In August of 2018, flight price comparison website, CheapAir, received an email threatening to spam online review websites and social media platforms with thousands of negative reviews unless CheapAir paid approximately $10,500 worth of Bitcoin, according to an August 28, 2018 article by Joseph Cox of Vice. The sender provided CheapAir with screenshots of disparaging posts about the website that appeared to have been made by botnets rather than human users.

A botnet is a group of computing devices simultaneously controlled by a third party, who can utilize it to share posts thousands of times in a matter of seconds, according to a Feb. 13, 2013, article by Steve Gold of The Guardian. In the weeks leading up to the 2016 United States presidential election and the 2017 Catalonian Independence Referendum, suspected bot accounts shared inflammatory content thousands of times, including posts that seemingly disparaged parties or candidates, according to a Nov. 20, 2018, article by Maria Temming of Science News.

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]