For reasons I won't go into, I've just come across this system for monitoring social networking sites called Spark from Spiral16.
If you are ever suspicious that comments on blogs, bulletin boards or networks are from corporate trolls (people posing as members of the public to push the company's agenda) then you could be right.
This handy film shows you how to track and interact.
A few year ago The Guardian ran an article by George Monbiot called: "The fake persuaders: Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the internet."
If you don't think corporations would be so sneaky, then take a look at Nestlé's spying operation. Attac Switzerland has just published a book about the spy that infiltrated the editorial board for a book being put together on Nestlé.
The book is in French. You can find information in English on the spying scandal at:
2 comments:
Since writing this, someone has posted a comment on a PhD in Parenting blog regarding Nestlé's claims about its formula marketing following its Twitter PR disaster:
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/10/03/follow-up-questions-for-nestle/
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A Concerned Citizen October 31, 2009 at 3:39 am
I though Mike Brady is a paid journalist.. hmmm.. i wonder if a person who accuses others of lieing is in fact himself have questionable ethics. You really should check into other people’s backgrounds before posting their responses. Makes me wonder about you?…. hmmmm
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On that site I have referred to my work for Baby Milk Action and you can click on my name which brings you directly to this blog and the declaration: "I am Campaigns and Networking Coordinator at Baby Milk Action".
But 'A Concerned Citizen' has no link on their 'name'. It may not make them a troll, but.... hmmmm.
Interesting! All of the Nestle posts on my blog, Blacktating, have been looked at by Spark Spiral 16. So far no obvious spam bot comments, but it's obvious Nestle is one of their clients.
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