[Ethics] "Astroturfing: Rendering the Entire Internet Meaningless, One Fake Post at a Time" [x-post reddit] Astroturfing: Rendering the Entire Internet Meaningless, One Fake Post at a Time http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/astroturfing-rendering-the-entire-internet-meaningless-one-fake-post-at-a-time/ >Astroturfing extends beyond Yelp into any corner of the Internet that might alert a person or organization to a potentially reputation-damaging post. On Monday, an excerpt from NPR reporter David Folkenflik’s upcoming book, Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires, was released, detailing Fox News’s comment-thread manipulation of “negative and even neutral” blog items, with Fox News staff creating fake accounts to counter critical articles and engage with the (presumably real) commenters who supported them. They concealed their Fox News–related accounts by using wireless broadband connections, going to great lengths to appear legit even though their comments still smelled a little fishy to the trained eye. I think this dovetails nicely with things like on-site comment thread "pruning", Steam reviews for free keys, etc. It just goes to show what a jungle it really is out there on the Internet. This post was mirrored from http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3bexkl/ethics_astroturfing_rendering_the_entire_internet/ and may have been edited at the original location.