Today, Cheng Chen at the University of Victoria in Canada and a few pals describe how Cheng worked undercover as a paid poster on Chinese websites to understand how the Internet Water Army works. He and his friends then used what he learnt to create software that can spot paid posters automatically. Paid posting is a well-managed activity involving thousands of individuals and tens of thousands of different online IDs. The posters are usually given a task to register on a website and then to start generating content in the form of posts, articles, links to websites and videos, even carrying out Q&A sessions.
Undercover Researchers Expose Chinese Internet Water Army - Technology Review
Funny, I just finished Jennifer Egan’s Goon Squad book where she outlines a whole paid-to-promote society, but it’s years in the future
