The Multiple Author Quandary
I was looking around the blogsphere when I ran across a post asking about the ethical issues of setting up fake accounts on blogs. That one was specifically about setting up a news blog to look like it had multiple authors so that the blog would be picked up by Google News. I don’t plan on doing that, but I have pulled a few similar tricks in my time.
Back when Waffles Radio was a blog for my radio show, I would leave comments as other people so it looked like people were listening and leaving comments. Some of these comments were based on people I know in the real world where I would write what I’m pretty sure they would have said. But there was one alias I used, Steve, that was totally fabricated.
I’ve also been paid by a few people to make posts on a forum so that it would look populated. The posts were real, but when I fulfilled my end of the contract I stopped visiting. (more…)