Undercover Researchers Expose Chinese Internet Water Army

Undercover Researchers Expose Chinese Internet Water Army

www.technologyreview.com

In China, paid posters are known as the Internet Water Army because they are ready and willing to 'flood' the internet for whoever is willing to pay. The flood can consist of comments, gossip and information (or disinformation) and there seems to be plenty of demand for this army's services.

This is an insidious tide.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
arxiv.org

An undercover team of computer scientists reveals the practices of people who are paid to post on websites.

I may get in trouble for posting this... not because of the content, or the facts, which are well documented by MIT (the source). The problem is that they posted this in their own 'blog' section rather than "news"... why? I can't say.

Paid posting is a well-managed activity involving thousands of individuals and tens of thousands of different online IDs. The posters are usually given a task to register on a website and then to start generating content in the form of posts, articles, links to websites and videos, even carrying out Q&A sessions.

Often, this content is pre-prepared or the posters receive detailed instructions on the type of things they can say. And there is even a quality control team who check that the posts meet a certain 'quality' threshold. A post would not be validated if it is deleted by the host or was composed of garbled words, for example.

Now the main thrust of the study relates to how different corporations or business contract them to artificially slam their competition or praise the company who hired them.

But it appears to me that it is quite possible to use such an "army" to accomplish much, much more insidious aims.. Say for example spreading rumors about politicians, or creating the appearance of a groundswell of support for them or some policy.

They discovered that paid posters tend to post more new comments than replies to other comments. They also post more often with 50 per cent of them posting every 2.5 minutes on average. They also move on from a discussion more quickly than legitimate users, discarding their IDs and never using them again.

What's more, the content they post is measurably different. These workers are paid by the volume and so often take shortcuts, cutting and pasting the same content many times. This would normally invalidate their posts but only if it is spotted by the quality control team.

I thought it bears mentioning that here at ATS we are quite alert to the kinds of practices described... but some people (not necessarily our members) are unaware that this is an industrial-sized effort. And you may notice, as you browse the web, exactly the kind of thing they describe in their study.

One member of the source website kindly offered an example of this kind of practice ... I thought some of you might like to scrutinize it....

Part 1: www.tnooz.com...
Part 2: www.tnooz.com...
Part 3: www.tnooz.com...
Part 4: www.tnooz.com...

Thank you MIT's RobertKCole.



www.technologyreview.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is a very interesting bit of research/ground-work.

Many of us on the Internet have long known that there existed people and accounts paid for the task of making comments on behalf of the benefactor. It is interesting to see just how some of this breaks down in numerical terms.

I wonder if this means my posts, insisting other people are wrong, can be written off on my taxes as charity?

It seems IT companies are rallying a sort of defense, however:

www.reputation.com...

I've heard advertisements for a few of these companies on the radio, before - aimed at trying to mitigate the damage done by fraudulent statements on forums.

Although, obviously, even the "defense" has the potential for abuse. Removing an inconvenient statement isn't much different, functionally, from removing a fraudulent/false one.

reply to post by Maxmars


Max, thanks for posting this. I wanted to however....
Oh, great find on the posts, going to look now.

Each time I learn of new ways this media manipulation is taking place,
I am reminded that some scientists have calculated tipping points for the spread of ideas.
Apparently whether the ideas are true or not, well that is for another thread.

nice thread max, oh and i wouldn't worry about getting into trouble, i have several hundred trolls at my disposal only an email away on a 24/7 ready set go or should i say on scramble alert readiness.

reply to post by Aim64C


I don't know much about that firm; although I have heard their ads on NPR. I don't know why,but I thought it was geared towards doctors, dentists, and lawyers who find themselves uncomfortably 'rated' by consumers who spread the word about their missteps.... I bet this research is of great interest to them.

I was of the impression that this kind of thing could be very appealing to the 'political campaign industry.'

Of course, you are right; it could also lead to any activist effort on line to become labelled as 'spam.' In some cases it could be legit, in others it might not. We'll see where this goes.. and hopefully it wont be used for new "legislation" to further protect and coddle those who deserve to be singled out and exposed if their claims, products, or services, are dishonest.

Originally posted by cerebralassassins
nice thread max, oh and i wouldn't worry about getting into trouble, i have several hundred trolls at my disposal only an email away on a 24/7 ready set go or should i say on scramble alert readiness.

I have to remember to stay on your good side.

If the chinese do this what's not to say that corporations and or intelligence agencies don't do the same? Paid disinfo agents are sounding more and more plausable.

This only exposes one of the many predatory economic tactics the Chinese employ globally to dominate economically at the global level.

