HuffPo 'troll' turned out to be site's tech manager

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1803833,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704

Huffington Post blogger blocked

Stephen Brook, press correspondent
Thursday June 22, 2006

Influential website the Huffington Post tried to ban one of its bloggers after he discovered an anonymous heckler on his blog was actually the Post's technology manager.

In his Huffington Post blog, Peter Rost exposed the identity of the heckler - known as a "troll" in blogging parlance - which prompted the Post to temporarily block his access.

He recounted the incident on a new blog site he created separately to the one co-founded by journalist Arianna Huffington.

"This is a sad day for online journalism," Dr Rost wrote on his new site. "I was terminated without any investigation of the statements in my blog post, all of which were referenced using independent sources.

And vice versa.

The reality is that no matter how much we want to believe people, it simply takes time and history to develop trust with someone.

And I always look forward to Dr. Rost's pieces.

Do I detect a whiff of disingenuousness?

What actions are you talking about?

but the way that they say it.

not the troll.

how the HuffPo handles this will be the test of trustworthiness. If you out the Tech Manager, he can pretty easily shut you down, no matter how well you document your case.

If the founders allow an employee to tarnish their reputation without an investigation and appropriate follow up (based on the facts discovered), then they will deserve the criticism that comes.

It goes without saying that any organization operated by more than one person is susceptible to harm by internal rogues.

if you read it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/setting-the-record-straig_b_23595.html

I'm not convinced, just confused.

Please go to Huffpo and read Arianna's explaination.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/setting-the-record-straig_b_23595.html

The OP simply posted an article excerpt.

Arianna makes no acknowledgment that a Huffpo employee stalking (whether anonymously or not) a contributor is bad news. Avoiding that elephant in the room makes me distrust her handling of this.

Here is Rost's report of yacomink's "troll" behavior:


Wow. I can't beleive (sic) all these people are spying on your weblog. It should be illegal for people to read things you post on the internet. It's a huge invasion of your privacy. Do you have lengthy articles on any of your other readers you'd care to share with us? By: yacomink on June 13, 2006 at 03:01pm

And I thought, since this "yacomink" was challenging me, maybe I should take a closer look at yacomink. Perhaps there's a story here . . .

It didn't take long until "yacomink" appeared again. In my next blog, Now I'm REALLY freaking out!, where I wrote about the Department of Homeland Security showing up on my blog, he made this comment: "Are you insane? This is a public website. If there are people you don't want reading your blog posts, don't put them on a public website." By: yacomink on June 14, 2006 at 12:10pm

And two days later I wrote a blog called Are Many Companies Criminal Enterprises? My new admirer was there again, saying among other things, "This thing reads like a 6th grader's first attempt at a research paper." By: yacomink on June 16, 2006 at 02:02pm

END QUOTE

Put aside any feelings of loyalty to Arianna and ask yourself how you'd feel if a person attacking you this way turned out to be a staffer of the very site for which you were blogging. Whether or not Rost deserved the attacks, whether or not Yaco-Mink deserves firing, the least Arianna could do was acknowledge that the behavior was highly inappropriate and no Huffpo bloggers will be subjected to such attacks from "inside" again.

Give me a break.

I guess I am stalking you now since ive disagreed with you repeatedly on a website.

Feelings of loyalty to Arianna? HUH?

If Rost cant handle people disagreeing with him, he didnt have to blog on a site with user comments.

The fact that the poster worked on the site is irrelevant, ive seen no evidence that he abused his position in any way.

lol.

Jason is one of us, Arianna isn't, it is all so confusing trying to figure out who we are supposed to be loyal to considering facts aren't allowed to come into it.

Regardless of who we are supposed to support I agree with you.

Details, please.

that's my problem. Way to many people are talking about "loyalty", "our side", "one of our own", and all kinds of other qualifying statements that are intended to stack a deck in favor of the argument being made.

It is childish and intellectually dishonest.

This is a discussion forum not a tribe.

If it is the later there should be qualifiers added to the registration process. The only qualification required for participation is general progressiveness.

