Pay for Comments – Confessions of a Paid Disinformation Internet Shill
3rd October 2012By ExShill -Reposted from ATS Forums
Note from WuW:
Government trolls. Disinformation shills. Call them what you want, they are real.
Every
day at WuW, we see “comments” submitted on our articles that are
blatantly composed by trolls. Lengthy, well written comments designed to
steer the conversation in a pro-government, pro-status quo direction.
They pose as readers and first-time commenters, but post essay length
commentary quoting “expert” government research on a range of topics,
question those who question the government line, and urge us to believe
in the path chosen for us by our trusted leaders. If we believe them,
everything is and has always been ok. No further questions need to be
asked. Those who do are paranoid.
Site
moderation is something we take very seriously at WuW. We offer a
platform for different voices and opinions to be expressed, and it is
therefore quite rare that we suppress a reader’s comment from being
posted on the site. But we’re not stupid, and we won’t let our site be
undermined. We know government trolls and paid disinformation shills are
real, and we can pick their work a mile away. It has a certain…
quality. And they prove us right! The troll comments we supress are
often re-submitted, again and again, word for word, from a variety of
reader aliases and email addresses.
Like I said… we’re not stupid.
This
is the story of a man who, due to economically hard times, accepted a
job as an internet disinformation shill. After only 6 months, he
resigned. He was no longer was able to look himself in the mirror.
…..I am writing here (ATS Forum)
to come out of the closet as a paid shill. For a little over six
months, I was paid to spread disinformation and argue political points
on the Internet. ATS was NOT one that I was assigned to post on,
although other people in the same organization were paid to be here, and
I assume they still walk among you. But more on this later.
I
quit this job in the latter part of 2011, because I became disgusted
with it, and with myself. I realized I couldn’t look myself in the
mirror anymore. If this confession triggers some kind of retribution
against me, so be it. Part of being a real man in this world is having
real values that you stand up for, no matter what the consequences.
My
story begins in early 2011. I had been out of work for almost a year
after losing my last job in tech support. Increasingly desperate and
despondent, I jumped at the chance when a former co-worker called me up
and said she had a possible lead for me. “It is an unusual job, and one
that requires secrecy. But the pay is good. And I know you are a good
writer, so its something you are suited for.” (Writing has always been a
hobby for me). She gave me only a phone-number and an address, in one
of the seedier parts of San Francisco, where I live. intrigued, I asked
her for the company’s URL and some more info. She laughed. “They don’t
have a website. Or even a name. You’ll see. Just tell them I referred
you.” Yes, it sounded suspicious, but long-term joblessness breeds
desperation, and desperation has a funny way of overlooking the
suspicious when it comes to putting food on the table.
The
next day, I arrived at the address – the third floor in a crumbling
building. The appearance of the place did not inspire confidence. After
walking down a long, filthy linoleum-covered corridor lit by
dimly-flickering halogen, I came to the entrance of the office itself: a
crudely battered metal door with a sign that said “United Amalgamated
Industries, Inc.” I later learned that this “company” changed its name
almost monthly, always using bland names like that which gave no strong
impression of what the company actually does. Not too hopeful, I went
inside. The interior was equally shabby. There were a few long tables
with folding chairs, at which about a dozen people were tapping away on
old, beat-up computers. There were no decorations or ornaments of any
type: not even the standard-issue office fica trees or plastic ferns.
What a dump. Well, beggars can’t be choosers.
The
manager, a balding man in his late forties, rose from the only
stand-alone desk in the room and came forward with an easy smile. “You
must be Chris. Yvette [my ex-co-worker] told me you’d be coming.” [Not
our real names]. “Welcome. Let me tell you a little about what we do.”
No interview, nothing. I later learned they took people based solely on
referral, and that the people making the referrals, like my ex-colleague
Yvette, were trained to pick out candidates based on several factors
including ability to keep one’s mouth shut, basic writing skills, and
desperation for work.
We sat down at
his desk and he began by asking me a few questions about myself and my
background, including my political views (which were basically
non-existent). Then he began to explain the job. “We work on influencing
people’s opinions here,” is how he described it. The company’s clients
paid them to post on Internet message boards and popular chartrooms, as
well as in gaming forums and social networks like Facebook and MySpace.
