Insider X (25 page)

“Exactly,” Crush said.  “Very important.  If the past history of your profile shows stilted language, terrible grammar, misspellings of lots of words, then continue to do the same with every post for that profile.  You don’t want them to be horrible spellers with their posts they did five years ago, and then suddenly start writing in perfect eloquent English, with much more sophisticated sentence structure.  That will be a dead giveaway for anyone paying attention; anyone that clicks and looks at all the other posts that person has done.  It will be obvious to them that the profile is fake.  And understand that ‘voice’ is not just syntax.  But is also that profile’s sensibilities, their worldview.”

Na nodded.  She was very impressed with Crush’s vocabulary.  He was very smart. 

Crush opened up an example on the screen that illustrated some of what he had just discussed.  He pointed some things out and continued talking, “Too often I find we make a mistake with how we use voice.  Even myself.  I might forget that the profile is supposed to be liberal.  I might make a comment that is too conservative.  I’ll do it on a different site, but I’ll use a Google Plus profile to make that post.  Big mistake.  Anyone can pull up all the posts that person has done.  There is a digital record of everything on the Web.  It may not be available to just anybody for some sites.  Maybe just the gatekeepers can access all the posts—the IT personnel that maintain a certain site.  They will be able to see all the posts, and all the metadata.  What time posts were done.  How many articles were clicked on?  What time duration was there between clicks?  How long were they on the site?  When did they log on?  When did they log off?  What did they click?  What did they like?  What did they buy?”

“We can actually buy things?” Na said.

“Of course,” Crush said.  “We have many profiles on the main database that have accounts at all the major online shopping sites.  Department stores like Macy’s and Lowes, sites like EBay, Zappos, Best Buy, Office Depot, pretty much every online shopping venue you can name.  There is a large budget here for those purchases.  We spend over two hundred million American dollars a year buying products that we review.”

“Two hundred million dollars?” Na said.  “You’re joking.”

“No,” Crush said, “I’m not joking.  It’s a very wise investment.  A purchase of a big ticket item like a treadmill made by an American company might cost over two thousand American.  But buying it and having it shipped to one of our P.O. boxes or nested addresses in the US is well worth it.  It will register as a ‘verified buyer’ on that site.  And then when that profile reviews that product, it will appear one hundred percent legitimate to readers.  Because think about it?  Who would spend two thousand American just to tank a product?  If the profile is sympathetic, seems real, other potential buyers can be influenced by that person’s opinion.  We can pretty much guarantee with a few well placed stinker reviews that no one will buy that product ever again.

“It works in reverse too.  We buy products from companies on our ‘good list’, our ‘protected list’, generally these are Chinese companies The State favors, and we write wonderful reviews touting those companies’ products.  How great they are; give lots of details why; explain about features, ease of use, intuitive controls, or whatever will make someone buy it.  A few dozen glowing reviews like that might make that product become a bestseller on those sites.  Mission accomplished.”

Na nodded.  This was so much more sophisticated than at the den.  They never did any real buys at the den.  They had no budgets.  But she saw how this could be infinitely more effective.

“But can’t those sites sniff out such actions?  Know those profiles are targeting products?” Na said.  “They can see metadata.  See if every buy results in a review.  A one to one ratio.  That might alert the gatekeepers that the profile is fake.”

Crush smiled.  “You are very smart, Na.”

“Thank you.”  Na blushed.

“And that is where we have an advantage,” Crush said.  “Real people will do that sometimes.  Those sites can’t tell who is real and who is not.  They just can’t.  Take for instance, all the posts or reviews on products on those sites.  If you ever look at them, you will see there are patterns.  Patterns, which on the surface, look like fraud.  Glowing reviews for certain products made by a certain company.  Maybe a hundred five-star reviews and only five-star reviews for those company’s products.  Or maybe it is a hotel on a travel site?  Three hundred five-star reviews, all glowing, all talking about the amazing service they had at that particular hotel?

