Comments // Current TV

Twitter in Focus: Mike Scully

Writer for the Simpsons, Mike Scully, tweets!

TonyDiGerolamo
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2 months ago
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Lawrence O'Donnell Defends Herman Cain Interview

Lawrence O'Donnell ignited a controversy on Friday after his contentious... more

Imzadi
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8 months ago
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13 comments

Corporate-Funded Online 'Astroturfing' Is More Advanced and More Automated Than You Might Think | | AlterNet

February 24, 2011 |

Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren’t what they seem to be. The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns, which create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there’s a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them.

After I last wrote about online astroturfing, in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them. Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression that there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. I’ll reveal more about what he told me when I’ve finished the investigation I’m working on.

But it now seems that these operations are more widespread, more sophisticated and more automated than most of us had guessed. Emails obtained by political hackers from a US cyber-security firm called HB Gary Federal suggest that a remarkable technological armoury is being deployed to drown out the voices of real people.

As the Daily Kos has reported, the emails show that:

- companies now use “persona management software”, which multiplies the efforts of the astroturfers working for them, creating the impression that there’s major support for what a corporation or government is trying to do.

- this software creates all the online furniture a real person would possess: a name, email accounts, web pages and social media. In other words, it automatically generates what look like authentic profiles, making it hard to tell the difference between a virtual robot and a real commentator.

- fake accounts can be kept updated by automatically re-posting or linking to content generated elsewhere, reinforcing the impression that the account holders are real and active.

- human astroturfers can then be assigned these “pre-aged” accounts to create a back story, suggesting that they’ve been busy linking and re-tweeting for months. No one would suspect that they came onto the scene for the first time a moment ago, for the sole purpose of attacking an article on climate science or arguing against new controls on salt in junk food.

- with some clever use of social media, astroturfers can, in the security firm’s words, “make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise … There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas”

The article continues at the link: http://www.alternet.org/story/150049/corporate-funded_online_%27astroturfing%27_is_more_advanced_and_more_automated_than_you_might_think?akid=6571.101566.m0-hpq&rd=1&t=12February 24, 2011 | Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online... more

Monkey_Films
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1 year ago
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2 comments

Anonymous comments killing Blogs? « Ramanan50's Blog

Blogging is a way of expressing oneself That’s all. Do not take things... more

ramanan50
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1 year ago
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50 Funniest Remarks Ever Written on RateMyProfessors.com

"Funniest" always has been and — until the advent of loyalty chips... more

sunnyspeaks
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1 year ago
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Protip for posting and reading comments.

Found this in an old folder, figured needed to be posted here. Should be expanded,... more

MizPiz
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1 year ago
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1 comment

Eamonn Holmes blasts reality TV

Presenter Eamonn Holmes recently slammed the culture of reality TV, by concentrating... more

Mcellie
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1 year ago
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Michael Bolton Dancing With The Stars

Michael Bolton voted off Dancing with the Stars. Michael Bolton is the second member... more

mky786
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1 year ago
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1 comment

Pope aide pulls out of trip after 'Third World jibe

A senior Papal adviser has pulled out of the Pope's UK visit after saying... more

CarolineS
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1 year ago
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3 comments

Anatomy of an Internet Suicide: Reddit Suicide: How the Internet Can Help and Hurt

When a Reddit user recently challenged the online community to give him a reason not... more

atomiclegion
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1 year ago
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10 comments

You Dun Goofed Up - The Whole Story ! Emo Scene ( David Spates )

A young girl has recently gone viral overnight because of her behavior on the... more

davidspates
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1 year ago
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2 comments

Emotion homophily in social network site messages

Social network sites (SNS) like MySpace seem to play a role in friendships and wider... more

worrg
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2 years ago
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FIRST! (to have that idea)

Saying you are the first person to accomplish something is exciting. On this day in... more

joshuaheller
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2 years ago
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Feature release: Commenting upgrade

Hello Currenteers! In case you haven't noticed, today's feature release... more

mario_a
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2 years ago
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0 comments

Posting to Current.com made simple -- [Feature release]

[UPDATE: Please note that when posting a story you should leave source links in your... more

mario_a
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2 years ago
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1 comment

brett erlich's top 14: favorite stories - [current tv hosts]

After taking a look at Sergio Cilli's top 16, and The Rotten Tomatoes Show... more

mario_a
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2 years ago
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1 comment

shortening current URLs and the many faces of the current bar

In part two of our series entitled, "Why did you build that feature?"... more

mario_a
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2 years ago
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0 comments

feature release: new blog, email validation, channel curator alpha, and channel staleness

Hey Currenteers, Welcome to April! We have some new features to cover, but first... more

mario_a
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3 years ago
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Feature release: Commenting upgrade [UPDATED]

Hello Currenteers! In case you haven't noticed, today's... more

mario_a
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2 years ago
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261 comments

Paul Shirley Fired from ESPN After Insensitive Haiti Comments

ESPN has fired part-time writer Paul Shirley after he wrote an article about Haiti on... more

phxboy
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2 years ago
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