https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/three-black-teens-are-finalists-in-a-nasa-competition-then-hackers-spewing-racism-tried-to-ruin-their-odds/2018/05/02/a702f53e-4d72-11e8-84a0-458a1aa9ac0a_story.html https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/05/03/teen-finalists-nasa-competition-targeted-hackers/577969002/ http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/05/03/three-black-teens-bombarded-with-racism-due-to-success-in-nasa-competition.html
(Washington Post is the first level source for this story; USA Today and Fox News are secondary sources referencing Washington Post and are provided for those who have already used up their allotment of Washington Post free articles.)
Perry Stein in Washington Post:
The three D.C. students couldn’t believe the news. They’d developed a method to purify lead-contaminated water in school drinking fountains, and NASA announced last month that they were finalists in the agency’s prestigious high school competition — the only all-black, female team to make it that far.
[…]
But while the teens were gaining traction on social media and racking up votes, users on 4chan — an anonymous Internet forum where users are known to push hoaxes and spew racist and homophobic comments — were trying to ensure the students wouldn’t win.
The anonymous posters used racial epithets, argued that the students’ project did not deserve to be a finalist and said that the black community was voting for the teens only because of their race. They urged people to vote against the Banneker trio, and one user offered to put the topic on an Internet thread about President Trump to garner more attention. They recommended computer programs that would hack the voting system to give a team of teenage boys a boost.
NASA said in a statement that voting was compromised, prompting it to shut down public voting earlier than expected.
Reach up and touch bottom, 4chan.
I saw an interview with those 3gals. So cute and bright. The racism is pathetic.m
I don’t know what is even true any more. You hear things that sound awful, but then you hear about the Russian (word you can’t use on this forum) factories where spewing that kind of hatred is all that they do, trying to stir up trouble. So I do hope that maybe things aren’t always as bad as they seem.