ONLINE AD: Content Writers Needed Today - [Hunting for shills?]

reply to post by Corruption Exposed

I thought about the N.D.A. a little bit and aside from the fact they are almost standard now in much of the online world of web sites and start-ups, I can think of a couple extremely good reasons why one would have to be signed and enforced almost viciously. Companies like Stratfor and IRB. The IRB databases I used myself for a time while helping my father with P.I. work he did during downtimes in my own trucking. I'm probably jaded in saying I didn't see that much special in it...but it was truncated SS #'s for searching and things like Watch lists, CCW permit lists, criminal histories and civil court backgrounds. All in a nice searchable database format.

Those are among the things I'd imagine you would have access to as research tools in that kind of position and as much as I didn't look at it as being something to misuse...I can sure see at the same time how it could be abused by some. That's what would cross my mind for NDA. Well, that and the fact many websites have crappy admin and user access control designs. That's relevant in that by working across many clients, you're likely to have a given number where you have near admin access to have the blog contributor access. That opens all kinds of sticky issues without an iron clad, blanket NDA to say you don't speak of what you see outside work...period.

Just my thoughts, but if $24/hr is the cut for the worker bee banging a keyboard, I'd imagine that's quite a fee being charged up at the billing end. The above sounds reasonable in that setting to be sure.

While I certainly respect all of the commentary offered by my esteemed fellow ATS members in this thread, I feel the need to point out that, if anyone believes companies who provide services like this have employees who have infiltrated ATS as so called "paid shills", the following is one thing that caught my eye:

Originally posted by Corruption Exposed
The right candidates will possess a strong command of the English language and the ability to meet deadlines in a timely fashion.

Writers Must Be Proficient In:

• Developing content that is both timely and relevant
• Conveying complex points through relatively simple language
• Proper grammar, punctuation and syntax
• AP Style and usage.

Strong command of the English language. Proper grammar, punctuation and syntax. Just those quoted requirements would negate well over 90% of the accused "paid shills" on ATS.

Well - I'm only half kidding. I can see how a service like this might be used if you have some bad publicity on a site such as Angie's List or something similar. For conspiracy sites such as ATS however, the government controlled media (both republican and democrat) does a pretty good job of convincing the average citizen (in America anyway) that all "conspiracy theorists" are crazy, drooling freaks. There's honestly no need to have "paid shills" or "paid disinfo agents" or whatever on conspiracy websites - most people think we're crazy anyway.

reply to post by tallcool1

You know, you may be half joking about what you're saying....but in thinking about your words? I'm not joking in agreeing with you. You make an outstanding point. If, for example, I were at ATS as a paid "shill", I would never have typos or grammar errors. I would never have notes at the bottom about how I went back to edit because my post-submit proof reading seems perfect when my pre-submit proof reading can't seem to catch a glaring error sometimes.

In considering your words....I wouldn't have any of those errors as a "shill" because I'd be fired pretty quickly if I were as casual at a paid thing as I am here, where it's as much leisure as anything practicing research. Actually, I'll tell you what...I'd probably just have something like Dragon so spelling, grammar and related things are entirely outside human error. It's all automatically transcribed and errors are usually HUGE ones a grade schooler wouldn't miss. lol... One can at least say computer errors are rarely subtle ones.

So indeed... Who has the perfect grammar worthy of earning a paycheck for? Who never has a tacky edit line for a missed boo boo? Err... Actually, I don't know any around here.

Perhaps I wouldn't do well applying for one of those jobs after all...unless they consider occasional typos missed in posted text adding character or style.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I'm guessing that the various organizations who contribute to deliberate online propaganda via the process of misinformation and deflection would want to blend it with the regular people. I have read threads on here that point out certain tactics that are used by these shills, and they are each to assume a certain character type. Some might be jolly with cute animal avatars, some might be confrontational with mean looking avatars, some may play the neutral stance while sneakily slipping in some double speak...and of course there are the ones try to act like complete idiots and purposely misspell words and use incorrect grammar so we cannot associate them with their other accounts because many of these people use multiple accounts and each account is to assume a certain identity and different character traits according to the guidelines people on ATS have mentioned in various threads.

A well trained shill will use all of these tactics in the hopes of remaining below the radar.