Who were these clients? “Oh, various people,” he said vaguely.
“Sometimes private companies, sometimes political groups.” Satisfied
that my political views were not strong, he said I would be assigned to
political work. “The best people for this type of job are people like
you, without strong views,” he said with a laugh. “It might seem
counterintuitive, but actually we’ve found that to be the case.” Well,
OK. Fine. As long as it comes with a steady paycheck, I’d believe
whatever they wanted me to believe, as the guy in Ghostbusters said.
After
discussing pay (which was much better than I’d hoped) and a few other
details, he then went over the need for absolute privacy and secrecy.
“You can’t tell anyone what we do here. Not your wife, not your dog.” (I
have neither, as it happens.) “We’ll give you a cover story and even a
phone number and a fake website you can use. You will have to tell
people you are a consultant. Since your background is in tech support,
that will be your cover job. Is this going to be a problem for you?” I
assured him it would not. “Well, OK. Shall we get started?”
“Right now?” I asked, a bit taken aback.
“No time like the present!” he said with a hearty laugh.
The
rest of the day was taken up with training. Another staff member, a
no-nonsense woman in her thirties, was to be my trainer, and training
would only last two days. “You seem like a bright guy, you’ll get the
hang of it pretty fast, I think,” she said. And indeed, the job was
easier than I’d imagined. My task was simple: I would be assigned to
four different websites, with the goal of entering certain discussions
and promoting a certain view. I learned later that some of the personnel
were assigned to internet message boards (like me), while others worked
on Facebook or chat rooms It seems these three types of media each
have different strategy for shilling, and each shill concentrates on one
of the three in particular.
My task?
“To support Israel and counter anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic posters.”
Fine with me. I had no opinions one way or another about Israel, and who
likes anti-Semites and Nazis? Not me, anyway. But I didn’t know too
much about the topic. “That’s OK,” she said. “You’ll pick it up as you
go along. For the most part, at first, you will be doing what we call
“meme-patrol.” This is pretty easy. Later if you show promise, we’ll
train you for more complex arguments, where more in-depth knowledge is
necessary.”
She handed me two binders
with sheets enclosed in limp plastic. The first was labeled simply
“Israel” in magic-marker on the cover, and it had two sections .The
first section contained basic background info on the topic. I would have
to read and memorize some of this, as time went on. It had internet
links for further reading, essays and talking points, and excerpts from
some history books. The second, and larger, section was called “Strat”
(short for “strategy”) with long lists of “dialogue pairs.” These were
specific responses to specific postings. If a poster wrote something
close to “X,” we were supposed to respond with something close to “Y.”
“You have to mix it up a bit, though,” said my trainer. “Otherwise it
gets too obvious. Learn to use a thesaurus.” This section also contained
a number of hints for de-railing conversations that went too far away
from what we were attempting. These strategies included various forms of
personal attacks, complaining to the forum moderators, smearing the
characters of our opponents, using images and icons effectively, and
even dragging the tone of the conversation down with sexual innuendo,
links to pornography, or other such things. “Sometimes we have to fight
dirty,” or trainer told us. “Our opponents don’t hesitate to, so we
can’t either.”
The second binder was
smaller, and it contained information specific to the web sites I would
be assigned to. The sites I would work were: Godlike Productions,
Lunatic Outpost, CNN news, Yahoo News, and a handful of smaller sites
that rotated depending on need. As stated, I was NOT assigned to work
ATS (although others in my group were), which is part of the reason I am
posting this here, rather than elsewhere. I wanted to post this on
Godlike Productions at first, but they have banned me from even viewing
that site for some reason (perhaps they are onto me?). But if somebody
connected with this site can get the message to them, I think they
should know about it, because that was the site I spent a good 70% of my
time working on.
The site-specific
info in the second binder included a brief history each site, including
recent flame-wars, as well as info on what to avoid on each site so as
not to get banned. It also had quite detailed info on the moderators and
the most popular regged posters on each site: location (if known),
personality type, topics of interest, background sketch, and even some
notes on how to “push the psychological buttons” of different posters.
