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comment by dublinben
dublinben  ·  3113 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I created a fake business and bought it an amazing online reputation

This article isn't very insightful. His entire strategy merely relied on using cheap contractors. Anyone could do the same in five minutes.

Web reputation is built entirely on inexpensive (time to write) consumer testimonials. You can easily spend your own cash to generate fake testimonials and build your reputation.





thx1138  ·  3113 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Not insightful because you already knew how this fake review/like economy works? It was information I hadn't been exposed to before so I felt it was educational. The author is female, BTW.

dublinben  ·  3113 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's not something I've seriously investigated before, but I'm aware of the fact that you can buy fake Twitter followers and reviews. I would have appreciated more of a payoff from an investigative article into this subject, than just 'a few dupes called to hire me' and some short interviews with the fraudsters she hired. It's a fascinating topic, and I think it's ripe for deeper research. I did also share the story, as I thought it might be interesting to others who have never considered this issue before.

Here's an interesting video related to fake likes on Facebook: