23 March 2010 | Author: J. Cave SEO Consultant
Cash-Gordon.com, the Tories' attempt at some digital slander has been "hacked". Surfers visiting the webpage have instead been redirected to Labour.org.uk, Chatroulette, a Rich Ashley video and - briefly although hilariously - to a 'lemon party site', a not-safe-for-work site that featured elderly gentlemen engaging in some not so political activities.
So how did it all happen? In short a very anti-Labour Conservative (Adrian Harris of Conservative Party HQ according to whois) decided to use the new phenomenon known as the internet and all its marketing potential to create a little smear against Gordon Brown, the Labour Party and Unite, one of the larger trade unions in the UK.
Unfortunately for Adrian, or whoever is behind the campaign, the website was left open to attack, as Twitter users were able to add a little javascript with the cashgordon hashtag and display messages on the website like 'David Cameron is a C***" or redirect users to wherever they wanted.
It's not the first time unmoderated Twitter streams have backfired. Recently Skittles decided to display all of the (hash)skittles feeds on their website, a move that quickly resulted in thousands of Twitter users being able to post funny but generally obscene tweets live on the Skittles website.
Did the campaign backfire or has all of this unprecedented publicity helped to gain the Tories an extra foothold in the political ladder? Some people claim all publicity is good publicity, but with the unprecedented power of social media behind it, this may not continue to be the case.
Tory campaign backfires as Twitter stream is abused
Cash-Gordon.com, the Tories' attempt at some digital slander has been "hacked". Surfers visiting the webpage have instead been redirected to Labour.org.uk, Chatroulette, a Rich Ashley video and - briefly although hilariously - to a 'lemon party site', a not-safe-for-work site that featured elderly gentlemen engaging in some not so political activities. So how did it all happen? In short a very anti-Labour Conservative (Adrian Harris of Conservative Party HQ according to whois) decided to use the new phenomenon known as the internet and all its marketing potential to create a little smear against Gordon Brown, the Labour Party and Unite, one of the larger trade unions in the UK.
Unfortunately for Adrian, or whoever is behind the campaign, the website was left open to attack, as Twitter users were able to add a little javascript with the cashgordon hashtag and display messages on the website like 'David Cameron is a C***" or redirect users to wherever they wanted.
It's not the first time unmoderated Twitter streams have backfired. Recently Skittles decided to display all of the (hash)skittles feeds on their website, a move that quickly resulted in thousands of Twitter users being able to post funny but generally obscene tweets live on the Skittles website.
Did the campaign backfire or has all of this unprecedented publicity helped to gain the Tories an extra foothold in the political ladder? Some people claim all publicity is good publicity, but with the unprecedented power of social media behind it, this may not continue to be the case.
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