Fox News, the conservative answer to The Daily Show but with more jokes, employed a legion of online commenters to defend the network from criticism in the vein of the Chinese government's very own 50 Cent Party.
In his new book, Murdoch's World: The Last of the Old Media Empires, NPR media reporter David Folkenflik claims that the Fox News public relations team used a series of dummy 'sock-puppet' accounts to post pro-Fox arguments on blogs critical of the network, including Gawker and TV Newser:
On the blogs, the fight was particularly fierce. Fox PR staffers were expected to counter not just negative and even neutral blog postings but the anti-Fox comments beneath them. One former staffer recalled using twenty different aliases to post pro-Fox rants. Another had one hundred. Several employees had to acquire a cell phone thumb drive to provide a wireless broadband connection that could not be traced back to a Fox News or News Corp account. Another used an AOL dial-up connection, even in the age of widespread broadband access, on the rationale it would be harder to pinpoint its origins. Old laptops were distributed for these cyber operations. Even blogs with minor followings were reviewed to ensure no claim went unchecked. [Murdoch's World, pg. 67]
If this sounds familiar, its because China has been using similar methods for years. The so-called '50 Cent Party' (网络评论员, wǎngluò pínglùn yuán) are paid by national and provincial propaganda departments and government ministries to post pro-Communist Party comments online and "attempt to shape and sway public opinion".
[Image via Flickr]
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