Originally posted by Corruption Exposed
I came across this advertisement today that was mentioned on another alternative news site I often visit and could not help but agree that this certainly seems to be an advertisement aimed at hiring paid shills:

Reputation Changer, the #1 Online Reputation Management Company in the country is also a major online publisher with 1000 content sites covering news, entertainment, lifestyle and business sites. We are currently seeking full and part time contract writers. The right candidates will possess a strong command of the English language and the ability to meet deadlines in a timely fashion. Current students and graduates in English, Journalism or Communications are strongly encouraged to apply.

Writers will be required to generate articles based on current trends and breaking news stories. In addition, writers will also be tasked with creating original, compelling content for client blogs and Websites.

Writers Must Be Proficient In:

• Developing content that is both timely and relevant
• Conveying complex points through relatively simple language
• Proper grammar, punctuation and syntax
• AP Style and usage.

The right candidates will be able to commit to at least 20 hours per week, or an equivalent of 30 articles per week. Writing candidates will also be asked to abide by company guidelines. Furthermore, as Reputation Changer deals with highly sensitive information, all contract writers must sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Please respond to this posting with your resume, a letter of interest and a writing sample


•Location: West Chester, Pa
•Compensation: up to $24/hr
•Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
•Please, no phone calls about this job!
•Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID:3468892536

philadelphia.craigslist.org...

Personally, "Reputation Changer" does not sound like the name of an "honest" media outlet.

Perhaps an ATS member from the West Chester, Pa region can apply and see what kind of response they receive. You might even land your self a job making 24$ per hour for 20 hours a week if you can stomach writing 30 articles that fall within their "company guidelines" while also signing their "Non-Disclosure Agreement".

Perhaps the conspiracy nut within me is influencing my inerpretation of this ad but I definitely think that this advertisement was posted with the intentions to find an army of skilled writers who are willing to shill for whatever they are told to write about.

I spend a lot of my day at work posting on ATS, so basically I post for free while I am actually getting paid if that makes sense

I would never sacrifice my morals and write about things that I do not believe in, especially if it's what I believe what these people are asking for.

edit on 12/18/2012 by Corruption Exposed because: title

Isn't this a job description for "debunkers"?

reply to post by Bilk22

Isn't this a job description for "debunkers"?

It certainly fits the description of some of the skeptics/debunkers on this site and many others, but even though there are a few obvious ones, not all skeptics are shills...as I am sure you already know, I was not trying to imply other wise.

Cheers.

reply to post by Bilk22

Isn't this a job description for "debunkers"?

No it's a job description for SEO specialists.

There's nothing wrong with "debunkers"......some of the smartest posters on ATS are debunkers

Originally posted by Corruption Exposed

Originally posted by smyleegrl
I highly doubt shills use AP style. Just guessin'.

Well, the AP are shills themselves so in my opinion your statement contradicts itself.

No offense intended by the way, I just disagree with your obersvation.

Cheers!

Just wonderful! The best posts in the entire thread!

OP,

an army of skilled writers who are willing to shill for whatever they are told to write about.

WELCOME to the Internet!

Amongst many other things, I am also a writer/content producer. This includes very much those above mentioned "articles" but also things like ebooks and web content.

Yes, I say "welcome to the Internet" - because if you believe that most/all content you see on the web is "legit", well researched, truthful...then I can't help you!

A LARGE majority of site owners, reviewers, bloggers etc. have people writing for them, some VERY cheap who will in fact write "everything" from pseudo-reviews or whatever the client tells them to write.

If a company tells me to write reviews or pages for a site, say, about a detox product, acne remedy or software...then I'll write that, regardless of my "real" opinion whether their detox product might maybe be total shiate in my opinion....do you REALLY believe that everything you read, see on TV or come across on the internet is "real"..in a sense it contains the true opinion..and NEVER has any intent (eg. selling)????

Again..Welcome!!!

*** Edit: As for the ad/company...I dont agree with your opinion. I never heard about THAT company but "reputation management" is actually a common practice these days. Many companies do this.
To me this looks more like they are looking for writers who are supposed to produce "legit looking" (AP style) press releases, reviews etc. about whatever products they sell. Nothing conspiracy related really, just the usual practices.

Humm... $24.00 per hour?
Whores get paid much higher for the same work.

