Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 259 posts

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#61

Post by ebg13 »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #43
troydavis wrote: post #3

The Twitter thread has a lot more. There's a person or firm who is doing black-hat content marketing at scale. They either approach freelance bloggers to write articles about their clients (to be submitted to Medium-hosted and similar blogs as if written by unaffiliated users), or create Medium profiles for fake names and write the posts themselves. Posts have appeared in Better Programming, DEV.to, FAUN, freeCodeCam…

It would be a good idea to present stronger evidence before saying HN is astroturfable. It has one of the strongest anti astroturf systems I’ve seen, primarily because of how HN works (which, sadly, is hard to discuss openly). I believe you about Reddit, but it’s going to be quite hard to buy your way into HN, no matter how cleverly you do it. I’m not saying it’s impossible. But it’s so easy to believe, and so hard t…

It would be a good idea to present stronger evidence before saying HN is _not_ astroturfable. Yada yada. Just pretend I flipped the rest of what you said around too.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#63

Post by _where »

walrus01 wrote: post #26
_where wrote: post #22

There are no fake accounts. There are only accounts or not. There are no sockpuppet bloggers; those are called bloggers. If you go down the fake road, you have to realize real news by real reporters is often wrong. I’ve had someone in law enforcement tell me the news accidentally labeled them the victim on televised news and didn’t correct it. Classbooks written for US public school students- I understand that some c…

> By the way, there are no fake accounts. There are only accounts or not. Yes, until we see a great advancement in AI, actual meat based mammals are driving these accounts. > There are no sockpuppet Sometimes it seems like half of Twitter is fake accounts. You've never seen photos or videos of a Bangladeshi click farm? 50 people sitting in small cubicles running proxy-connected virtual machines on desktop PCs, postin…

I’m with you that it’s a serious problem. If it weren’t, Amazon and others wouldn’t be working so hard on AI to combat the AI or human that’s beaten their AI.

Those aren’t “fake accounts”, though. They’re real accounts being abused. There’s a difference. If Amazon and Twitter allow it to happen, it will happen. But what does shaming accomplish here? It just means people waste time talking about it. It has little chance to change behavior. More likely the outcome could become Reddit and HN enforcing a real ID. That may hurt the community, because not all of us want our name on everything; it’s not because I don’t stand behind what I’m saying- I’m just not going to treat every post like I want to carry it around with me on a sign for the rest of my life, even though at some point, maybe I’ll have to!

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#64

Post by chrisweekly »

twmahna wrote: post #31

Is this actually news to people? This has been happening for decades. The purpose is largely for SEO / sometimes for actual traffic. Just go google "private blog networks" (pbn) or "link farm".

There's a big difference between "this happens" and "this is happening now, via these accounts, take a look and see precisely how, as it happens".

Also, if the threshold for posting something of potential interest to HN were "exclusive / breaking news" there'd be far too few posts and likely no community here at all for [redacted; aiming to practice civility and kindness] all of us to enjoy.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#65

Post by [deleted] »

walrus01 wrote: post #19
mtmail wrote: post #2

In the past I have pointed the HN moderators (contact link is the footer) to threads with sock puppets. Some are easy to recognize, e.g. new users praising a service that got submitted only 10 minutes ago. Sometimes it's harder to find a pattern. Do email the HN moderators if you suspect fraud or unfair practices.

An interesting question is to what extent they're jumping through hoops to appear as distinct, legitimate, real users. Such as: a) using a proxy from a residential ISP somewhere b) never putting two or more sock puppets behind the same IP. Or assuming exclusive ipv4 use, not even any two clients from within the same /20 to /18 sized netblocks. c) a reasonably varied selection of ISPs. Also variation in ISP netblock g…

[deleted]

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#66

Post by chrisweekly »

bathtub365 wrote: post #49
sillysaurusx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a good idea to present stronger evidence before saying HN is astroturfable. It has one of the strongest anti astroturf systems I’ve seen, primarily because of how HN works (which, sadly, is hard to discuss openly). I believe you about Reddit, but it’s going to be quite hard to buy your way into HN, no matter how cleverly you do it. I’m not saying it’s impossible. But it’s so easy to believe, and so hard t…

> which, sadly, is hard to discuss openly Why is this?

Because discussing the moderation system is strongly discouraged and leads to downvotes.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#67

Post by sk2020 »

If I employ someone like an ‘evangelist’ to post on HN to talk my book every day, is that more legitimate? Or if I’m friends with or share common interest with Or otherwise court an established taste maker and he or she boosts my content and features me in puff pieces to the exclusion of others, is that more legitimate?

Flacks are inexorable from places of public attention.

Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts

#70

Post by chrisweekly »

rexreed wrote: post #29

Isn't this extremely common honestly? Isn't this so common it has names like "astroturfing" and "growth hacking"? This so not black hat that it's basically just regular ol' hat. Yeah creating fake grass roots support isn't particularly new, and I would venture that it's been around as long as there's been marketing.

I feel it's unfortunate "growth hacking" took on this connotation (ie, "comparable to astroturfing / fraudulent by definition", given the need for a term to describe (genuine / above-board / white-hat) creative approaches to connecting your idea with a market. Reminiscent of "hacker:cracker" usage divide, more generally.
Post reply on HN