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This is the same logic my extended family uses when they tell me that their phones eavesdrop on their conversations to target advertisements. Just because it's

This is the same logic my extended family uses when they tell me that their phones eavesdrop on their conversations to target advertisements. Just because it's possible and fits your narrative doesn't make it true. No brand or PR team that I've ever been near has the capacity to monitor and then manually downvote this kind of thing, even on major sites, let alone a niche news site like HN. Who has the budget for this?

throwaway29303 7y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/12/facebook-pr-firm-google https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/12/facebook-...
jacquesm 7y ago
> No brand or PR team that I've ever been near has the capacity to monitor and then manually downvote this kind of thing Astroturfing and reputation management are a thing. Also, big companies have a large number of employees some of who hang out here and will simply take offense by association, which could be more than enough to explain the effect even if the company itself has nothing to do with it. HN is no longer niche. > Who has the budget for this? Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and whole pile more if they wanted to it would be a round off error on their budget but besides one of those I don't think there was ever hard evidence that this happens. Reputation management is becoming more and more important to brands.
topkai22 7y ago
It's possible, but the reputation management people also worry a fair amount about getting caught astroturfing or running bot nets. There are a lot less risky ways of accomplishing the same goal- pushing positive stories, honestly responding, using SEP techniques to get ahead of negative news in search results, etc.
Terretta 7y ago
> Who has the budget for this? Every enterprise, basically. You subscribe to social media monitoring as a service, they monitor the fire hose and flip on the bat signal as needed. It’s dirt cheap, relative to not knowing what’s said about you.
bigiain 7y ago
> Who has the budget for this? Ummm, Google(/Alphabet)? You might have heard of them? Fourth biggest company (by market cap) on the planet? They have budget to do all this shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(company) Pretty sure they wouldn't even notice the costs of downvoting every single negative comment about them on every single website they're already crawling and mining for keywords and sentiment...
brisance 7y ago
Please educate yourself. Here's just one example. https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/samsung-distances-itself-from-astroturfing-controversy-blames-pr-agency-3633427.html https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/samsung-distanc...

throwaway29303 7y ago

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/12/facebook-pr-firm-google https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/may/12/facebook-...

jacquesm 7y ago

> No brand or PR team that I've ever been near has the capacity to monitor and then manually downvote this kind of thing Astroturfing and reputation management are a thing. Also, big companies have a large number of employees some of who hang out here and will simply take offense by association, which could be more than enough to explain the effect even if the company itself has nothing to do with it. HN is no longer niche. > Who has the budget for this? Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and whole pile more if they wanted to it would be a round off error on their budget but besides one of those I don't think there was ever hard evidence that this happens. Reputation management is becoming more and more important to brands.

topkai22 7y ago

It's possible, but the reputation management people also worry a fair amount about getting caught astroturfing or running bot nets. There are a lot less risky ways of accomplishing the same goal- pushing positive stories, honestly responding, using SEP techniques to get ahead of negative news in search results, etc.

Terretta 7y ago

> Who has the budget for this? Every enterprise, basically. You subscribe to social media monitoring as a service, they monitor the fire hose and flip on the bat signal as needed. It’s dirt cheap, relative to not knowing what’s said about you.

bigiain 7y ago

> Who has the budget for this? Ummm, Google(/Alphabet)? You might have heard of them? Fourth biggest company (by market cap) on the planet? They have budget to do all this shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_(company) Pretty sure they wouldn't even notice the costs of downvoting every single negative comment about them on every single website they're already crawling and mining for keywords and sentiment...

brisance 7y ago

Please educate yourself. Here's just one example. https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/samsung-distances-itself-from-astroturfing-controversy-blames-pr-agency-3633427.html https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/samsung-distanc...