Huffington Post Spy

In the old days, back before “Benghazi!” was how Republicans responded to someone sneezing and Ted Cruz was just a twinkle in the Tea Party’s eye, I was a blogger at Huffington Post. Back then, there had never been an African American President of the United States though a young and determined Senator named Barack Obama was boldly vying for that mantle. Osama Bin Laden was comfortably relaxing in his Pakistan complex and tens of millions of Americans had no prayer of getting health insurance while those who had it struggled with skyrocketing premiums, being denied benefits and kicked off their plans when they most needed it.

George Bush was President of the United States, torturing detainees through water-boarding and torturing Americans by blowing up their economy, jobs and home ownership.

In those stressful times, there were a number of good political blogs for Progressives fighting against the Bush regime and for a better future for the country. As it turned out, I chose to focus on the one by the name Huffington Post. As I acclimated to the site, I was very impressed with the number of well-informed and insightful folks there. Among them  (and there were too many to list here) were HumeSkeptic, ThunderclapNewman and of course our own KQuarksSuperCollider and Kalima.

Though bigger, HP was then as The Planet is today, a community with many independent thinkers who sometimes agreed, sometimes argued but held a modicum of respect in most cases for each other. Trolls were not welcome and those who would descend on the site to disrupt threads and goad others were flagged by members and pretty swiftly booted.

Sounds like a sweet and nostalgic story now.

Here’s a somewhat brief overview on the evolution of Huffington Post from that point forward. Arianna Huffington, as a highly opportunistic and ambitious businesswoman first (not a bad thing except she did cloak herself in Progressive clothes to exploit Progressives for her profit) leveraged the heightened activity at the site, due to the Presidential election in 2008, to secure a $25 million investment from the hedge fund,  Oak Investment Partners.

In the midst of negotiations, a controversy had erupted about a crass post at the site by a member and was elevated by Republicans as an MSM “news” item and a black eye for HP. Anxious to stomp out that fire that might impact her getting that $25 million,  Arianna embarked on a total lockdown of the site, instituting a “moderation” tactic on most articles to block all comments and filter out those seen as undesirable, a policy that is now commonly used and (unfortunately) accepted as SOP. She also began a mass purge of members at the site that was somewhat indiscriminate, to clamp down on what had been pretty much free expression, especially those comments which might be too harsh, controversial or too anti-corporate/wealthy for the comfort of their new prospective hedge fund partners.

This led to much uproar and a big exodus from Huffington Post to other established Progressive sites and fueled the startups of a variety of smaller Progressive sites that welcomed free expression (such as The Planet). As 2009 continued, the powers that be at Huffington Post recognized that by allowing Right Wing trolls to post more freely at the site, the Progressives they intentionally antagonized would spend more time at the site “troll bashing” and trying to prove them wrong, which increased traffic and ad rates. So, the previous prohibition against trolls was essentially lifted (though moderation and banning continued in some more extreme cases) and Huffington Post became the blogging equivalent of PBS Meets WWE Wrestling.

Many longtime Huffington Post members were unhappy with the now-constant moderation of their comments and the permitting of ugly attacks and baiting by Right Wing trolls and their protests about the site grew. Arianna realized that this was a problem and something had to be done so comments criticizing her and Huffington Post were typically “moderated” and another purge of longtime members was launched. The apparent view was that getting rid of those who knew how much better things used to be and populating the site more with members who didn’t know any differently and thus had nothing to complain about, made for a smoother profit-making vehicle for Arianna and her hedge fund partners.

Then came 2011 and the purchase of Huffington Post for a reported $315 million dollars by AOL. The corporatization of Huffiington Post naturally accelerated, the focus on appealing to the lowest common denominator in people to churn the greatest profit also became more prominent. The level of discourse became more base and toxic as traffic grew higher and stories about nip slips and Kardashians had a regular home on the front page. This led initially to many members leaving the site but as time went by, many drifted back to it.

But a funny thing started happening. People were leaving the site from emotional and mental exhaustion, the endless fights and hatred being expressed took a toll on some who just didn’t want that toxicity in their lives anymore. And they weren’t being replaced quickly enough. Added to that, there was greater competition from the growth of Facebook and Twitter and the growth of Huffington Post/AOL wasn’t continuing as anticipated.