Originally posted by Argyll
reply to post by Corruption Exposed

 

Reputation Changer is a commercial company that repair businesses online reputation after negative press reports, or promote "good reports" to google's front page......a bit like SEO.

There's no conspiracy, and they aren't looking for "shills", there are hundreds of companies that offer the same services.

...either that or there are just hundreds of companies who offer shills-for-hire.

Originally posted by Patrol
Humm... $24.00 per hour?
Whores get paid much higher for the same work.

Hey...quit insulting the whores.

For crying out loud! The ad was posted on Craigslist. That's where I look at if I would be buying a used car or a second hand water filter. Hey... get serious!
They are just hiring Shills while trying to make it look like it's professional work.
The SCUM who are hiring are working against you and your family.

$24 per hour? I'd apply (as I'm unemployed and disabled, so any work from the computer would be ideal) but I don't have any experience writing articles. I don't even know what an "AP" writing style is

I mean if it's just trying to get businesses a decent reputation online so they show up higher on search engines, that doesn't sound morally wrong. I've heard stories of decent businesses getting a bad reputation online because of one disgruntled customer posting tons of negative comments about their services.

I don't think it's a shill recruitment ad. Like someone already said, and I agree; I doubt they put ads on Craiglist to hire real "shills". Like the government type.

Originally posted by Argyll
reply to post by Corruption Exposed

 

Reputation Changer is a commercial company that repair businesses online reputation after negative press reports, or promote "good reports" to google's front page......a bit like SEO.

There's no conspiracy, and they aren't looking for "shills", there are hundreds of companies that offer the same services.

Reputation Changer is an online reputation management company. We provide a plethora of services including online reputation repair, online reputation monitoring, Google suggest management, brand reputation management with online reputation management case studies and more.

edit on 18/12/2012 by Argyll because: (no reason given)

As a freelance writer myself, I pretty much concur. I've been asked to write plenty of articles that put a positive spin on particular individuals, products or businesses. Heck, I've even had clients ask me to write fake testimonials. These kind of things are as old as advertising itself. Maybe not perfectly ethical, but not necessarily a conspiracy.

That being said, the non-disclosure agreement threw me off. I've never had a client ask me to sign one. The only times I've had to sign NDAs are when working as an employee for a corporation, or when negotiating with business development partners when I used to do that.

Originally posted by flexy123
OP,

an army of skilled writers who are willing to shill for whatever they are told to write about.

If a company tells me to write reviews or pages for a site, say, about a detox product, acne remedy or software...then I'll write that, regardless of my "real" opinion whether their detox product might maybe be total shiate in my opinion....do you REALLY believe that everything you read, see on TV or come across on the internet is "real"..in a sense it contains the true opinion..and NEVER has any intent (eg. selling)????

edit on 18-12-2012 by flexy123 because: (no reason given)

Ha...same here.

My mom tells me she doesn't trust online reviews anymore, after I told her about a few of my gigs.

What irks me is that I can get professional clients who will pay upwards of $15-20 per hour for quality work, and then there are these content mills that pay less than a dollar for a 500 word article. As someone whose base rate is $0.10/word, this is ridiculous...but when I need the money I won't turn it down.

Anyway, just thinking aloud...there are tons of freelance sites where people who barely understand the English language will work for fractions of a penny per word. The fact that this company pays over $20/hr makes me think it might be something different than the usual content mill.

Paid shills, disinformation agents, or "psy-ops" (psychological operations) personnel can be pretty easily spotted, I think. For me after seeing them on loads of forums over the years, I break it down into two main identifying characteristics:

1) The person posts information that will get people all intense and emotional and afraid, tapping into raw reactions -- predicting the imminent end of the world, posting "former black hat" "exposes" about secret government or military stuff, or posting some scary sounding prophecy derived from allegedly psychic or mystical sources; this is done to study the psychic pressure points in the members of that forum, seeing what sets them off;

2) After sufficient data is gathered there can be attempts (usually from a different account or a series of personae) to overrun the forum with a bunch of this fear-inducing, panic-inducing material so as to drown out any authentic and rational discussions going on, especially people talking about real psychic development, self-help/how to stuff that they're figuring out, and other positive/healing-based ideas.

