If you have a blog, you’ve had to deal with everything from comment spammers to juvenile flame warriors. Well, brace yourself: your blog may soon pick up a new breed of online pest.
According to the folks at Blanton’s and Ashton’s, paid commenters are now cruising the blogging world and trying to skew the conversation on behalf of their clients:
Recently I have had several visits from http://arrca.netvocates.com/Default/index.cfm?, most recently to the posting on Congressman Rush Holt’s appearance on Lou Dobbs. “Who”, I wondered, “are Netvocates?” I did a little checking and now I know. Basically, Netvocates is an organization that sends people out to web logs to post propoganda in comments. They appear to be tied to conservatives and there appears to be a tie to townhall.com, the ultra-right-wing web site. Cybersoc.com spent time running down the facts on Netvocates and the man behind Netvocates. I recommend that people who read blogs check out the Cybersoc.com posting. Education is armor.
I’ve since checked further and they seem to be far less sinister than I was, at first, led to believe by other people’s investigations. There are still some questionable things about them, but they do say that they don’t hide who they are or what they are doing, and they have certainly left footprints to track them by wherever they have been.
They may be less sinister, but you should SEE HOW MANY of corporate America’s Finest are out spinning. I posted on this today and you can also find more at Cybersoc.
There’s an entire web spin industry working around the clock.
NetVocates is an ugly baby of Charles P. “Chip” Griffin of New Hampshire, a deep-dish right winger (Heritage Foundation, TownHall, Tom DeLay donor, etc.) who has basically created a trolls-for-hire entity. Ever considerate, Chip claims that “we ask our activists not to create multiple online personalities.” Now that’s a real comfort.