Click Farms & Sock Puppets

sock puppet
The 2017 YouTube video#Socialnomicshas recently reported that we are preparing almost 30% of studentsfor jobs that don’t exist yet. I’ve always wondered what kind of jobs they could be. Sadly, we are learning about them in today’s times.

I was exposed to three new terms this year that didn’t exist years ago:

Click Barns

Sock Puppeting

Troll Factories

For those that don’t know about these, I wanted to share them, as these terms are creeping into education practices, but have been more prevalent in politics and news.Ever wonder how something gets so many websitehits or how it’s ‘liked’ by so many people? Look no further than aclick farm. Click farms are offices/apartments that house hundreds of cell phones and thousands of SIM cards. People and/or businesses that are looking to have search terms rise or fall can get click farms to change how you view products or people. Knowing that 90% of people do no go past the first page when a google search is conducted (Wressics, 2016), “pushing down” a search term is easier than ever. Here’s the catch – it’s illegal; you’re manipulating data to reflect a false impression. There are people now dedicated to finding the patterns of this practice and working with police to eliminate them100%; vertical-align: middle; clear: both; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-rIf you ever watched the Showtime television seriesHomeland, you heard about sock puppets in the 2016season. Sock puppetsare groups of people hired to create accounts (like the click farms above) of every rang of social media known to us as we know it, and then comment on various articles, news websites, blogs, and other topics to boost a search topic or sway an image. This may sound familiar, asRussia has been accused of doing this to sway the 2016presidential election. You can watch sock puppets in actionby clicking here.

The third term that has and is causing quite a problem in the online world istroll farm. Troll farms are like sock puppets, but their goal is not to just sway opinion, but incite hatred or anger. Troll farm employees are hired to deliberately cause/create conflict on a website, blog, or online forum. They do this by posting comments that are provocative or inflammatory. Troll farms have been confirmed on national news websites that typically show news in one angle (i.e. Fox News, MSNBC) and have been found to be at local news online stories as well. It should also be no surprise that all of the names that are created are just that; names. Less than 2% of people use their actual name as a username online.

A New Jersey Education Association executive once told me that education has changed more in the past 6 years than 60. I thought it said a lot coming from her; educators, in general, don’t like to acknowledge change, especially when they are comfortable in a routine (I know firsthand, I was one). With these new jobcreations, we all need to be cognizant of these changes so that our learners are aware of these things. The learner today has had the internet and social media presence in their lives for 100%. Scary as it may be, it is what it is, and we must be ready; our future depends on it.

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