While musing on Twitter about an app that could generate a “wholly fictitious but believable Facebook persona,” William Gibson received confirmation (or at least, an anecdote) that reality is at least as weird as working for Bigend in his most recent trilogy. Here’s what artist Greg Borenstein told him:
@GreatDismal I had friends who were hired to build a system to generate bulk YouTube accounts to post fake buzz for Hollywood movies.
— Greg Borenstein (@atduskgreg) January 30, 2013
@GreatDismal Accounts had persona types set from demographic data, would upload “leaked” trailers, the studios could do takedowns on.
— Greg Borenstein (@atduskgreg) January 30, 2013
I love the idea that Hollywood is, at this point, generating fake personas for the purpose of sending them takedown notices. It seems impossible but I want to believe . . .
