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Industry Group Sponsors College Course To Create Fake Blog

Posted by kdawson on Mon Mar 03, 2008 07:17 PM
from the paid-me-to-do-it dept.
Education Social Networks The Internet
Scott Jaschik writes "At Hunter College, professors are debating the ethics of a course in which an industry group paid for a class to develop a fake student who would write a fake blog to discourage other students from buying knockoff products. The controversy involves both commercial interference with academic freedom and the ethics of 'guerilla marketing.'"
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Industry Group Sponsors College Course To Create Fake Blog 50 Comments More /

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  • It sounds like those companies really have a handle on how to get the youth on-side.

    • Re:Fake Blog, Fake Student- (Score:5, Interesting)

      by moderatorrater (1095745) on Monday March 03 2008, @07:38PM (#22630250)
      Authenticity and originality are key to the youth demographic and they know it. The problem is that ads have failed at those for a long time. Some ads can still do it through humor and strange premises (like the old spice ads I love so much). Unfortunately, people are smart, and copying another ad campaign's success backfires more often than not.

      It's a problem that's crept up on them for the last few years. Frankly, I'm shocked that corporations are struggling to look authentic and original.
      • Authenticity and originality are key to the youth demographic

        Which is pretty funny considering what a bunch of sheep the youth demographic is.

        • Re:Fake Blog, Fake Student- (Score:5, Interesting)

          by PopeRatzo (965947) * on Monday March 03 2008, @08:32PM (#22630694) Homepage Journal

          Which is pretty funny considering what a bunch of sheep the youth demographic is.
          As someone who's old enough to have seen several "youth demographics" come and go, I can tell you that this generation is less sheep-like than the previous 3 or 4.
          • Give them a couple of weeks, and the mohawk will grow out.
          • I'm with you but unfortunately it may be a simple matter of these sheep looking less sheep like to our aging eyes.

            Somewhere in there is a good joke, but I'll leave that to those whippersnappers messin' around on my lawn.

            • Re:Fake Blog, Fake Student- (Score:4, Insightful)

              by NevermindPhreak (568683) on Tuesday March 04 2008, @07:44AM (#22634302)
              I think you two are defining two different "youth" groups. You're probably thinking of high-schoolers or college kids. Your parent post is probably thinking of people in their early to mid twenties. From a marketing standpoint, the 18-25 age group is more desirable, or so I'm told.

              You two probably have different personal experiences with "youth demographics" as well.

              Personally, I'm 23. I have a full time job, pay for school on the side, and pay my own mortgage. While I think some commercials are funny (Chuck Norris Old Spice comes to mind), I almost never buy that product. Most of my friends feel the same way.

      • Re:Fake Blog, Fake Student- (Score:5, Funny)

        by jimdread (1089853) on Monday March 03 2008, @08:33PM (#22630702)

        Authenticity and originality are key to the youth demographic and they know it.

        Once they work out how to fake authenticity, they'll crack the youth demographic wide open.

      • Re:Fake Blog, Fake Student- (Score:4, Funny)

        by smitty_one_each (243267) * on Monday March 03 2008, @09:26PM (#22631086) Homepage Journal
        Birdy, birdy, in the sky
        Dropped some whitewash in my eye
        I'm a big kid, I won't cry
        I'm just glad elephants can't fly.

      • "Why does the porridge bird lay its egg in the air?"

        White dust the poor rich Barney lay its eggs in the eyre? HONK Delay. You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.

        Ref: soup-through-nose computer humour from the Nixon Administration - punch-card era stuff, remarkably visionary. Firesign Theatre, "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus". Very strongly recommended.

  • Maybe this was a class about irony (Score:5, Funny)

    by pembo13 (770295) on Monday March 03 2008, @07:20PM (#22630096) Homepage
    Cooperate sponsored fraud in order to deter legal purchases of questionable knock-off products.

  • What a screw up. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gnutoo (1154137) on Monday March 03 2008, @07:23PM (#22630114) Journal

    I love the brag [iacc.org]. The Industry Conclusion is correct, though not the way they want it to be.

    Conclusion:
    The campaign will live beyond the event as the Web sites will remain live, and students will be reminded by the giveaways to Break the Chain of harmful of harmful events that can result from counterfeiting.