I'm even appalled by the treatment of low post users that hold strong opinions. They are often told they need to pipe down until they are better know as if the content of the posts isn't enough. This is not the way for a healthy site to grow.

Motives and intent are MEANINGLESS if the arguments being made are solid.

The only time I see the troll label being thrown around is when the pitcher is out of mental ammo.

despite the assumed lack.

At any rate, I see your reference to the term "one of us" is meant to be jocular.

I would argue there is never an apt time to accuse people in threads of being a troll or a conservative. I think that's what the alert button is for.

the case by a wide margin.

And if Rost wanted things taken care of, he should have been professional about it and spoken to Arianna.

That the Huffpo employee was "stalking" anyone seems, at best, a matter of opinion. I choose to trust Huffington's explanation of the situation.

First of all her claim that the "logs" prove that the vote wasn't manipulated is utter tripe. If the VOTE could be manipulated, So can the LOG, and in fact it is most likely they are the same damn thing. The LOG is what is used to track the VOTE.

Secondly, how convenient is it that just as Rost exposes this insider and his suspicious ways, suddenly he gets "fired" for something totally unrelated? BULLSHIT.

Of course his being dropped from the blog is related to his posts. Arrianna explained as much in her column. Nobody ever claimed it was a coincidence.

And he didnt expose anyone. The commenter never hid his identity.

Is that what you are saying Huffington said? Because it sure doesn't read that way to me.

As for not exposing anyone - tell me, did everyone KNOW that guy was an admin? Sure didnt seem like it. In fact not one comment on any of those posts from a reader claimed to have known previously that he was an admin.

THAT is called exposure.

And no, that isnt what I said huffington said, nor is it what huffington said, it is your invention.

If they dont think his pieces are constructive, they can and should stop publshing them.

http://tech.huffingtonpost.com/

Clearly the fact that Andy Yaco-Mink worked on huffpo was not a secret.

and everyone always checks out the tech pages to make sure that the comment they are reading was not written by a staff member! Not to mention the fact that ANYONE could have put yacomink into the name field when they signed up. Hell, by your reckoning Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger posts here at DU because there is a user by that name!

The comment should have a clear indication that it was made by a staff member. Just like they do here at DU.

You have yet to give a single reason why he should have mentioned his position in his post.

to avoid even the appearance of a conflict. Otherwise you risk a situation just like this.

Seriously?

Ive given you plenty of reasons.

To avoid the appearance of impropriety - say for example that an admin gets voted "best of" in suspicously short time? At least if everyone KNOWS the comment was from an admin they are able to come to their own conclusions on how it happened.

To avoid the appearance of impropriety - say for example that someone posted something offensive, but the post seems impervious to "abuse" complaints and remains there - it would be informative to know that poster was an admin.

To avoid the appearance of impropriety - two commenters have an argument, one of them clearly bests the other by argument, only to suddenly have all their posts disappear and the person is banned. Would be useful knowledge to know the person they bested in argument was actually an admin...

I could go on and on, but I believe if you can't figure it out from there then there is no helping you...

I have no doubt that you could go on and on repeating it though.

And Im sure you will keep ignoring them.

She did not say Rost was "fired" for exposing the staff member, BUT THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED, so her explanation of why he was "fired" is bullshit.

And if no ones knows something, then it IS hidden. Thats why there should be a little indication on his posts that he is a staff member. You know, like DU does.

As for not thinking his posts were constructive, it seems they had no problem with them right up until he exposed the staff member and his questionable practices. Suddenly he was not acting "as part of our online community" as Arianna said. Hmm well I guess exposing the ethical missteps of a staff member could be seen as unconstructive - so yeah, why not fire the whistleblower? Ooops, isn't that why he was there in the first place? Cause he was a wistleblower? Oh the irony!

He wasnt dropped for exposing anything (because he never exposed anything)

And obviously you didnt read Arriana's comments, where she explained that this was NOT the first time they had taken issue with the contents of his column.

