Internet "blogs" ended up with egg on their face this week after releasing early exit-poll data from Tuesday's vote suggesting Senator John Kerry was on his way to a victory against US President George W. Bush.
Blogs, short for Web logs, became a major phenomenon in this year's campaign. But the mistakes, while not of the magnitude of the 2000 election fiasco, opened a debate over the credibility of the sites and of the exit polls being used.
Although the preliminary exit poll data were not widely used by television networks and other mainstream media, the misleading news spread like wildfire and even prompted a selloff late in the day on Tuesday on Wall Street when it appeared Bush was in trouble.
One news site distributing the early poll data, the Drudge Report, attracted 978,000 hits on Tuesday, and several other blogs collectively attracted more than a half a million visitors, according to comScore Networks.
"People jumped the gun and started interpreting the poll data before it had been completed," said Michael Cornfield, a senior research consultant at the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
"There's a game in Washington -- you feel like an insider if you get the early data and distribute it, and I did myself ... I've been writing e-mail notes all morning apologizing," he said.
But Cornfield said the release did not have the same impact as the mistaken call of Florida in the 2000 election.
"When it goes through television networks, it acquires the authority the bloggers don't have," he said. "It also affects people who are voting ... if a network calls a state [there is the feeling that] it's over."
Still, there was no doubt about the impact of the blogs.
"The thing about blogs, of course, is that a hot story tends to spread exponentially, so by early evening, the early exit-poll results were all over the blogosphere," said Steve Outing, a senior editor at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.
"Bloggers, in particular, are loose cannons when it comes to information that established media seeks to control. Mostly independents with no corporate masters to abide -- and often no traditional journalistic training or standards -- bloggers cannot be expected to play by old media rules," Outing said in a Web column.
Cornfield said he believes the exit-poll data -- a pool effort of the major media -- was generally accurate but only after late-day voters were included.
Still, bloggers and others posting messages on blogs were smarting and trying to find an explanation, with some suggesting manipulation of electronic voting systems.
"Analysis of the polling data versus actual data and voting systems supports the hypothesis that e-voting may be to blame in the discrepancies," said one Web poster, identified only as "SoCalDemocrat."
"Nevada has e-voting but with verified receipts. In that state the exit polling matches the actual results within 0.1 percent accuracy. However for other swing states Bush has unexplainable leads."
"Notice, if you will, that states with a narrow or wide Bush margin of victory NOT called Ohio or Florida, project perfectly," said another Web poster, London Yank. "It is a clear and blatant sign of voter fraud."
Cornfield said that he did not believe the outcome of the vote had been influenced by the early release or by fraud.
"I'm willing to believe there was a level of fraud in Ohio and Florida, and so did the Kerry campaign," Cornfield said. "But they did their arithmetic, and if there was fraud it was not enough to change the results."
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
A bipartisan group of US representatives have introduced a draft US-Taiwan Defense Innovation Partnership bill, aimed at accelerating defense technology collaboration between Taiwan and the US in response to ongoing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The bill was introduced by US representatives Zach Nunn and Jill Tokuda, with US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar and US Representative Ashley Hinson joining as original cosponsors, a news release issued by Tokuda’s office on Thursday said. The draft bill “directs the US Department of Defense to work directly with Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense through their respective
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA