Why is the comments section on Yahoo articles a cesspool for right-wing fanatics?

[gmb92]

It's been that way for years and I've been fairly curious about it. Most comments on any politically-oriented topic on Yahoo articles are from right-wing fanatics, and comments supporting their talking points often get 10 to 1 or 50 to 1 thumbs up vs thumbs down, incredibly skewed compared to the balance of public opinion (elections, health care, gun control, Ferguson). What are the reasons? Other comments sections (such as CNN) have heavy right-wing skew but typically not as bad.

Some possibilities:

1. Reason: Paid shills with multiple accounts quickly posting talking points and thumbing them up, in an effort to influence public opinion by having the "popular" comments be inane right-wing talking points. If so, why are there few paid shills on the left to do a similar thing? Anyone have inside info on this?

2. Reason: Those with Yahoo accounts heavily skew to the far right. If so, why?

3. Reason: Those with extremist right-wing views tend to be more vocal to begin with, and most want their opinions heard and approved of, more than those on the left. Then why is Yahoo so much worse?

4. Reason: Yahoo news feeds end up funneling political articles to right-wingers based on their previous clicks, so they are mostly read by them. This would support the notion that the far right is more interested in politics.

5. Reason: Right-wingers have much more time on their hands.

6. Reason: Positive feedback loop. Some combination of 1-5 gives right-wingers an edge in presence, and all the thumbs ups just encourages them more, while the quick thumbs down and insults discourages moderates/progressives, resulting in the much larger ratios noted above.

What weight would you give to these reasons and what others would you include?

Any studies done on this?

[arcane1]

1. They're dumb-asses with nothing else to do?

There was this study, which at least seems to confirm the assholery:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/climate_desk/2014/02/internet_troll_personality_study_machiavellianism_narcissism_psychopathy.html

[gmb92]

3. This explains a portion of them

and right-wingers tend to exhibit those characteristics more, but as your link stated:

"So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters"

So this alone doesn't explain Yahoo.

[arcane1]

4. I think Yahoo gets a lot of them because it's an "easy" site to get to

By "easy" I mean it's a site everyone knows about, and even internet newbies can find. Plus, it offers email and groups, search engine, etc, so it's not like a regular newspaper's website in that regard. And it seems like Yahoo's groups skew toward younger people (at least, they did the last time I checked).

So Yahoo is a likely home page for many people.

[notadmblnd]

2. It's why they call it Yahoo.

[Historic NY]

5. FOXFIRE seem to had converted over to Yahoo now too..

[HoosierCowboy]

6. Reason #1 is now an epidemic

The best conclusion I can come to from watching the trolls on TYT is that the comments section lays in waiting for whatever is said. It usually not more than a minute after that the Troll Army attacks, sometimes it's seconds, with a response long enough to make it clear that it was preplanned.
No body can write that fast
There's also a hint that there's some kind of autonomous AI program is turned loose on the comments section.
Several years ago a computer program passed the Turing Test, so they're out there.
But the real reason these comments appear is to keep the responders busy writing counter comments, and not being politically active. That means you really can't effect too much if you're busy responding to an AI program that doesn't really care what you think and can't have it's opinion swayed no matter how you respond.
All those replies just put the trolls at the top of the comment section, so don't respond!

[GOLGO 13]

7. Not just the comments but YAHOO itself swings to the right.

It's Obama bad and Repukes are fighting for the good fight. Meh.