    They are going to have a hard time living this one down. Fake blogs, with more than 300 myspace friends, including Justin Timberlake! What they have managed to do is indelibly link their brands to fake. Hyped, expensive fake regardless of real quality. How do they expect anyone to trust them again? Their stuff is better why? Because they spend money on BS like this? Because the "real" stuff comes from a sweat shop with a sharper whip? It's hard to imagine a better example of the harm imaginary property does and they festering pile of lies that supports it.

  • The blog finally admitted that it was fake: http://encounterheidi.blogspot.com/2007/05/here-is-catch-i-am-totally-not-real.html [blogspot.com] . I love how the students who created this blog chose the ditsy valley girl stereotype to convey their message, and stuck with the persona 'till the bitter end: "Here is the catch- I am totally not real!"...the bolding was me.

  • Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Presence1 (524732) on Monday March 03 2008, @07:25PM (#22630134) Homepage
    They are attempting to create a counterfeit person to persuade people to dislike counterfeit goods.

    Counterfeiting of goods does suck, but this does not seem to be the way to get people on your side...

  • Do as I say, not as I do (Score:3, Informative)

    by Jherek Carnelian (831679) on Monday March 03 2008, @07:26PM (#22630140)
    The industry group in question was the IACC - International anti-Counterfeiting Coallition - their mandate being to fight the production and sale o fraudulent knock off products. They were essentially paying for a class to create a fraudulent student with a fraudulent blog while preventing any sort of critical discussion or analysis in the class.

    Ho hum. Just another case of corporate hypocrisy, move along, move along....

  • OUTRAGE! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Urger (817972) on Monday March 03 2008, @07:36PM (#22630226) Homepage
    As a Hunter student I am outraged that I was not monetarily compensated with part of this graft.

  • Educational Standards? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by owlnation (858981) on Monday March 03 2008, @07:40PM (#22630264)
    You can add patronizing to that list.

    If students are so dumb that they need to be told basic smarts by a blog (fake or otherwise) then they should not be in University.

    • Re:Educational Standards? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Protonk (599901) on Monday March 03 2008, @07:54PM (#22630384) Homepage
      to what basic smarts are we referring? Distinguishing counterfeit products from the real thing? Can you do that unerringly? Can you tell me the difference between a knockoff of windows XP and the real thing? Can you tell me the difference between a knockoff brake cleaner and a brand name brake cleaner? Maybe, but I would hardly classify that as "basic smarts" or a prerequisite to entering college.

      Perhaps you are referring to a willingness to choose the "real" product over the knockoff. Here you are on unstable ground. In some cases (heart surgery, car parts, etc), the quality of the product is not immediately visible to the buyer and can't be divined by inspection. In that case, there is a strong argument to be made that avoiding knockoff products is good sense. You can't eyeball a hydraulic line to see if it will fail catastrophically. In the case of DVD's, CD's and purses, the need is less severe. There isn't a buyer safety issue. if your knockoff version of Rush Hour XXVII sucks, then it isn't the end of the world. the people who suffer are the industry (because they can't sell you a copy of something you already have) so it is THEIR interest that is being protected here, not yours.

      Which part of this is common sense?
  • They should be debating the ethics of high book costs and the small changes that force you to buy a new book each year for no new info as well other carp fees that are pushing College costs up not stuff like this.
    • Do you propose that there is a tradeoff? Does the debate over academic integrity somehow preclude a debate over textbook pricing? Also, it is patently clear how and why textbook price increases world. Textbooks are durable goods, but are used only once (usually) by the first owner. The owner then has a strong incentive to resell the book to the next student in line. Textbook makers KNOW this, so it is in their interest to get schools to push to "student editions", "editions with added material" and new

  • Stop the lies! (Score:5, Funny)

    by iamacat (583406) on Monday March 03 2008, @08:03PM (#22630458)
    The blog was not sponsored! I met this poor Heidi girl and she was really heartbroken about that counterfeit handbag, so we swapped our sob stories. I got real cool Dell as a birthday present, but then it turned out it had a counterfeit copy of Vista installed. Not only the wallpaper had a slightly different color, but the fonts on the screen were not as crisp and defined as on REAL Vista. Worst of all, I couldn't enjoy any of the Windows Genuine Advantage downloads.

