IP Democracy: Do Broadband Providers Employ Blog Comment Shills?

Over the past four or five months, I’ve noticed that a group of commenters to blog posts related to network neutrality tend to say the same things over and over again. What’s interesting is that there’s a core group of the same commenters that show up time and again saying the same things (although not always phrased the same way) repeatedly. These commenters use the following names: Paulaner01, pkp646, lessgov, oldhats, John Rice and AJ Carey.

Here’s what this group typically says in one form or another: we don’t need network neutrality regulations because there is no evidence of abuse and in any event government intervention in the Internet marketplace will mess everything up.

Now, along comes another commenter, sagecast, who tells us that this group is an organized tag-team of industry representatives, semi-sock puppets if you will, who troll the Internet making such comments to give the false impression of broad-based support of industry-friendly positions.

Here’s what sagecast has to say (check out the first comment posted here)

Readers of this comment thread should know that Paulaner01, pkp646, lessgov and oldhats are part of a tag-team of industry shills who invade blog comments on net neutrality to argue against any government regulation of the Internet. Other names who run with this crowd are John Rice and AJ Carey. (Google any of these names in combination and you’ll see how their game works).

By tag-teaming the blogs, this small handful of individuals gives the false impression of broad popular support for an industry-friendly position.

What they fail to point out is that Net Neutrality has been the rule that has governed access to the Internet since its inception. It’s the reason that the Internet has become such a dynamic force for new ideas, economic innovation and free speech. What they really want is for Congress to radically re-write our telecommunications laws so that companies like AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth can swoop in and become gatekeepers to Internet content — in a way that benefits no one except the largest ISPs.

I’d like these people to tell us how it is that they appear together (usually one after the other) praising one another’s comments and spouting identical industry talking points across the blogosphere.

What gives fellas? Are you being paid to do this? And by whom?

Sure enough, the Internet is populated with strings of comments by the same posse of commenters. This blog post at MediaCitizen, for example, shows comments by paulaner01, oldhats, John Rice, AJ Carey and lessgov. Same thing at this post at The Deal’s Tech Confidential blog.

I’m not sure what to make of this. It sure seems like organized blog commenting to me. But is this kind of coordinated commenting wrong?

The answer has to be no, if the coordination is simply like-minded individuals who get roused by the same posts, all know each other and are compulsive writers. On the other hand, if these are paid industry representatives, they have every moral obligation to state that fact when posting comments so that we all at least know which side their bread is buttered on.

It’s fine to hold the opinions that this tag-team obviously does and it’s fine to express those opinions in a coordinated fashion. What I find unseemly is the prospect that these commenters are paid by the cable and phone companies to make these comments and aren’t disclosing it.

Come on guys, identify yourselves and tell us if you are getting paid to make these comments.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on May 21, 2006 9:39 AM to IP Democracy