Obama Staff Scrubs Site Of Hate Speech

Posted by K.C. Jones on June 11, 2008 08:03 AM

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign staff scrubbed his campaign site clean of some community posts after bloggers criticized the candidate for hosting anti-Semitic statements.

Most of the statements came up in discussions about Israeli policy. A post on Little Green Footballs claims there are so many that it cannot be a fluke.

Politico.com took a kinder view on why the statements remained online, surmising that the sheer number of posts likely overwhelmed Obama's staff.

A search of community posts within Obama's site revealed nearly 640,000 search results on Google by Tuesday afternoon.

In contrast, a popular story on InformationWeek.com may generate somewhere between 200 to 500 comments. I can attest to the fact that reading all of them would be a full-time job. I do my best to scan for comments.

I like reader engagement. Feedback lets me know that someone somewhere found it interesting or stimulating to read about the news that I delivered. That makes my job more satisfying. And we at InformationWeek.com have some extremely bright, well-educated, and accomplished readers whose feedback often enlightens me and helps us improve our work.

Nevertheless, it is impossible for software filters, IT teams, reporters, editors, campaigners, or anyone else trying to manage interactive features to keep up with every bit of feedback that comes our way in this Web 2.0 world.

That's why I always appreciate it when readers point it out directly when a story discussion has turned vulgar, abusive, or hateful. But, even that is no guarantee, as hundreds of e-mails can hit an in-box in a single hour.

Makes this blogger long for the days when her household debated whether the phone company's latest technology, "call-waiting," made life more convenient or complicated. At the time, it was a teenager's dream.