In empowering the Right Wing trolls and embedding intense and upsetting conflict in the site, Arianna and AOL had created a Frankenstein that had generated great profits previously but now was becoming  a threat to their bottom line. The negativity of the site was now cutting against future growth and something had to be done.

So Arianna announced earlier this year that all members would be required to post under their own names, in order to discourage people from posting offensive comments anonymously. All members would have to submit to identity verification through their Facebook account. The backlash was huge and severe, many longtime members were upset by the requirement that they give up anonymity in order to post at Huffington Post.

Arianna and HP soon backpedaled, claiming they were just going to require personal identification from new members and existing members would have nothing to worry about, they could keep their anonymity.

When I reported on Arianna’s initial announcement here at PlanetPOV, I received an email from someone I had considered as a friend at HP and who had also joined in here for a while. She had become one of the enlisted members at HP who helps moderate threads and had become quite a passionate devotee to Arianna and Huffington Post. She expressed strong resentment towards my article because after it was posted, Arianna had announced this modification of only new members having to provide personal identification. It was her contention that I was maliciously spreading untruths about HP by not removing or re-editing the initial at-the-time factual article…even though WAPO, NYT and other publications had published similar stories and of course didn’t re-edit or pull them either. What I found amusing was the insult she offered, that by not pulling or changing that article, PlanetPOV was acting as badly as Huffington Post.

Anyone who knows a little bit about journalism knows that there are many reasons why you don’t go back and continually re-edit an original story as developments arise, you simply write new stories about the developments. This is because the original story stands as a snapshot of the facts at a particular point in time…and sometimes…it is a snapshot that turns out to be just as accurate in portraying the future as it did the past.

This week, Arianna Huffington and Huffington Post betrayed their membership and their questionable promise to continue providing anonymity to their current members by requiring ALL members to provide verification of their personal identity if they want to post at the site. ALL members are now required to submit their Facebook account to Huffington Post if they want to post comments. Seems that not-very-sincere-sounding backpedaling by Arianna turned out to be just what it sounded like.

I know that there are many folks out there that are not concerned about losing their anonymity, who feel they have nothing to hide and maybe even support this attempt to restrict trolls. I respect their perspective and none of this is meant as a diss against them.

My problem with this is multi-dimensional. To begin, do you really want Huffington Post, AOL and any corporate or political entities they are connected with or support now or in the future, having a complete profile of exactly who you are and what exactly your political views are? Extrapolate how might that become an issue in the future for you and an asset to those corporations and political groups (or even administrations) that could be given access to that information. Sounds like total profiling snack food for the NSA too.

Secondly, part of what gives many bloggers the freedom to fully express themselves is the anonymity that shields them from repercussions at work and in their personal life. There are many who readily post strong opinions at HP who would never post such opinions on Facebook, so as not to upset others or bring conflict upon themselves. If your Facebook ID appears on every comment you write at Huffington Post,  just how free will you feel to genuinely express yourself on controversial issues? Abortion, racism, the Tea Party, just how open will you want to be when those who don’t like your views can track you down?

Which leads to the third and most worrisome issue. I know of people who have already been cyber-stalked and horribly harassed for posting their opinions on HP…even before their identity and Facebook page was linked to their HP account. What about the concern for personal safety? If you post a strongly worded comment against Right Wingers in general or suppose you confront a troll on the site…by being able to see your Facebook identity (even if partial), it would make it far easier for a determined hater to track you down. Even if HP was to cloak your Facebook ID in the future, just knowing that everyone on HP is also on Facebook would allow a stalker the opportunity to troll through all of your comments to seek out personally identifying information then go to Facebook and look for a likely match.

This is the kind of policy that comes from corporate thinking. It works for them as a broad, dumb tool, to hopefully tamp down in one fell swoop, the element at the site that has been depressing traffic, the hate speech, but at a cost of everyone’s anonymity and perhaps in some cases, their personal safety.

Corporations want control and information and that’s what this policy gives Huffington Post/AOL in a huge way. Though it is not likely intended to be so, it is anti-blogger, anti-free-speech and anti-security. At the very least, in HPAOL’s database, your political views will now be married to your personal identity (who you are, who your family and friends are, what causes you’ve “liked”) and you will have no idea how that potent information might be used or sold in the future. It also throws a bucket of cold water on free expression at HP. Some members will be less likely to openly speak their minds while continuing to freely express their opinions on controversial issues could open up other members to ongoing harassment in their online and personal lives.

