Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
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Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#2A talk on the book in question (as well as audio) can be found here:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/events/2012/12/craw...
and if you prefer YouTube, here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R4xhwy-1oI
It's a pretty good overview of the American broadband infrastructure problem.
Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#3Isn't the author looking at the data to find patterns to then measure it by. I'm no expert, but it seems like he is trying to find patterns to support a preconceived opinion (which I don't necessarily disagree with).
Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#4Isn't the author looking at the data to find patterns to then measure it by. I'm no expert, but it seems like he is trying to find patterns to support a preconceived opinion (which I don't necessarily disagree with).
It certainly isn't a scientific study but it does bring attention to the expanding breadth of the platforms involved in public discourse. How do you solve the problem of a fabricated public? That aside from the business and technical problems faced by the likes of amazon, facebook, twitter etc. regarding faked personas.
I personally find it troubling because it is just these kinds of issues which provide the best fodder for those who view anonymity as a liability.
Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#5Isn't the author looking at the data to find patterns to then measure it by. I'm no expert, but it seems like he is trying to find patterns to support a preconceived opinion (which I don't necessarily disagree with).
A simple sanity check would be to run the exact same analysis on different books, and compare the book to the population.
It would of course not be definitive, but, for example, if I had seen that only 1% of the books on amazon have this many people mentioning professions on reviews, I'd get suspicious.
Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#6Isn't the author looking at the data to find patterns to then measure it by. I'm no expert, but it seems like he is trying to find patterns to support a preconceived opinion (which I don't necessarily disagree with).
It certainly isn't a scientific study but it does bring attention to the expanding breadth of the platforms involved in public discourse. How do you solve the problem of a fabricated public? That aside from the business and technical problems faced by the likes of amazon, facebook, twitter etc. regarding faked personas. I personally find it troubling because it is just these kinds of issues which provide the best fod…
agree w/ the theme but anonymous != fake.
we can be anonymous and very "real", e.g. a verified reviewer, w/ a public review history etc, but whatever identity he chooses to display to the group.
Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#7Isn't the author looking at the data to find patterns to then measure it by. I'm no expert, but it seems like he is trying to find patterns to support a preconceived opinion (which I don't necessarily disagree with).
I agree, but a very damning statistic is buried at the end of the article. The vast majority of these 1-star reviewers don't have other reviews on Amazon, which seems very odd, considering the book's subject matter is wonkish.
Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
It certainly isn't a scientific study but it does bring attention to the expanding breadth of the platforms involved in public discourse. How do you solve the problem of a fabricated public? That aside from the business and technical problems faced by the likes of amazon, facebook, twitter etc. regarding faked personas. I personally find it troubling because it is just these kinds of issues which provide the best fod…
agree w/ the theme but anonymous != fake. we can be anonymous and very "real", e.g. a verified reviewer, w/ a public review history etc, but whatever identity he chooses to display to the group.
I personally prefer to call those "pseudonymous" rather than "anonymous". A track record is effectively an uncompressed name: the salient part of anonymity is precisely that it has no useful metadata for the expected audience.
That gets highly academic about what we really mean by anonymity and what purposes we want it to serve, though, which we can get into if you want.
Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#9Isn't the author looking at the data to find patterns to then measure it by. I'm no expert, but it seems like he is trying to find patterns to support a preconceived opinion (which I don't necessarily disagree with).
I agree, but a very damning statistic is buried at the end of the article. The vast majority of these 1-star reviewers don't have other reviews on Amazon, which seems very odd, considering the book's subject matter is wonkish.
"The vast majority" is putting it lightly. All but one 1-star reviewer have zero other reviews. And the one 1-star reviewer with multiple reviews is Richard Bennett of ITIF, someone who is verifiably real and biased against the book.
Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
agree w/ the theme but anonymous != fake. we can be anonymous and very "real", e.g. a verified reviewer, w/ a public review history etc, but whatever identity he chooses to display to the group.
I personally prefer to call those "pseudonymous" rather than "anonymous". A track record is effectively an uncompressed name: the salient part of anonymity is precisely that it has no useful metadata for the expected audience. That gets highly academic about what we really mean by anonymity and what purposes we want it to serve, though, which we can get into if you want.
Of course, I prefer to use my real name and for others to do so if possible. I want to push for authenticity and get the problems fixed if possible, but that is another mess.