What is a network water army?

The network water army refers to the hired network writer who publishes specific information for specific content in the network. The network water army is usually referred to as the water army for short, also known as the network gunman. They are usually active in e-commerce websites, forums, Weibo and other social networking platforms. They influence normal users by pretending to be ordinary netizens or consumers, and publishing, replying and spreading blog posts.

Characteristics of water army

First of all, the typical water army has strong group characteristics, while garbage users usually emphasize a single user.

Second, the water army may cause harm to individuals, companies or organizations, while junk users usually only increase junk information.

Thirdly, the water army can be a program robot controlled by platform API (such as Sina Weibo Open Platform API), or a real user such as company employees or temporary recruiters, which is different from the traditional research program machine Twitter bot.

Fourth, the water army is usually more hidden than garbage users. Many water forces are normal users under normal circumstances, and their characteristics will only be displayed when a specific task comes, which increases the difficulty of water force detection. Opinion spam in e-commerce websites such as Taobao and Amazon is also a kind of water army, but the detection of opinion spam users is usually based on user comments of e-commerce websites.

Extended data:

According to a report of "Half-monthly Talk" on June 5438+February, 2009, public relations companies plan and package according to customers' requirements, and usually post them from the front. If customers want to attack their competitors, they will accept the order after risk assessment (because rival companies may also ask network hatchet man to fight back). The content of the post is based on the psychological planning of netizens, such as intentional typos and wrong grammar.

There are also various post hype methods, such as dividing the company's network hatchet man into two factions, expanding its influence and guiding netizens to participate. Public relations companies mobilize network hatchet man through QQ group. There are tens of thousands of large public relations companies in the hands of online players, and each network hatchet man has more than a dozen ready-made accounts, which flatter customers or attack customers' competitors through intensive posting.

At present, network hatchet man has formed a systematic industrial chain. Generally, customers who need the water army to build momentum put advertisements in the upstream, forming a group of core intermediaries in the middle. After receiving the order, organize downstream personnel to engage in network promotion activities, and finally, social idlers, students, housewives and network V directly participate in posting.

Customers have various needs, such as posting and watering to promote malicious speculation, deleting posts and shielding negative news to suppress negative public opinion. Among them, the blocking message means that the internal staff of the search engine company deletes the "webpage snapshot" information on the specified page, and the netizens can't get the real link by searching for keywords. It usually takes 300-400 yuan to block a message.

Public relations companies charge about 300,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan for a large-scale online public relations or attack. Network hatchet man's salary for each post is about 0.3 yuan RMB, and he can even get 65,438+0,000 RMB a day by hanging headlines on popular forums or websites.

With the intensification of inflation, the remuneration of the network water army is also rising. 20116543819 October, Xinhuanet reported the organizational hierarchy and division of labor of the network water army, and the remuneration has risen to RMB 0.7 yuan per post. Some colleges and universities also require the students of the Youth League Committee on campus to pay attention to the negative news about the school and refute these negative news in time.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-network water army