Anonymity is a crucial component of blogging for most people who aren’t professional bloggers. This is not their job, they have a real job out there and their coworkers, clients or bosses could be Tea Partiers or anti-abortion or anti-gay. They don’t necessarily want any of those folks to know their personal opinions on sensitive issues because of the blowback they could get from it.

To evade this infringement on privacy, some folks may set up bogus Facebook accounts and though that may help shield them for the time being at HP, their IP addresses will be linked to that Facebook account so there will be a trail back to them (unless they know how to securely hide their IP address) that may or may not be made available to HPAOL or others in the future (or to the NSA now).

What I can say in closing is that the issues and principles that drove KQuark, Kalima and I from Huffington Post all those years ago remain fully intact here at The Planet. PlanetPOV will ALWAYS protect our members’ anonymity because we believe it is a necessary component of free expression on the web. It’s also a matter of respect, security and peace of mind. Those of ill will should not be given a potential road map to seek out and harass anyone whose opinions upset them.

In our opinion, Freedom of Expression and the protection of anonymity of members at a blog should always be top priorities. At The Planet, they always have been and they will always continue to be.

984
Leave a Comment

Please Login to comment
133 Comment threads
851 Thread replies
0 Followers
 
Most reacted comment
Hottest comment thread
83 Comment authors
KalimaKillgoreTroutAllenMcwPollyTicsPiul05 Recent comment authors
  Subscribe  
newest oldest most voted
Notify of
AllenMcw
Member
AllenMcw

Count me among those old time HP’ers who is really upset at what Arianna’s HuffPost has done to their loyal users!

There is only one time when I will post a FB comment on HuffPost and that is to reach out to my friends there and recommend they get away from HuffPost and join one or more of the other alternative sites. At some point in the future (after I have lured as many friends away as possible 🙂 ) I will close my HuffPost account altogether and never look back.

But for now I must remain an observer so I can reach out to my friends there….I very much value the friends and fans I have acquired there over time and want to at least try to connect with them on another less intrusive forum like here.

So far I have signed up on 3 sites since HP made this last move and I must say that so far I like Planet here the most. It is more established and lively than the more recent ‘hprefugees’ at MSNBC. Having said that I still plan to contribute to ‘hprefugees’ to try and help them build up and become the lively place I’m sure we all want it to be.

HP done their loyal users a great disservice and I for one think that somewhere down the road they will regret it because they will lose so much money from lack of advertisers (due to loss of users) that they may well go out of business in the next year or so.

I don’t want to sound harsh but I will not be sorry to see them go at this point. They violated their users loyalty and privacy in a BIG way. No matter how many of their loyal users implored them to change their mind and back off of this they kept going full speed ahead. From my perspective it has been quite some time since they actually cared about their users.

They made their bed, now they have to sleep in it!

On a lighter note I am happy to be one of the newest members on Planet and hope to be very much engaged in the lively conversations and yes even disagreements here…..in a respectful way of course. 🙂

Thanks to several already for making me feel welcome here.

Regards,
Allen

PollyTics
Member
PollyTics

Thank Goodness for options. I have been quietly distrustful and distressed by HP for awhile now and they have now just done their duty by forcing to seek alternatives.

Thanks Planet!

[imgcomment image[/img]

goleafsgo
Member
goleafsgo

Happy New Year to all friends at the Planet.
I no longer post at HP. It is very disappointing for me as I truly enjoyed responding to articles and posters …most times, but I will admit it there were times when some responses to my posts were scary and almost threatening. But the most important part of it all was that I learned so much researching my posts since I would not make statements that I could not verify…even so, those who disagreed with me refused to accept any kind of factual references. So, how effective I was in changing anyone’s mind is questionable. Nevertheless, the friends I made were many, and their conversations were informative, sometimes sad, ofttimes delightful, and even humourous, overshadowed the vitriol and hate so prevalent on HP thus making it worthwhile posting.

However, this past year or more, it seemed to me there was a significant groundswell of hate, of viciousness, especially concerning gun control articles, to the point that I seldom commented on them, even though doing so would draw many responses… for Ariana…of course all of them would be negative and most downright scary in tone.

