Is This Comment Real Or An Advert?

The world of commenting on your favorite site, especially if it is through Disqus, is changing, and not for the better. By now we are all used to the adverts on Facebook and, gradually coming in, the targeted advertizing on Twitter directly within our Timeline. How about, though, if you see a comment within a thread you’ve been active in, and it is also an advert?

It appears that Disqus, which has up until now only provided comment facilities, is mining what you write, looking for specific interests, and now plans on adding faked comments to your comment threads to get your attention:

The San Francisco-based company mines comments, comment votes and comment context to target ads, which will now show up looking like part of the discussion.

Up until now it has been possible to tell the real comments, on Twitter for one, from the fakes largely by the addition of ‘Sponsored by…’ alongside the post. But comments which are designed to look like real comments, which are included within a comment thread? It has also been possible to skip over those comments which are clearly from fake accounts, from trolls and all manner of shallow beings who spend all their waking hours doing nothing but blaming this politician, this party, this group of people for the ills of their country.

To me, unless the FCC steps in and tells Disqus that they have to include an indication that the ‘comment’ is fake, this smacks of nothing more than more spam. If, as the linked report (above) suggests they do include the ‘Sponsored’ wording and limit their advertizing to the top of discussion threads, it might just be acceptable. It is, however, just another example of how good conversation is being ruined by business, and that regardless of whether we’re talking about Facebook, Twitter, Disqus or any of the other Internet entities which harvest and sell information for their own profit.

Love & Kisses, Viki.

The post Is This Comment Real Or An Advert? appeared first on Viktoria Michaelis.