Ten days ago I posted an item about what appeared to be an organized campaign of blog commenters who always oppose net neutrality regulations and who use vaguely similar language. I wondered if these commenters were in fact paid shills for broadband providers or their PR firms.
Since then, a host of other bloggers have written about this phenomenon. Mark Glaser has this piece at MediaShift. Matt Stoller posted this piece.
Today Cog at Abstract Factory has this more in-depth item about the phenomenon of robot-like, yet all-too-human blog commenters. Cog did a little research on an anti-net neutrality commenter called “Net Chick” and concluded that she’s probably a paid shill.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have been defaced by a comment spammer. Not your garden-variety p*rn/drugs/gambling comment spammer, who would have made certain to include at least one link to an advertising-supported website somewhere in either the post or the profile page. Nor is this the work of a mere desperate narcissist spammer, who would have made some link to a personal blog available.
No; “Net Chick” is an astroturf comment spammer: an astro-spammer, if you will.
Tim Lee at The Technology Liberation Front picks up on Cog’s comments by noting that he too has received these strange comments.
The posts almost never make substantive arguments, and they’re often made days or even weeks after a particular post is made. Moreover, the comments consistently appear only on pages related to network neutrality.
Mike at TechDirt wraps the whole thing up by noting that it’s not surprising that the telcos (?) would hire people to go around making blog comments against net neutrality. What is surprising is just how bad a strategy this is.
To be honest, it’s not at all surprising that some PR firm or whatever would think it’s a good idea to waste money hiring people to do this — but it’s really impressive just how bad they are at it, and just how easy it is to spot the comments.
Cynthia Brumfield at 3:18 PM|Comments(1)
I'm another that has been hit by this group, and also by sagecast's valuable cautionary comment. What surprises me is that they found my almost completely unknown blog (I'm guessing through CNet story trackbacks, although their comments on non-trackback posts lead me to believe they've subscribed to my comments via rss). I haven't minded...in fact their criticism has helped me to clarify my own views. I too have experienced what sagecast reported in his comment:
"My response has been to ask them for facts or substantive arguments to back up their positions. A few have, and I've learned something from them and have come to respect them. Most haven't.
"It's easy to spout off an opinion (I know, because I do it too), but its more challenging (and more helpful) to dig below the surface of comfortable, well-worn opinions, and see if they really hold up in the face of reality."
A few comments would show appreciation for parts of an argument, but always end with the same "I just don't trust the government to get involved" line.
We all seem to agree that it's not a problem if this is truly a group of concerned citizens, but if it is a bad and smarmy PR campaign the firm should be exposed for their loose ethics.
Posted by: John at June 1, 2006 12:17 AM
Blogs We Read