I have noticed that so many of my friends have left HP. Some, like murph have remained. Today, his post had only sixteen responses when usually they are upwards of a hundred or more. He keeps on trucking with his informative, intelligent and honest comments. I know I have learned so much from him. The article he was responding to was about the Koch Brothers and the impact on the electoral process…the democratic process. Excellent post, murph!

Further reading of the Washington Post brought me to a poster who provided an excellent link. This was written in 2010 before the election. It reveals the history of the Koch brothers,their activities and Libertarian beliefs based upon their upbringing and the impact it has had on America i so many spheres. It is a long article, but well worth the read. It may open the eyes of some, and confirm the facts to others,and allow a better understanding of the dangers posed by these two powerful men, particularly in this election year.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer

What I get from this article, and recent Tea Party bickering within the GOP is an emerging picture that makes me uncomfortable…suspicious, particularly with the “bipartisanship” of Paul Ryan re the budget deal, the emergence of Rand Paul’s ideology being plastered all over the media, coupled with the more visible, outspoken Mitt Romney. Is something going on here? A change of tack?

Nirek
Member

Goleaf…, Murph does have a great way of expressing his views. He is here quite a bit and we love his postings. Welcome to the Planet btw. Check out the off topic thread. Also all the other spots here on the Planet. You will be welcomed everywhere here.

yankhadenuf
Member
yankhadenuf

HuffPo has morphed into a “product” that is unrecognizable. When I joined in 2005, I was anti-Iraq War and finding places to hide out that would not ban me when I called out Israel policies as one of cause factors of American invasion.

Dbos
Member
Dbos

Money talks;Arina’s model was to use free posters brains then sell them as her very own; when the posters rebelled she made more money by linking to FB then totally abandoned them . The divorce was not amicable.

Piul05
Guest
Piul05

Now it’s a barren land of inane comments, where people who barely read the threads, let alone understand them, pat each other on the back for coming out with a “civil” (read totally off the mark one-line) answers. There is a vicarious interest in watching friends who gave in and signed with Facebook despair over the plunge that quality and content took since December 9th.

Seriously, if I wanted a venue like that, I’d stick to the Daily Mail UK – at least, it’s consistent with its right wing, sensationalist. deliberately misinformed appeal to bigots and Schaden Freude enthusiasts.

NoManIsAnIsland
Member
NoManIsAnIsland

Very astute remarks, Piul05, and the “deliberately
misinformed appeal to bigots and schadenfreude
enthusiasts” is spot on!

Nirek
Member

Yank and Piul and nomanand Debos,l, welcome to the Planet. I have been here a couple years and still am finding parts of the Planet to go to. It takes me longer to navigate as I’m old and computer illiterate to some extent. I finally figured out Morning blog. Lots of “news”stories there. I most often go to Off Topic since my interests are all over the place.
Try going to the weekend music thread, it’s fun !

Again welcome to all our new friends. Unofficially since I’m just another resident of the Planet.

Dbos
Member
Dbos

Thanks; I too like OT think its the place of great interest in the future to start oFF topic intelligent conversations on the stories of the day.

Piul05
Guest
Piul05

Definitely.

I joined in 2008 and there were many memorable discussions and none of the bland, vacuous dialogues we witness now. They “mistake” sanguine for rude; forceful for insulting and civility for conformism. Take for example, this week’s post on Ariel Sharon; all that is allowed are comments about how “wonderful” he was – a courtesy that the HP, curiously, did not extend to Hugo Chávez. Even the right-wing British Daily Mail has allowed comments which reflect the general view of the public.

All in all, it’s become easier and easier to wean off the HP – there’s hardly anything there worth reading and the comments, which were the main reason people joined, are suffering from a severe case of anemia. I only feel sorry that I cannot contact many if the people I befriended over the years but with whom I did not exchange email.

KillgoreTrout
Member

Welcome to the Planet yankhadenuf! I hope you enjoy it here, I sure do and have been for a few years now. It’s a great place.

Would you mind elaborating on some of those Israeli policies that may have led up to the US involvement in the Iraq war? I’ve never really been able to make such connections myself.

Kalima
Admin

Hi KT, I can think of one of them. Saddam Hussein was paying Palestinian families a cash reward if their sons volunteered for suicide bomb attacks against Israel. It was later confirmed by many different sources.

