Ad Creep: Health Insurers Bribe Users of Facebook’s Mafia Wars

By Michael Mandiberg | Published: January 14, 2010

Screenshot of dirty dealing by Health Insurance Companies

I guess there is a reason they call it Mafia Wars. Business Insider has broken a story about insurance company shills paying Facebook users into sending emails to their Congressional Representatives opposing health care reform.

This is interesting in the context of the Health Care debate (see the attempt to push Komen for the Cure to dump Leiberman’s lobbyist wife) but is more significant as a marker of the way that advertising and advocacy are creeping into places and forms where the information consumer does not expect them.

This is one more place to be on guard. And being on guard changes the place. I’m having nostalgic memories of surfing the web on Mosaic, circa 1994… but I know it is just nostalgia.

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