Search results for "crowdturfing"
showing 2 items of 2 documents
Unethical but not illegal: Uncovering the persuasive messages leveraged by providers of the “real” online social impressions
2018
Due to the drastically elevated prominence of social networking sites (SNS), online social impressions such as views, comments, followers, subscribers, likes, and dislikes have become a valuable currency that translates to popularity, credibility, and even financial gains. Aside from machine-generated impressions, a growing industry known as crowdturfing utilizes human workers to provide “real” social impressions as-a-service. Although crowdturfing platforms are often seen as a clear example of deceptive conduct, they justify their business by leveraging well-crafted persuasive strategies and ethical appeals. Given the increasingly significant role of online impressions on shaping people’s …
Understanding Crowdturfing : The Different Ethical Logics Behind the Clandestine Industry of Deception
2017
Crowdturfing, the dark side and usually unnoticed face of crowdsourcing, represents a form of cyber-deception in which workers are paid to express a false digital impression. While such behavior may not be punishable under the jurisdiction of formal law, its consequences are destructive to the cohesion and trustworthiness of online information. The conceptual work at hand examines the current literature on the topic, and lays the foundation for a theoretical framework that explains crowdturfing behavior. We discuss crowdturfing through three ethical normative approaches: traditional philosophical ethics, business ethics, and codified rules. We apply these lenses to an illustrative example o…