The fact is there are shills everywhere. It's hard to prove them in all cases. But it is a "big" and important industry for companies to anonymously and without accountability do damage control. There have been articles and AMA's etc. from people who had worked for these firms and it's really disgusting.
So it's not people with tin foil hats speculating that shills might exist - we know shills exist and are pervasive. Given that, we should have a certain non zero belief that any given poster is a shill. Not sure what is the best way to proceed when you know for sure that there are spies around you all the time. That's a bigger discussion. But jumping on people as if we should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there's a shill is really counter productive and helping "them" win.
There is? What about all those lengthy "first posts" published in the same minute as the story, which are curiously always advocating the same companies against others?
Though, I'm still not sure if it's shilling or subtle trolling.
It is quite difficult because indeed everyone has a profit motive to shill. The only way I could get a good read on anything was by experimenting with the tech.
It's is amazing how many psychopathic corporate shills you'll find astro-turfing all over the place. It's disturbing too how much they are able to influence the discussion.
Thanks for not accusing them of being a shill, but the problem with this sort of wariness is that you can’t make certain arguments, or even ask certain questions, without people thinking you might be a shill.
You can’t figure out what’s really going on in the world by making meta-arguments about who benefits. Meta-arguments aren’t evidence.
(It is true, though, that in a forum where we don’t know each other, there is a lack of trust for good reasons. Which is why it’s good to post links to more trustworthy sources.)
Shills exist, but not everyone in the universe other than you is a shill. This produces a difficulty in people's minds because people think in absolutes. They prefer to either ignore the existence of shills, or choose to believe that everyone who disagrees with them is a shill. The truth is somewhere inbetween, but it takes work to thinks things through on an individual level.
They can also hire people to shill in every major forum, so there’s a huge uphill battle just to avoid getting drowned out.
reply