 09:40 am PDT
19 year-old US-Turkish man ? He was here 2 years as a baby, his family has no allegiance to USA.
Fri Jun 04, 2010 01:35 pm PDT
Why does America need Israel? What are the benefits for the U.S. of backing and financing a jewish state in the middle east? When doe’s biblical loyalty end and real world responsibility begin?
Exhibit 7: Now here’s the killer. Take a look at the time stamp on comment 2809 and 2810. They date back to April 29, 2010. So yahoo found a string of comments dating back to April 29 and ported them to an AP story about Furkan Dogan which was published on June 03, 2010. Why would they do a thing like that?
BEAUTIFUL Thu Apr 29, 2010 06:07 am PDT
The underlying factor of all terrorism, wars and suffering of the people in the middle east is and has been the government of Israel. Think about it
Israel is by far the largest and the most inhuman terrorist organization sponsored by the government of the United States Of America.America for Americans Wed Apr 28, 2010 02:30 pm PDT
Who gives a $%$% what they think, who died and put them in charge!
Conclusions: Based on the evidence I’m presenting, there can be no doubt that Yahoo is taking strings of comments from one AP article and porting them to completely unrelated AP articles. The murder of Furkan Dogan was not something the mainstream media wanted to dwell on. Compare the coverage of his death with Klinghoffer’s murder on the Achille Lauro. There has to be an explanation for why reader feedback on the murder of a Turkish-American citizen would be buried. As of this writing, you can still read the story. But it doesn’t really matter whether you read the last comments posted or start with the first post. None of them will have anything to do with the subject of the article.
The most disturbing thing about this is that Yahoo and AP had to reach in their old inventory of comment strings and dig up one that was last ported on April 28, brush it off and port it to this AP story. For one thing, why didn’t they take the time to scrub racist and offensive content before reposting them to other articles?
A number of questions remain unanswered. Why are they doing it? Why is it only happening on AP stories which are invariably the ones featured on Yahoo’s main page? Why are they continuing to do it after repeated contacts with the AP? Why don’t they enforce their terms of use and stop posting defamatory and racist content before porting strings of comments from one AP article to another? Why have the AP reporters involved in this racket not made an issue of it? Did Yahoo and AP have some kind of ‘understanding’ about inflating user comments? Is the inflating of user comments a metric they use to market advertizing? If that is the case, does that not constitute fraud? What’s the difference between that and a newspaper inflating the number of copies it distributes?
From a user’s standpoint, why are my comments being posted to articles that I might not have even read? Why are my comments getting buried? Where’s the integrity in that? Any comment you post in response to one article that gets ported to another article on an entirely different subject matter are by definition taken out of context. I think every user should be concerned with that.
To date, AP has not responded to repeated attempts to get answers to my questions. They have this documentation in hand and if there is an innocent explanation – I’m sure I would have already heard about it.