A Google bomb is when a group of people attempt to cause a target web page to become the number one search result for a chosen search phrase.
The problems started last week when Fine Gael TD Lucinda Creighton shockingly announced that there was ‘cute-hoorism’ going on in her own party. The media lapped up the young blonde politician’s comments and within days there were hundreds of web pages talking about ‘cute hoors’ in Fine Gael.
Some politicians, including Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, denied there are ‘cute hoors’ in the party, but by using the ‘cute hoor’ keyword only added to the Google Bomb effect.
‘Hoor’ is a common slang spelling of the word ‘whore’ in Ireland and Irish Internet users searching for a ‘cute hoor’ are now more likely to be directed towards the website of the Fine Gael party than a genuine whoring website.
Ireland is one of the only countries in the world to have laws prohibiting the advertising of brothels or prostitution, but escort websites get around these laws by locating themselves outside of Irish jurisdiction.
A spokesperson for escort website Escort-Ireland.com said “This is just another cheap tactic from politicians who want to see prostitution further criminalised, even though that would only serve to hurt the women they claim to want to help. We are cute hoors and we won’t be outwitted!”
Meanwhile Irish escorts are claiming this isn’t the first time politicians have attempted to Google Bomb them out of business, and pointed to a previous attempt led by Green Party TD Paul Gogarty, who was calling for escort websites to be blocked in the Dáil (Irish Parliament) last month and was very keen to get in on the ‘cute hoor’ debate last week also.
In 2009 Paul Gogarty shockingly said “Fuck you” to another TD during a live televised Dáil debate, an act which made him an instant YouTube star and synonymous with the Internet keywords ‘fuck you’. The TD cleverly directed his outburst towards, Emmet Stagg, a TD whose name is commonly associated with the word 'prostitutes'. Lucinda Creighton then demanded Paul Gogarty be suspended, inflating the story ever further.
“It’s the same TDs again and again, a clever conspiracy” said one escort who asked not to be named. Another escort unwilling to go on the record said “Normally Denis Naughten is the cause of all our political problems, but obviously this is too clever a plan for him to have been behind.”
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