Despite being non-existential, The Shed at Dulwich rose meteorically to the top of TripAdvisor‘s list of restaurants in London, in what may be one of the greatest pranks of the digital age.
The story is this. VICE writer Oobah Butler once held a job that consisted of him writing fake restaurant reviews on the travel recommendation site, and he got paid to praise eateries despite having never eaten there. This inspired him to carry out a grand social experiment — could he manipulate the system into turning his shitty shed house into London’s top-rated restaurant on the site?
He could, and he did. A fake website, dozens of fake photoshoots, and hundreds of rejected bookings (in order to feign extreme exclusivity) later, The Shed at Dulwich really did become the best restaurant in London on one of the internet’s most trusted review site.
Never did we think this fiendish lark would be significant enough for Singapore’s lawmakers to seriously discuss it in a special Parliamentary hearing. On March 16, Mila Pilao, Director of Core Technology Marketing at Trend Micro, was called forth to explain to the newly formed Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods how Butler’s stunt was even possible.
In his study to fight against the scourge of fake news that could potentially threaten national security, committee member and Marine Parade GRC Member of Parliament Edwin Tong enquired how a fake restaurant with an image of an egg resting on Butler’s foot could ever rise in the ranks of TripAdvisor’s listings.
“He had someone put up a picture like this, where it’s held together by a foot. Um… but looking quite attractive otherwise,” Tong stated, pointing to the VICE article on a screen.
The discussion later looped back to getting Pilao’s expert opinion on how click farms can play a significant role in the proliferation of political or financial agendas. But for a moment there, Butler’s hilarious stunt received a grave political discourse we never knew we needed.
Watch the hearing below:
Reader Interactions