This article in the Boston Globe reinforces the well-understood value of blogs in political campaigns - and how they can easily become tools for deception. The fact that an opponent's campaign organization will post negative entries to hurt a political candidate should come as no surprise. The election process can be cutthroat experience. But so can the marketing of technology products and services, with competitors willing to do (almost) anything to increase market share. Sock puppets, shills, and trolls inhabit the tech PR arena as well.
"Meat puppets" is another evocative term for social media fakery. A marketer may set up an account on a popular networking site, based on a made-up identity complete with back story and photos, and use it to promote a product or service, gain support for a cause, or hurt a competitor. It's also a way to gather thousands of email addresses for later use.
Of course, the use of aliases to promote something has been around long before the Internet Age. Not surprisingly, an early example comes from Hollywood, where everyone plays someone else. A Washington Post article on the topic recalls that the young James Cagney wrote fan letters to his studio under different aliases.
As Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism says, "Public relations agents are attracted to the blogosphere because Web comments can fly under the radar and have no fingerprints attached to them." Our job as PR professionals is to remain vigilant and advise clients both to avoid the urge to anonymously slam a competitor through social media outlets, as well as how to defend their own brands if it's done to them. The two-edged sword of social media can inflict serious wounds when posts are revealed as misrepresentations. In Europe concern about their pervasiveness has led to a ban beginning in 2008. (How they intend to accomplish that remains to be seen.) The good news from an integrity standpoint is that such outlets can also be effective at self-policing.