“Are those reviews real?  Of course not.  Because we’re not the only game in town.  Everyone does it.  Big players, small players.  Mom and pop businesses.  Many, if not all, of the big American and European companies do it.  They game the system too.  They cheat.  They pay marketing companies to help their online presence.  It is all done on the down low, hush hush, nod, wink.  They pay marketing companies to ‘help’ their online presence.  That is code speak for ‘write fake reviews for us’. 

“They pay for fake reviews and commentary in the blogosphere that help their products.  What do you think you did at the dens?  Those marketing outfits outsourced those fake reviews to places like the dens.  They pay fake review outfits to write reviews for them.  And we do.  I say ‘we’ because the PLA has a lock on it all.  The dens are a branch of the PLA.

“You didn’t know that, did you?  But that is the case.  All those dens, and there are hundreds of them, maybe thousands, just like where you worked—they are our B-team.  We are the A-team here.  We are much better at getting the job done.  So we also take their money and write fake reviews.  We skew those reviews to help our own agendas, of course.  They may pay us, but we can still write unfavorable reviews on those American products—they don’t know what is real and what is not.  A hundred five-star reviews may not help their products, if we are effective with the six or seven negative reviews we also give them.

“They have no idea of the amount of fakery that is in play.  They may suspect, but they have no idea.  They think many unfavorable reviews are real.  But the truth is, maybe one in thirty of those negative reviews out there are actually real.  Maybe even less.

“I don’t know the exact percentage.  There are so many other fake review outfits adding to the mix.  Corrupting the pool.  Like I said, we are not the only game in town.

“Whatever the true percentage is, it is substantial.  Most posts, most reviews, most commentaries about products are fake.  Very few are real.  Many sites out there suspect this.  No.  They know this.

“They see the metadata.  They are all scared this will be exposed someday.  They live in their own tiny bubbles; they think they are the only ones being gamed.  They are fearful they will be discovered.  Everyone will know their reviews are all fake.  And won’t shop at their sites.

“So they hide the truth.  They don’t want anyone to know the integrity of their review system is compromised.  So they choose to ignore the gaming, the cheating.  Don’t police any of it.  Well… a few try to.  Not all of them have given up.  But it is impossible to police.  Because real people do what we do.  They don’t do it often, they do it rarely, but they do it sometimes.  They buy one product.  Hate or love it, and they leave a review.  One buy.  One review.  A one to one ratio.  How can those sites know if that profile is real or not?  They can’t.  So you know what they have done?  Not all, but some.

“This is actually quite funny.  Some of those sites have actually tried to counteract the fakery by hiring marketing companies themselves.  No joke. 

“They are our biggest clients, in fact.  They pay millions of dollars to ensure the integrity of their review system.  They use fakery to combat fakery.  One big circle of fakery.

“Help our online integrity is what they say.  Code speak again.  More payments funneled to us.  Huge payments.  We write more fake reviews.  All good reviews on various products.  We sprinkle those sites with tons of good fake reviews to counteract the negative reviews.  It is one big fake love fest.  Because here is the big secret.  Most people don’t write reviews.  They don’t.  It’s too much of a hassle.  They don’t want to waste time writing a review.  Who has time to do that?  Americans are busy.  Europeans are busy.  Everyone everywhere, they are all busy.  They don’t want to expend their mental energy having to think of what to write.

“You have to log on to a computer, type in your password info, think about what you want to say.  All of that takes time.  Ten minutes.  Thirty minutes.  Particularly if it’s a long review with thought put into it.

“The only real reviews out there are likely from those people who were so disgusted with a product or a service they wanted to tell the whole world.  It got them off their duff.  Motivated them to act.  To spend their precious time to write a one-star review, or post a nasty comment on a blog, or on Facebook, or wherever.

