A 20-year-old student website ignited the online
debate |
An online
war is under way between Americans who want to apologise for the US
presidential election results, and those who are happy with the way it
turned out.
Sorryeverybody.com started the duel the day after the polls closed,
with a picture of its creator holding up a "Sorry World" message.
Since then the site has racked up more than 27 million hits as other
people post pictures and view the growing gallery of images.
But the site has also seen the creation of at least eight other
websites set up by supporters of president George W Bush who believe there
is nothing to apologise for.
Polarised net
 |
 There is no reason for us to apologize to the
rest of the world because of our belief in Freedom and Democracy
|
"It was mind-boggling
the amount of emotion the website has triggered", said James Zetlen, the
20-year-old creator of the original sorryeverybody.com website.
The student, who is currently studying neuroscience at the University
of Southern California, said that since people rarely apologise on the
internet, he thought it was high time to do so.
"The world needs to understand that there are people in America who
don't like what our government is doing," he said answering questions on
the site about why he did it.
"And from the mail we're receiving, there are people in the
international community who appreciate this."
But the success of sorryeverybody.com has prompted supporters of
President Bush to respond with a number of anti-apology sites, such as
werenotsorry.com.
"There is no reason for us to apologize to the rest of the world
because of our belief in Freedom and Democracy", read one message left on
the site.
Many people are expressing their support or disapproval in very strong
terms.
Record visits
Due to its huge
success, Mr Zetlen had to move his site to a private server, after his
university complained that it was taking up 82% of its bandwidth.
Now he is asking for donations and placing ads at the bottom of the
pages in order to finance the site, which costs about $7,000 per month to
operate.
The sites collecting the messages have attracted huge numbers of
visitors, both from within and outside the United States.
Sorryeverybody.com includes reaction responses coming from Germany,
France, Canada, Australia, Israel, Brazil, China and many other countries.
"On behalf of my country I accept your apology; I know you tried hard",
read a message from a German web user.
Mr Zetlen said that his only intention was to promote a global debate
on the US election results.
"The internet was supposed to make communication between cultures,
countries and peoples painless and easy.
"It was supposed to build bridges. But it doesn't do this
automatically; somebody has to reach out. Also, come on, it's kind of
amusing."
