Holy crap! They've found us! Beware the Vapor Citizen !!!

[Scuba]

The need to protect the internet from 'astroturfing' grows ever more urgent

The tobacco industry does it, the US Air Force clearly wants to ... astroturfing ? the use of sophisticated software to drown out real people on web forums (I knew it!) is on the rise. How do we stop it?

George Monbiot
Thursday February 24 2011
guardian.co.uk


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/23/need-to-protect-internet-from-astroturfing


Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren't what they seem.

[H2O Man]

1. Recommended.

Yeah, I think that I've encountered more Stepford Citizens in the past couple years on the internet.

[underpants]

2. WE ARE COMPOSED OF BEAMS OF LASER LIGHT

DO NOT TOUCH US!

[TheCanadianLiberal]

3. I have doubts...

About this. Either way I'm not too worried yet.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

All kinds of predators out there.

[walldude]

5. Not just out there...

;)

[Solly Mack]

7. You're just trying to make me look under my bed!

lol

[BB1]

11. Ghehe,

there might be foreigners! Although it would be equally awkward if there were an American under your bed ;-)

[Solly Mack]

12. That it would. lol

[RKP5637]

6. Recommend!!! n/t

[RKP5637]

8. Give humans something great like the Internet and they will manage to fuck it up for everyone like

most things humans come in contact with ...

[KurtNYC]

9. Rather than tombstoning the bots and sock puppets

one could use a redirect (or ??) to serve up a version of the forum to the bots (once discovered) where their comments show but on the regular site they are unseen. It would be in effect as if everyone on the forum had put them on ignore. That way the bot does not create a new ID and start over but rather posts into a kind of black hole.

We used to do something similar during the dot com boom so that when our competitors came to check out our website they were served an old static version of the site and would not realize it was active and updated. We made a a list of their IPs and re-routed them as they requested pages.

[DJ13]

10. Hedge funds have been doing this on stock boards since the tech bubble

[kickysnana]

13. Rats, I've been unmasked. I am really Condalisa, now I have to get a new avatar!

:evilfrown: