Ask Slashdot: My Company Wants Me To Astroturf, Should I?

An anonymous reader writes "Posting as AC for obvious reasons. The company I work for put an app in an app store. The marketing people think it isn't selling very well, so they sent out an email asking people to get on all their social media sites and friend or like the app to build up traffic. The thing is, most of the employees have not used the app, but we are being asked to say that we like it. We just saw stories about companies not being allowed to ask employees or interview candidates for access to social sites, but what does it mean when a company asks employees to astroturf? Will the marketing or HR people look at who has astroturfed, and who has not at raise time? How would you deal with this?"

Comments

Meh.. just tell your friends and move on with it.

[The Living Fractal]

Celebs do it all the time on public TV. (promote products they probably don't use let alone like).

Tell your friends you're astroturfing outside of the social networking sites and move on with your life.