Compare and contrast:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Republic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Underground
IMO, there's at least a slight bias (of omission) favoring the left.
One could argue that the differences are mostly due to the fact that Free Republic is far more influential than is DU, has a longer history, more contributors, a wider audience, is far more effective, and makes and has made more news (both good and bad.) And one reason FR makes more news is that it irritates the MSM far more than does DU. And none of that has anything to do with any Wikipedia-specific bias.
But then again, I'm not predisposed to seeing bias everywhere I look. To me, that's a liberal trait.
i don't see the bias but i suspect that people here have drunk as much freeper koolaid as they accuse DUs of drinking (maybe not quite as much).
the 'Jim Robinson' section of the "Free Republic" doesn't have much positive to say and I suspect that is part of why the accusations of bias...
people on both sides don't like it when the rock is lifted and what was in the dark is exposed to light.
it looks like ex-freepers wrote the "Immigration rift" section, not lefty liberals.
Manipulating pollsThe manipulation of online polls by Free Republic has not been without controversy. The practice involves making a post directing members to vote en masse in an online poll, particularly those on television network or newspaper websites, with the intended goal of significantly affecting the final outcome. Known on the Free Republic as "freeping" a poll, the practice is not unique to the Free Republic forums and is employed by many other activist websites of all political stripes.
I was unaware that FR was the only or primary website biasing the outcome of online polls.
The leftists do it every hour to news articles and photos on Yahoo.
Here are some confessed examples of DUping/DUmping and even ISLAMming of polls.
DU: Should We Report Freepers Whenever they try "Freeping" polls?
Post #1 "Should We Report Freepers Whenever they try "Freeping" polls? Why should we let Freepers vote up to 10 times on the same poll. We should report "Freeps" to the webmasters of the sites conducting the polls. I remember a few months ago we got a poll shut down because it was being Freeped."Post #2 "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."
Here is an MSNBC poll that was ISLAMmed yet there was no outing of this scampaign to push the numbers:
http://www.students.missouri.edu/lists/muslim-l/0787.html (note, this is now a dead link)
Re: Fwd: Fw: Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)Omer Choudhary (xxxxx@mizzou.edu)
Wed, 15 Dec 1999 20:15:25 -0600 (CST)
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Previous message: Milia Islam: "Fwd: Fw: Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)"--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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. I 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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If Mr. Choudhary's name seems familiar, it is because he was one of the 3 Missouri college students stopped about a suspected terrorist threat made in Georgia (these were the kids stopped in Florida on the toll road).
Seems that I found this evidence of ISLAMming polls when I googled his name the day that story broke.
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.
Who do you suppose it was that tupped off MS-NBC/Newsweek?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4205947/site/newsweek/
Could it have been the same people who were biasing the other side of the poll?
Free Republic in the national spotlightFree Republic in the national spotlight In August 2004 Jerome Corsi, co-author of the controversial and influential book Unfit for Command, apologized in the national media for racist, homophobic, and anti-Islam comments, as well as slurs made against liberal political figures, that he made on Free Republic under the user name "jrlc." The posts were discovered and made public by Media Matters for America, a liberal website [1]. Concerning the remarks, Corsi said, "I don't stand by any of those comments and I apologize if they offended anybody," and, "...the politically incorrect humor I posted on this site is evidently not funny to everyone. Detractors should have interviewed my dog. No matter how I frame a comment, "Chico" has yet to laugh." Subsequently, John O'Neill, the book's other co-author, attempted to distance himself from Corsi and attempted to downplay Corsi's involvement in the writing of the book.
Free Republic also made news during "Rathergate", the controversy surrounding CBS News' use of allegedly forged documents during the 2004 US presidential campaign. Nineteen minutes after its broadcast began, Free Republic poster TankerKC questioned the documents on-line, stating they were "not in the style that we used when I came into the USAF." Another poster, Buckhead (who himself received national media attention), made an on-line observation that the documents were in a proportionally spaced font, and stated, "these documents are forgeries," less than four hours after CBS broke the story. By the following morning, the discussion at Free Republic quickly spread to the Internet blog Power Line, and eventually to the Drudge Report and the Associated Press. (disputed — see talk page)
Does this seem like a fair assessment of what goes on here? "Alledgedly forged"??? Is there still any doubt????
Would you want family and friends to use this to judge where you spend your online hours?