Quote:
Originally Posted by OtterBooks
It seems counter-productive. Not only does it make the company look terrible if/when caught, but it creates an atmosphere of suspicion. It's the nature of these kind of communities to praise/criticize products, usually motivated by nothing more sinister than boredom.
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It turns out that the minuses of being found out are way less than the pluses reaped by astroturfing, which is why it is a common tool of corporate PR, political campaigns, and product evangelists to drive through a message or create a product image. Strategic seeding and repetition of talking points can turn outright lies into internet memes. ("Indie ebooks are all unedited crap", "ebook sales have declined", "Microsoft is going to ditch XBOX", etc.) Most of that gets repeated, quoted uncritically, and reinforced through bouncing across blogs and news sites. The victims of whisper campaigns end up playing a thankless, endless game of whack-a-mole.
Corporate astroturf campaigns and internet sock puppets and other covert moves are used because they work and the pluses far outweigh the minuses. It's like in the corporate media: scandalous reports show up on page one headlines, retractions show up on page 47.