Although I didn’t work for ATS, I did see they had a lot of info on your
so-called “WATS” posters here (the ones with gold borders around their
edges). “Focus on the popular posters,” my trainer told me. “These are
the influential ones. Each of these is worth 50 to 100 of the lesser
known names.” Each popular poster was classified as “hostile,”
“friendly,” or “indifferent” to my goal. We were supposed to cultivate
friendship with the friendly posters as well as the mods (basically,
by brown nosing and sucking up), and there were even notes on strategies
for dealing with specific hostile posters. The info was pretty
detailed, but not perfect in every case. “If you can convert one of the
hostile posters from the enemy side to our side, you get a nice bonus.
But this doesn’t happen too often, sadly. So mostly you’ll be attacking
them and trying to smear them.”
At
first, like I said, my job was “meme-patrol.” This was pretty simple and
repetitive; it involved countering memes and introducing new memes, and
didn’t demand much in-depth knowledge of the subject. Mostly just
repetitive posting based on the dialogue pairs in the “Strat” section of
the first binder. A lot of my job was de-railing and spamming threads
that didn’t go our way, or making accusations of racism and
anti-Semitism. Sometimes I had to simply lie and claim a poster said
something or did something “in another thread” they really hadn’t said
or done I felt bad about this…but in the end I felt worse about the
possibility of losing the first job I’d been able to get since losing my
“real” job.
The funny thing was,
although I started the job with no strong opinions or political views,
after a few weeks of this I became very emotionally wedded to the
pro-Israel ideas I was pushing. There must be some psychological factor
at work…a good salesman learns to honestly love the products he’s
selling, I guess. It wasn’t long before my responses became fiery and
passionate, and I began to learn more about the topic on my own. “This
is a good sign,” my trainer told me. “It means you are ready for the
next step: complex debate.”
The
“complex debate” part of the job involved a fair amount of additional
training, including memorizing more specific information about the
specific posters (friendly and hostile) I’d be sparring with. Here, too,
there were scripts and suggested lines of argument, but we were given
more freedom. There were a lot of details to this more advanced stage of
the job – everything from how to select the right avatar to how to use
“demotivationals” (humorous images with black borders that one finds
floating around the web). Even the proper use of images of cats was
discussed. Sometimes we used faked or photo-shopped images or doctored
news reports (something else that bothered me).
I
was also given the job of tying to find new recruits, people “like me”
who had the personality type, ability to keep a secret, basic
writing/thinking skills, and desperation necessary to sign on a shill. I
was less successful at this part of the job, though, and
I couldn’t find another in the time I was there.
After
a while of doing this, I started to feel bad. Not because of the views I
was pushing (as I said, I was first apolitical, then pro-Israel), but
because of the dishonesty involved. If my arguments were so correct, I
wondered, why did we have to do this in the first place? Shouldn’t truth
propagate itself naturally, rather than through, well…propaganda? And
who was behind this whole operation, anyway? Who was signing my
paychecks? The stress of lying to my parents and friends about being a
“consultant” was also getting to me. Finally, I said enough was enough. I
quit in September 2011. Since then I’ve been working a series of
unglamorous temp office jobs for lower pay. But at least I’m not making
my living lying and heckling people who come online to express their
views and exercise freedom of speech.
A
few days ago I happened to be in the same neighborhood and on a whim
thought I’d check out the old office. It turns out the operation is
gone, having moved on. This, too, I understood, is part of their
strategy: Don’t stay in the same place for too long, don’t keep the same
name too long, move on after half a year or so. Keeping a low profile,
finding new employees through word of mouth: All this is part of the
shill way of life. But it is a deceptive way of life, and no matter how
noble the goals (I remain pro-Israel, by the way), these sleazy means
cannot be justified by the end.
This
is my confession. I haven’t made up my mind yet about whether I want to
talk more about this, so if I don’t respond to this thread, don’t be
angry. But I think you should know: Shills exist. They are real. They
walk among you, and they pay special attention to your popular
gold-bordered WATS posters. You should be aware of this. What you choose
to do with this awareness is up to you.
Yours,ExShill
Source - abovetopsecret.com/forum
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