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Unethical Polarization

January 17, 2008

Unethical Polarization If you blog, have you ever posted comments to your own blog under a fake name? Have you ever posted comments to your own blog under someone else's real name?

What is polarization in blogging?
Polarization means getting people worked up, getting them to take sides, and getting them either angry or pleased to the point that they leave comments on your blog, and email people they know and tell them about your blog or product.

What is Unethical Polarization?
Polarization is great if it occurs naturally and organically based on your post, but is it ethical to create a post and then prime the polarization pump by leaving fake comments to your own post? What about using the names of people that you know are opposed to your opinion or tactics and leaving comments to your own post using their names?

What about if you take it a step farther and start leaving comments on other blogs that may mention your blog, or, that may mention the blog of someone you think has done your wrong and you leave a comment under a fake name, alias, or someone else's real name that has some association to the topic? In other words, you have a beef with John and you notice that Ralph posts something on his blog saying that John did something good or hey, read this post on John's blog. So you leave a nasty comment on Ralph's blog saying John is a jerk, and you use a fake name. Or, you happen to know that Sam is a real person who has left comments on one of the blogs and you don't necessarily like him either, so you leave a nasty comment on Ralph's blog using Sam's name.

What if you have an intern or employee leave the comments? Does that remove you from the unethical nature of it?

Sometimes, someone has an axe to grind and won't let it go until they bury it deep in someone's back.

What's my position on it?
It's not right and it's not ethical to do the things I've mentioned. Wake up folks, this stuff happens.

I talk a lot on this blog, as do a lot of other ethical bloggers on their respective blogs, about refraining from spending time in internet marketing forums. Mostly this is because of the fact that you're probably reading advice from people who are clueless. The same warning goes for some of the posts and comments that are made on popular blogs. I've never done the things I mention above, and I try to only approve comments that look legitimate. As bloggers, sometimes we can't catch all the stuff people do when leaving comments.

When you read anything someone has posted, you need to have the ability to discern between a post that contains helpful information and a post that's only purpose it to polarize people and generate traffic. You should also look out for posts or comments that have a darker purpose such as slamming someone, getting the last word in, or just being hateful.

It's sad that some successful bloggers and internet business operators feel the need to do things like this. As I said earlier, it's not right or ethical. In fact it's downright sad, especially when they claim to have high moralistic values.

Until next time,
Fred

About the Author

Fred Black is an experienced online business operator, programmer, web site developer, father, husband, musician, and songwriter. Visit his Internet Business Blog at: http://www.pqInternet.com.

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Posted by Fred on January 17, 2008 | Printer-Friendly

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Comments:

From: Ryan Healy

Interesting to hear you talk about this, Fred. I have a good eye for spotting fake comments. But I let some slide through this past fall on my old Typepad blog.

I just went back through them and identified five fake comments and unpublished them. I noticed that two of them used different names, but then had email addresses through the same domain, storeload.com, which seems to be a dummy web site.

Anyway, it is good to be aware of what others are doing, even if we don't participate in the activity ourselves.
Posted by Ryan Healy on January 17, 2008 2:48 PM
From: Stephen Dean

Wow, I never considered I might get fake comments. I'm assuming you see this fairly often? at least enough to warrant a post?
Posted by Stephen Dean on January 17, 2008 6:07 PM
From Fred...

Stephen:
No, I don't get that many on this blog, I've had a few though. Mostly this post is about seeing this behavior on other blogs: seeing comments on other blogs that were left to posts regarding a particular blogger or a particular event. These comments were obviously an attempt to "get even", "bad mouth" someone, or just spread false information. I emailed a few of the people who supposedly left these comments (they were other bloggers and I just happened to have their email) and they didn't write them. Other bloggers I've exchanged email with told me of occurrences just like this on their blogs.

Another name for it is bullying. If you've been doing it, then you'd know I'm talking about you. I'm not talking about Ryan or Stephen or any of the other bloggers in my Blog Roll. And no, I'm not going to name names!

As bloggers we always feel the pressure to approve any comment that someone leaves if it's not full of spam or profanity. It's easy to think that if we don't approve a comment we're being biased or unfair. I think we need to be a little more aggressive about not approving comments that fall into this kind of iffish category.

Ryan and Stephen:
Thanks for stopping by, come back often!

Fred
Posted by Fred Black on January 17, 2008 7:06 PM
From: Keith

Fred,

I'm with Stephen on this... I never thought about commenting under an assumed name. I have a hard enough time commenting under my own name. Let alone adding extra content under a fake name.

I agree with you about not feeling obligated to approve a comment. It is the responsibility of the blog owner to set the tone of the blog. I think the best way to do that is to control the comments.

Good post.
Posted by Keith on January 22, 2008 12:36 AM
From Fred...

Hello Keith...
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Yes, some people have more time on their hands that you would think!

Fred
Posted by Fred Black on January 22, 2008 8:06 AM
From: Alliewg

thats for sure, dude
Posted by Alliewg on March 24, 2008 9:45 PM