He wasnt dropped for exposing anything (because he never exposed anything)

Yes he did. If anything he exposed Huffington as a fool who has been misled by a techy telling her that "logs" (that he can edit) prove something!

And obviously you didnt read Arriana's comments, where she explained that this was NOT the first time they had taken issue with the contents of his column.

Well that's different then!!! I mean they never had a problem big enough to "fire" him before, but then after he exposed the ethical lapses of one of their staff, suddenly those earlier issues were too important to let slide!!! Of course why didnt I see that - it was just an unfortunate coincidence and a delayed reaction!

First of all, isn't it a little MISLEADING for a STAFF MEMBER to be posting comments as though they were nothing more than a fellow reader? Second of all, I have worked on such software as this before, and I can tell you if he is their tech man he can fake ANYTHING.

Ask EarlG or Skinner if they could fake this sort of stuff on DU. I know for a fact they can because the software simply stores values into a MySQL database that can easily be modified outside of the forum software.

Here is exactly how this guy would do it - except I don't know the actual structure of the DB:

1) Go into MySQL and check the table that logs everyone who commented on or read the post. Extract the required number of IP addresses from that log.
2) Create records in the table that tracks who clicked on the "Best Of" button.
3) Modify those records to include the information of each of the IP addresses trawled in step 1
4) Reload the Blog page and see your newly ranked comment!

This is easy as hell and untraceable. Maybe Huffington doesn't know this, but you can be damned sure her tech man does.

On edit:

In fact this guy could easily make a PHP file on the server that just by him hitting it in a browser would do all this automatically for him.

Maybe he CAN fake things, that doesnt prove that he did fake things.

A staff member should ethically identify themselves as such when they post replies on their own sites.

Did the guy do it? I don't know. I do know this, Huffingtons suggestion that it the logs prove the ranking was fair is utter bullshit. For me or you they would, but not for a guy who has access to the back end - which of course is why staff members should be identified.

Why shouldnt he be allowed to post comments like anyone else. Why shouldnt he be allowed to share his opinion?

WHERE IS YOUR EVIDENCE THAT HE RIGGED THE RANKINGS?

I said he should have to identify himself as a staff member - and one could argue his comments shouldnt be in their little ranking game, like lotto employees aren't allowed to play the lotto.

I don't need evidence he rigged the ratings - that was Rost's claim not mine. Rost posted his suspicions and was censored then "fired". That's pretty good evidence as far as I am concerned. And now this bullshit "explanation" which is so wrong it is farcical.

He wasnt commenting on issues relating to HuffPosts technical operations, why should he have to disclose a piece of information that is totally irrelevant to his comments?

"I don't need evidence he rigged the ratings - that was Rost's claim not mine. Rost posted his suspicions and was censored then "fired". That's pretty good evidence as far as I am concerned. And now this bullshit "explanation" which is so wrong it is farcical."

That isnt evidence of any kind, much less 'pretty good' evidence that he rigged anything.

You really can't see that the fact bthis "commenter" has the ability to go in and CHANGE anything on the site, including other peoples comments, the original blog post, andy rankings, the logs, the votes etc etc - you really can;t see that this might be information that is important for readers to know?

"That isnt evidence of any kind, much less 'pretty good' evidence that he rigged anything."

Umm yes it IS evidence. Let's say you work for Halliburton. You publically claim that the company is cheating on its taxes on the company website. The company then censors the post and fires you. You don't think that is good evidence of something being seriously wrong?

The fact is the cover-up is often worse than the crime, and in this case everything points to cover-up.

The fact that they chose not to continue publishing him does not prove that the comment votes were rigged. There is zero evidence of vote rigging.

wioth no way to prove or disprove it except for the actions of the accused. What were those actions? Well first censorhip then banishment. Seems pretty suspicous to me.

You may not be a morderer, but if you owned a gun and your spouse turned up shot to death, then you can be damned sure the cops would be looking very hard at you.

You seem to be confusing the editors of HuffPo with the techie who made the comment. The techie isnt the one who made the decision to stop publishing him.

Banishment? Are you serious?