KillgoreTrout
Member

Hi Kalima. I have no doubt about that, but that is not an “Israeli policy.” I think you may have misunderstood. Yankhadenuf was referring to Israeli policies that contributed to the US involvement in Iraq.

I cannot think of any Israeli policies that would have had anything to do with our invasion of Iraq. Maybe it is I who misunderstood yankhadenuf’s comment? Did he mean Saddam’s policies toward Israel?

Kalima
Admin

I suppose we will have to wait to hear. As usual I just flew in and out so it could be that I misunderstood.

Then again, I believe the war was about private revenge and oil.

yankhadenuf
Member
yankhadenuf

Good to see so many fellow ex-HuffPosters sprouting at this and other sites in the new year beyond Epoch Times and Poynter. I guess AOL (and Facebook) are no longer in control, *snickerdoodles*

kesmarn
Admin

Welcome to the Planet, yankhadenuf! I think you’ll find that you can express yourself here without knee-jerk, inconsistent censorship that delays or evaporates your comments. And your privacy will be protected at the same time. Win-win.

Piul05
Guest
Piul05

Nice to see so many of my HP friends over here.

I wish you all a happy Xmas and New Year.

Quick Brown Dog
Member
Quick Brown Dog

Hi AdLib,

When I logged in for the first time to PlanetPOV I noticed that it uses WordPress. How secure is WordPress as a company WRT providing info to the NSA or corporations? Doesn’t HuffPost use WordPress too? Or is WordPress an AOL company, like Tumbler is now Yahoo’s blog interface and Blogger/Blogspot is Google’s? Also, I notice there is a Twitter sidebar — does this compromise security of the site by giving information to Twitter?

Kalima
Admin

Hello QBD and welcome to The Planet.

WordPress is the software system we use to run the site and in the last almost five years of running The Planet we have never had any security breaches and are quite secure. Our Twitter account is mainly to promote our articles that are written by members here. We have over 1200 followers who retweet our articles, and we retweet interesting stories from our followers. There is no compromise of security or private information, and the only way for anyone to get that information is, if you offer it yourself. The Planet is safer than many sites. Just don’t give out personal details like your email address in a comment because we will immediately remove it to protect your privacy. If you want to share your email address with a member here, please ask us in Admin to pass it on for you as long as the other member is in agreement.

Here is how you can keep updated to replies to your comments. You can either tick the box under your new comment before you submit it, or go to Settings in your Dashboard. Click on “Comment Reply Notifications”and then click on appropriate box. You will then get alerts when members reply to your comment, in your inbox.

Assumed Name
Member
Assumed Name

I’ve not been on the internet to comment for ages– my son’s over zealous robotics coach overtook our lives until the team lost the state championship last weekend (I contained myself as I didn’t jump for joy or shout, “Whoo-Hoo!!)–but I finally skimmed through HuffPo this evening and signed in to comment how excellent it was that a young man with Down Syndrome was accepted into college when I was asked to do so via FB *and* verify my FB account with my telephone number. (I mean, how creepy is that??) Not only do you have to display your name, but your name will be associated with your entire comment history. Does Pentecostal Aunty Em or your Tea Party boss really need to know the extent of your left wing political leanings? Furthermore, how does this promote civility (the HuffPo comments are still dicey as ever as far as I could see) or sustain free expression? The only thing I see is information mining to no civil or free end.

(Of course, at this late date I’m certainly repeating what others have already said, but my undies are in a twist and I needed to blow off steam.)

Off to delete my HuffPo account…and perhaps read more frequently from legitimate news sources. *smile*

Toodle!

KillgoreTrout
Member

Hey AN! Great news about your son getting into college. That’s wonderful.

Regarding Huff and Puff, you’ve made a wise decision. Data mining it most certainly is. Hello Big Brother!

Have I told you that I just love your avatar?

Assumed Name
Member
Assumed Name

…you made me chuckle, KT, but in a good way. *smiles*

(My little guy, the one into robotics, is 10–the young man with Down who was admitted into college looks to be about 17…the story is on HuffPo. The college is specifically for people who are challenged, which is so excellent.)

Thanks reference Opus. I wish there were an equally consistently witty contemporary political comic, but I haven’t come across any. (Which isn’t saying much…I miss tons due to mommy myopia.)

