RedState.com: Ron Paul Supporters ARE Destroying the Internet

Way back in June, we posed the question: Are Ron Paul supporters destroying the Internet? Among the truckloads of comments that we received on the post, there arose a pretty strong consensus: Ron Paul supporters are not destroying the Internet. Also, Ron Paul, is, like, pretty much totally awesome.

I'll be the first to admit that the headline is pretty sensational by software blog standards, but the genesis of the question was this: Ron Paul supporters have been extremely aggressive (some might go so far as to suggest overly so) when it comes to making their presence known in online forums.






We cited a Slashdot poll and the first prophetic post to utter Ron Paul's name on Appscout. It was an off-hand mention of the Republican candidate's name in a story about MySpace (with Barack Obama's name in the subject line). The utterance placed our poor, unsuspecting Jen DeLeo in the middle of a presidential flame war. The "Are Ron Paul Supporters Destroying the Internet?" post ultimately posed the question, "Is all coverage good coverage?"

Conservative news site RedState.com is drawing a line in the sand on the matter. The site is effectively banning comments by Ron Paul supporters suspected of abusing the site's comments section. The New York Times' political news blog, The Caucus, excerpted the official statement from RedState, which reads, in part:

Effective immediately, new users may *not* shill for Ron Paul in any way shape, form or fashion. Not in comments, not in diaries, nada. If your account is less than 6 months old, you can talk about something else, you can participate in the other threads and be your zany libertarian self all you want, but you cannot pimp Ron Paul.

The comment ends with a parting shot against undercover liberal posters to the site.

A bold move from a fed-up webmaster, to be sure, but one suspects that Rep. Paul's supporters won't be so easily silenced.