Meanwhile Arriana's column links to all of the articles, so what censorship are you talking about exactly?

A dead body is evidence of a murder, please give us the evidence that the vote was rigged and yes, we can investigate who did it. The fact that someone could have rigged the vote isnt proof the vote was rigged.

See you can't prove that either. The fact is the way Huffington is handling this is as suspicious as hell.

Banishment? Are you serious?

Totally.

Main Entry: ban·ish
Pronunciation: 'ba-nish
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French baniss-, stem of banir, of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German bannan to command -- more at BAN
1 : to require by authority to leave a country
2 : to drive out or remove from a home or place of usual resort or continuance
3 : to clear away : DISPEL <his discovery banishes anxiety -- Stringfellow Barr>

Meanwhile Arriana's column links to all of the articles, so what censorship are you talking about exactly?

Umm even Huffington admits the post was originally removed and the author locked out. What other form of censorship is there on a blog?

A dead body is evidence of a murder, please give us the evidence that the vote was rigged and yes, we can investigate who did it. The fact that someone could have rigged the vote isnt proof the vote was rigged.

Well I dunno - it wasn't my claim. Rost says he went through the logs provided and saw that this person got a lot of votes in a very short time during a low traffic period. He made the claim, and he presented HIS evidence. Not me. I only know that Huffingtons response is utter bullshit, and that her claims of how she determined the vote wasn't rigged are laughable.

I also know that anyone with the ability to modify the relevent database should be identified when he posts.

I also know you don't need a body to suspect or even convict someone of murder - circumstantial evidence is enough. For example you have a fight with your spouse. You spouse goes missing. There is blood on your shoes and you have no explanation for how it got there. That is more than enough for you to become a suspect. Not much more and you could be found guilty of murder.

is the incident regarding George Clooney. That showed a certain amount of sloppiness, if nothing else. Doesn't necessarily mean they did anything wrong this time.

Last I heard it was a publicist working with Clooney who made the mistake, but I havent been looking for follow up information.

Clooney blogged or not:

http://stylescenes.latimes.com/fashion/2006/03/_oscarwinner_ge.html

"He doesn't object to the quotes," says Stan Rosenfield, Clooney's rep. "He said those things and those are his views. Arianna asked for permission to use the quotes and he gave it to her. What he didn't give permission for was the use of his quotes without source attributions to make it appear that he wrote a blog for her site. Which he did not. When he saw the posting Monday, we called and asked her to make the change, to simply attribute the quotes and make it clear that he did not write a blog. But she refused. And it's now Wednesday."

Wow she faked a story then refused to retract it when confronted. Is this some kind of trend???

I understood or misunderstood anything. I just posted an article from the Guardian for discussion.

is allowed, but if you criticize cite, your post disappears. Yeah, they just ooze integrity, ask Michael Smerconish.

going on around liberal blogs these days?

Methinks I smell a right-wing rat. A whole freaking organized nest, actually.

Huffington Post is straight-out terrific.

Already in this thread we see the confusion and misinterpretation of events, as if HuffPo is the problem.

So Huffington's "explanation" is a load of bullshit.

A tempest in a teapot?

and one wonders if it isn't a case of "as you like it" for some.
:hi:

But either you are quoting The Bard, or your speech is a polished mirror, as it were, of the master's very mind.

I know not which, my tender May flower.

My lamb.

My all. :-)

Nick: To you, everybody's a flop! Your husband's a flop, I'm a flop…

Martha: You're all flops. I am the Earth Mother, and you are all flops. I disgust me. You know, there's only been one man in my whole life who's ever made me happy. You know that? One.

Nick: What, the gym instructor or something?

Martha: No, no, no, no. George. My husband?

Nick: You're kidding.

Martha: Am I?

Nick: You must be! Him?

Martha: Yep.

Nick: George, sure!

Martha: You don't believe it.

Nick: Well, of course I do!

Martha: You always deal in appearances?

Nick: Oh, for God's sake.

