3.18.2011

How Long Has "New Media Strategies" Been Trolling Wikipedia on the Kochs' Behalf?

It’s official: the Kochs pay social media PR companies to troll the Internet on their behalf.

Yasha Levine reports at The eXiled:

According to Lee Fang over at ThinkProgress, an internal Wikipedia investigation revealed that a number of Wikipedia users making pro-Koch edits were actually sock puppets set up by employees at an Internet marketing company called New Media Strategies. After being outed, a New Media Strategies rep all but confirmed the findings of the Wikipedia investigation:

Soren Dayton, a GOP operative and executive at New Media Strategies, is reported to be the contact for Koch Industries at NMS. Reached by phone yesterday by ThinkProgress, Dayton exclaimed, “I’m not going to talk about this, thanks,” before hanging up. Lyndsey Medsker, a senior account director for NMS, spoke to ThinkProgress today. She explained that NMS also maintains the Koch Industries Twitter page, Facebook page, and has an active team working on promoting Koch Industries in the comment section of blogs and news websites.

Reading Lee Fang’s post, I couldn’t help but think that the name of the company, New Media Strategies, sounded oddly familiar. ...>more