Million Dollar Crowdturfing Industry Dupes Social Networks

New submitter bowlinearl writes "Three weeks ago Slashdot featured a story on the Chinese Water Army. A new study from researchers at UCSB delves even deeper into the problem of crowdturfing (full disclosure: I am one of the authors of the study). The study reveals that evil crowdsourcing services in China are a multi-million dollar industry, and that the number of jobs and the amount of money are growing exponentially. Hundreds of thousands of workers are involved, including a small contingent of career crowdturfers who each manage hundreds of accounts on social networks. The researchers observed the behavior of workers and the unwitting users who click on the generated spam by infiltrating the two largest crowdsourcing sites in China. However, crowdturfing isn't confined to China: the researchers discovered crowdsourcing sites in the U.S. that are 95% astroturf, as opposed to Amazon's Mechanical Turk, which actively polices itself, and is only 12% astroturf."

Comments

Still not a problem....

[RobinEggs]

I still don't understand where the problem comes in.

I know when I buy a product I don't just say "Oooh, 4.76 stars! Gimme that one!". I read every damn review I can get: I read amazon, newegg, hardocp, etc. I make a point of reading both the stellar and the abysmal reviews; of reading both user and professional reviews. I just don't see myself falling to fakes. How is some harried Chinese shill, paid by the word or by the post, going to poison my impression of the product when there are still people writing the sort of real, detailed reviews that clearly took both time and a genuine user experience to write?

It's not that I think spam reviews will all be obviously vapid or riddled with 'Engrish' straight out of some pseudo-racist 70's action film; I just don't think that even a careful, literate fake can bullshit an authentic experience in a convincing and time-efficient manner.

And I know I'm supposed to be proud of my extraordinary time investment in researching products and my technical acumen versus the typical consumer; I know I'm supposed to think of the 'average' user as some knuckle dragging moron or arthritic grandma who would easily be fooled, Still, outside the deluded minds of preening digerati the average person isn't really too bad. I think they'll spot total bullshit almost as easily as I could.

Re:Still not a problem....

[wanzeo]

I actually enjoy reading product reviews, it satisfies that urge to consume, while at the same time keeping the products that I buy useful and at the best possible price.

For example, I recently needed a coffee maker, I spent months reading anything I could get my hands on about coffee makers. By the time I actually bought one, many of the earlier reviews I had read were for products not even on the market anymore. But the result is that I now know a lot about coffee makers, and I am very happy about the one I bought.

Now I don't expect everyone to be such an scrupulous shopper, but I wouldn't go so far as to call people like me less than sane just because we refuse to buy the first shiny thing that floats into our vision.

Re:Evil crowdturfing services?

[Torvac]

misleading/unethical. not really evil.
how is spreading lies in this way different from spreading lies in ads on TV ?

Re:Evil crowdturfing services?

[Diss Champ]

For some reason I have gotten a lot of mod points these last few weeks, after a very long dry period. The system appears to be modal- either it wants to give you a lot or none. My karma has been excellent for a long time, so it's not a (visible) karma change.