Redditor claims MS employees monitoring Reddit; making positive posts about the Xbox1
- Thread starter zakislam
- Start date
Yup and they get called out on it and you just see them repeat the same fud in different threads or even different website's. The schills are definitely here.
WeylandxYutani
Member
Not saying this isn't morally questionable but managing social media is part and parcel of every major business. I'm not surprised at all that this might be happening. I guess the question is how transparent a company is when they do it. Consumers stupid enough to be sucked in by this in isolation deserve everything they get
I'd also add
- you'll change your mind and buy the console anyway
- This is the future
ambientmystic
Member
Spot on, mate, spot on. You've just detailed a part of their S.O.P right there. Especially the Steam bit.
EVERY. SINGLE. THREAD.
The pre-emptive post is to bring up the Steam bit as misdirection so that posters then waste time arguing why it's not/it's like Steam, instead of rightfully lamblasting MS for the shit that led to the thread being written up in the first place.
Kudos to you, good sir. Have a cookie.
demosthenes
Member
Yes. Are you kidding?
shinra-bansho
Member
There's nothing illegal about astroturfing, nor are there any legal ramifications of their false statement.
GAF just had a purging of them, and they keep popping up. I have no doubt they're infesting reddit too.
demosthenes
Member
Reddit already singled some people out. Joined the day of and after the Xbox reveal that have 100+ posts of only positive xbox one things. They post nothing else but xbox one stuff.
it isn't even limited to major corporations, i remember the big shitstorm back when the terraria guy was accused of doing it. spamming his threads every few hours on 4chan with the same exact copy and paste posts to make it look like people were excited for the game. it worked wonders, dude made bank
All it takes are a couple dozen handles, posting frequently and consistently to make "it's just like Steam" sound reasonable to some people.
ThatGuy707
Member
Wow, so because some redittor says something on reddit we assume it is true? That must be why Windows 8 has such a good rep... Where were these people when Windows 8's rep was getting trashed?
Yes the xbox one has done a lot wrong. That doesn't mean this place needs to turn into Sonygaf. FYI Sony has been convicted multiple times for fake reviews/critics.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4741259.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1870618.stm
MS has never been convicted of this we just have some random person posting a story.
Yes the xbox one has done a lot wrong. That doesn't mean this place needs to turn into Sonygaf. FYI Sony has been convicted multiple times for fake reviews/critics.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4741259.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1870618.stm
MS has never been convicted of this we just have some random person posting a story.
Poetic.Injustice
Member
I don't know much about reddit but 50 people is like a drop in the pond when it comes to twitter, facebook and other social media sites. It's not that easy.
MS have been caught shilling before. This is not a witch hunt
CosmicGroinPull
Member
Elaugaufein
Member
Depending on how things are done you really don't need a lot. The turning point in opinion on social media is about 10%, assuming the majority of the group is fairly neutral. Its even less when there's down vote to invisibility systems that have low thresholds for hiding the post from the average user.
You don't think they've had people trying to turn Windows 8's reputation around too?
Just because they weren't successful doesn't mean marketing schemes like this don't exist.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
The biggest give away imo is if they don't have an avatar.
Elaugaufein
Member
And I was just thinking that I really should find an avatar because I was feeling bothered by that.
I think you're overestimating how much influence 50 employees would really have when it comes to such a large-scale PR disaster like the Xbox One.
Reddit's gaming section has a whopping 3,245,318 users alone (with each post getting hundreds of comments), they wouldn't really be able to accomplish much of anything there. And a forum like NeoGAF has 120,000 members with manual account approvals and strict moderation - any astroturfing would be caught pretty quickly here. And there's like a zillion other gaming sites and social networks out there too.
Microsoft is not going to be able to change public opinion of the Xbox One in any meaningful way. It'd be like Netflix hiring a reputation management firm to damage control the Qwikster fiasco, it wouldn't do any good at all.
you can control a lot of perception by attacking at the source - 4chan, reddit, neogaf, news sites. 50 people would be adequate for this. i don't even know how you'd go about socially influencing facebook and twitter, lol. i guess buying tweets from celebs?
i never said 50 employees would be able to control a large-scale disaster like Xbox One. i'm saying overall, that is probably the amount of people you need to have a noticeable shift in public opinion.
