Online Pit Bull Forum Blamed for Skewing Survey Results

Poll Backing Adoption Of Pit Bulls In Question
ALERT: Pit Spamming | Loudoun County, VA - The Washington Post reports that an online pit bull forum has intentionally skewed the results of a poll meant for Loudoun County residents, not the entire World Wide Web. This type of "spamming" is frequently practiced by pit bull advocates, but most often in the form of spamming city officials contemplating breed-specific laws or limits to "free breeding" rights.

In the instance of the survey, Loudoun County Animal Care and Control (LCACC) set up an online survey to gage how local residents felt about their "no adopt out" policy for pit bulls. Pit bull advocates frequently cited the survey, which showed that two-thirds of respondents favored lifting the ban. But shelter officials uncovered evidence that advocates who lived outside the county participated in the survey "posing" as Loudoun residents.

"A shelter employee discovered a posting on www.pitbullforum.com that encouraged other advocates across the country to participate in Loudoun's survey and vote in favor of lifting its adoption ban. The poster provided a list of 20 Loudoun Zip codes and instructed respondents to delete the cookies stored on their computer so they could take the survey multiple times."

Thomas Koenig, director of the animal control agency, said he was surprised and disappointed by the employee's discovery. He said he knew that out of county people would participate in the survey but also thought "we had screened them out by asking for their address information." Koenig thinks the recent pit bull forum discovery "puts into question the entire survey."

Related articles:
05/08/08: Loudoun County "No Adopt Out" Pit Bull Policy Being Challenged
05/02/08: Help DogsBite.org Track Pit Spamming
04/30/08: Anderson, SC Getting Hammered by Pro-Pit Advocates

Labels: no adopt policy, pit spamming