Slashdot Mirror
BP Hired Company To Troll Users Who Left Critical Comments
An anonymous reader sends this news from Al-Jazeera:
"BP has been accused of hiring internet 'trolls' to purposefully attack, harass, and sometimes threaten people who have been critical of how the oil giant has handled its disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil firm hired the international PR company Ogilvy & Mather to run the BP America Facebook page during the oil disaster, which released at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf in what is to date the single largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. The page was meant to encourage interaction with BP, but when people posted comments that were critical of how BP was handling the crisis, they were often attacked, bullied, and sometimes directly threatened. ... BP's 'astroturfing' efforts and use of 'trolls' have been reported as pursuing users' personal information, then tracking and posting IP addresses of users, contacting their employers, threatening to contact family members, and using photos of critics' family members to create false Facebook profiles, and even threatening to affect the potential outcome of individual compensation claims against BP."
Where do i get a gig like this?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They should have hired Dice.com. I hear they have great information on technology and technology jobs. A++++. Would use their site again.
So do they apply for the job? I wonder if they have to list references or if being a frequent poster of reddit's /r/atheism or 4chan is enough.
They should have spent it on coming up with more ways of saying "We're sorry".
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"the single largest environmental disaster in U.S. history."
The oil spill did not happen in the United States. It happened in International Waters under the supervision of a British petroleum company.
If they were only trolling posters on the Facebook page, how would they figure out their IP addresses? Impossible unless they hacked into Facebook.
"Reputation managers" (Aka professional lairs) are everywhere. You'll see a lot of them here on slashdot. Remember all those copy-pasted shill posts apologizing for windows 8? That was a riot. Those key phrases and talking points stick out like a sore thumb.
Or do the oil companies pay extra?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Who's up for taking down their servers, grabbing credit card numbers and ruining their image?
No matter how much logic you use, no matter how many facts you present, groupthink will fuck you eventually. Pay or no pay.
That's the reason I just come here to troll anymore. Fuck Slashdot and fuck Islam.
How dare you even IMPLY such a thing?
And the last check hasn't yet cleared! I'm doomed, doomed I say!
I thought having the NSA on my butt was bad enough, now I'm going to have a zillion Slashdotters hounding me too.
Bloody Hell...
An anonymous source working for Anonymous claims the group is not worried as the emerging trolls are "newfags [who] can't triforce". Some experts, however, are not as confident on the group's ability to adapt to the increasingly competitive trolling market. Anonymous has yet to comment on the matter.
Betteridge's law
I just want to say that, though I often attack, bully, and sometimes insult people on this very forum, I'm not a paid shill.
It's more of a "calling".
(Wait... what? I can also get *paid*?)
Well, sort of. It pays to be paranoid.
Wouldn't you be surprised if many companies did not do it? Large companies? Politicians? Governments?
How many comments on Slashdot are astroturf?
"Troll" and "astroturf" don't even begin to describe that. A far more apt label would be "mercenary".
The article doesn't claim that BP did this, as the title in /. states, but rather mentions that BP has been accused of doing so to the Government Accountability Project. If the claim were true it doesn't seem to be a "smart" strategy for BP and somewhat flies in the face of their advertisement campaign and the amount of money they agreed to pay out. They might be stupid enough to cause a gigantic environmental disaster but are they stupid enough to be behind this?
Pis Yedili 90. Bölüm TEK PARÇA FULL izle - 20 KASIM 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urctPmLJo0M
"the single largest environmental disaster in U.S. history."
The oil spill did not happen in the United States. It happened in International Waters under the supervision of a British petroleum company.
Really dude? Is this important?
Is there some official administrative "stamp" of accuracy for environmental disasters? Is there some "office of deflecting bad opinion" that is responsible for keeping people accurate?
This sounds *exactly* like something a paid troll would say. "Ya know, Vietnam wasn't really a war" and such-like.
Your statement only serves to defuse public outrage. It helps those responsible avoid and minimize any sense of responsibility to the public. We should be holding their feet to the fire, not looking for ways to find the situation acceptable.
And to be more clearly on point, the drilling was overseen by the Minerals Management Service, a federal agency responsible for the safety protocols of the drilling at the time, and whose failure allowed the accident to happen. It was very much a US disaster.
NSA is dumb like that
Point out on any Internet forum that pro-Obama, pro-Israel, pro-BBC, pro-Monsanto, etc posts are managed by armies of well organised, frequently well paid shills, and you'll get the usual catch all nonsense about tin-foil hat wearing 'conspiracy theorists'.
The funny thing is this. It is a matter of public record that each of the above mentioned entities, and others like them, engage in organised shilling/trolling of public forums. Obama, Israel, Monsanto and the BBC set aside massive budgets for covert 'PR' operations, and by 'covert' I mean that the posts themselves DENY an association with the entities paying to have the posts made on their behalf.
