By freeping the poll, we take away one of the tools of propaganda the media like to use.
"FReeping" exists in Germany whether you acknowledge it or not. It is "activism". Technically speaking, FReeping is activism by those conservatives who visit FreeRepublic.com.
That activism can extend to going to a rally or a counter protest. That activism can extend to signing up names on a petition to get a candidate or initiative on a ballot. That activism can be emailing, calling, or writing a note to a newsroom, editor, elected official, public servant (like a school principal), etc. Private addresses and phone numbers are not permitted on FR. Some FReeping includes responding to an online poll. Free Republic is not the only site that engages in this sort of activism.
I'm not surprised that the media only single out FR for this activity (and I suspect that often the media is notified by Red DUpes). Here is a little researched evidence that the media chooses to ignore.
The media has written time and time again about how FReepers FReep polls. Newsweek/MSNBC recently included a link on their poll page to send surfers to FR to see the call for people to go to the poll.
MSNBC- Are You a Bush Booster -- or Basher? (Updated: 5:27 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2004)
Editor's Note: This week, the online version of the Newsweek poll received an unusually high rate of response, with the clear majority of participants casting uniform votes. For these reasons, we believe the poll is being intentionally manipulated. In addition, we received an e-mail alert suggesting that the campaign is being coordinated by at least one special-interest group.
SF CHRON ON FR: FReep This -- How The Right Wing Is Making Itself Heard
(Thursday, January 30, 2003) Something strange happened during the 2000 Gore-Bush election fiasco you may have missed.CNN, which was running 24-hour special election coverage, hosted a program with conservative columnist Bob Novak shortly after the disputed election results were returned. Novak was adamant that Al Gore should quit trying to steal the election and concede. To bolster his point, he brought up the results of CNN.com's public-opinion poll "Should Al Gore concede?" Poll results showed that a full 89 percent of the thousands of people who had visited CNN.com and voted had agreed -- Gore should give up the ghost.
But had the American people really spoken? Or was this poll FReeped?
Though many may not know about them, FReepers are members of a small but growing and vocal right-wing movement who are making a name for themselves. [snip]
But then, well, there are those other tactics some FReepers have been known to use.
First of all, the mass poll voting: A FReeper will post a link to a poll on Free Republic and urge other FReepers to FReep it. Search under "FReep poll" at the Web site and you'll find many "FReep this poll!" marching orders each day. In monitoring Free Republic myself, I have been amazed at how fast the FReepers seem to find polls, which are sometimes posted to Free Republic just minutes after they appear online.
"Whenever a poll is posted on Free Republic.com, everybody goes and votes the right way, and there's nothing wrong with that," says Marinelle Thompson, FReeper and founder of gun rights group Second Ammendment Sisters. "We just do it for a laugh. It doesn't really mean anything."
She's right -- there's nothing at all wrong with encouraging a group to vote in a poll. It's done all the time in political groups of every stripe. What most people, even some FReepers themselves, object to is the intentional swaying of polls by people who vote repeatedly. In fact, SF Gate has had a few of its own polls FReeped. As SF Gate News Director (and poll writer) Vlae Kershner put it, "People are finding a way of getting around our system that only allows one vote, and they're voting hundreds of times. It's not thousands of people voting one way; it's one or two people voting hundreds of times."
Anyway, Kershner says, SF Gate's polls are for entertainment value only. After all, the poll population is self-selected. The people who vote in online polls are those who care enough about an issue to vote -- by its very nature, a skewed population. But not everyone who looks at poll results knows the difference.
"Online polls are silly -- everybody knows that," says liberal political analyst William Rivers Pitt, whose book War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know made him something of a FReeper target for a time. "But it can have a real effect if it's brought out as news that actually means something. The best example is the Gore thing."
David Allen, founder and moderator of major liberal forum Democratic Underground, a popular site many think of as Free Republic's most direct ideologically opposite rival, agrees.
"A lot of blame here needs to be placed on the media itself," says Allen. "These polls are put up there on Web sites and sold as if they are news, as if they are an accurate reflection of the opinions of American people, and they're not. They're completely skewed to whomever finds it first -- and, to be honest, that's never us liberals. It's always them. As long as the news media continues to report the results of an Internet poll as if it's news, the FReeping of polls will continue to be a problem."
Here was a thread I located on DUh and share to FReepers:
From the thread titled "Should We Report Freepers Whenever they try "Freeping" polls?"
Sun Oct-12-03
NUMBER ONE POST: Sure why not...
And yes we should continue DUing polls. There is a need to help people from making stupid mistakes and if a poll result might influence even one person from supporting these idiots in charge then I have no qualms with it.
So you see, it is all a big con. The Rat Party outs the FReeps and then DUpes the public all in one big scam.
To show that FR is hardly the only group PINGing people to vote in polls, here is a documented case if ISLAMming a poll. I discovered it when googling Omer Chouardy's name the day that the 3 medical students were stopped after a suspicious tip in a restaurant:
Students forum on Missouri.edu (muslims thread)
Omer Choudhary
Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:15:25 -0600 (CST)Seriously, everone go to this website Milia sent and vote for the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him. I just went and voted and apparently, Alhumdullilah the most votes are for the Prophet (PBUH) right now, at 20,352. Second place is Jesus, with 5,026. So we're way ahead but the more the better.
also want to point out a very important thing. Many of you will think that we don't need to worry about some stupid vote to prove or show anyone that Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him is really "Number One".
Agreed. However, stop and think for a minute that the amount of people around the world that are influenced by these same magazines, programs, and surveys will also think that "Hey, how did this person win?
What's so special about them...etc etc". So the idea is that this is also a way, (a big way), to attract people's attention to Islam and to what the religion is all about, rather than them being bogged down by stereotypes they hear from the media, etc. So please go and vote at this website:http://www.msnbc.com/modules/Millennium_People/MillP_ReligPhilos.asp
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"Life Is Goooooood!"
-Omer J. Choudhary
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Hmmmm. MSNBC never did report that poll was ISLAMmed. Obviously those results were tilted 4-1 in Muslims favor when ABC just reported that 8 out of 10 American adults is "Christian".
The left has dominated social activism for 35 years. Now it is something that "threatens" society? Another perspective enters the public arena and it is "bad"?