WASHINGTON, D.C. Aug. 5 (DPI) – We’ve posted more than 180 articles on DPI.com since 2012 – many of them reviews of reader comments following news events – and one thing’s become clear: Comment boards linked to major news sites are increasingly populated by organized and sophisticated syndicates of posters trying to sway opinion.
“It wasn’t this bad just a few years ago,” says Stephen E. Clark, chairman of DPI. “Usually sites draw readers who agree with the publication’s points of view. Now we’re seeing more and more posts that simply parrot positions of large and powerful interests.”
Part of that development, Clark says, stems from the growing value of comment boards as a source of insight and public opinion. The NY Times this week, for instance, referred widely to its reader comment boards as it promoted the federal legalization of marijuana. Also, articles on income inequality – something of a drumbeat on nytimes.com — receive an avalanche of support from readers on comment boards, with dissent only rare and outlying.
But Clark says major global news events in recent months – the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the latest violence in Gaza and Israel, the ongoing global financial malaise — seem to have spurred armies of highly motivated posters to news sites. The July 17 report on the shoot-down of a Malaysian Airlines plane over occupied Ukraine received more than 1400 comments – a high number for a news story – and the latter posts often defended Russia and the pro-Russian separatists. The final post:
Why everybody is blaming Puting for this? The sky over Ukraine is controlled by Ukraine.
Also Ukrainian government have confirmed yesterday that “rebels” have no BUK1 missle system. So there is no way for them to shut down that plane flying 10km high!
Right now a lot of Ukraininan forces loose to rebels, so shutting down civil plane for Ukraininan govt is a good reason to pause combats and let Ukrainian forces survive.
It’s clear that Ukrainian gov-t has shot it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/world/europe/malaysian-airlines-plane-ukraine.html
Also, there is evidence that the Chinese government employs groups to post pro-government statements on Twitter, Facebook and on news comment boards to influence public opinion on its treatment of Tibet:
As long as reader posts remain anonymously sourced and largely untraceable, virtually all comments should be treated with some initial skepticism, Clark says.
The internet will always be home to easy masquerades and cheap frauds, but the