ThatGuy707
Member
Sure sounds like it. Everyone just assumes some random poster that recently made an account on reddit is telling the truth. No one even attempts to verify if it is true.
Next thing you know people will probably assume I am a MS employee because I "have no avatar...." and am a junior member even though I joined about a year ago. Because that makes so much sense...
Just sounds like it will be used as another way to further make sure this isn't a place for xbox users. Wynnebeck has got the idea! Just say stuff like: "HEY MIKEY I THINK WE GOT ONE!"
Whatever I am not going to argue against a whole mob. No one really cares if it is true or not.
Unknown Soldier
Member
They claimed the same thing during the runup to the Windows 8 launch. It was later proven they were in fact doing what they denied doing.
The Mighty Octopus
Neo Member
Cheap and childish tactic by MS but business is business. And you can't tell me they're the only company that does this. Though if anyone is dumb enough to be swayed to buy a product based on random internet comments without doing research then they deserve to be ripped off.
The problem is, there is nothing that we *know* about XBox One that is actually good as of right now. Everything we do know is based on features that are demonstrably anti-consumer. There is ZERO reason to be excited about those things, which is why it is highly suspect to see so many people defending it in the nature they are (eg "welcome to the future" or "fuck you Ive got mine").
IF microsoft had demonstrated some games, and those games were really interesting and made use of "the cloud" in a genuinely interesting way, then we could understand the enthusiasm.
At the moment, there is *nothing* to be genuinely excited about.
I guess you missed the smiley underneath.
Elaugaufein
Member
That's not fair. Everything PR-wise since the release announcement has been highly entertaining. Not in the way MS intended I'm sure but they've provided me with a lot of amusement. Admittedly in the laugh so I don't cry sense in some cases.
Let me clarify - the bad elements are genuinely disheartening. The good elements are completely untested and unfulfilled potential (ie the cloud).
Elaugaufein
Member
Yeah, can't argue that there's been nothing good about the console or their plans for it. Apart from maybe the controller, which does look nice.
GillianSeed79
Member
apologies. probably uncalled for.
Don't forget, "Sony is going to do the same thing!"
Vex
Banned
(Yesterday, 09:55 AM)
Oh Vex, you so crazy. Please do let us know (through one of your 50 alts) if you're ok.
This is a place for gamers.
That should be our foremost priority.
Too bad it isn't Microsoft's.
klapauzius
Banned
I dont think that Nintendo is doing such things, but Sony for sure. MS & Sony are really big companies. Nintendo is small by comparison.
NullPointer
Member
The Great Gaf Shillacking of 2013.
Bwuhahaha
IrishNinja
Member
i find the post histories rather enlightening
I think there may be also something like a negative-astrosurfing. There was a guy with a disqus account named SONY. Now his comment history seems to be deleted and only his last comment can be seen, but I swear I saw several posts from him in various websites all making mostly off-topic posts, making fun of Sony and its fans, and then ending with a pro-sony signature, getting several upvotes from unknowing Sony fans or maybe other astro-surfers?
Well, I can't prove that the mentioned disqus account did this systematically as his history seems to have been deleted, just maybe some of you saw him do it too.
Well, I can't prove that the mentioned disqus account did this systematically as his history seems to have been deleted, just maybe some of you saw him do it too.
sounds like concern trolling. framing yourself on one side of the argument via stuff that has no relation to the substance of your message like your name or avatar choice so that people who see your message think you're one of them, and then you say something to disrupt the reader. this stuff happens frequently, it is very effective.
WrenchNinja
Member
Look at GAF. We know for a fact that several new users have e-mails linked to firms that do this kind of thing. When there are many coincidences that come together like that, talking like a shill, saying that they have no problem, trying to downplay all of the criticism, negatively speaking of the competition - it all comes together to one conclusion.
You are angry that GAF is on a hunt and XBox fans are being persecuted, well guess what, this is the fault of shills. They poison the well and turn users against each other. I look at you, a junior member with very few posts posting about this and the thing that itches at the back of my mind is "Is this guy a shill? Is he trying to trick me into feeling bad for these people? Or is he just a normal guy who is getting the impression that GAF has it out for Microsoft fans?"
Do you understand?