    Then I started reading up on that and discovered that software counterfeiting is invariably linked to crime and even terrorism. Wouldn't somebody think of the children! Be a broken link in the chain and stop software piracy! Most importantly, don't undermine american capitalism by using free software that is anyway full of stolen code and patent infringements!

  • Read the full article (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Protonk (599901) on Monday March 03 2008, @08:04PM (#22630468) Homepage
    The "fake blog" portion of the story is compelling, but it isn't the whole story. all in all, the actions of the university and the coalition (the IACC) were pretty repugnant. The school engineered the course to teach the industry viewpoint and ensured (via industry observers) that the professor did not deviate from the talking points. when the story initially broke, the school decided that it was an internal matter and didn't merit any outside scrutiny.

    The professor in question voiced real ethical problems with the course but was basically told to shut up and teach--because he didn't have tenure that was pretty much his only option. The job market for PhD's without tenure isn't exactly robust.

    Never mind that this was basically taxpayer subsidized indoctrination.

    • The school engineered the course to teach the industry viewpoint and ensured (via industry observers) that the professor did not deviate from the talking points. when the story initially broke, the school decided that it was an internal matter and didn't merit any outside scrutiny

      The professor in question voiced real ethical problems with the course but was basically told to shut up and teach--because he didn't have tenure that was pretty much his only option. The job market for PhD's without tenure isn't exactly robust.

      I don't think the professor deserves nearly the same amount of blame as the administrators and the IACC, either. The course sounds like it was designed by a fascist regime than any American company, which is ironic, since the list of IACC members is a who's-who of American conglomerates: [iacc.org] Abercrombie & Fitch, AOL Time Warner, and The Walt Disney Company, to name just a few.

      • I don't think that he deserves a fraction of the blame that the administration and the companies do. I'm not prepared to call this fascist or what-not, but it is pretty indefensible as education and inadvisable as marketing.
      • Fascism. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
        • Ok, fascism is not the word, but the orders given by the IACC to Portlock definitely sounded like the course was intended for something other than academia. Otherwise, they would not have aimed it at college students.

      • Re:Read the full article (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Protonk (599901) on Monday March 03 2008, @09:05PM (#22630920) Homepage
        where do you people come from? why do you even bother formating this post to quote me and link this? I mean, why don't you just yell at your houseplant or something? Let me know when you have a modicum of understanding of the following words:

        ethics
        severity
        continuum
        contradiction
        proportionality

        Don't strain yourself.
  • Won't it be a little obvious that it's fake when people read "So yesterday I was listening to my Ipod, don't buy a zune or anything else, buy an ipod because they're so much better, and I saw a cute girl" "and then today I was driving in my DODGE CHARGER, buy a dodge charger, don't buy ford made products".

    Also, why are professors debating the ethics of the course? Was the course created knowing that some company was going to pay the students to make a fake blog? Seems to me this issue should have been de
    • I'm so tired of instances of astroturfing or guerrilla marketing where the entity creating the fake material doesn't respect the target audience enough to make it look convincing. To you corporations looking to create more fake blogs: Sprinkling "omg this sucks" and gratuitous exclamation points does not automatically convince even the most idiotic member of the younger generation that you are one of them. Please try to have some tact, some sense of subtlety, both in the writing and the artificial circumsta

  • Double Dipping & Possible Sunshine Law Violati (Score:3, Interesting)

    by protektor (63514) on Monday March 03 2008, @08:33PM (#22630700)
    I would love to know if the students also had to pay for the class, just like they do for any other class. Also did the students get a full outline of the class before they signed up for it, like most other classes offer?

    Sounds to me like this is a case of double dipping. The school gets the corporation to pay for the class, and then they turn around and get the students to pay for the class as well. I'm sure every University and College would love to be paid double for each class they teach. Sounds like this is more about the greed of the school, than it is about actual teaching.

    Also where is the state on this? I don't know about their state but the state of Missouri has Sunshine laws. Basically if you take state or government money, then everything has to be open and clearly detailed about what you do with the money and everything associated with it. You can't have secret board meetings, or secretly spend the money on anything. Everything in the school has to be open and transparent, even school groups that receive money from the school, since they get it from the government.