Martha: George, who is out somewhere there in the dark. Who is good to me. Whom I revile. Who can keep learning the games we play as quickly as I can change them. Who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy. Yes, I do wish to be happy. George and Martha — sad, sad, sad.

Nick: Sad.

Martha: Whom I will not forgive for having come to rest, for having seen me and having said, "Yes, this will do". Who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving… me. And must be punished for it. George and Martha — sad, sad, sad.

But then, it's only art, and open to interpretation, unlike anything someone would say on a message board, which is always so very clear, and must needs be taken at face value.

Well, without conflict, there's no Magnum PI on TeeVee, or political traction in election races...so it's all good, in that wacky George and Martha kinda way.

Eat their own comes to mind. Why are we even paying any attention to this? Let's root around in Drudge's trashbin or Freepland... HuffPo has always been a credible and popular forum for our side. Why are we the ones taking it down a peg?

silliness...

two "credible and popular" sites both caught up in ethical lapses. Sure it could be people out to "get them" or it could be that they are NOT as "credible" as they appear. We have to be even MORE suspicious of sites on our side than sites on theirs. We KNOW drudge is full of shit so we don't believe a word he says - in other words HE can't be used to hurt us.

But what about the places we trust without question? The people? What if THEY are used to hurt us? Then we turn around and spend our time trying to defend the very instrument being used against us. That is why these are serious issues.

The cop outside the Labor meeting is nowhere near as much of a threat as the agent provocateur inside...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Very few that I've seen.

The liberal blogs STILL have a better track record than the Corporate Media. And it's likely to remain that way for some time to come.

Why on earth is your hair on fire over this? it seems like an internal matter to me, but I'll check into it in greater depth and in 37 more threads before I make my decision. ;-)

case-by-case basis.

Do you think we're sheep? Are you applying for a job as herder? :-)

on false pretenses with any dishonest or lazy reporting, which seems to be the thing some floaters around here are wont to do.

By which I mean send us into a war with ourselves.

Myself, I'm a conscientious objector.

I agree about HuffPost, it's a good site.

And there seems to be increased activity from certain circles.
Actually, increased attention a good sign. It shows that the new journalism is taken seriously, and that it works.
My first thought was 'first truthout, now this'.

Strange story, though ;-)

but this Rost guy's posts are a little weird for a political site. I can see why they wanted to "disinvite" him.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/setting-the-record-straig_b_23595.html

I dunno what to think -- this Peter Rost does sound like a piece of work.

... It is unethical and defending his unprofessional behavior is unethical.

If someone follows a blogger from one thread to another to another over several days, posting escalating personal insults, that's cyberstalking.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminology/cyberstalking/

excerpt:

"Cyberstalking, which is simply an extension of the physical form of stalking, is where the electronic mediums such as the Internet are used to pursue, harass or contact another in an unsolicited fashion."

Yacomink only did this for three days so it was a mild case, but his heckling of the Dr. was clearly harassment. If the behavior is deliberately disruptive of the atmosphere of the site, that's trollish.

http://members.aol.com/intwg/trolls.htm

excerpt:
"An Internet "troll" is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. He (and it is usually he) tries to start arguments and upset people. Trolls see Internet communications services as convenient venues for their bizarre game. For some reason, they don't "get" that they are hurting real people. To them, other Internet users are not quite human but are a kind of digital abstraction. As a result, they feel no sorrow whatsoever for the pain they inflict."

That does not mean yacomink's motive was political necessarily. I doubt that Rost is right about the motive of his antagonist; more likely he was just being hateful for the fun of it. And perhaps because his target was someone who could be counted on to suffer flamboyantly from the insults. That makes it fun to try to get a rise out of him.
Yacomink's pursuit of Rost is hardly the same thing as simply disagreeing with another member of DU more than once on the same thread on the same day.

None of this affects my judgment of the value of the blogs at HP or of the comments. The blogs are by and large among the best anywhere; the comments are often silly, snarky and juvenile. For an employee of the site to be contributing to the ugliness of the comments section just for the hell of it is bad news. I hope Arianna at least privately told him to lay off.