The 24th of February 2012 I started a simple javascript to automatically add a comment every other second to one Facebook post. The idea was to let the script run until it reached a big enough number of comments to be the most comments on a Facebook post in the world. The performance was called Behind The Great Firewall Of China and was inspired by this Fox40 news item. (View the 1 million Facebook comments post here)
The previous record was 1,001,552 comments and was held by a group of women from the southern parts of the US. The 8th of June I had reached a big enough number, one million, one hundred and sixty four thousand and forty one comments, so I submitted my request to the Guinness World Book of Records, attaching a collection of screenshots and witness accounts to verify the authenticity of my accomplishments.
Eight weeks later the Guinness World Book of Records officials replied; “Using automated scripts or bots are not in the spirit of a Guinness World Records achievement.” – and consequently denied my request to the world record.
