Sock Puppets
I love this article in the NY Times about execs (and companies) trying to manipulate public opinion by posting "anonymously" to Internet message boards.
"[Whole foods CEO] John Mackey, used the online handle “Rahodeb” (an anagram of his wife’s name, Deborah). In one Internet posting sure to enter the annals of chief-executive vanity, Mr. Mackey wrote as Rahodeb, “I like Mackey’s haircut. I think he looks cute!”
Yes, uh, welcome to the Internets.
Employees. public relations officials and investors all pretending that they're objective readers or forum participants just out for an Internet stroll. Mackey is not unique. He's just one of the first ones I've seen get caught.
There's an entire universe of people on most message boards pretending to be Joe Public whose primary goal is to spin reality their direction. Some are part of sophisticated guerrilla marketing campaigns, some are part of lobbying machines, some are think tankers, and some, like Mackey, apparently just do damage control drive bys over tea.
I'm not sure what the fuck Mackey was thinking, since the smart CEOs hire people to do that kind of thing for them.
If I pen a critical piece on a major broadband provider that veers too far from the accepted press release reality, I can be fairly sure my mom will be called names within 24 hours by a coordinated assault of company employees and think tankers that appear to readers to be objective everyday users.
All of these folks are playing an endless game of digital tug of war with truth.
I think a law was passed sometime in the late 90's that stated truth was no longer fixed; that it could be shifted from its once-solid foundation if you penned a convincing enough diatribe. Once fixed truth was abolished, there was no longer any winning of arguments on-line. Now you see, nobody is ever wrong on the Internet; they just didn't try hard enough.
One thing the article doesn't go much into is the fact that entire organizations are created to act as sock puppets tasked with corporate damage control or disinformation. It's a huge story when one CEO says dumb shit while pretending to be someone else. Yet somehow more sophisticated & coordinated disinformation attempts never quite get the same press.....