(no subject)

[sraun]

The American Family Association is having a 'tell American Businesses how you feel about corporations that support the "homosexual agenda". It's at http://www.afa.net/petitions/businesses/businesses.asp.

When I filled it out, the numbers were:

Be more likely to do business with that company. 1,019
Be less likely to do business with that company. 52,707
It would not affect my buying decision. 915

Comments

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

My first instinct when I hear the phrase "homosexual agenda" is to ask, "What agenda?"

...then I remember that some people think that the notion that all human beings should be treated with a modicum of respect and dignity is a dangerous idea that must be marginalized by labeling it as an "agenda".

*grumble*

[sraun]

Yeah. That's why I thought I'd publicize their little attempt to get a ... restrictively biased sample.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Agenda

1. Corrupt children
2. Take over world
3. Make cookies
4. New business

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Is that what it is? Damn, mine must have fallen out of my toaster oven when it was delivered, since I never got that one. ;-)

[azurelunatic]

I voted!

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

My response might not be what they hoped for.

[jiawen]

I'd like to vote, but there's no way I'm going to give them my e-mail address.

A lot of this kind of voting works this way:

1. Put out some artificial binary that (especially in this case) may even be based on false principles
2. Get people inflamed either for or against your position
3. Angry people give you their information
4. Use this information to further your own goals
5. Profit!

Not even the usual "3. ???" step needed.

And the fact that the responses have been largely in favor of their idiotic agenda mostly just shows that their website primarily gets viewed by people who support their idiotic agenda.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

I use "mailinator.com" addresses for just that purpose.

I'm happy to screw around with someone's spurious statistics, personally.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

If they did last time (http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/01/61982) they did a poll like this it's news to me. I just used my 'suspicion' email address. The one where I sign up for things I'm not sure about and if necessary can be trashed.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I gave them their own email address, the one you're supposed to respond to to get off their spam list. No one says you have to be nice. *grin*

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I was put off by the demand for identifying info, too, but gave them my 'spam' email address, which I check only occasionally. When I did the survey it stood at:
Be more likely to do business with that company. 1,730
Be less likely to do business with that company. 90,535
It would not affect my buying decision. 1,474

It looks like all the wrong people are being put off by the request for names and emails.

[jiawen]

Again, though, the fact that their poll is so skewed, both in wording and in results, shows that their website is primarily designed for people who support their idiotic agenda.

It's not a scientific survey. If they ever use this information to push their agenda, we'll have to remember to laugh at them. Voting on it to try and skew it back towards sanity is fun, but is equally unscientific. And if they get a decent chunk of non-homophobic votes (say, around 20%), they can say "Look, even though they cared, they couldn't even rally enough people to defend their views! Clearly everyone supports our views!" If it were, say, a poll that was carefully worded, from a mostly non-biased source, I'd think about voting; but I give this particular survey about as much weight as the paper it's printed on, which is to say none.

[sraun]

I have a junk e-mail address I use for things like that.

I've heard of the group before - I consider being on their mailing list as 'good for knowing what the opposition is up to'.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

When I voted it was
Be more likely to do business with that company. 1,479
Be less likely to do business with that company. 74,688
It would not affect my buying decision. 1,222

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

The numbers are about doubled for the first two and about 500+ for the third.

DV

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

Those people have done this sort of thing before. On at least one occasion, word REALLY got around, they got a lot of the "wrong" kinds of responses, ie; not the answers they were hoping for, and scrapped the whole "poll" since clearly it had been "tampered with".

Fuck the AFA.

[falcongirl.livejournal.com]

Hi - you don't know me. I found your journal when I was looking up numbers for the afa.net poll. As of 4/24 - 4/25, the numbers had been static for hundreds of people with a huge bias toward the afa agenda. The poll is currently suspected by many as being a total scam, especially since the click to confirm link subscribed people to the AFA mailing list.

Yours is the only site I've found where the numbers changed. If you got screenshots, would you please post them?
Thanks!
-T

[sraun]

Sorry, I didn't keep screen-shots. Please note: the post you found is about a month old. This was the second time I'd seen the AFA poll going around my friends-list. The first time, I was seeing numbers change. So, it is my belief that somewhere in the past month they stopped admitting the numbers changing.
It's possible that they started only counting the votes in favor of their position. But I think they just froze the poll, and then didn't take it down.