Hacktivists Launch New Presidential Googlebomb Against Mitt Romney...

Up to some of their old tricks, hacktivists have just launched a Googlebomb against presidential candidate Mitt Romney.  For anyone uninitiated, a Googlebomb refers to a computer hack that manipulates Google's search algorithm to display results that express a political statement.  The current Googlebomb makes it so that whenever someone types the phrase "completely wrong" into Google Images, dozens of pictures of Mitt Romney are displayed.

Hacktivist behavior like this is not uncommon, especially in presidential politics.  It's also typically harmless, treading the line between humor, irony, and political satire.

Some previous examples of hacktivism in the political arena...

• Googlebombs:
• A search for "miserable failure" produced a biography of George W. Bush.
• A search for both "failure" and "cheerful achievement" produced results for President Obama.
• A search for "John McCain" produced stories about the Senator's filibustering of a minimum-wage hike.
• Twitter Bombs:
• #DontGo hashtag, originally of conservative origin, was hijacked by progressives.
• Edit Wars:
• Wikipedia battle over the entry on the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
• Amazon battle over reviews between Anonymous and the Church of Scientology.
• Reporting conservative or liberal blogs as SPAM.
• Using Tor or setting up Proxy Servers to assist democratic activists in Iran and China.

With only three weeks before the election, and with digital retaliation being the norm, we can expect another incident along these lines any minute now...