I was trying to check for myself whether the issue is real: that there is a company or business which provides buzzers (The Buzzer Co.) to give negative reviews to take down a growing business. At first, I thought it was just a fast-paced internet trend.
The internet itself always has two faces: opportunity and threat. As an opportunity, the internet can make us a star overnight. At the same time, the internet’s fast pace ensures negative news spreads like a pandemic, so you can become a star one night and a loser the next morning.
People Tend to Control (Through the Buzzer Co.)
Unsurprisingly, people try to tame the internet with algorithms and the internet’s direction. People want to read the pattern to keep themselves safe. Fair to say, it doesn’t always go in the right direction; often, it goes south immediately.
It is easier for people than focusing on making it mechanical. People then go to explore the Buzzer Co. The Buzzer Co. is an institution or informal group that works together to post comments, give positive feedback, or otherwise ensure that a business’s or a person’s perception online grows positively.
There are no laws to stop people from manipulating others into thinking positively about someone. Hence, the development is not always fair. Keeping your perfect, angelic persona is harder than making sure your competitor looks worse than you.
The Army of The Buzzer co.
The Buzzer Co. provides services to attack the persona, image or brand of your competitors for some amount of money. Once people take the bait, people tend to follow. People’s independence in thinking and giving opinions is very flawed. People feel peer pressure intensely, so their opinions are hardly independent.
The Buzzer co. usually wants to get the brief from us: what is the point of the attack? Is it the quality or safety of competitors’ products, what kind of facts or pseudo-facts they can use, etc.
They then design how the attack will be launched from different angles. It can start with a post by someone, then be followed by other members of the Buzzer co. to ensure the post goes viral faster than ever.
The irony is the word viral means has characters like viruses and it is what actually happened when the Buzzer co. started the campaign. Often, competitors try to defend themselves by using the other Buzzer Co., which makes the business interesting and engaging. No wonder it has mushroomed.
The Ethics Behind The Business
If we only talk about profits and opportunities, the Buzzer Co.does not seem like a big deal to worry about. Yet an underlying issue remains: ethics and the future of unfair competition.
I have called one of the Buzzers. They give an interesting service, quite affordable and match your financial profile. If you only need to take down a small business, they have a package for that. If you want to take out the bigger fish, they can do that too. They can kill the persona of someone who joins political contestation or tries to join the entertainment industry; two industries that need a good reputation for you to survive.
In my opinion, the government needs to regulate this situation. If not, the future is that the business will become an open season; the stronger will crush the weaker and it is not always for a good reason. We are coming to a monopoly era, the death of the industry and furthermore, the possibility that we will lose the essence of building our economic system: prosperity for everyone, not only the luxury of the few who hold the capital.
