Emily Postteque's Bot Etiquette: Online Reputation Management (ORM) Edition
"Nothing is less important than which fork you use. Etiquette is the science of living. It embraces everything. It is ethics. It is honor." - Emily Post
Reflecting on advice yesterday to the Google Duplex voicebot letter-writer, Emily Postteque will expand on ORM worker etiquette.
Whether typed by bots or humans, rudeness demonstrated by paid online Reputation Management workers infiltrating social media conversations is a trend with a long tail in the digital era. They swarm blog posts or conversation threads, post peculiarly similar talking points, then vanish!
ORM public relations firms are often employed by real estate developers, tech companies and political candidates on both sides, trying to influence a public debate.
As Emily Post once said:
“Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.”It's possible Google employed ORM workers for yesterday's Google Duplex rollout. And if they did hire ORM public relations workers, it's likely Google employed them with virtuous intentions: techlash is the theme of 2018, due to actions outside of Google's domain. Now Google is being conflated with more immature, less innovative, less ethical tech company peers, and even well-meaning tech product debuts will inspire skepticism of motive from twitterati and public-at-large.
Clearly these ORM deception professionals are here to stay. As such, let's review their tactics and explore ways interested parties can improve their etiquette.
I. Tactic: Time-Consuming Data-Fetching Errands
II. Tactic: Aggressive Luddite Smear
III. Tactic: Dismissiveness, Mild Sexism
IV. Tactic: Ageism
V. New Tactic(!): Social Justice Warrior Membership Probation
VI. How ORM Professionals Can Employ Better Etiquette
I. Tactic: Time-Consuming Data-Fetching Errands
In this scenario, a paid Reputation Management worker will cast doubt, one of the three emotions public relations professionals use to *blunt* an unfavorable public relations wave with FUD campaign. (The other two emotions are fear and uncertainty, add doubt and you've an effective FUD-blunting instrument on your side.)
Example: Intelligent Authentic Human (IAH) posits that anxiety disorders have risen concurrently with tech-induced isolation. Paid ORM worker (PORM) says he doesn't believe IAH's claim.
All acceptable behavior so far!
Then PORM's poor manners kick in: PORM demands IAH produce data to buttress the claim. While PORM crosses his arms, sits back and believes he successfully sent someone to perform a search he's perfectly capable of doing himself, IAH takes pause, noting "something doesn't smell right."
IAH privately takes stock: "It's inconsiderate of my time to make such a demand without saying 'please' or 'thank you.'" As IAH weighs whether the conversation participant is authentic, a few more PORM workers reinforce, adding "likes" to PORM's original doubting, boorish, data-fetching errand demand.That first sentence is an enormous sweeping statement, data?— Ian Keen (@IanKay) May 9, 2018
While IAH remains convinced of the original assertion -- that anxiety disorders are higher today than before tech isolated people -- intimidation and doubt has filled the conversation online "room" for conversation observers (COs) to see. Any authentic human watching and thinking of commenting now hesitates, shocked by PORM's phrasings.
"Surely nobody would be that rude unless they were offended" some COs think. "Looks like paid trolls infiltrated this conversation" a CO surmises.
Unless IAH responds, the aggressors win. IAH types a classy response, cuts losses, exits conversation.
II. Tactic: Aggressive Luddite Smears to Shame and Shut Down IAH
This is a tactic of deflecting from a valid conversation topic by casting doubt on the person voicing the argument. It's ad hominem.
Example: Intelligent Authentic Human (IAH) says Google Duplex impersonating a human without disclosing it's a droid poses ethical questions for us as a society. Paid Online Reputation Management (PORM) worker tells IAH to "take time" because Duplex has six different voices and "the world is not flat, you know."
It's an effective (and inconsiderate) hushing technique. People fear looking old, and ludditism for a short while longer is associated (erroneously) with old age. Anyone over 20 is subject to this.
Additionally, accusation of ludditism casts the person making the valid assertion as an extremist. Finally, telling IAH to relax employs a little sexism which Emily Postteque will cover next.
Google said they are introducing 6 voices. Before you criticize new technology, take time to understand it. the world is not flat you know.— julishwa (@julishwa) May 8, 2018
This responder employed four manipulation tactics in one tweet: "take time to understand the tech before you criticize" is a guilt trip and accusation of hysteria, "the world is not flat" is a luddite smear attempting ageism and "Google said they are introducing 6 voices" is irrelevant. Guilt-tripping, hysteria, ageism, and distraction. Impressively bad behavior, but we musn't assume ill intent until it's proved.
III. Tactic: Dismissiveness, Mild Sexism
This example is possible sexism, definite dismissiveness. As our mentor said: “Etiquette requires the presumption of good until the contrary is proved.”
As said above, Google is on the defensive in the techlash year of 2018. No matter how good their intentions, they could be smeared as underhanded and greedy in reaction to their most altruistic product debut.
Emily Postteque even suspects Google sequenced the introduction of voicebot Google Duplex with a less ethical use case first, so they could look like the "good guys" and compromise with a droid disclosure interface later.
As women gain more ground in business, scholarship, government leadership, they'll face more aggression in the polite realms of debate than they did in the days of yore. And they should. Debate should be robust, assertive, even aggressive at times, when hashing out principles for commerce and life.
It is with this reluctance Emily Postteque introduces an example that could be taken as mild sexism at worst, disagreement/techlash defensiveness at best:
We don't know Mr. Cromwellian's motives here, and he refrained from name-calling. He called her statement "overly hyperbolic" which falls right on the edge - she was passionate. But he could have employed better etiquette.Overly hyperbolic reaction to a prototype tech demo, not a finished product. Obviously the full interaction will be different when or if this ever goes to market.— cromwellian (@cromwellian) May 10, 2018
IV.Tactic: Ageism
We're tracking down the source, but on NPR this morning a source "tech expert" told a reporter that "older people" will not understand the purpose of voicebots whereas "digital natives" will get it right away.
Oh dear ageist NPR source: if you are lucky, and Emily Posttech hopes that you are, you will get to turn 35 one day. And then you'll see why the mythical "digital native wisdom" is a fallacy persuasion trend so far past its prime.
V. New Tactic(!): Social Justice Warrior Membership Probation
As Emily Postteque said in the introduction, ORM workers have been around for over a decade and have a very long tail for the digital era. So let's grant points for ingenuity and applaud them for successfully using a new tactic in the year 2018.
This is a scenario that requires a good fake account backstory that properly dovetails with the tribal concerns of Conversation Observers (COs) who sympathize with social justice causes. Tribalism over merit of position, is key here. (People yearn to belong.)
I'll provide no examples, but entertain the thought: an ORM worker or bot could accuse any good-faith reviewer asking the most ethical, reasonable question about a new voicebot product, as insufficiently liberal toward disabled, toward the marginalized, to see the magical promise in an unethically human-impersonating droid.
VI. How ORM Professionals Can Employ Better Etiquette
ORM professionals could better represent their clients by persuading rather than bullying.
As "Paper" author Mark Kurlansky says, new technology arrives to fill a societal need. No need to brow-beat the populace into using it.
Humility is back in fashion in the techlash year of 2018. Data-fetching errand demands, ad hominem ludditism attacks and assymetrical aggression in arguing sides of debate were ORM tactics that worked in the last decade.
But consumers and Conversational Observers (COs) are growing immune to them. You rob the world when you withhold your charm! Share with us your social graces in conversation, refrain from swapping them for base human bullying. Emily Postteque is ready to see more from you, as you elevate your tactics and bring society with you to better behavior.
Thank you for joining us today. Wishing you good etiquette in your commercial and societal endeavors! -- Emily Postteque
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This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
