6 ms·
Anyone who finds this shocking, I have news for you; every large company has been and is doing this type of astroturfing all over the internet for well over a d
by ebbv 13y ago
Anyone who finds this shocking, I have news for you; every large company has been and is doing this type of astroturfing all over the internet for well over a decade now.
I guess it can be surprising when you get asked to participate in it directly, but every type of site that's driven by "the public" (Slashdot, Digg, reddit, Twitter, Stack Overflow, etc.) is going to be a target for this type of activity.
It's usually pretty obvious, and I think if we ever want it to stop I think it's important to publicly shame companies who do it like this.
- natch 13y agoReally? Come on. To be fair, since the immediate comparison that jumps to mind is between Samsung and Apple, let's put it right on the table: I don't think Apple does this.
- ksec 13y agoI am sorry if this comment spark off any other pointless debate and argument or offended any Apple Fan boys or Samsung Fan boys. But the truth is, pretty much every company does this.. except Apple. Ans Samsung are at the top of this game. They are number 1 in spending on advertising and they spend double the advertising budget compared to 2nd in place. ( And their Rate are pretty awesome too compared to others ) You see heavy advertising on a Newspaper from Samsung? Lots of bashing and irresponsible reporting while bending the truth on Apple. Coincidence? You should make up your own mind. Compared to all other dirty thing that Samsung does behind the scene, these things are really tips of the iceberg.
- darkchasma 13y agoIf you don't write favorably about Apple, then they don't invite you to the press releases. So their hands are no cleaner, just far more transparent and public.
- snom380 13y agoThat's just silly. Pretty much the whole tech press are critical if Apple and still gets invited. The ones that don't get invited are those that buys stolen goods to be able to show off unannounced products.
- darkchasma 13y agohttp://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/apple-prs-dirty-little-secret/12291 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/apple-prs-dirty-little-secre... Leo Laporte and several of the tech journalists on the TWiT network talk about it as well. I've actually heard this so frequently, I just thought it was common knowledge.
- chrischen 13y agoHonestly that guy was not convincing at all. He pointed out how some journalists refused his request to ask apple about the address uploading issue and then completely speculated on the reasons why... then went on to makeup some BS reason as to why AllThingsD can criticize apple while still remaining in contact with him. After being in litigation with apple, this guy is clearly biased. If you read the comments people point out his agenda.
- swang 13y ago1. It's not silly to think that. See: Game Industry and Game Blogs. 2. You rarely hear about journalists getting blacklisted from events because a. the general public rarely cares or b. if they do they call the journalist, a 'whiner'.
- rsynnott 13y agoSamsung _advertise_ a lot. That doesn't mean you'd expect them to astroturf; it's an illicit practice in many countries.
- snom380 13y agoBased on previous cases, it's not surprising: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/04/samsung-taiwan-marketers-allegedly-created-astroturf-smear-campaign-against-htc/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/04/samsung-taiwan-market...
- vectorpush 13y agoBut the truth is, pretty much every company does this.. except Apple. Any evidence or even subjective reasoning why I'd believe Apple is any different from any other company? In the absence of evidence I wouldn't accuse Apple of anything but only a fool would give Apple a pass on something that "every company [supposedly] does". Lots of bashing and irresponsible reporting while bending the truth on Apple. Coincidence Good point; Apple never trashes the competition, that's above them.
- snom380 13y agoThere's the problem, stating that "all companies do this" when some big ones get caught is wrong. Some companies do this, but not all.
- jerf 13y ago"Apple never trashes the competition, that's above them." I'm a Mac, I'm a PC? Classy, well-done trashing, sure, but straight up naming-names trashing it was.
- yuhong 13y agoAny evidence or even subjective reasoning why I'd believe Apple is any different from any other company? In the absence of evidence I wouldn't accuse Apple of anything but only a fool would give Apple a pass on something that "every company [supposedly] does". Except in this case I don't think this claim was true at all.
- roc 13y ago> "subjective reasoning why I'd believe Apple is any different from any other company" When your customer satisfaction numbers are that high, who needs to pay for astroturf?
- snaky 13y agohttp://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/07/31/samsung-smartphones-edge-apples-iphones-in-customer-satisfaction-survey/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/07/31/samsung-sma...
- yuhong 13y agoMost of this is not astroturfing.
- 6ren 13y agoOn reddit, I often see comments about upcoming games that really strike me as astroturfing... It's mainly that it makes so much sense for manufacturers to do this (word of mouth is more compelling than "advertising"), that I can't imagine them not doing it. So when a post is just emptily positive in a generic way ("Really looking forward to this!"), with no content to suggest it's not astroturfing, I assume it is. I think one way it can be given away is not from an individual comment, but in the context of all the comments on that story. But if it's done well, it's impossible to distinguish.
- yuhong 13y agoAnd that is not the only example.
- benologist 13y agoAnything "growth hacking" and "social media" are literally jobs where you're paid to shill and spam.
- pbsdp 13y agoIt also is found most podcasts; if you hear a recommendation in a podcast, there is a high likelyhood that the recommended company sponsors|ed the podcast -- either through money, access, or 'perks'. Even in cases where sponsorship is disclosed, there is generally no separation between the podcasters and the acquisition of sponsors. Editorial integrity is long dead on the Internet; its long since time to get used to turning a critical eye to technology-related editorial content.
- xradionut 13y agoIt's been fun watching the shills from Redmond squirm this year after all the stumbles...
- btian 13y agoCitation needed. If what you said is indeed true, then can you explain why people are so outraged when such things happen?
- Karunamon 13y agoMm, probably the reason that everyone "knew" that the US was engaged in extralegal spying for quite some time, but the outrage didn't legitimately start until the actual documents were leaked. That said, I'd be really, really surprised if Apple engaged in that kind of shenanigans. Their own customers are better product evangelists than any PR shilling company could ever hope to be.
- Toshio 13y ago> "I have news for you; every large company has been and is doing this type of astroturfing all over the internet for well over a decade now." I'd have to agree, but Samsung's flavor of astroturfing is pretty gentle and benign compared to the viciousness of microsoft' attack dogs.
- drzaiusapelord 13y agoExcept those sites are driven by votes and comments float to the top via lots of anonymous voting. Which is both a boon and a bane. It helps drown out the crap but also helps to promote idiotic groupthink and censor dissent.
- MaysonL 13y agoWhich means that combatting voting rings and astrovoting is an ever-present challenge if a site wants to remain clean.