alt Hacker NewsAnd here I was thinking this was proved beyond any reasonable doubt when 4chan users spoofed the Time Magazine person of the year poll of 2009 to spell out "MARBLECAKE, ALSO THE GAME" by the initials of the top winners:
https://techcrunch.com/2009/04/27/time-magazine-throws-up-it...
Or when Kim Jong Un won in 2012, spelling out "KJUGASCHAMBER":
https://observer.com/2012/12/4chan-successfully-votes-kim-jo...
Replies
Online polls being easy to manipulate makes it so weird to me that the European Central Bank made an online poll on what the new Euro bank note design should be. (Participants did not have to identify themselves in any way.) I wonder if the results will at all be taken into consideration in the following decision-making process.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2026/html/ecb.pr2609...
Or Boaty McBoatface winning the name of a research ship (given to a submarine on the ship).
You're half right, half not.
This is evidence, but it would be a mistake to think that high profile online contests would have the same dynamics as low profile online polling. 4chan is characterized by an insane level of effort on the specific jokes that they care about. But they don't care about a random poll nearly as much as they care about big stunts like this.