BP Hired Company To Troll Users Who Left Critical Comments 263
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."
Dream job (Score:5, Funny)
Where do i get a gig like this?
Dice.com rocks! (Score:5, Funny)
They should have hired Dice.com. I hear they have great information on technology and technology jobs. A++++. Would use their site again.
Re: Dream job (Score:5, Funny)
Were they paid the same as conservative trolls? (Score:3, Funny)
Or do the oil companies pay extra?
Re:Did not happen in the US (Score:5, Funny)
How much did you get paid to make this post?!?
4CHN stock plummets (Score:2, Funny)
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.
I just want to say... (Score:5, Funny)
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 [xkcd.com]".
(Wait... what? I can also get *paid*?)
Re:Did not happen in the US (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dream job (Score:2, Funny)
Where do i get a gig like this?
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!
It would have been worse if he smelt of smelt!
Apologies to Monty Python...
Re: Dream job (Score:5, Funny)
The other competitor which shall not be named has a better method of "public image management." It's simple: with each of their devices they sell, it comes equipped with a state-of-the-art RDF [wikipedia.org] generator that turns the purchasers into fully obedient drones who will take to the internet forums and defend the company themselves! Since these drones are now merely subservient beings to the corporate will, they don't need to be paid; in fact, the effects of RDF ensure that they will throw themselves at the stores the next time the company delivers a new product, even for the most incremental and mundane updates! The shills will pay you!
Re:A waste of time (Score:5, Funny)
They should have spent it on coming up with more ways of saying "We're sorry".
Being a multi-billion dollar megacorp means never having to say you're sorry.
Re:They don't stay on facebook. (Score:0, Funny)
Just wait until the usual slashdot crowd realizes how many ACs are upmodded in this thread compared to the shills upvoting themselves with dummy accounts in every other, drowning out worthwhile signals in a sea of noise.
Oh, and although it is somewhat childish, let me say this:
inb4 AC bashing
You don't really think the surveillance state would not decry anonymity at every turn do you?
Re:Dream job (Score:5, Funny)
My favorite was Oprah's troll:
"I just LOVE my new Microsoft Surface!!! I'm bought 12 for Christmas!!!
"-- posted from my iPad"
If you're on the top of the trolling heap . . . you can afford to pay assistants to troll for you . . .
Re: Dream job (Score:5, Funny)
The other competitor which shall not be named has a better method of "public image management." It's simple: with each of their devices they sell, it comes equipped with a state-of-the-art RDF [wikipedia.org] generator that turns the purchasers into fully obedient drones who will take to the internet forums and defend the company themselves! Since these drones are now merely subservient beings to the corporate will, they don't need to be paid; in fact, the effects of RDF ensure that they will throw themselves at the stores the next time the company delivers a new product, even for the most incremental and mundane updates! The shills will pay you!
This, Samsung, BP, et al. have to pay someone to troll their competitors... Apple gets chumps to do it for free.
Re: Dream job (Score:2, Funny)
Nice try, BP troll.