Sometimes the psy-ops character builds a friendship with the forum owners or mods so they can be presented as "the real deal" -- making forum readers more receptive to just trusting this "insider" information that the person posts. This person might present credentials like badges from the military or other things that look impressive. Usually this is still in the guise of that person being a whistleblower now and having supposedly left whatever agency or group they once belonged to. Truth is, they're usually now working for those same agencies, just as a subcontractor or consultant. They might not officially BE in the CIA anymore, but they're still working psy-ops for them as a subcontractor. They're often retirement age men who have LOADS of time to post on forums and work people up into a frenzy about ET invasions or asteroids coming to destroy the Earth or whatever people at that forum tend to get excited about. They keep pushing this info as long as possible to create what ends up being a major split within the members of the forum, hopefully driving all the sensible people who would have had a contrary view away so the forum is polluted by nonsense and completely discredited as a place for genuine information from that point forward.

The type of content providers the original poster is talking about are more in a very low level publicity/public relations type of position helping with brand management, overcoming negative press with positive SEO, that type of thing. Some people have a kneejerk reaction to the very idea of someone doing this, and sometimes those same people really detest marketing, capitalism, and the things a company needs to do to be competitive in Google search results, so they might call this being a "paid shill." If you become your own business owner, you start to see it in a different light. You have to do a LOT to keep your company and products in front of people, and making sure there are lots of recent articles or press releases about your work showing up in search engine results is just a necessary part of doing business. People who are lifelong employee types don't have to worry about this so much (unless there ends up being a psychokiller who shares your name dominating the front page of the SERPS -- then you start to go, "Hey, maybe I should check into this reputation management stuff! )

One thing I've also found with real psy-ops types is they will adopt the lingo or the language of the forum. If people use a lot of four letter words, if they post sentence fragments and don't use great spelling or grammar, they'll adopt shades of that to fit in. The key is not to stick out like a sore thumb and to find those psychological pressure points that will create the highest chance of dissension, dispersion and dissolution within that group if possible. Alternative discussion sites ARE being gradually overcome by this stuff. I've, sadly, seen it happen at several formerly cool forums. Hopefully that won't happen here. It's more likely they'll pull a Jared Loughner thing again -- wasn't he once a member here? Take a mad dog killer type who's highly mind controlled, make it public that he was a member at one of "those crazy conspiracy sites" and then the parents will be all, "THINK OF THE CHILDREN! SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!" and more laws restricting free speech will continue to be passed, more hosting providers will tighten the rules about alternative material being allowed, that type of thing.

The mainstream media takes its marching orders from many shadowy "upper management" editorial directors, and just yesterday all day long the folks at Gawker were obviously told to post a piece slamming and making fun of conspiracy sites -- see it here:

The Insane Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theories That Are Already Flooding the Internet

Talk about paid shills

Originally posted by Argyll
reply to post by Corruption Exposed

 

Reputation Changer is a commercial company that repair businesses online reputation after negative press reports, or promote "good reports" to google's front page......a bit like SEO.

There's no conspiracy, and they aren't looking for "shills", there are hundreds of companies that offer the same services.

Reputation Changer is an online reputation management company. We provide a plethora of services including online reputation repair, online reputation monitoring, Google suggest management, brand reputation management with online reputation management case studies and more.

edit on 18/12/2012 by Argyll because: (no reason given)

Actually, I have to disagree here. This is a subject I've studied quite a bit, and some of these companies do, most assuredly, use what might be called "shills" in their reputation work. One can also find jobs of this type online if you know where to look.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by tallcool1

 

You know, you may be half joking about what you're saying....but in thinking about your words? I'm not joking in agreeing with you. You make an outstanding point. If, for example, I were at ATS as a paid "shill", I would never have typos or grammar errors. I would never have notes at the bottom about how I went back to edit because my post-submit proof reading seems perfect when my pre-submit proof reading can't seem to catch a glaring error sometimes.

In considering your words....I wouldn't have any of those errors as a "shill" because I'd be fired pretty quickly if I were as casual at a paid thing as I am here....

This is incorrect, on a number of levels. Some "shills" are expected to type as average people would. in other words, it has to be "believable," so your premise is completely false. Yes, in some cases proper spelling and grammar are a necessity, but not all.

Further, I don't find what you do here to seem "casual" at all. You tend to write very long, involved posts. Mind you, I'm not exactly trying to accuse you of being a shill.... ... just pointing out.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed


I just applied and used this as my writing example.