astroturfing | Social Signal

There's a reason social media analysts and practitioners harp so much on authenticity: it's one of the underpinnings of the "social" in "social media".

Online community works because of our relationships with each other; those relationships can only happen when you feel as though you know the person you're dealing with. Not everything or even most things about the person, but something true... and something significant enough to let you build a certain level of trust. Discover the other person has misled you about who they are or about their motives, and trust dies.