Is Google’s Blogspot an empty headed Obama sock puppet?

Google may have been a bit too hasty in responding the the Obama army’s group of internet activists who are working tirelessly to squelch any criticism, negative information on, or challenges to their chosen candidate. To be fair, most candidates have a little army of activists doing the same sort of work, however, their effectiveness is directly dependent on the persons and/or systems responding to their complaints. We’ve often heard that failure to exercise prudent due diligence before acting against sites flagged by fringe activists has been an ongoing problem at Google’s Blogspot. Perhaps it’s just the fault of automated systems being gamed or perhaps it’s……I won’t speculate.  If you don’t run with the Daily Koz herd, it may be in your best interest to avoid Blogspot as the place to express your opinion.

The bloggers in question, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all of them opposed to Senator Obama, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential “spam” blogs. “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog,” the Google e-mail read.

Many of the bloggers were affiliated with JustSayNoDeal.com a Web site that opposes Senator Obama. They include http://bluelyon.blogspot.com, http://comealongway.blogspot.com, http://hillaryorbust.blogspot.com and http://mccaindemocrats.blogspot.com.

In an article that appeared on Bloggasm.com, the reporter Simon Owens spoke with some of the affected bloggers, who said they believed that Google had fallen prey to a campaign by activists supporting Senator Obama. According to the bloggers, the Obama supporters had clicked on a “flag” on the anti-Obama blogs alerting Google that they were spam.

If so, that would be an embarrassment for Google. On its Web page explaining the “flag” feature, Google says that “it can’t be manipulated by angry mobs. Political dissent? Incendiary opinions? Just plain crazy? Bring it on.” (New York Times)