Fake forum comments are 'eroding' trust in the web

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Ever get the feeling the person you're talking to is a little too much? Maybe when you discuss something with them, the same group of people will come to their aid to turn the favor over to their side of the debate. Maybe there argument doesn't make much sense to begin with, baiting you on with irrelevancy and circular logic. Before you know it, you've spend a few pages talking back and forth, until you realize that any person smart enough to use a computer should have gotten your point from the first response. Just something I wanted you to think about next time you chat with someone.

Oh yeah. There are entire call centers in India hired by major western companies (wouldn't surprise me if most if not all of them are US based... they'd take anything that isn't nailed down). They solve captchas by hand, and post in guestbooks, and leave Web site comments, blog comments, forums, etc... to drive traffic to whoever hired them.

All that is done by hand by cheap labor and thus completely bypasses the automated defences such as logins and captchas. Sigh.

Meh. Astroturfers are usually easy enough to recognize.

I'm guessing they also lure people to fake internet sites trying to sell products at steep discounts. From what I've heard, they are everywhere, but I've yet to see a site that just stands out to me as completely fake.

Fakes are more likely to start new comment threads, make inane comments rather than add to a debate, and repeat former comments with minor changes, the study suggests.

There are a couple here that come to mind.

Sounds more like the habits of a troll. I doubt most of the trolls are making money off their craft. But who knows nowadays.

I want to be a paid troll!

Wasn't one user named "Raptor" being described as such in the past months on PPR?

Yeah, I notice businesses try to boost their ratings on different customer feedback sites by leaving extremely good comments and perfect ratings. I tend to ignore those comments because they're most likely too good to be true. If a business has all perfect ratings and no criticism, something has to be fishy. I also remember seeing this 20/20 (or was it Frontline? I'm not sure...it's been a long time) episode about the BBB and how they'd lower people's business ratings if they didn't pay membership fees (I think it was for accreditation, as businesses could choose to become accredited by the BBB). Then they described how the BBB would raise people's ratings if they became an accredited business. It got really interesting/funny when Wolfgang Puck's restaurant got an 'F' even though he's one of the best/well-known chefs in the world. They interviewed him, and he told the interviewers that he didn't care what the BBB said about his business, and still refuses to be accredited. It's kind of funny that the BBB doesn't have a rating for themselves lol.

I'm not surprised.

Please alert a Moderator if you find occurrences of this on WP and we will deal with them.

Trolls don't bother me, I'm more annoyed that people throw the word troll at everyone nowadays.

BTW If anyone knows where a fake website is, link it or PM me the URL. I'd like to see it.

Last edited by snapcap on 14 Dec 2011, 11:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

I belong to another forum for Chronic Fatigue/fibromyalgia. There have been a few instances where a person will join, and there very first post is to try to tell us all about how they suffered for years, and then voila! The magic supplement, food, exercise, or whatever. They are so painfully obvious that it is ridiculous. Most of us have been posting there for years; it's not likely that we are going to believe, let alone trust someone who's very first post is like this. Usually a perspn's first post is to introduce themselves. duh.

Now, I've seen that plenty of times. But it's so easily discernible as not genuine, that I just breeze past it. A lot of times they string an indecipherable sentences, or they're in another language.

Well, tell us about either case you see here anyway, because both need to be dealt with.
You may be Ok about trolls but others may not.

Yes, exactly - but somehow, they always expect it to work which is just a tad over-optimistic.

I don't like people who only make posts with links to whatever they're trying to sell. Not on this site, of course, but I see alot of this kind of stuff on a gaming website I frequent.