Fake forum comments are 'eroding' trust in the web

Article

The guys on here that accuse other posters of being dis-info agents will love this...

Trust in information on the web is being damaged by the huge numbers of people paid by companies to post comments online, say researchers.

Even though I knew stuff like this happens the extent to it is scary, I think most people can spot these kind of posts especially on sites that review products, usually the responses seem very mundane and generic because the people behind then are really copy and pasting the comments over and over on different sites.

Some firms have created tens of thousands of fake accounts to flood chat forums and skew debate.

A thread titled "Junpeng Jia, your mother asked you to go back home for dinner!" received over 300,000 replies over a two day period. A PR company later claimed it had employed 800 individuals to run 20,000 separate accounts on the site to help maintain interest in the videogame while it was down for maintenance.

300,000 replies in 2 days! thats crazy but just goes to show what a group of 800 people could do...

Imagine the government hired 800 people to come on here and post 300,000 replies...

What do you guys think about all this?

Article

reply to post by roughycannon
They just make they're own thread let's forgive them you agent say me also agent. What you agents think?

It made me realize the Beach Boys did exactly the same thing to help launch their career...

They were sending their songs to a radio show where amateurs could hear their songs being aired. When the Beach Boys song aired, every member of the band spent the night calling the radio station to vote for their own song, changing their voice every time they called.

The Beach Boys would have ruled the Net!!!
___

About the company that hired 800 posters... Now we know why the games cost as much as they do!

I don't mind seeing a company doing it to keep its product advertised, though it almost shows a non-confidence in the said product.

Governments doing it is another thing. Those have a broader and sinister agenda, whatever it may be.

I've been online for a long time. Over the last 18 months, I've noticed that the nasty comments outnumber the decent. Unfortunately, it might be monkey see, monkey do. I think people are imitating the paid disinformation agents because they want to sound smart.

I'm taking a break from forums because of the influence of those comments on my psyche. Just posted a note and was leaving when I saw your post! Thank you!

P.S. I walked away from the computer and my mind instantly drifted to the idea that someone will comment on my comment most likely. I imagine an insult about my mental stability, a criticism about my 'inability' to handle/ignore the negativity or an accusation of being something I haven't heard of for saying what I said. See? That's why I need to get out of this forum (and all other forums or comment areas because it's all the same. I'm not demonizing ATS. I'm pointing a finger at the entire internet.)

Maybe it's a psychological operation. Many of my online buddies have also abandoned all social media, forums and commenting for similar reasons. I can understand why many forums have been closed to the general public by the site owners.

I think Western Governments back up their msn with a 50 cent army for sure. China isnt the only one.

This just teaches us to THINK.
Although if the poster with the picture of a pretty girl says so, I may side with him/her.
We are swayed so easily, I learned years back, when I tried my hand at car sales.....
The sales manager told me that if I told someone a lie 3 times they would believe it.
I tell it, the sales mgr. then the desk mgr. and "VOILA"!!
Some sucker believes it and buys it.
Me, I have my own agenda, and that is that any US citizen remember a moment in US history.
If curious just search my old posts and you'll figure it out.
Other than that, believe what you can "PROVE" or your conscience.

reply to post by roughycannon


From a 9/9/10 post:

Charles and David Koch are known for their oil and chemical holdings, ranching and etc...

But no one is talking about their media and communications companies, their support and development of internet marketing and advertising - the essential role of the Marketing Troll in their schemes - or the Koch links to Comcast and Comcast's suspected role in funding the RightNetwork.

But for a few decades, the Koch bros have been re-defining libertarianism to mean corporate government (tsk), trying to take down peoples' governments, and pushing their own agenda to make more and more money. A truly noble endeavor is some circles.

After getting heavy into gaming and WiFi a while back, the Koch family apparently directed their advertising and marketing strategies towards manipulating the internet and social networking sites.

Enter the Marketing Troll...

Here's a brief overview of Marketing Troll principles, for your edification:

Social Advertising Best Practices

Social media is big and getting bigger, providing marketers with a combination of reach, relationships, and relevance:

* Reach: Social media has overtaken email as the most popular consumer activity
* Relationships: Social media's strength is in the personal connections it enables, the peer-to-peer contact…
* Relevance: Consumers are extremely engaged with the content and connections that their friends are creating because of its personal relevance.

We're pretty lucky we have ATS, im not saying it hasnt been infiltrated, because we all know there here But this has been a community for a long time, collectively we can filter out the # from who evers posing it. Plus we all have our own ways of fidning the truth, whether research or just knowing. We have our own minds, and we're getting harder to control by the day, no wonder they're stepping up their game.

If sites like ATS get shut down, then i agree it is going to be harder for sheeple to find the truth. Hopefully we're not dumb enough to ever let that happen.

