<story><title>&apos;Fake&apos; Amazon workers defend company on Twitter</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56581266</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mox1</author><text>Yes, and if you are somewhat tech savvy OR &amp;quot;grew up&amp;quot; on the internet (say 40 and younger) you understand this. The problem is previous generations who don&amp;#x27;t really understand this.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps one angle to tackle the problem is to educate the group(s) of people who continue to believe whatever they read on Twitter, Facebook, etc.</text></item><item><author>skohan</author><text>I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem.  The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard.  But if there&amp;#x27;s no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neilv</author><text>Since HN loves to veer wildly into rampant ageism, I&amp;#x27;ll bite... :)&lt;p&gt;When you make your age distinctions, you might be talking about people who are non-technical.&lt;p&gt;Early Internet techies predicted situations like this before they happened.  (Pre-Web, we had all kinds of sci-fi predictions, awareness from historical analogues, etc.  Post-Web, I talked with startup founders 20 years ago, who would also be 40yo+ by now, who predicted that their company&amp;#x27;s accounts would be used for shill identities for things like manipulation, and the implications of that.)&lt;p&gt;Passive consumers, of your under-40 group, who grew up in it never knew anything else, have had things framed for them, and are just starting to realize the situations we&amp;#x27;re now in.</text></comment>
<story><title>&apos;Fake&apos; Amazon workers defend company on Twitter</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56581266</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mox1</author><text>Yes, and if you are somewhat tech savvy OR &amp;quot;grew up&amp;quot; on the internet (say 40 and younger) you understand this. The problem is previous generations who don&amp;#x27;t really understand this.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps one angle to tackle the problem is to educate the group(s) of people who continue to believe whatever they read on Twitter, Facebook, etc.</text></item><item><author>skohan</author><text>I feel like authenticity of online communication is an unsolved problem.  The web was supposed to be a democratizing platform: all you need to communicate with the world is an ISP and a keyboard.  But if there&amp;#x27;s no way to control for authenticity, online sentiment will just be an arms race for who can pay for the best astroturfing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>barsonme</author><text>&amp;gt; Perhaps one angle to tackle the problem is to educate the group(s) of people who continue to believe whatever they read on Twitter, Facebook, etc.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately this isn’t just limited to the over 40 crowd. People are willing to believe whatever affirms their beliefs. Growing up on the Internet does not change this.</text></comment>