These operations rely on the sheeple having the memory of a goldfish, and a complete inability to research published descriptions of the campaigns themselves. It is like how 'Operation Northwoods' exists as a factual document describing in detail how the US government would carry out a 9/11 style false-flag, with the ABSOLUTE assumption that every major press organisation operating in the West in the 1960s (including the BBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT etc) would have gone along with the lies, and declared ANYONE who disputed the OFFICIAL LIES about Cuban terrorism as an idiotic conspiracy nutcase. And yet, decades later, the self-same form of false flag operation was carried out, as per the requirement in the PNAC document, and yet at least 30% of the sheeple were STILL prepared to believe the official lies published in the mainstream media.
The strategy of attacking posters who provide the truth in their comments is a common pattern with these paid shills. You see, for instance, that the vile depraved racist regimes in Israel are NOT concerned with getting their lies to the sheeple- they really want to EXTERMINATE any other opinion. You see the actions of Israel at their very worst over on Wikipedia, where every article that relates to zionism or the goals of zionists in any way is re-written to be pro-zionist/pro-Israel/anti-Muslim, and Israel pays to ensure its cabal of editors have the highest editing privileges at Wikipedia, with the full cooperation of its owner/creator, Wales.
The owners of Slashdot do their part, of course, with their encouragement of pro-zionist troll posters as far as possible without destroying (entirely) the credibility of this site.
Human History enters its darkest times when those in power are allowed to act purely to accumulate even greater power. In these times, even the abuse of power itself becomes a 'war game', where those in power seek the total elimination of any that seek to expose them, or slow them, or rally the public against them.
For instance, the zionist terrorist State of Israel is awash with Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and yet not one sanction is applied to the racist atrocities that rule Israel (for this reason) by any nation of the West. At the same time, nations of the West apply the most sickening sanctions against Iran for the 'crime' of having a civilian nuclear power program. The rulers of the West declare their nations to be 'NON-RACIST', and yet in this regard, every sheeple can see the racist treatment of Iran vs Israel. Israel has a vile history of using first world weapons against third world civilians. Iran has no recent history of attacking its neighbours, on the other hand.
In any rational, non-evil world, it would be the mass murdering monsters of Israel subject to the strongest sanctions imaginable. But Israel ensures its people and supporters control the mainstream media of the West, and troll every public forum. So the message the sheeple hear day after day is 'Israel good' and 'Iran bad'. This is why the form of PR abuse described in the article occurs- because Israel proves (and has proven over the last 70+ years) that it works.
Wouldn't it be amusing if this article was from a competing astroturfing company?
Burning karma in hopes that a 6 year old, moderately active account will dispel accusations of "shill":
I'm most certainly no friend of BP's, but the evidence presented in the story really is not that compelling. People on the internet are huge dicks even without being paid to do it, and some people have a lot of time on their hands. Maybe some of them are family of BP workers, or grunt paper shufflers in the company, or just assholes, but none of the evidence seems worthy of this headline.
Intriguing, worth looking into? Sure. But if your headline is "BP did this" instead of "BP accused of this", you need a hell of a lot better documentation.
Alarmism helps no one.
Look at some of the comments on some reviews - like "Mindsight". Some of the comments are hostile, you think the reviewer said something bad about the commenter's mother! "The One Thing" is another.
I just thought it was an unusual number of trolls.
Now I find out they were PAID trolls.
Funny part: I used to own shares in BP/PLC.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
- Using Facebook
- Using your real name on Facebook
- Using your real name anywhere on the Internet
- Posting personal information and pictures of yourself and family on the Internet
You get what you deserve.
Pedantic but this is not the definition of a troll at all. Steven King would be trolling in his grave if he'd heard this.
Summary: BP accused of hiring
Headline: BP hired
Posting as Anonymous Coward provides the level of security and privacy needed in these delicate matters.
BTW, my posting IP is 127.0.0.1...
Who was it again? Was it Google who does those types of things so well? Or I know, it was Ogilvy and Co, but they farmed it out to Google, I bet. Google will do ANYTHINKG for money and control. They are worse than MSFT ever was and worse than Apple, IBM, etc.
Ogilvy & Mather is well respect advertising firm with hundreds of offices and part of WPP, an even larger firm. No way are they "internet trolls". Running a webpage for BP, sure. Doing quasi-illegal stuff, they could get caught for and likely aren't being much paid for.... I really really doubt it.
Every windows 8 media article, commenter seem to love windows 8.
Go down to the Gulf coast and say that to the faces of the Gulf fisherman who the spill effected, or the residents whose beaches were contaminated. I'm sure they'd agree with you most politely!
