Shills and products

If you google shill, you can get an idea of how to help yourself to find out whether or not you might want to trust a product and those shilling for it. Conscious life news gives a good account of how people do this for products.

I used to participate in "stings" in terms of people who shilled for unproven products & caught them. The money that was lost by several groups since they weren't paying advertising dollars was something they could have used. No one likes to be taken advantage of. Several patterns emerged:

1) attack of the person rather than disputing the data. The idea is to undermine the credibility of the person so you won't look at the data. If you look at the data, the solid evidence would/might convince you. They'd lose a sale or a person who would not be swayed. The item I mentioned above falls into that.

They can be suave. However, look a response and see how is it phrased and ask: how will this support a person? Is the overall tone positive or negative? Is this giving evidence of another viewpoint and the data to prove it? Or is it just negativity?

2) the person would lie about their affiliations or would never reveal them. You can tell by how they attack or hate on one person, several people gang up, start to question what they're there for and their intent in purpose. If the person hasn't struck back in the same manner, then you have to ask why are these people acting like this when the person isn't coming back?

3) constant argumentative style. If people are constantly on the attack, people withdraw from those arguments. Who wants that headache? That way, it shuts down people from listening to it.

4) fake reviews. I had my surgeon's cousin post a favorable review. I brought it to the attention of the website owners when I realized/found out what was going on. They deleted the review, as well, the person hadn't undergone any medical care under the doctor.

5) "sock puppetry". This is described on one of the sites, and it is posing as someone asking for recommendations. Another shill can answer, and you are keeping the product and the name/recommend alive in front of people. Its like a constant TV commercial.

5) working of crowd psychology. If one person does it, a strong person, others will imitate. So check to see if one or several posters are antagonistic, hateful, to one poster. If you find that, question where that hatred comes from. It could be a shill who has friends (or an office that is having accounts on different forums) trying to stir up trouble so that you will not have a favorable view of that person, won't listen, and be more amenable to shilled products.

I say this because one of the concerns I have is something brought up by another person. I see more, in the area, doctors offering vitamins, assorted mixes, etc. What is the purpose of that in terms of business? Would a physician do it if it didn't really make money? Possibly, but the best idea is to see if they would say what their profit margin for it was. Are they trying to keep you in repeat business by coming back? You can also, by coming back, be a free promotion they don't have to pay for.

For those who do indepth studies, really judging on each one, that's a good idea to share what you did and how you came to the conclusion. Look at it this way: if someone says money is no object, I chose X supplement because it gives me all the vitamins and minerals my doctor wants, in a one a day pill. That may not be true for everyone, so they would be able to say, ok I need to rule out supplement X for me. That is really where "*support*" is helpful.

Yes, some might be more wordy than others, but it gives great insights into helping others help themselves.

Somebody let their crazy out!

WTF?

What are you kids on, dope?

I'm all in favor of skepticism, but the site you quote (conscious life news) is a hotbed of woo and quackery. Examples:

Science has no support for the concept of a multiverse, much less one you can tap into for dating purposes.

"Common foods that cure cancer" has repeatedly been debunked by the scientific community.

Apparently there is a shadow government controlling Obama.

Why am I not surprised?!?  I didn't read the whole post, let alone take time to go out and look for that website.

Couldn't the OP just have ranted about doctors who sell products just to make money?!?  LOL

I'm giving a talk about skepticism and "junk science" at a body-positivity conference next summer, I've got a pretty good radar on most of the quack sites. :)

I got to "sock puppetry" and stepped away.  

If you google "cut and paste" you will see it's generally frowned upon on a message board.  There's a reason for that.