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Triple J disqualifies Taylor Swift from Hottest 100 because Buzzfeed tried to ‘troll the poll’

triplejfeedRadio station Triple J has confirmed that it has disqualified Taylor Swift’s song Shake It Off from its annual Australia Day Hottest 100, claiming viral site Buzzfeed tried to “troll the poll” with its campaign to get the song onto the list.

The ABC’s 40-year-old youth station tweeted a link headed “8 Hilarious But Totally True Reasons You Won’t Hear ‘Shake It off'”. The link went to a spoof website Triple J Feed, designed to look like Buzzfeed.

The #tay4hottest100 campaign was started last week by Buzzfeed News reporter Mark Di Stefano. But Triple J article claimed: “Whilst their advertisers enjoyed the sweet page views, it’s not legit for other media to try and troll the poll.”

The posting from Triple J also claimed that many of those voting were doing so simply poke fun at the station’s non-pop “hipster” audience.  It said: “it became pretty clear, pretty quick that a lot of people just wanted to prod some ‘hipsters’ for the lulz.”

Taylor Swift KFCThe message also took aim at last week’s attempt by KFC to get Swift onto the list. It said: “The Hottest 100’s an opportunity for individuals everywhere to cast their votes for their legit favourite songs of the year.

“The invitation doesn’t extend to Fried Chicken companies eager to wrap their greasy fingers around a freshly-minted hashtag … we’d prefer if people voted for the love of music, not the love of cholesterol.”

Last week KFC posted the message to its Facebook page endorsing the campaign before apologising when it became clear that Triple J might use the commercial endorsement as a reason to remove the song from contention.

Triple J claims that if the song had not been disqualified, it would still only have got to number 12 on the list. Chet Faker’s Talk Is Cheap topped the list, with Triple J saying there were nearly 2.1m votes, excluding the disqualified Taylor Swift votes.

hottest 100 votes

Source: Triple J

Buzzfeed did not respond to requests for comment.

Nic Christensen 

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