Now that you know “trolling”, also be aware of “brigading”

DEFINITION - BRIGADING - A concentrated effort by one online group to manipulate another. (e.g. by mass commenting) https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brigading [Sorry in advance for using urban dictionary] Online brigading used to be a simple harmless and funny thing like influencing the name of a sea vessel to become "Boaty Mc Boatface". The Internet currently consists of major social media sites now, It's very hard for us to tell when we are brigaded online, because we have very rudimentary insight into metrics for posts and articles we engage online. The moment you may say one simple negative thing about a company on social media, if it gets no views, or gets down-voted, that may well be a case of brigading. A lot of these social media sites, like Reddit have removed most of the indicators we previously had to tell us what was realm and now it's easy for one user to register multiple accounts, and a click farm to register thousands of accounts. Now that companies have brought in new blood, they realize the power of brigading. It's covert, can be very subtle, and when combined with the learned expertise of click farms, it can generate lots of sales, remove legal hurdles, and even make painful lawsuits simply go away, among other uses. New companies, even new political candidates, hire and recruit groups to create brigades, we're talking about groups that suppress valid information about safety and public policy that we would normally be able to read online, they diminish our ability to see real and trustworthy feedback and stories, and they are now frequently used to drive deception in stock markets. I'll keep this post short and follow up in comments, but there are several ways permitting online brigading by companies and political candidates can go very wrong for the world. If we remain largely unaware about it, and don't hold companies and individuals responsible for destructive brigading, you may never see a bad review of a company ever again.