I often see suspect posting here on ATS. Statements that make me feel the person is either trolling or possibly emotionally removed from society. I've actually met one of the more questionable types in person, and tbh he's a jaded and angry person. Not someone employed by anyone. I think it has more to do with people having no life than anyone paying them to push certain things. The classic "the world's messed up and I'm the normal one" attitude.

A lot of people on here get accused of being dis-info agents and I'm pretty sure that 99.9999% are NOT.

However there is no way that a site like this doesn't attract the governments types, I actually think that they don't really participate, being the site that it is and with a lot of paranoid people on here I'm sure they would be found out fast, I really believe that they come here as observers, but...

That doesn't mean I believe in all this conspiracy stuff or that the government are out to get us BTW...

reply to post by roughycannon

Trust in information on the web is being damaged by the huge numbers of people paid by companies to post comments online, say researchers.

The weirdest part about this statement is the implication that people trust the internet.

reply to post by DJW001


I concur.

Why anyone puts trust in this mess of information is beyond me.
I was going to post the same answer...but then I saw your reply.


Anyways...

This is to be expected.
Everything has to be manipulated in order to be controlled.
And some people want to control everything.


I see a future where this tactic will be used to "govern" the 'net.
There will be a bill through CONgress that can push the envelope.

Yup.

In all the years I have been here at ATS, that has to be one of the most troubling things I have ever read. I mean sure, we all suspected it, and have for years. When the news came out that our government had hired 1000 psyops people to spread the official story about 9/11 and criticize anyone who did not agree, I think many of us just wrote it off as a theory. I don't know how many really believed it.

But seeing this as a news item on the BBC is lending some scary credibility to the myth. Occasionally we have even had a few posters say that they were paid for posting with an agenda. Heck, I think one ATS member's name even reflected that.

The bottom line is this should be made illegal. Immediately. Not only for companies, but illegal for any such program in government or politics. And there is a clear difference between that and honest advertising. I often read reviews and comments about products before I buy them. Now I have got to be extremely careful about trusting ANY such review. Fake testimonials have also been a problem, long before the internet. But this has taken it up by orders of magnitude.

I have strongly suspected for a while such internet agenda campaigns against Ron Paul, for example. If any of you have ever done this, please come clean and get out of it. You are committing fraud, in a sense. It's low, man. Real low.

Originally posted by havok
reply to post by DJW001

 

I concur.

Why anyone puts trust in this mess of information is beyond me.
I was going to post the same answer...but then I saw your reply.


Anyways...

This is to be expected.
Everything has to be manipulated in order to be controlled.
And some people want to control everything.


I see a future where this tactic will be used to "govern" the 'net.
There will be a bill through CONgress that can push the envelope.

Yup.

It's all about divide and conquer. Oldest trick in the book.

But...I've been labelled a disinfo agent tooo....mainly because I like to spew something called common sense and not panic every time the rapture, comet, planet x, is supposed to hit.

reply to post by TrueAmerican

The bottom line is this should be made illegal. Immediately. Not only for companies, but illegal for any such program in government or politics.

So you are advocating a curb on free speech? Why not simply make it impossible to post anonymously? It is already possible to identify netizens based on things like their IPP. Why not simply end the charade, and require people to post under a verified identity?

Originally posted by DJW001
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

The bottom line is this should be made illegal. Immediately. Not only for companies, but illegal for any such program in government or politics.

So you are advocating a curb on free speech? Why not simply make it impossible to post anonymously? It is already possible to identify netizens based on things like their IPP. Why not simply end the charade, and require people to post under a verified identity?

That has absolutely nothing to do with a mass, paid intent to deceive the public. Either by a company or by government. That's beyond free speech. WAY beyond. It is deception, false, fraudulent, and needs to go bye bye.

A while ago...there was an admitted formally (disinformation person) on ATS...and he explained how it was done. He said that while he was employed....he was hired to infiltrate several websites....and plant the disinformation....he said that ATS was one of the websites he was hired to infiltrate. He also said that he liked ATS so much....that he decided not to (disinfo..) here.

I went into search and hunted...but couldn't find the thread....maybe someone else can...sorry all.

reply to post by caladonea


Here you go.

I never posted prior to this. I was originally assigned this site, which is why I joined.

I'm pretty sure this is the thread you are referring to. I've been meaning to go back and read it, so thanks for reminding me.

reply to post by TortoiseKweek


Thank you...yes....that is it!....interesting reading.

reply to post by TrueAmerican

That has absolutely nothing to do with a mass, paid intent to deceive the public. Either by a company or by government. That's beyond free speech. WAY beyond. It is deception, false, fraudulent, and needs to go bye bye.

I agree, the problem is how to do so in a fashion that would be effective globally. Even if the US government could pass a law that the Supreme Court wouldn't overthrow on First Amendment grounds, there would be nothing to stop companies from hiring proxies in, say, Bulgaria, to do it for them! In the meantime, its probably best if we all view product reviewers and bloggers as being about as credible as the "doctors" we see on TV commercials. They're not really doctors, they're actors.