sock puppet

sock puppet

A social media account in which one misrepresents their identity, usually to appear as another person who agrees with the views or comments expressed through their main account. The name refers to a type of hand puppet, in which a sock is fitted over the hand. After some time, it was discovered that the CEO had several sock puppet Twitter accounts, which he used to rave about his business and drive customers to his site. It didn't take long until sock puppets overran the thread with controversial posts that were all very similar to each other in tone and style. I'm skeptical of these 200 glowing reviews—I bet they're all by sock puppets.

See also: puppet, sock