So one example of a pattern that I saw worked like this:
Someone writes a comment being critical of NR.
Someone else posts a tweet calling the above names and linking to their comment.
Suddenly multiple NRs come out of the rafters to reply to #1.
I’d give you actual links but I can’t trick twitter into showing me tweets from months ago anymore, and they’ve probably been deleted anyway.
The MRAs and PUAs have been known to do the same thing.
I call this astroturfing because an unrelated bystander reading the comment thread interprets the multiple responses of #3 as coming from independent sources, when in reality they’re confounded by the call to arms in #2. I suppose Wikipedia calls it “meatpuppetry”, which amounts to the same thing, IMO.
So one example of a pattern that I saw worked like this:
Someone writes a comment being critical of NR.
Someone else posts a tweet calling the above names and linking to their comment.
Suddenly multiple NRs come out of the rafters to reply to #1.
I’d give you actual links but I can’t trick twitter into showing me tweets from months ago anymore, and they’ve probably been deleted anyway.
The MRAs and PUAs have been known to do the same thing.
I call this astroturfing because an unrelated bystander reading the comment thread interprets the multiple responses of #3 as coming from independent sources, when in reality they’re confounded by the call to arms in #2. I suppose Wikipedia calls it “meatpuppetry”, which amounts to the same thing, IMO.