A Kean aide denies a hand in blog hits on Menendez
2006-09-21
Source: New York Times
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rss feedSomeone on the liberal political blog Blue Jersey has been posting -- gasp! -- anonymous criticisms of Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez.
And the blog's founder said yesterday he has traced the bogus postings, through Internet addresses and other evidence, back to Jill Hazelbaker, the press secretary for the Senate campaign of Republican state Sen. Tom Kean Jr.
Hazelbaker dismissed the claim as "nonsense" and denied the campaign had anything to do with the postings.
"Oh, please," she said. "I'm very busy. I don't have time to focus on Blue Jersey. ... I don't blog."
Disguising one's identity to sway "grass roots" opinion is known on the Web as "astroturfing." It's hardly a crime -- people use fake names on the Web all the time -- but it can be an egregious breach of a site's etiquette that can get the poster barred from the site.
Juan Melli, a graduate student at Princeton University who created Blue Jersey (www.bluejersey.com) last year as a forum to discuss politics, said he wouldn't tolerate such tactics on his site.
"This is an open forum for honest debate," he said.
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