According to The Times of India, the Chinese government is reverting to the same PR tactics used by dot com’s in the 90’s. They’ve enlisted a band of carefully-selected undercover operatives to go into chat rooms, and basically defend and glorify government policies on any boards where there’s dissent. But what’s the value in turning The Peoples’ frown emoticons upside down? Posing as “ordinary netizens,” the special forces are expected to guide public opinion, and help control the over 100 million Chinese Internet users currently frolicking about the ‘net. Of course, I’m not sure who’s going to tell the Minister of Propaganda that quite a few of the companies that resorted to such innovative chat room stratagem have either experienced significant backlashes, or found themselves belly-up by the end of the decade.

Asia Media (via Digg.com)