For several weeks now, I’ve been writing about what appears to be a coordinated group of possibly paid blog commenters who roam the web looking for blog items on net neutrality. (See here and here.) These commenters almost always write in generalities and their comments are always negative of net neutrality regulations.
Mark Glaser at PBS’ MediaShift blog has done a superb job of following up on this matter and has an excellent analysis of the net neutrality astroturf-sock-puppet-commenting brouhaha. If you’re a telco (and I assume the pack of commenters were hired by telcos and not cable operators, but I could be very wrong…it just seems such a telco-ish thing to do somehow), make sure you read Glaser’s write-up of his investigation.
Glaser contacted a known telco PR firm called Issue Dynamics Inc. to find out if they’re behind the robotic anti-net neutrality comments. IDI’s assistant vice president Kevin Reid answered Glaser’s email with an emphatic no — in fact (and here’s the lesson), Reid thinks a stunt like this ultimately hurts the telcos’ cause.
Why? Because now no one will take at face value any blog comments that deride net neutrality, however sincere the commenters may be.
“IDI does not post comments on blogs on behalf of its clients and it does not pay others to do so either,” Reid said. “We would also never recommend a tactic like this to anyone. As far as I am concerned, this is just a bad idea that has been implemented by someone who does not understand how the blogosphere works.
“In this particular instance, any comment opposed to Net neutrality will now potentially be considered suspect regardless of the merits of the comment itself. So, the impact of this blog commenting effort has actually done more harm than good. And, it is now going to be more difficult to have discussions around this issue and that is bad for everyone. You cannot trick the blogosphere into agreeing with your position. If you try, you will fail and may be burned along the way.”
Glaser also offers some helpful hints to bloggers regarding how they might screen out future astroturf-sock puppet commenters. But in the end, it all comes down to the blog owner’s judgment.
The best defense we have is to check and double-check what people say, and work together as a community of bloggers to out the people who would try to use sock puppetry, astroturf or other means to deceive us.
Cynthia Brumfield at 7:49 PM|Comments(0)
Blogs We Read
