by eric_b » Sat 06 Jan 2007, 21:53:44
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Rambo', '
')Why we have to be careful anybody can and does join this board and other boards like it.
Plants are sent here to post racist or silly half truths mixed with lies in posts intended to muddle us up.
This is done to take away the credibility of the forum and its members.
I'm certain popular discussion forums and blogs have many shills and plants. All this talk in the military about 'full spectrum dominance' - including the internet apparently - means they're out there. If you can't win an argument gracefully there's always the option of muddying the waters to the point most people give up.
Even more disturbing these days are what I call 'bots' or AIs. These
programs can often fake a decent coversation, and can be used to respond to certain issues.
Nothing new here. Consider 'Eliza' - an old program (from at least the 80's) it can reasonably fake talking to a Freudian shrink. A web version can be found here:
http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.htmlA similar program known as 'Lady Chatterly' is sometimes unleashed upon people in usenet (google) groups. Many people don't realize it's a bot (at least at first) and actually have conversations with the thing.
I'm certain there are much more sophisticated bots these days that can hold their own quite well, and probably only occasionally require human intervention. This opens the doors to automated blog and forum spamming and/or control. I recently came across these comments in one of Kunstlers's blogs:
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')
The NetVocates Solution
NetVocates delivers a customized combination of monitoring, analysis and action to maximize the positive effect of the blogosphere for the client. The result for NetVocates clients is the ability to gain virtually instantaneous expertise in the area of blogs.
Monitor. The process begins with the account manager working with the client to determine relevant topics to monitor (e.g. key messages, brands, and opponents). Then proprietary technology is paired with personal research to effectively monitor more than 38 million blogs.
Analyze. A team of blog intelligence experts analyze content, tone and relative importance of the coverage, collecting and presenting the data in meaningful ways. This process distills blog chatter into actionable intelligence in a weekly report.
Act. Careful research and client consultation create a messaging strategy tailored to maximize the positive effect of key trends and events. NetVocates then conducts direct and transparent outreach to bloggers in order to reinforce key messages on targeted blogs – and help rebut misinformation when appropriate.
Curiously the netvocates.com site is down. So it would not hard to precipitate flame wars and whatnot using this technique. It also shows most conversations are so vacuous it's easy to write a computer program to fake them.