Flag as Fishy: Gawker Interns as Gawker Commenters

by Jordan Yerman | January 23, 2008 at 09:53 am

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What happens when your user-generated content is really just self-generated content? Allegations like this really hurt everyone in the Web Two Point Oh world, though in reality it's hard to paint everyone with the same brush. This sort of astroturfing is is like a rot in the foundation of what we're trying to do. Not unlike spam, really.

Yesterday cewebrity heartbreaker, CollegeHumor co-founder and Gawker darling Jakob Lodwick posted an IM chat with Gawker owner/editor Nick Denton which, if not actually a joke, exposes the true identity of many Gawker commenters.

Lodwick's blog posting (the wellspring of this story) contains only an excerpt of the chat.

So, the trick is: create the impression of relevance by pinging yourself. It’s like the old 4th grade trick of sending yourself a Valentine’s Day Card (ahem…not that I ever did that).

The concept of self-promotion through fake blog posts is nothing new, but it's still a nasty riptide menacing the lovely beaches of user-generated content.

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