Asian netizens go to war on Time Magazine’s Most Influential People of the Year poll

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    Every year, Time Magazine puts up an online poll allowing visitors to their website to vote for their favorite figures as the “most influential” person, with the winner of the poll getting some space in the magazine. As usual, this year’s poll is being overwhelmed with huge amounts of repeat-voting for certain individuals. Korea blog Party Pooper reports that Korean fans of pop star Rain had voted him into first place on the poll, gaining South Korean media attention for the “international” recognition Rain was getting. However, it did not last long. Soon afterwards, tens of thousands of Thai netizens started voting for their king, dethroning Rain and igniting a vicious battle:

    The Korean netizens, refusing to be beaten at their own game, realized that the only way to kill the king’s popularity and put Rain back on top was to bombard Bhumibal with low ratings. Soon his average rating plummeted from 91 to the low 80’s, a feat which must have taken 10’s of thousands of voters to accomplish.

    However, when the Thai’s realized what the Korean netizens were doing they returned the favor and sent Rain down to 23rd place (below Bill Gates, by the by, and George Bush for that matter). Enraged, even more Koreans plagued Bhumibal with low ratings and now His Majesty sits at about 50th place.

    And so both seem fucked at this point. There is justice sometimes in cyberspace.

    The rankings have changed a bit since the Party Pooper post, but the aftermath of the vicious netizen battle is still apparent:

    Those who are hoping for a Japanese winner have a chance with Nintendo genius Shigeru Miyamoto, who was holding on to second place in the ranking at the time of this posting. However, it is doubtful that the the gamer vote will beat out the voting power of Stephen Colbert’s fanbase.

    Update: Rain has been announced the winner of the Time poll. A couple hundred thousand extra up votes, plus tens of thousands of votes down-voting every above Rain seemed to have done the trick. I guess there really is no justice in cyberspace.

    [via ROK Drop]

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