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On Dec. 29th, 2006 Yahoo Unleashed The Worst Trolls Upon Digg/Reddit

Posted On: May 10th, 2007 | Published Under: Fun Finds

I remember waking up in the morning and hopping on Yahoo News to check out the latest stories, not because I actually cared what was going on in the world, but because I wanted to see the comments. For ignorant trolls Yahoo Message Boards used to be a fun relaxing way to call someone’s mother a w***** or see who was the most evil religion in the world, etc…

Then on December 29th, 2006 all of that changed. Yahoo shut down what I assume had to be the single largest community of trolls to ever spam the web. A news story about Barrack Obama pops up, and watch the horrific racist jokes start rolling in. A news story about a new breed of dog; someone will share their story of bashing them with shovels.

Then all of a sudden this disappears from the troll universe. What I guesstimate must be around 30-50,000 comment trolls were released upon the web. The results have been detrimental to rational debate on Reddit and Digg. Before Yahoo opened Pandora’s box I can remember having fun talks and decent debates where only a troll comment here and a troll there was found.

Now, you can’t submit a link to Digg about something as fun as a “folding couch” and escape 134 comments that include calling everyone douche bags, lamers, haters, and a several Asian jokes (this is a story about a couch that folds up like an accordion).

Post anything related to race, religion, health, ethnicities, apple, Ubuntu, Bush, Barrack, or otherwise and expect within the first 10 comments a racist joke, a fat joke, and at least one religious joke usually involving Muslims.

Of course we can all assume Yahoo had to cut off commenting due to advertisers and newspapers complaining about the comments being located a single click from their story. But I feel its Yahoo’s ethical duty to take them back. Instead of spending their 3-5 hours at the office each day on Yahoo News, they now spend it polluting Digg and Reddit.

Popularity: 49% [?]

Tell Everyone About This: Digg | Reddit | Del.icio.us

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