“It was when they hated a product.  Really hated it.  Hated it.  They spent a bunch of money and they’re pissed off.  Feel like they were gypped.  But even in those cases when they have those feelings, you would be surprised, very few of them will actually follow through with writing a review or making a post.  They still don’t want to take the time.  Waste one more second thinking of that poopy product: that golf ball cleaner that didn’t work, that watch that looked cheap when they got it, that pair of shoes that hurt their feet.

“People begin to think twice once they cool down.  When they’re finally at a computer, and have the opportunity to write that review, they think differently.  They value their time too much.  Writing about a poopy product is just not worth it.  So they move on, forgot about it, chalk it up as a loss.  They certainly don’t spend forty minutes of their time writing a very effective stinker review that destroys that product.

“On top of all that, many people are hesitant putting nasty stuff like that out there.  The Web is permanent and people are smarter than you think.  They realize they might regret being nasty about something someday.  So… even the haters of products don’t leave reviews that often.  Only a small fraction will. 

“The likers, believe it or not, behave the same way.  The same motivations compel them to leave reviews.  The real ones, the few real ones out there, are almost always glowing reviews.  Those people wrote reviews because they loved the product.  Not liked it.  Loved it!

“Really loved it.  Again, time thing.  No one spends time to write reviews on things they find so-so, or okay, or not bad, works fine.  Only the fakers do that.

“We discovered all of this early, and we filled up a void.  We changed the paradigm.  People think what is out there is generally real.  Some of it is fake.  But most is real.  That’s their worldview.  How their fakedar usually works.  They trust in percentages.  A hundred people piping in to say something is great, in their opinion holds some weight.  All those reviews can’t be fake.  Some of those reviews must be real.  So they trust those reviews as being somewhat accurate.

“But the inverse is actually true.  People don’t know that.  If they did, if they knew the truth, they’d readjust their fakedar.  If they knew most of the stuff out there is fake they would not trust anything.  They would be very jaded, not trust any review.  Probably discount most of what they read.  Many would rely only on recommendations from friends, or people they trust.  As a general collective, they would start to discount anything and everything from strangers.  Put very little weight in any of those reviews.

“If they knew the truth.  The truth.  And here’s the truth.

“This facility, several other facilities like this one, and all the dens, when you add them all together we collectively write hundreds of millions of reviews a year.  Hundreds of millions of comments on sites.  Hundreds of millions of posts on sites throughout the Web.  And we’ve been doing this for years.  Almost two decades, in fact.  We probably have accounted for sixty percent of all online reviews, comments, blog commentary, and general Web discourse out there.  Maybe more.”

“Are you joking?” Na said.

“No joke.  Same goes for everything else here.  We have taken over the Web.  Our influence is enormous.  We can influence elections.  Influence the thinking of Americans, Europeans, Asians.  What they buy.  What they don’t.  What they think.  Anyway, I’m getting off track.  I may be scolded for giving you all this backstory.  More than you need to know to do your duty.

“Your duty may be specialized.  You may only work on one thing here.  They may want you to just do one thing, and only that thing.  I got a little carried away,” Crush said, taking a pause.  “I’m sorry.”

Crush’s feelings were transparent again.  He wanted Na to know all this, for some reason.  He wasn’t sorry.  Na was confused.  Why?  Why did he want her to know this?

“I am just excited about our cause,” Crush said.  “What we do here.  This is a great honor.”

Crush kept his tone of voice upbeat, as he continued training Na.  Not another pensive pause, nothing with his facial expressions that hinted at his true thoughts.  But Na knew.  She sensed it.  Crush was as open as a book now.  He was letting her know his true feelings.

He didn’t like this.  Didn’t like this at all.

“Back to coloring in the lines,” Crush said.  “Let me tell you more how to make your profile seem real.  Consistent.  Sympathetic to others.  You need to make them regular Joes.  Or soccer moms.  Or cat owners.”

“Cat owners?” Na said.  “Now I know you are joking.”