Why is Yahoo such a right-wing haven?

[Ampersand Unicode]

I don't believe Google has a news area, or Microsoft/MSN/Live/Bing (whatever it's called now). I don't use Facebook or Twitter, though I believe they're evenly mixed politically, with Twitter maybe skewed to the left somewhat due to the large population of Dem celebs and Millennials that use it. Facebook is becoming more popular with the olds, so it might end up being more wingnut as the youth "flock" to Twitter, Tumbler, etc. to get away from the grumpy old conservative codgers COMPLAINING ABOUT OBAMA IN CAPS LOCK BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE THE TYPEWRITERS EVERYBODY USED IN 1952.

I don't count identifiably ideological social forums or blogs that make clear their stance, i.e. DU is obviously Democratic (HuffPo is getting to be more and more like a DINO celebrity tabloid) while Breitbart is proudly bagger central. I'm referring to "general" social media/web portals that don't deal with niche subjects, i.e. Mashable deals with tech, TMZ deals with celebrity gossip, Goodreads deals just with books, etc.

Why is it that over at Yahoo, it's just all-out wingnut mania? There seems to be a disconnect between the "mainstream"-type articles (sourced from things like ABC/GMA, AP, and the Today show) and the mentally unhinged comment section. Yahoo is a major brand name, so why are its members so lunatic-fringe?

For example, this article about a (very) small town in Massachusetts looking to ban cigarettes as a public health measure generated this comment from a user "Realist Rebel," on what "liberals" consider freedom as they allegedly attempt to restrict others' "freedom" to pollute the air with toxic smoke:

HIV Maggot buttsex is freedom to the libs. If you want to smoke though the libs will vilify you.

Now, I'm not one to promote a return to Prohibition or anything, and yes I agree an outright "ban" on anything is doomed to fail, but seriously, WTF is this? And why does it seem so prevalent on Yahoo, one of the longest-running (20 years) and most well-known Internet portals to have survived the Y2K dotcom bust? I'm not suggesting that Yahoo censor its comment section; I'm just trying to figure out why that section is rife with posters writing incoherent and bigoted nonsense, and why the bulk of them seem to congregate there?

[shenmue]

1. I don't know anyone who has sex with maggots

Since when do maggots get diseases from us?

[kelliekat44]

2. Think about who owns it and where all those ads come from.

[Ampersand Unicode]

4. Marissa Mayer? Or just big business?

I have adblock on so I don't usually see any of the advertisements. Is Mayer a repug?

[Warpy]

3. Because of the name, of course.

ya·hoo1
yäˈho͞o/
noun
informal
noun: yahoo; plural noun: yahoos

a rude, noisy, or violent person.
synonyms: redneck, boor, lout, oaf; More
barbarian, Neanderthal, brute, thug;
informalclod, roughneck
"her brother married into a family of yahoos"

Origin
mid 18th century: from the name of an imaginary race of brutish creatures in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726).
ya·hoo2
yäˈho͞o/
exclamation
exclamation: yahoo

expressing great joy or excitement.
"yahoo—my plan worked!"
synonyms: wahoo, yippee, hooray, hurrah, hallelujah, bravo, hot dog, whoopee, yay, yee-haw
"Yahoo! We won!"

Origin
natural exclamation: first recorded in English in the 1970s.
Translate yahoo to
Use over time for: yahoo

[Ampersand Unicode]

5. That makes sense :)

Although it did at one point have a children's area called Yahooligans. But I guess you could say that name fits even better in terms of young rabble-rousers in training.

hooligan (hoo-li-guh n)

noun
1.
a ruffian or hoodlum; (Br. slang) a lawless young person.

adjective
2.
of or like hooligans.

Origin
1890s, of unknown origin, first found in British newspaper police-court reports in the summer of 1898, almost certainly from the variant form of the Irish surname Houlihan, which figured as a characteristic comic Irish name in music hall songs and newspapers of the 1880s and '90s. Perhaps from a rowdy Irish family named Hooligan of Southwark, London, England; perhaps from Irish Uillega´n, a nickname for William, with confusion by Americans over vocative ''Oh, Willie,'' spread to all Irishmen. Perhaps related to Irish hooley, ''noisy party, carousal." Internationalized 20c. in communist rhetoric as Russian khuligan, opprobrium for "scofflaws, political dissenters, etc."

[NightWatcher]

6. Anywhere that the public can go to make anonymous comments usually degrades to shit

You can have a video on youtube of a squirrel dancing to polka music and if you read far enough down the comments, someone ends up calling the squirrel a (derogatory name for someone who is______). That person is then attacked and other users end up taking up sides to insult the other side. All of this mind you, over a polka squirrel.

[UglyGreed]

7. The comments

make me sick at times.

[smirkymonkey]

8. It's disgusting.

Even in the comment sections of articles that aren't the slightest bit political, Yahoo has more than it's fair share of right-wing trolls popping up to bash Obama, Liberals and other Democratic politicians. You really have to wonder what kind of lives these people live. It's pretty pathetic.

[Odin2005]

9. Because it tends to be where technologically illiterate old people congregate online.

[CBGLuthier]

10. I have used google news for years. yahoo news has sucked forever and a day

The sewer that is yahoo comments is what led me to DU back in 2001

http://news.google.com

[Bigmack]

11. They infest our local paper, too...

... and I think every media outlet they can find.

I know there's astroturfers all over the media, but those people comment on everything, pushing all the Fox bullshit.

They monopolize the boards, using the usual Teapublican tactics. If you present facts and numbers, they just name-call and shift the topic.

I hate to give up those comment boards, but I don't have the time to go on and on with people who seem to have all the time in the world. And none of the knowledge.

[wyldwolf]

12. It's not moderated (much) and yes, Google has a news section

news.google.com

[JaneyVee]

13. Um, it's called YAHOO! for a reason.