If you have an American corporation, or are a US manufacturer and consider relocating to China, or do a lot of importing from them, or outsourcing to them... Guess what?

They will do this for you, free of charge...

Now, if you could only scratch the surface of the covert internet operations in China, and ultimately expose what they are up to, then we'd have something even more interesting to discuss here.

Originally posted by Fractured.Facade

Now, if you could only scratch the surface of the covert internet operations in China, and ultimately expose what they are up to, then we'd have something even more interesting to discuss here.

That, is a scary thought. I consider that we a re fortunate to still be able to even discuss these things... I wonder if this news will ever be disseminated in China?

Originally posted by Chewingonmushrooms
If the chinese do this what's not to say that corporations and or intelligence do the same? Paid disinfo agents are sounding more and more plausable.

plausible??

DUDE.



plausible lol, there are paid informants from like 20+ corporations and agencies on this site alone!!
people you probably recognize and respect with valid opinions too!!

don't suspect everyone though, treat all with respect, until you see a blatant paid opinion, then demolish it.

reply to post by Maxmars

I don't know much about that firm; although I have heard their ads on NPR. I don't know why,but I thought it was geared towards doctors, dentists, and lawyers who find themselves uncomfortably 'rated' by consumers who spread the word about their missteps.... I bet this research is of great interest to them.

I've always wondered about their process.... I have seen plenty of blatantly false and/or misleading posts on different forums, and in review sections. Some of them are due to the inexperience of users, and others do seem to be malicious in nature.

Which - understandably, it's unfair when you have a business and you have people out there making false claims about you. But on the other hand... it seems like a bit of a slippery slope to take hard measures against it. Legitimate criticisms and warnings can easily be flushed away with the rest.

That said - I wonder just how much of their "bread and butter" is defense against the 'water armies' described in your OP. Kind of like how the home market of Microsoft is peanuts compared to their real staple in the business and OEM sector.

I was of the impression that this kind of thing could be very appealing to the 'political campaign industry.'

That is true. There are already allegations (that I have not followed up on) that a fair number of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are being funded by a number of benefactors (though it also seems to be the case that instances of this are expanded and applied to a far larger percentage of the issue).

It's not unlike special-operations in the military. You send in trained operatives who then train indigenous populations willing to take action against the target.

I'm not sure if it will become too popular in political campaigns, however, because of the lack of voter turnout and the nearly perfectly polarized nature of American election systems (somehow - roughly 49% will vote for one candidate, and 49% another - with 2% being your floating population). The trick would be to get more people motivated to come and vote - and in greater numbers than those ideologically opposed (who tend to be similarly motivated by efforts to get one group or another out to vote).

Now, in other political climates that lack such polarization, it may be more effective and popular, but I kind of doubt it.

The biggest use of this I see is attempts to spoof Google's page results and in corporate sabotage (smear campaigns and the like).

Of course, you are right; it could also lead to any activist effort on line to become labelled as 'spam.' In some cases it could be legit, in others it might not. We'll see where this goes.. and hopefully it wont be used for new "legislation" to further protect and coddle those who deserve to be singled out and exposed if their claims, products, or services, are dishonest.

Eh, if we take the action necessary to bring our government under control, then we won't really need to worry about legislation to try and protect us against this. At least - not from our National government (the States can do whatever - that is between the state and its residents).

Originally posted by Maxmars


That, is a scary thought. I consider that we a re fortunate to still be able to even discuss these things... I wonder if this news will ever be disseminated in China?

Doubtful, but if it did the flood teams would spin it, and clean it all up.



China is far more concerned with the hearts and minds of the people in the western economies than they are with their own people at the moment.

If "influence", manipulation (subliminal and overt), and even psychological operations were commodities then China already dominates that market... In any other reality these would be considered acts of subversion at a minimum, and perhaps acts of war at the most.

The digital age has provided one of China's greatest strategic victories.


In my opinion, of course.

Originally posted by Chewingonmushrooms
If the chinese do this what's not to say that corporations and or intelligence agencies don't do the same? Paid disinfo agents are sounding more and more plausable.

I think it might explain how many silly conspiracy theories stay alive!!

I think this answers the question about paid disinfo agents posting on conspiracy forums...

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Those silly threads are called practice. Its good practice to pick a wierd untrue topic and then post away about how it is true and how much evidence supports it.

Originally posted by v1rtu0s0
I think this answers the question about paid disinfo agents posting on conspiracy forums...

for which side??

the US can turn them into a stovepipe network by pulling half a dozen cables