Little Green Footballs

On August 5, 2006, LGF showed how a photograph of Beirut after an Israeli air strike taken by Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj was manipulated before being published by Reuters.^[28][29]

On July 10, 2008 the website documented alterations to photos of Iranian missile tests.^[30] Fox News credited the website for discovering the doctored photos.^[31]

Awards

Little Green Footballs once had two annual awards; The Fiskie and The Fallaci. The Fiskie was named after journalist Robert Fisk, in a blog post^[32] where Johnson notes that, after having been captured and beaten by Afghan refugees, Fisk claimed he sympathized with them. The award was given to people who in the previous year best embodied the "Idiotarian" worldview. The Fallaci was named after the late Oriana Fallaci, and given to people who in the previous year best embodied the "Anti-Idiotarian" worldview.

Johnson had previously allowed his users to nominate and vote on candidates for both awards. The Fallaci was discontinued without explanation after 2007. Johnson quietly removed a link to her memorial site from the blog during his ideological shift in 2008. The Fiskie was discontinued after 2009. That year, rather than allow the community to vote,^[33] Johnson unilaterally awarded the Fiskie to Glenn Beck.^[34]

Recurring themes

Pre-2009

Slang

Discussing slang terms used by Johnson and his readers, Paul Farhi, a writer for the

...Little Green Footballs doesn't always traffic in subtlety and nuance. Dissenting points of view often are dismissed as "idiotarian" or "LLL" (for "loony liberal left"), and Islam is mockingly referred to as "RoP", meaning "

religion of peace".^[3]

Charles Johnson's posts on LGF frequently call attention to what he regards as unethical revisionism on the part of rival blogs.[35]^{[36][37][38][39][40][41]}

Ideological influences

Charles Johnson's posts on LGF frequently cited the writing of authors representing

Johnson often posts photos taken by Associated Press and Reuters photographers, among others, of Palestinians dressing their children in paramilitary uniforms, or in clothing emblazoned with violent slogans such as "Death to Israel." These children are often shown carrying real guns and even wearing mock-ups of the explosive belts used by suicide bombers. Johnson refers to such photographs as evidence of Palestinian child abuse.^[43]

Rachel Corrie

Johnson has stated many times that he is disgusted with media coverage of the death of International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Rafah, a town in the Gaza Strip.^[44] Johnson disputes the ISM's account, holding that Corrie, who was regularly mocked as "Saint Pancake" on his website, was "trying to 'protect' a house used for drugs and weapons smuggling".^[44][45] Johnson states:

Rachel Corrie was emphatically not a "peace activist". She sided with terrorists and criminals, and advocated—in fact, was excited by—violence and mass murder.^[46]

In support of this view, he has cited^[46] a diary entry^[47] from Corrie, which Johnson characterizes as expressing the view that Palestinian violence towards Israel is justifiable and laudable.^[46]

In posts about her on LGF, Johnson often features a photo of Corrie burning a hand-drawn American flag and surrounded by Palestinian children.^[44]

Intelligent Design criticism

LGF has been empirically opposed to

Johnson has put^[when?] in place a filter which stops LGF members from using certain derogatory and racist terms in their posts to the site. Johnson stresses that the number of comments filtered in this way are "minuscule." The filter is intended to prevent abuse going unnoticed.^[51]

Rivalries

Johnson and LGF "regulars" (the self-proclaimed "Lizardoids") have engaged in a number of high-profile feuds and flame wars, pitting LGF supporters against readers of other blogs (e.g., Daily Kos and later Hot Air) and alternative media sites (e.g., Fark and Digg).^{[citation needed]}

As of 2014, one of Charles Johnson's main targets is an

Johnson often redirects incoming links from sites critical of LGF to the Israel Defense Forces homepage.^[53][54]

Following a news release which

• R. J. Smith, writing in Los Angeles Magazine, stated that LGF is a "dysfunctional mix of beautiful photos Johnson takes on coastal bike rides and constitutionally protected hate speech" which "believes all Muslims are terrorists until proven innocent."[56]

• Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the
  Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) called Little Green Footballs "a vicious, anti-Muslim hate site" and says that the FBI has "investigated several threats of physical harm against Muslims posted by Little Green Footballs readers".^[3]
• Columnist Antonia Zerbisias has described LGF as a "virulently anti-Muslim/Arab website".^[57]

Google and Websense

• In March 2005, Johnson called attention to Google's inclusion of the
  National Vanguard site (and simultaneous exclusion of LGF) in its news index; the NV site has since been dropped.^[58]
• In April 2007 Johnson reported that Little Green Footballs was being blocked by
  Websense under its "Racism and Hate" category.^[59] Websense admitted that the site had been thus categorized briefly (but incorrectly) and subsequently reversed the decision.^[60]

• Johnson removed Ron Paul's name from straw polls regarding the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination campaign, asserting that Ron Paul's supporters were fraudulently gaming the vote script to increase Paul's numbers: "The bottom line: if Ron Paul supporters weren’t spamming, he would still be in our polls. I really don’t have any nefarious motives here; I just don’t like being gamed, and since I run these silly unscientific polls I don’t have to put up with it."^[61] According to Johnson, the tactic used was an organized campaign by Ron Paul supporters to notify other supporters of online polls and vote in them.
• In December 2007, libertarian writer David Weigel accused Johnson of launching a "smear" against Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, writing in Reason magazine that:^[62]

Little Green Footballs has moved, over the space of a few weeks, from mercilessly mocking Ron Paul and banning him from its straw polls to putting him at the center of a conspiracy for worldwide Nazi domination.

Johnson's allegations were picked up in the