People getting paid to post disinformation

[jnantz]

believe half of what you hear and none of what you see

now even moreso

[Wayne Crider]

The concept does not seem any more dishonest than the usual forms of advertising seen on TV or on the rest of the internet.

I worked for a time doing television commercials and my saying was that there was more honesty in the plumbing industry in New Jersey.

[Asher Kelman]

I have a modest photography website, not as important as this forum, but we do try to support each other's work. Then there are the comment spammers! UGH!! It's annoying to find that people add to threads banal comments and the links are to to a airline and tour tickets for that location. I have to spend several hours a week removing such false posts as they really can be disruptive as some folk innocently take the poster on, thinking the opinion given is a genuine one.

What's even more disappointing are the gurus who post in a bunch of threads and for a moment we feel they're so generous, helpful and reformed and then comes the announcement of the expensive workshop or $1,000 DVD to make buyers a "Master" in photography.

The third phenomenon are guys who post a perfectly nice picture but don't comment on anyone else's work! I've taken to doing a search on the title for their new thread and have been shocked to find the identical post is in a dozen other photography fora! That I find most immoral. What do they gain from that. They are not selling us anything!! I hate the idea that we spend time giving feedback, when the poster has seeded the universe with their work and for no apparent reason!

Still, in spite of this, I find that the fora are very helpful, reliable and stimulating. This forum is particularly well developed with a sound sense of right and wrong. However, because of those few but persistent miscreants, one needs to develop street smarts and get to know the players and the punks and then separate them from the majority of folk we all can trust.

Asher

[jm51]

jp498,

The BBC is a public broadcaster. It can't have an interest in bashing the internet in order to increase advertising revenue because its funding does not come from advertising. Indeed, it is actively involved in integrating its programming with the internet, and is one of the world's most visited sites.

You might have a look at the research paper. There is a link to it at the end of the BBC article. The research was conducted by three members of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and a member of the Department of Computer Science at Peking University in Beijing. Here is the paper: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/...111.4297v1.pdf

The BBC is run by people who mix with people that run other things...councils, businesses, governments...that sort of thing. The Occupy Wall Street demos were going on for months before the BBC deigned to acknowledge their existence.

It is ever so sad for a Brit like me to realise that rt.com is a better portal for news than dear old auntie.

[Once]

"Fake forum comments are 'eroding' trust in the web"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15869683

Interesting article on the BBC site regarding people who are paid to post erroneous or derogatory information on fora such as ours.

I've seen posts that might well fall into this category.

I put this in the Business forum because our professional members may be targeted for this type of detrimental behavior.

- Leigh

Leigh, get it straight. Since about the time when Domenico Foschi left the forum (about 3 years ago? to give a time line) professionals were leaving this forum one after another due to heavy handed, unprofessional and in the long term very unwise moderating decisions. The result of this moderating politics is what the forum became and is now - a chat room for amateurish nonsense where good info is buried under tons of complete cr@p and where people with professional knowledge don't bother any more to wade through to give their point.

[Sevo]

Interesting article on the BBC site regarding people who are paid to post erroneous or derogatory information on fora such as ours.

Hardly "on such as ours" - we are too friggin' small to receive even a sizeable amount of disguised positive PR postings, let alone anything derogatory that did nor originate with some genuinely disgruntled person (whether right or wrong).

There are instances where paid negative comments obviously have been placed on amazon and similar sites that allow for consumer feedback, or on major forums. But in either case the rare few cases where paid negative comments show up (and survive censorship by the site administrators) absolutely pale against the huge amount of paid positive PR and censorship of genuine negative comments - there are many issues with truth in photo related forums (just about any mainstream digital camera forum is way beyond the fence to advertising), but "derogatory comments" are about the least frequent and relevant phenomenon when it comes to that...

[r.e.]

The Occupy Wall Street demos were going on for months before the BBC deigned to acknowledge their existence.

It is ever so sad for a Brit like me to realise that rt.com is a better portal for news than dear old auntie.

Really. The Wall Street protest started on Saturday, September 17. A quick Google search reveals that BBC coverage started at least as early as September 23, at which point there were 50 people staying at Zuccotti.

I have no comment to make on RT, except to note that RT stands for Russia Today and that it is widely regarded as an arm of the Kremlin with a penchant for propaganda and a talent for pandering to conspiracy theorists.

[Cor]

Leigh, get it straight. Since about the time when Domenico Foschi left the forum (about 3 years ago? to give a time line) professionals were leaving this forum one after another due to heavy handed, unprofessional and in the long term very unwise moderating decisions. The result of this moderating politics is what the forum became and is now - a chat room for amateurish nonsense where good info is buried under tons of complete cr@p and where people with professional knowledge don't bother any more to wade through to give their point.

..than why bother spending your time and energy wasting on us amateurs?

Cor (amateur)

[bobherbst]

Right on the mark. Years ago APUG became useless and irrelevant. This forum is approaching the same per "Once's" comments and I have only been here one year - may not stick around much longer. Thetre is good and relevant inforamtion here, but it is the exception.

... professionals were leaving this forum one after ... The result of this moderating politics is what the forum became and is now - a chat room for amateurish nonsense where good info is buried under tons of complete cr@p and where people with professional knowledge don't bother any more to wade through to give their point.

[E. von Hoegh]

What?

Receiving compensation to spread disinformation through popular communication channels?

A slow news day for the BBC. ;^)

Amen.

Just look at Fox..........