    Sounds like a *HUGE* violation of the "Sunshine laws" to say that this whole review, etc. is an internal school matter. It certainly would not be the case in Missouri.
  • Thank God it wasn't a Facebook profile. They could have ended up in jail.

    http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=545 [zdnet.com]
  • ...George P. Burdell will hijack that blog in about five minutes.

    rj

  • For anyone interested in complaining to the member companies about this... here is a link [iacc.org] to their membership list.

    Some members are no surprise and don't care if their customers hate them (RIAA, MPAA). Others are more likely to respond to bad press (Apple, Microsoft, Vivendi). Other sponsors are directly responsible, such as the government agencies (many in the USA and Canada) and the states of North Carolina and Wisconsin.

    Send a letter or e-mail, maybe this crap will not happen again, at least not in aca

  • Don't believe everything you read online, from any source. MSM, bloggers, etc. Look at what they're saying and evaluate it against other information.
    • That's the accidental lesson here. The course COULD be taught critically. in other words, company materials could be used alongside materials from people critical of international copyright consortiums. Or, 1/2 the class could write a fake blog about the subject with clever but clear hints that it is fake and the other half could be assigned a paper on it (assuming they didn't communicate). Each side could get a bonus for tricking the other or ferreting out trickery.
  • The people at the IACC seem like your typical corporate droids, but they can't be stupid. The must have known when they first commandeered the course that the truth would come out after the course ended ("Heidi" herself admitted she was fake May 2007, at the end of the spring semester), and that guerrilla marketing has a failure mode which frequently involves consumer backlash.

    This makes me wonder: Was this whole thing (or at least part of it) an experiment to gauge the intensity and duration of our bac
    • I HIGHLY doubt this. Remember, "never attribute to conspiracy what may be explained by incompetence" (or words to that effect, I dodn't remember the exact quote). Although the people responsible for this might not have been stupid, that isn't a necessary condition. They clearly had the administration by the balls on this one, so why not pursue any goal? They were probably sponsoring a course and some research at the university, so why not move it along?

      The backlash inherent to astroturfing is not someth

  • Honestly, if we had an F.T.C. with any balls in this country, they'd spent a lot more time coordinating with the Fraud division of Justice Department and stop this kind of crap, plus all the damn astroturfing, and that stupid "guerilla marketing" stuff. It's all fraud, pure and simple.

    With any sensible reading of the fraud and deceptive marketing sections of the law (sections under US Code Title 15, plus others) surely covers all the tactics used in this kind of activity. Remember, we're talking commercia

    • I think it probably fills up because there is a big requirement at most colleges in order to ensure that students have a strong "liberal arts" background. What really happens is that classes like this get filled up as students look around for easy classes to pad a schedule.

      If I had to choose between this class and Intermediate Macroeconomics as a filler, I would probably choose this course.

      • I never understood students who choose filler. There are so many interesting courses, I was struggling with fitting them all in. With the exception of a foreign language, I never had to take any class I did not want to take. And yes, a foreign language is a good thing to know, but I found it extraordinarily difficult.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Protonk (599901)
          Why not? I mean, there are interesting courses to take but for most students at large universities the course description doesn't really provide a very good guide as to the nature of the course and the expectations. I'm not interested in filler courses completely--they tend to make me not want to show up and to ride on prior knowledge but I will take them for a few reasons:

          1. Prereq's: I don't want to take into to biology in order to take a zoology course. I don't want to take (this is probably a bette
    • What a reasoned and thoughtful statement. I'm so glad that you allow for room on both sides of the discussion.
    • Libel laws are pretty forgiving in the United States as the 1st ammendment protects a lot of factually incorrect/misleading speech. England and commonwealth countries have stronger libel/slander laws.

      Also....why are you quoting a dictionary to suggest that legal trouble is afoot?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Protonk (599901)
      are you serious? Do you really think the fundamental problem cited in the article is the existence of the blog? While I conceed the point that students in more hard science fields see corporate sponsorship more regularly, the issue here was that the IACC was obviously dictating course content as well as monitoring the professor for compliance. On top of that, students were forced to do unpaid marketing work for the IACC and not allowed to explore in class the possibility that such a demand might not be r

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