Internet Water Army

How the controlled opposition was designed to be part of the 9/11 hoax
hoi.polloi
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Internet Water Army

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

The Internet Water Army is a group of individuals who act as paid mercenaries to inundate the Internet with comments, gossip, or other content to build up or demolish credibility of articles, information, Websites and more.

These people demolish the consumer ranking of products and services, create false images, provide a sense of false perception to destroy the truth.

Some blame China as the pioneer of the Internet Water Army. China may be using the same but the list of abusers is vast. It is very common in the free world.

The corporations are employing them, the unions are employing them, and even the political parties employ them.

The Internet Water Army are typically tasked with registering on a Web site and then producing content in the form of posts, articles, links to sites and videos, etc.
http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/davi ... nd-tyranny
burningame
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Re: Internet Water Army

Unread post by burningame »

Paid posting is a well-managed activity involving thousands of individuals and tens of thousands of different online IDs. The posters are usually given a task to register on a website and then to start generating content in the form of posts, articles, links to websites and videos, even carrying out Q&A sessions.

Often, this content is pre-prepared or the posters receive detailed instructions on the type of things they can say. And there is even a quality control team who check that the posts meet a certain 'quality' threshold. A post would not be validated if it is deleted by the host or was composed of garbled words, for example.

Having worked undercover to find out how the system worked, Cheng and co then studied the pattern of posts that appeared on a couple of big Chinese websites: Sina.com and Sohu.com. In particular, they studied the comments on several news stories about two companies that they suspected of paying posters and who were involved in a public spat over each other's services.

The Sina dataset consisted of over 500 users making more than 20,000 comments; the Sohu dataset involved over 200 users and more than 1000 comments.

Cheng and co went through all the posts manually identifying those they believed were from paid posters and then set about looking for patterns in their behaviour that can differentiate them from legitimate users. (Just how accurate were there initial impressions is a potential problem, they admit, but the same one that spam filters also have to deal with.)

They discovered that paid posters tend to post more new comments than replies to other comments. They also post more often with 50 per cent of them posting every 2.5 minutes on average. They also move on from a discussion more quickly than legitimate users, discarding their IDs and never using them again.

What's more, the content they post is measurably different. These workers are paid by the volume and so often take shortcuts, cutting and pasting the same content many times. This would normally invalidate their posts but only if it is spotted by the quality control team.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/ar ... /?p1=blogs
hoi.polloi
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Re: Internet Water Army

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

Hmm, that is kind of inconsistent with our shills - who seem to be in it for the long haul and then suddenly "turn" ... I suppose we're not getting the same caliber of shills as other sites with a different format. ;)
burningame
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Re: Internet Water Army

Unread post by burningame »

Yep, we get the very best, top-class shills! :)
pov603
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Re: Internet Water Army

Unread post by pov603 »

It sounds like something I heard about a while ago [in Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point I think] wherein companies that specialised in 'niche' markets ie in this case campers/fell walkers/mountaineering types, would employ groups of individuals to meet up at 'prime' locations ie path intersections/information stations etc and 'argue/discuss' the merits of their boots/backpacks/camping gear etc whatever it was that the company wanted to promote or create a 'stir' over.

By creating a 'scene' they would encourage unsuspecting passers-by to question what was going on after which the 'planted' individuals would extoll the virtues of certain products that they wore/used [as directed by the company].

After hearing or overhearing the discussions/comments, these unsuspecting passers-by would then carry on their way and spread the word unintentionally so to speak to fellow campers/walkers.

In a similar way to there's no such thing as bad publicity, people tend to gravitate to the most commonly used or heard item and then take that as the 'norm'.
HonestlyNow
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Re: Internet Water Army

Unread post by HonestlyNow »

pov603 wrote: . . . companies that specialised in 'niche' markets
. . . would employ groups of individuals to meet up at 'prime' locations
. . . and 'argue/discuss' the merits of their
. . .whatever it was that the company wanted to promote or create a 'stir' over.

. . . the 'planted' individuals would extoll the virtues of certain products that they wore/used [as directed by the company].
Have you ever seen the 2009 movie The Joneses?
That is exactly what the story portrays, in an executive (McMansion) neighborhood setting.
pov603
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Re: Internet Water Army

Unread post by pov603 »

HonestlyNow wrote:
pov603 wrote: . . . companies that specialised in 'niche' markets
. . . would employ groups of individuals to meet up at 'prime' locations
. . . and 'argue/discuss' the merits of their
. . .whatever it was that the company wanted to promote or create a 'stir' over.

. . . the 'planted' individuals would extoll the virtues of certain products that they wore/used [as directed by the company].
Have you ever seen the 2009 movie The Joneses?
That is exactly what the story portrays, in an executive (McMansion) neighborhood setting.
Thanks for letting me know. I may well take a look at the movie.

I know it is like Russian Dolls/Peeling Onions but there's me mentioning Malcolm Gladwell/Tipping Point and you mentioning 'The Joneses'!

We'll be accused of doing the same thing that these people are alleged to be doing! :o
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