Sock puppet account

One reason for sockpuppeting is to circumvent a block, ban or other form of sanction imposed on the person's original account. After access is restricted, people may try to get around the sanctions by using alternate accounts.[10]

Sockpuppets may be created during an online poll to submit multiple votes in favor of the puppeteer. A related usage is the creation of multiple identities, each supporting the puppeteer's views in an argument, attempting to position the puppeteer as representing majority opinion and sideline opposition voices. In the abstract theory of social networks and reputation systems, this is known as a sybil attack.

A sockpuppet-like use of deceptive fake identities is used in stealth marketing. The stealth marketer creates one or more pseudonymous accounts, each one claiming to be owned by a different enthusiastic supporter of the sponsor's product, book or ideology.[11]

A strawman sockpuppet (sometimes abbreviated as strawpuppet) is a false flag pseudonym created to make a particular point of view look foolish or unwholesome in order to generate negative sentiment against it. Strawman sockpuppets typically behave in an unintelligent, uninformed, or bigoted manner and advance "straw man" arguments that their puppeteers can easily refute. The intended effect is to discredit more rational arguments made for the same position.[12] Such sockpuppets behave in a similar manner to Internet trolls.

A particular case is the concern troll, a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view is opposed to the one that the sockpuppet claims to hold. The concern troll posts in Web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed "concerns". The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) within the group.

Look up meatpuppet in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Some online sources use the term "meatpuppet" to describe sockpuppet behaviors. For example, according to one online encyclopedia, a meat puppet "publishes comments on blogs, wikis and other public venues about some phenomenon or product in order to generate public interest and buzz"—that is, he/she is engaged in behavior more widely known as "astroturfing".[13] A 2006 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education defined a meat puppet as "a peculiar inhabitant of the digital world—a fictional character that passes for a real person online."[14][15]

In 2007, the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, was discovered to have posted as "Rahodeb" on the Yahoo! Finance Message Board, extolling his own company and predicting a dire future for its rival, Wild Oats Markets, while concealing his relationship to both companies. Whole Foods argued that none of Mackey's actions broke the law.[25][26]

During the 2007 trial of Conrad Black, chief executive of Hollinger International, prosecutors alleged that he had posted messages on a Yahoo! Finance chat room using the name "nspector", attacking short sellers and blaming them for his company's stock performance. Prosecutors provided evidence of these postings in Black's criminal trial where he was convicted of mail fraud and obstruction. The postings were raised at multiple points in the trial.[25]

An Amazon.com computer glitch in 2004 revealed the names of many authors who had written reviews of their books using pseudonyms. John Rechy, who wrote the best-selling novel City of Night (1963), was among the authors unmasked in this way, and was shown to have written numerous five-star reviews of his own work.[6] In 2010, British historian Orlando Figes was found to have written Amazon reviews under the names "orlando-birkbeck" and "historian", praising his own books and condemning those of fellow historians Rachel Polonsky and Robert Service. The two sued Figes and won monetary damages.[27][28]

During a panel discussion at a British Crime Writers Festival in 2012, author Stephen Leather admitted using pseudonyms to praise his own books, claiming that "everyone does it". He spoke of building a "network of characters", some operated by his friends, who discussed his books and had conversations with him directly.[29] The same year, after he was pressured by the spy novelist Jeremy Duns on Twitter, who had detected possible indications online, UK crime fiction writer R.J. Ellory admitted having used a pseudonymous account name to write a positive review for each of his own novels, and additionally a negative review for two other authors.[30][31]

David Manning was a fictitious film critic, created by a marketing executive working for Sony Corporation to give consistently good reviews for releases from Sony subsidiary Columbia Pictures, which could then be quoted in promotional material.[32]

American reporter Michael Hiltzik was temporarily suspended from posting to his blog, "The Golden State", on the Los Angeles Times website after he admitted "posting there, as well as on other sites, under false names." He used the pseudonyms to attack conservatives such as Hugh Hewitt and L.A. prosecutor Patrick Frey—who eventually exposed him.[33][34] Hiltzik's blog at the LA Times was the newspaper's first blog. While suspended from blogging, Hiltzik continued to write regularly for the newspaper.

Lee Siegel, a writer for The New Republic magazine, was suspended for defending his articles and blog comments under the user name "Sprezzatura." In one such comment, "Sprezzatura" defended Siegel's bad reviews of Jon Stewart: "Siegel is brave, brilliant and wittier than Stewart will ever be."[35][36]

In late November 2020 TYT Network reported an example of a white male Republican Trump voter having a sock puppet Twitter account presented as of a black gay man, criticizing Biden and praising Trump while systematically emphasizing his race and sexual orientation. Additionally, in October of 2020, Clemson University social media researcher identified "more than two dozen of Twitter accounts claiming to be black Trump supporters who gained hundreds of thousands of likes and retweets in a span of just a few days, sparking major doubts about their identities," many using photos of black men from news reports or stock images "including one in which the text 'black man photo' was still watermarked on the image".[37]

As an example of state-sponsored Internet sockpuppetry, In 2011, a California company called Ntrepid was awarded a $2.76 million contract from US Central Command for "online persona management" operations[38] to create "fake online personas to influence net conversations and spread US propaganda" in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Pashto.[38] The activity was part of Operation Earnest Voice (OEV), a programme first developed in Iraq as a weapon of psychological warfare.

On September 11, 2014, a number of sockpuppet accounts reported an explosion at a chemical plant in Louisiana. The reports came on a range of media, including Twitter and YouTube, but US authorities claimed the entire event to be a hoax. The information was determined by many to have originated with a Russian government-sponsored sockpuppet management office in Saint Petersburg, called the Internet Research Agency.[39] Russia was again implicated by the US intelligence community in 2016 for using paid trolls in the US Election.[40]

The Institute of Economic Affairs claimed in a 2012 paper that the United Kingdom government, and the EU, fund charities whose purpose is to campaign and lobby for causes the government supports. In one example 73% of responses to a government consultation was the direct result of campaigns by alleged "sock puppet" organizations.[41]