Sock puppet
A Sock puppet is an online identity assumed in order to manage perceptions. The term— referring to a simple hand puppet made from a sock—originally referred to a false identity assumed by a participant in an internet community who addressed or wrote about her/himself while pretending to be another person.[1] The term now includes other uses of misleading online identities, such as those created to praise, defend, support or criticise, attack or oppose a third party or organization,[2] or to circumvent a suspension or ban from a website or other online space. A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym and the creation of a sockpuppet is that the sockpuppet poses as an independent or partially independent third-party unaffiliated with the puppeteer.
Examples of Sock puppetry
In 2001 the Register reported a New Labour online sock puppet campaign against Plaid Cymru:
- The Labour Party has been heavily implicated in a political dirty tricks campaign carried out over the Internet. Thousands of anti-Plaid Cymru messages posted to various political newsgroups have been traced back to the Labour Party's communications headquarters in Millbank, London. The messages, which attack Plaid Cymru (the Welsh nationalist party) councils and policies, were posted mainly on the wales.politics.assembly newsgroup and purported to be from members of the public. However, users of the newsgroup grew suspicious of "David Currie" and "Hairy Melon Jones" - a reference to Plaid Cymru assembly member Helen Mary Jones - and accused them of working for the Labour party, a charge that was denied online. However, newsgroup members traced the messages over the Internet and found they had come from Millbank. Welsh national paper Wales on Sunday, ran its own investigation into the claims and came to the same conclusion. Confronted by evidence, Labour admitted the postings had come from its machines but said it was the work of a "volunteer" working in his own time.[3]
Resources
- For Wikipedia policy on sockpuppets, see Wikipedia: Sock puppetry
Notes
- ↑ Definition of sockpuppet WordSpy.com, accessed 15 August 2012
- ↑ Brad Stone The Hand That Controls the Sock Puppet Could Get Slapped New York Times July 16, 2007, accessed 15 August 2012.
- ↑ Kieren McCarthy New Labour's Internet dirty tricks campaign exposed: Party employee peddles anonymous propaganda on political newsgroups The Register, 30th January 2001 14:10 GMT
