Is sockpuppeting unethical, and why?

[Arch0wl]

I've had this thought a lot lately.

Most of my morality stems around truth, but I don't think sockpuppeting is especially untruthful. Deception is when you tell someone that something is true when it is in fact false. With sockpuppeting you don't necessarily have to say false things (though you can), you're just appealing to psychological factors that may be irrelevant.

For example: suppose that a forum was filled with evolution denialists and you used a sockpuppet to convince them that evolution was true. You're not saying false things; in fact, the people who are reading your posts are being led to a view of reality that is true. The only thing you're manipulating is a factor that shouldn't fall into their consideration -- specifically, who says these things.

Believing that a view is true based on who says it is ad hominem reasoning though reversed. Ad hominem, as a fallacy, is literally treating a conclusion as false because of the characteristics of the person who is making that argument. So: "Arch is arguing that evolution is true, but Arch is a politician, so that can't be true." Alternatively, you can appeal to circumstances: "Arch is arguing that evolution is true, but Arch is in bed with Atheist groups, so of course he'd say that." Even as an appeal to expertise this does not make the claim true; people who claim appeal to authority is valid under the guise of expertise are only able to do so because it's a heuristic for truth, but it doesn't actually make a claim true. If I said "Arch is arguing that evolution is true, and Arch is an evolutionary biologist, so you should believe it", I have not actually proven that evolution is true or appealed to criteria that would make it true, rather I've just given you a reason to believe it probably is true. None of these factors affect the truth of evolution. The factors that would are things like lab research, the fossil record, the timeline of species emergence, and so on.

With this in mind, the view that, say, reviews hold this kind of credibility is ad hominem reasoning. You shouldn't be treating that review as credible because of who it comes from; you should be treating that review as credible because of what it says.

Several authors such as RJ Ellory and Stephen Leather have used sockpuppets to promote their own work. I believe RJ Ellory called his own work "magnificent."

I'm sorry, if you are a reviewer and call anything short of Hamlet "magnificent", I stop trusting your review. Not because of who you are, but because of how you've structured your review. I don't care who you are; I care about the things you're saying.

Now, most of the criticism of these people comes from the belief that reviews are an inherently credible medium, and that you're violating the trust of this medium by doing this.

Here's the problem: the belief that this was untrustworthy depends on the view that Amazon reviews are credible to begin with. If I go to 4chan, you can be reasonably certain that OP will probably respond as someone else, or that someone arguing against you/backing you up could easily be someone else. You assume no inherent honesty for this medium; you assume it's fiction.

This is why, for example, sarcasm and fiction writing aren't forms of lying. Sarcasm is saying something false that the reader knows is false. Fiction is as well. If you believe either is true, you're assumed to be on some level dense.

When an author posts a review of their own work, this is merely a hurdle to get over people who are using ad hominem reasoning to begin with. They shouldn't be. If a review of a book is legitimate -- that is, the claims in the book made are legitimate -- then the review is legitimate regardless of who posts it. More reviews, or less, don't change this.

Some people believe that it's still immoral because it's against the law or a ruleset. For example, David Vinjamuri has argued that since it's against Amazon's rules (and possibly the law), it's immoral:

Originally Posted by David Vinjamuri

Amazon’s review creation guidelines explicitly state that the following two types of reviews are not allowed on the site. ... In addition, writing malicious reviews or paying for phony reviews may violate civil or criminal laws in some jurisdictions.

But legality has nothing to do with morality, nor does a ruleset. The rules of FFR could say "don't ever say the word 'Pikachu'," but that wouldn't make everyone who has ever said the word 'Pikachu' immoral. Likewise, laws are created by legislators as a behavioral incentive. They do not define morality in the slightest. In fact, in the case of laws against gays or laws that cause widespread suffering, they can sometimes run counter to it -- the laws themselves can be immoral.

People, for some reason, seem to have less of a problem with getting friends or family to provide positive reviews of your book. Not only is this roughly the same thing, it's arguably worse, since friends and family can rarely write reviews on a level that an author could. The claims made are likely to be poorly-substantiated (unless you have quite a few educated friends) and the difference between a person who has 2 reviews and 20 reviews is the difference between people with a small social circle and people with a large, easily-manipulated following.

Sockpuppet reviews, then, are psychological condiments. They don't alter the legitimacy of anything -- the book, the author, or reviews. Vinjamuri from earlier insists that this is still immoral because it's deceptive; I hold that there was nothing to deceive to begin with, since this is like reading satire and getting outraged that it's not real. Reviews had no inherent legitimacy to begin with, they only have legitimacy by virtue of how they substantiate their claims. This is true regardless of who is doing it, even the author.

If you disagree with me (and I assume quite a few will, since giving pseudonyms an air of trust is the default position) then please state why, in clear terms.

Note: I distinguish sockpuppeting from impersonation. Sockpuppeting (using a pseudonym or an anonymous account) is fine. Impersonation (attempting to be a real person) is very different, since people are assumed to be who they say they are, and borders on identity theft. But if people can solicit gushing reviews from their friends or family, and this is allowed, the review system (even with real names) had no credibility to begin with.