Wow. Slashdot has turned into the website of fools. There isn't a SINGLE proven case of this and coming from the spaced out ALJAZEERA, what a joke.
I guess it's another pig story.
I'm on 3 other forums pretty regularly and it's obvious that people get paid to troll. There was bunch of people trolling the Yahoo Games chats during the elections; including a guy who seemed to be there 24-7, spouting political stuff and even with a trolling political name. There are people who do nothing but get on and dump articles and quotes from partisan websites and radio hosts.
What sealed it for me was during one of the 2012 conventions, ALL of the trolling stopped and JUST for the days of the convention.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The US government should have seized all of their American assets and forced them into bankruptcy.
No company deserves to survive a screw-up of this magnitude.
Where do i get a gig like this?
Why work for BP when you can work for NSA ?
Why don't you give our resident NSA astroturfer, Mr. Cold Fjord, a call ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Just trolling and threatening? It could have been much worse.
"largest environmental disaster in U.S. history" The Lakeview Gusher spill was larger in terms of tons of oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakeview_Gusher
I think the author meant "most expensive environmental disaster".
Al Jazeera is one of the most credible news sources around, and yes you prove Slashdot has plenty of fools.
And buy their gas. And CNN and the like will not rock the boat. It is a world where you can now do any bad thing you want and no one will really care. I just cant believe a society run in this manner will end well.
Fox News got caught doing the same thing.
Time makes more converts than reason
Seriously, what the fuck will it take to get a high-level executive of one of these companies to see the inside of a jail cell for an extended period of time?
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
I seriously doubt if BP or Ogilvy & Mather (18,000 employees) would do something this stupid. While Al Jazeera is as fair and balanced as Fox News, they could have some conflict of interest with BP.
I have a suggestion...
Why is Snark Required?
Yo, dumbshit! go spam a forum in your own asstarded language, nobody wants to see your crap here!
The Slashdot article tries to claim it's proven, but if you look at the actual article, the headline reads "Is BP 'trolling' its Facebook critics?"
The usual reason for Betteridge's Law applies: the newspaper wants to suggest a sensationalistic possibility, but it knows it doesn't have any proof so it phrases it as a question instead of a statement. If there really was convincing evidence, the newspaper would not need to write the headline as a question.
Worst environmental disaster in US history? Not remotely.
The Dust Bowl takes the prize with no legitimate contenders.
In the Gulf of Mexico, the massive dead zone from fertilizer runoff from the Mississippi river has caused way more devastation than the BP oil spill.
Among offshore oil spills, the Exxon Valdez killed orders of magnitude more animal deaths and environmental damage. In the Gulf of Mexico, the Ixtoc I spill was far more damaging (being much closer to shore).
Among all oil spills, the Lakeview Gusher in 1910 was the largest by far.
Why can't people ever write about a on-going or recent oil spill without claiming that it is the worst ever?
Seriously?? Did no one notice that this piece originated with al-Jazeera, that bastion of truthfulness?
http://webutation.com/
.
This links you to a site which helps businesses deal with blogs such as http://www.ripoffreport.com/
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Yeah, and the same goes for you yoo!
Here in slashdot every time Microsoft is bashed or we talk about Windows Phones, either we are modded down or people say that piece of turd that is Windows mobile is better than iPad. So it is not only BP that hires trolls.
released the oil? hmm, how about going back to school for a little grammar education?
Yeah, when it's a foreighn company, it's evil. Exxon? Not so much.
The war of independence was won by the French. You were losing big time. France saved you and gave you that big statue. Your thanks? "Cheese eating surrender monkeys!" when they don't support your Prez in his attempt to beat up someone who insulted his dad.
"during the oil disaster, which released at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf "
So the disaster itself is a 'thing' that 'releases' oil? How stupid.
It SHOULD read: "during the oil disaster, in which at least 4.9 million barrels of oil were released..." (or "during which")
BP a British Punk
Supplying the world with energy in the form of fossil fuels requires a bit of tenacity. But, when a company goes full tilt, mean spirited, you are bound to get harsh reaction.
These were a tough lot to work for in the days when BP actually owned majority of Alaska oil output at Valdez, Ak and the US government stepped in to grab the company by the balls and take back the majority share to a US corporation, Alyeska.
Ah you've discovered an irrelevant pedant troll. Though common, it's one of my favourites.
Nice reply. It's going into my "quotes" file - thanks!
that teabaggers will troll for free.
I'm sure Greenpeace, The Sierra Club, and the World Wildlife Fund doesn't have any of its employees posting comments on forums. *sarcasm*
If you know what I mean. ;-)
I told 'im we already got one!