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Funnyman-loving Facebookers mock US prez race

Obama no better than online privacy

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One million Facebook users have made a mockery of American politics.

On October 16, television comedian/newsman Stephen Colbert launched a less-than-serious bid for the US presidency, and within hours, a social networking-crazed high schooler tossed up a Facebook group called "1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T Colbert," an obvious parody of a group dedicated to presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Stephen Colbert with US Flag

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And the parody is more popular than the real thing.

After nine months, "1,000,000 Strong For Barack Obama" has fewer than 400,000 members. Meanwhile, "1,000,000 Strong For Stephen Colbert" has lived up to its name in just 10 ten days. Membership now tops 1,020,000 - and counting.

The group's creator claims to have reached 500,000 members faster than any group in Facebook history, but the company has yet to return our phone calls asking if this is true. Clearly, it's much too busy celebrating the overspending of a large software vendor in Redmond, Washington.

Whatever the case, it seems clear that Facebookers are more interested in heavy-handed TV comedians than serious political candidates. But that shouldn't surprise you. These are the same people who prefer virtual feces to online privacy.

In addition to serving as faux newsman and faux presidential candidate, Stephen Colbert is also a witness in the Viacom-YouTube trial. ®

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Latest Comments

Legality of Colbert running for Prez

Use of his show to promote his campaign presents legal problems (to put it mildly)... e.g. see http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=3766656&page=1

Would have been nice to have this mentioned in the article as it could derail Colbert's campaign train no matter how many people sign up via Facebook... but hardly surprised.

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Anonymous Coward

re: He's not that funny

You obviously didn't see his roasting of Bush at the White House Correspondents' Dinner...

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Why is it that...

...every time I see mention of FaceBook, MySpace etc. I think of AOL of old - the asylum where the tossers were kept so the rest of us could be serious with Usenet etc. *sigh* Those were the days... ;-) "social networking-crazed high school tosser" - indeed.

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