KillgoreTrout
Member

Oh boy do I feel silly. I think my reading comprehension is declining a bit. OOPS!

Assumed Name
Member
Assumed Name

…no worries. 😀

Kalima
Admin

AN, congrats on deleting your “Dark Side” account, and welcome back. We have missed you. 🙂

Assumed Name
Member
Assumed Name

Thanks, Kalima!

Nirek
Member

AN, you are not alone as you can see from all the posts on this thread. Good to see you again. Sorry they lost, sounds like a good competition.

Assumed Name
Member
Assumed Name

Thanks for the welcome back, Nirek!

The robotics program, The First Lego League, is very nice. This year’s theme was disaster relief. In addition to having their robots run through several simulated relief efforts, the teams do charity work and side projects. My son’s team, for example, made care packages for the homeless with food, hand warmers, etc. (We carry ours in the trunk…whenever we spot someone, my son is able to quickly grab a bag and offer it.) The team also made a roll up board game in English and Spanish that teaches children how to be safe during natural disasters–and based on their prototype they received a nice grant from a local college to produce and send it to California, Ecuador and (I think) Columbia. If you happen to know of happily bouncy adolescent geeks (one of my favorite groups of people!), here’s the web URL:

http://www.firstlegoleague.org

All the best,
AN

Reincarnation_TPS
Member
Reincarnation_TPS

One of the best things about this site is no front page images of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber.

This site is what HP used to be, if memory serves, many, many years ago.

Kalima
Admin

Welcome to The Planet Reincarnation_TPS.

We are a Progressive political site without advertisers, we run on a voluntary basis and keep going on donations and private sources. We are interested in both news and politics, but we don’t do the “fluff” pieces here. People can go to HP and many other sites to read those. All of our articles are written by members and Admin.

If you would like to see how The Planet works, here is a link to a recent post by AdLib. Feel free to add your comment on any of the articles.

http://planetpov.com/2013/12/16/welcome-to-the-planet-a-guide-to-blogging-at-planetpov/

Assumed Name
Member
Assumed Name

…and no embarrassingly stupid language such as “side boob.” *gag*

NoManIsAnIsland
Member
NoManIsAnIsland

…And retch!

Assumed Name
Member
Assumed Name

Heh! *smiles*

yankhadenuf
Member
yankhadenuf

Lost count of “wardrobe malfunction” euphemisms…

NoManIsAnIsland
Member
NoManIsAnIsland

Hey, Reincarnation_TPS, Who are Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist it, I’ve actually heard of, but not seen, them. Nor do I wish to!

And paraphrasing the disjunction of my great teacher and meteor, Mrs. Malaprop, I’ve chosen to “Illiterate them, I say, quite from my memory!”

Aquarius 1027
Member
Aquarius 1027

Hi there, NoManIsAnIsland! – Nice to find you! HP is disintegrating, will not stay where privacy and freedom of speech are not respected. – Ready to get rid of the old and bring in the new for 2014? Looking forward to new explorations in cyberspace. And getting rid of the GOP/TP in both state and federal levels! – Happy Holidays, my friend! 🙂

NoManIsAnIsland
Member
NoManIsAnIsland

Hi Aquarius,

Not being able to get here from the e-mail
notice of your post by clicking on the link
there, I answered under an earlier post of
yours to AdLib on your first day on PlanetPOV.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you should be
able to to find it there easily.

Happy New Year, friend!

yankhadenuf
Member
yankhadenuf

It’s amazing how we actually clicked on things simply because they shoved it into our faces ad nauseum

Reincarnation_TPS
Member
Reincarnation_TPS

BTW,

I recently noticed I lost about 100 fans so far on HP.

I went down from around 1600 to around 1500 or something like that.

KillgoreTrout
Member

Aquarius,we don’t have a “fan,” system here. I think you’ll find that everybody here will become your fans. Even if we disagree on some points, your comments and posts will always be respected. It really IS a community here.

Reincarnation_TPS
Member
Reincarnation_TPS

I just meant that people are leaving HP. And this in no way reflects how bad it may actually be since many of those fans haven’t even posted in the last few months, six months or few years. HP is probably hemorrhaging more members than it appears just by looking at how many fans are lost.

KillgoreTrout
Member

I hear ya, and couldn’t agree more. I hope they lose all of their quality commenters and see just what a barren, intellectual wasteland they have made for themselves.

