I wanted to go to sleep at around 11 last night. Instead I was up to well past one.... fighting more garbage. I made the mistake of signing up with a "liberal blog" about a year and a half ago. Then they asked me if I wanted to link to facebook, I thought "why not?" I didn't use facebook except when someone said "check our my facebook page" anyway, so maybe it would be useful if someone was saying something on facebook and I wanted to read more.
Well, then I saw my NAME on a comment I'd written on one post. Luckily, this was not an alias I'd ever used for anything but commenting once on a site I didn't care much about. It was lucky I ran across a very old comment (I'd kept the article) or I wouldn't have known.
In case you have not experienced it, I'd like to give you a few of the very annoying problems it can cause.
I went in and changed all my privacy settings on facebook (although it appears you much leave your name available) and did a little test. I made a comment like "wow, the weather must have been cold when he did that." Boom. There's my name again. So I think it may be one, either or both, Huffington Post and/or facebook. HP is very aggressive.
I suspect they've added their name, to my blogroll on other websites. I know it was them as I do not know how to add people to my blogroll. I'm 58. Every time I want to do something new I have to go and read how-- right that minute-- as I have forgotten how from when I read the "rules".
What I'd like to know is how the get access to my blogroll? I thought the only person who could add to it is me.
So now I have this site adding themselves to my blogroll and I can't figure out how to get them off. It looks like all I read is Huffington Post as that is who always shows up on my blogroll.
I do not read Huffington Post at all. Why? You see a story, you read it and you get a list of stories that "if you liked this author, you will like these authors." Really? Even if the topic is 180 degrees, and completely different from, what I just read? And those "other stories I might be interested in... well the first one is always by Huffington, and seems designed to make people really angry at Democrats. I don't want to be angry today thank you, and if I do, I have plenty of republicans to be angry at.
In fact, if there hadn't been so much anger stirred up at Democrats (and I know for a fact that some of the anger is misplaced) we might be breezing into a great 2010 for Democrats. Instead people are so mad they might not look at us again for years. And that could cause us to lose a lot of the things we need to get done. It already has. If the President had more clout we might have gotten a better healthcare bill. It should have been politically perilous for Senate Dems to oppose him (blue dogs I mean). Now, all this anger has given the blue dogs a lot of clout.
The problem is that you google something, and rather than getting the original source first you get the Huffington Post copy of the article. So unless I look at the web address before I ever click on a political story (that someone told me is in a newspaper right now), I must check where I'm clicking. I usually trust content from the original source so I don't think twice. Now I have to.
I recently read that HP has eight million readers. I would source it but I wonder if it includes me. Am I being counted? It would appear so from my blogroll. I don't know if you can see my blogroll here, but it is on there with a star. A star? Where did that come from? I checked my blogroll list from my home page. It is not in the regular boxes, but above them--with that star. A gold, silver, or colored, star is from high school and you have to earn it.
These stories "that I might also be interested in" are all by the same person, who I question the motives of (in writing about the same thing over and over). Now this is a topic that this author should be very familiar with as she would be far more likely to be rich as Croesus than poor.
So I'm not buying the "outrage for the poor thing." I am buying the "I want more publicity and more TV time thing. But must she represent the "liberal" side on every TV show? Clearly this is unfair to us as most liberals, if worse times come, cannot jump on a jet and fly say to... Greece. Plus for a liberal she sure doesn't agree with a lot of liberals.
Now I can't go to any websites that are say, republican creepy, to see what they are up to as I don't want to appear to have HP on any blogrolls.
So I closed out m facebook account. I can't ever use that again. If I do who knows what will happen. I only used it to look up writers anyway but it was nice to see if they had a website or other things I wanted to read. Then today I go searching, as I was tired around 1:30 (two hours past my bedtime) and didn't want to search.
But today I head for one of those places sure to get the U.S. news right, whether in print or on the internet-- a UK site. I just picked the first one I came to.
I find this:
Facebook’s been engaging in some behind-the-scene shenanigans: it’s blocked a web app that allowed you to wipe your Facebook profile and begun trialling a Community Council to deal with controversial issues on the social network.
These stories "that I might also be interested in" are all by the same person, who I question the motives of (in writing about the same thing over and over). Now this is a topic that this author should be very familiar with, as unless something is very wrong, she should be rich as Croesus.
So I'm not buying the "outrage for the poor thing." I am buying the "I want more publicity and more TV time thing. But must she represent the "liberal" side on every TV show? Clearly this is unfair to us and (1) I'm not buying the liberal thing (2) most liberals, if worse times come, cannot jump on a jet and fly say to... Greece and (3) for a liberal she sure doesn't agree with a lot of liberals. The more you read there the more clout you give her.
Can anyone tell me how to get that name off my blogroll--with a star no less?