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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

#21

Post by incision »

This happens with any and everything remotely contentious on Amazon. It's a default soapbox/battleground [0] for the Internet. Though, this certainly appears more organized than the typical ranting.

It's an interesting problem.

I tend to think that Amazon is big enough now that they could require a purchase prior to review without facing a shortage of content. I'm guessing someone over there has calculated that the sale potential to creators and readers of unqualified reviews outweighs any negative impact they have.

Allowing angry reviews against one view is a great sales opportunity for material supporting the opposing view.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6092631

Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book

#23

Post by graedus »

cameron913 wrote: post #2

A 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.

Really great talk, thanks for the link.

Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book

#24

Post by Goronmon »

t0dd wrote: post #11

Pretty convincing analysis. Many of the one star reviews follow a similar template: "I am a [profession X here]" (a jeweler, a freelance video editor, a professional truck driver, a pharmacy technician, etc.). Weird all of them, usually from rural areas, go out of their way to declare what they do for a living. Not to mention a majority of these "customers"--this is their only review on Amazon at all.

Yeah, I was actually surprised at how generic those reviews were. I mean, I've been reading Amazon reviews for a long time, but this just takes things to a new level.

Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book

#25

Post by pessimizer »

diminoten wrote: post #16
curiouscats wrote: post #12

Do any related laws require disclosure of paid for or fake reviews? Blogs must state financial interest in reviews they do now: http://internet-law.lawyers.com/Truth-in-Blogging-New-FTC-Bl... It would seem this type of action would be done (in this case) by lobbyists (paid for by lobbyists), I wonder if there are rules on lobbyists paying for fake reviews (since lobbyists do have some constraints on actions that othe…

Why does there have to be a law against this? If Amazon wants to allow astroturfing, what say does the government have in it?

As long as the reviews aren't presented as being honest or real. If they are presented as honest or real, it sounds like fraud to me.

If I sell you a cinderblock in a box and tell you it's a computer, I think the government should have a say. Same situation if I sell you a book and tell you that Bob the fisherman from New Orleans thought it contained real original scholarship about Soviet central planning, and it turns out that his name isn't even Bob.

Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book

#26

Post by saraid216 »

yuhong wrote: post #10
saraid216 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One of the issues is that there is no such thing as a real name. There's the obvious difficulty: the "real" part, which can be defined any which way and by picking one reality can exclude other valid realities. But there's also the fact that not everyone has a name. See the third comment on http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b...

One of those possible realities is that "real name" is defined as "legal name" and you'll find a long history of people rejecting that: hacker nicknames, author pen names, rebels' noms de guerre. (A survey in film: The Matrix, "Goodbye, Mr. Anderson" "My name is Neo."; X-Men, "What's your name?" "John." "What's your real name, John?" "Pyro."; Pirates of the Carribean, "Captain. Captain Jack Sparrow.")

Authenticity is a wonderful sounding goal, but it still doesn't provide a very strong comprehension of your goals. So if you get past the problematic concept of a "real name", you still don't have enough to really design for it. For instance, it's arguable that "Yuhong Bao" is less authentic than writing it in Chinese. It's also arguable that it's more authentic.

What's in a name? A name is just a pointer. The functional difference between a real name and a fake name is, in the end, just taste.

Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book

#27

Post by diminoten »

pessimizer wrote: post #25
diminoten wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does there have to be a law against this? If Amazon wants to allow astroturfing, what say does the government have in it?

As long as the reviews aren't presented as being honest or real. If they are presented as honest or real, it sounds like fraud to me. If I sell you a cinderblock in a box and tell you it's a computer, I think the government should have a say. Same situation if I sell you a book and tell you that Bob the fisherman from New Orleans thought it contained real original scholarship about Soviet central planning, and it tur…

Sure, but that's not what is happening here. Someone not involved in the purchase or sale of the item is making statements about said item.

That's entirely different.

Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book

#28

Post by yuhong »

saraid216 wrote: post #26
yuhong wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One of the issues is that there is no such thing as a real name. There's the obvious difficulty: the "real" part, which can be defined any which way and by picking one reality can exclude other valid realities. But there's also the fact that not everyone has a name. See the third comment on http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b... One of those possible realities is that "real name" is defined a…

This is not the point though. I am talking about how people often can't use their real name all the time because of problems and how I'd like the problems to be fixed if possible.

Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book

#29

Post by saraid216 »

yuhong wrote: post #28
saraid216 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the issues is that there is no such thing as a real name. There's the obvious difficulty: the "real" part, which can be defined any which way and by picking one reality can exclude other valid realities. But there's also the fact that not everyone has a name. See the third comment on http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b... One of those possible realities is that "real name" is defined a…

This is not the point though. I am talking about how people often can't use their real name all the time because of problems and how I'd like the problems to be fixed if possible.

Since the problems are those of trust, you're really aiming for a perfect trust society. That's sort of hard. I'm working towards that myself.

Re: Telco Astroturfing Tries To Bring Down Reviews Of Susan Crawford's Book

#30

Post by pessimizer »

diminoten wrote: post #27
pessimizer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the reviews aren't presented as being honest or real. If they are presented as honest or real, it sounds like fraud to me. If I sell you a cinderblock in a box and tell you it's a computer, I think the government should have a say. Same situation if I sell you a book and tell you that Bob the fisherman from New Orleans thought it contained real original scholarship about Soviet central planning, and it tur…

Sure, but that's not what is happening here. Someone not involved in the purchase or sale of the item is making statements about said item. That's entirely different.

No, Amazon is the publisher. I think they're responsible.
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