I certainly would not shed a tear in their direction. 😉

Dbos
Member
Dbos

yep had 3500 fans lost 250+haven’t posted since “The edict”.thousands of my friends in the same boat as you and I ;sitting in life boats with the expert sailors watching the ship go adrift .

NoManIsAnIsland
Member
NoManIsAnIsland

Dbos,

I was No Man Is An Island on
“Guff’nPuff” Post but don’t
think our paths crossed
there.

WOW, I Love your sardonic
“sitting in life boats with
the expert sailors watching
the ship go adrift” and hope
I don’t presume too much
to say I feel I’m also in one of
those life boats with you and
others who made up the life
blood of the formerly respect-
able HP!

HLL
Member
HLL

Hey Reincarnation ~ I just checked and have lost 600 fans so far. That’s at least as many people who have closed their accounts. I still have mine to track how many are leaving, but I’ll close mine soon too. I’ll NEVER sign in with the FB link. YUK YUK YUK!!! The definition of “Big Brother is Watching You!”

NoManIsAnIsland
Member
NoManIsAnIsland

Hi, HLL,

I’m more than ready to close my account
but would like to save some of my posts
— and even more, some of the astonish-
ing posts sent to me — but I haven’t
figured out the best way to do it yet.

Best wishes to you and yours for a Happy
New Year!

Kalima
Admin

Hello NoManIsAnIsland and welcome to The Planet.

When I left in 2009, I went to my comments, copied them all, pasted them into Text, and then printed them out. The comments/replies to you can be more complicated and take some time, but when I was there you could click on your comment and it would take you to the article and your comment, and you could copy and paste the replies from other posters. If they were comments not connected to yours, it helps if you can remember the article they were posted on. If the comments you want to keep are from your fan base, you just go to your list of fans, click in their username and their comments should show for you to check through and copy. Good luck. 🙂

A bit of work but if you want to save them, it’s worth the effort.

NoManIsAnIsland
Member
NoManIsAnIsland

Hi Kalima,

I posted a response to you on 12/30/2013 at 1:27 PM, but I
did something wrong, and it
ended up under a post by
Aquarius 1027 — 18 posts below
this as I write at 4:08 P.M. CST
on 12/30/2013.

I’m going to copy and save it in
case you have difficulty finding
it. I’m sorry for the trouble.

I thought of reposting it here
but didn’t want to double post it.

NoManIsAnIsland

Kalima
Admin

I found it and answered below . No problem. 🙂

Reincarnation_TPS
Member
Reincarnation_TPS

Hello Planet POV.

I haven’t posted on HP since December 9, and I do not intend to anymore. I refuse to link HP to Facebook. I have not deleted my account but I refuse to link to Facebook so that’s it for me.

funksands
Member

Hey TPS! Great to see you!

Reincarnation_TPS
Member
Reincarnation_TPS

Great to see you too.

CAdawn
Member
CAdawn

Help! I have a few emails from posters and can’t seem to find how to reply to them. I clicked on “view this comment” and it takes me to the site of comment, but I have to scroll thru days of comments. I’m doing something wrong.

agrippa
Member
agrippa

I never thought highly of Huffington Post. I thought it was sensationalistic – it was full of clickbait.
I decided that creating clickbait was the editorial policy of the site.
The comments reflected that; in other words, the site trolled itself.
I just go there for the comedy.

Huffington Post is not unusual – “if it bleeds, it leads” – the Daily Beast and Mother Jones are full of clickbait as well.
It is how a website ( not different from print, radio or TV) makes money.

OppositionResearch
Member

Indeed.

I would always rely on the text of the URL itself to better inform me of the contents of an article. I disregarded headlines completely.

RemoveTheGreedyOnes
Member
RemoveTheGreedyOnes

Left HP myself when the imposed the Facebook change. Once again, the many are suffering the inequities of the few. HP has seen its heyday, it’ll never be the same without anonymity. Personally I have no idea why they meddled in the commenting system. We, the users were doing a great job of pointing out the lies and deceit of the “trolls”. HP fully and completely over stepped their authority because of a “fear”. I have lived long enough to know you can not ever make decisions based solely on fear. When you do, fiascoes such as this occur.

PlanetPOV? Your my new “home”. Don’t screw it up.