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".
[deleted]
I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
81–90 of 259 posts
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#82What about building a service, perhaps a web browser plugin, that overlays a trust-worthiness score + contextual information, over text (bonus for images) on the web? If a user posts "I recommend product X", the overlay would say "Caution: This user also recommended the product Y,Z in the last 48 hours. 34/34 of the users post in the last month are product recommendations. Sentiment score for users posts: 100% positi…
Somewhat feasible. You really need distributed fact checking to scale up especially since you don’t have source ips. If you can do that you might have something if you can keep participation up.
and never forget: the black hats will never stop trying to game any system you try to come up with. At this point in time, I think it's pretty clear they have a strong upper-hand.
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You seem to be refuting claims I never made. I'm simply perplexed that so many people don't know this market exists (as is indicated/suggested by the number of upvotes).
An upvote doesn’t necessarily imply lack of knowledge of this existing.
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#84There is a huge difference between endorsing a product and writing a tutorial about it... but content marketing is a gray area. I couldn't find any articles through those medium accounts that really seemed like spam to me - so I would say the authors are in the clear despite being called out really hard on social media right now.
It's really the sockpuppet treatment that is "blackhat" which the authors might not even be aware of.
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
https://www.cultofmac.com/311171/crazy-iphone-rig-shows-chin...
looks honestly like the worst job ever.
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#86What about building a service, perhaps a web browser plugin, that overlays a trust-worthiness score + contextual information, over text (bonus for images) on the web? If a user posts "I recommend product X", the overlay would say "Caution: This user also recommended the product Y,Z in the last 48 hours. 34/34 of the users post in the last month are product recommendations. Sentiment score for users posts: 100% positi…
Somewhat feasible. You really need distributed fact checking to scale up especially since you don’t have source ips. If you can do that you might have something if you can keep participation up.
Do source ips still help at all? These days it seems to be rather easy to visit a website from numerous different source ips.
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You seem to be refuting claims I never made. I'm simply perplexed that so many people don't know this market exists (as is indicated/suggested by the number of upvotes).
I knew this happens, and I upvoted. Learning details about something I knew about is useful.
What makes you think upvotes imply people don’t know this sort of thing exists?
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You seem to be refuting claims I never made. I'm simply perplexed that so many people don't know this market exists (as is indicated/suggested by the number of upvotes).
They're not 'refuting claims you never made'. They're simply responding to your comment by making their own points. Which is a completely standard way to carry discussion forward.
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to be refuting claims I never made. I'm simply perplexed that so many people don't know this market exists (as is indicated/suggested by the number of upvotes).
I knew this happens, and I upvoted. Learning details about something I knew about is useful. What makes you think upvotes imply people don’t know this sort of thing exists?
Maybe he is a bot creator (or a bot account) that tries to discredit the importance of other bot accounts? I mean it would be the natural step for those groups to try to persuade the public (e.g. reddit users) that is not a big deal that those accounts exist.
Re: I found black-hat content marketers: sockpuppet bloggers, fake Reddit/HN accts
#90Isn'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.
It is extremely common. These companies probably bought something that was described as something more benign and ethical.
And I totally understand. If you’re a small company you don’t have time to do further check-ins. They probably get you with a good pitch about influencer marketing for a niche area and that sounds nice enough to many to consider putting some money on it.