Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap: A Darker Side to Crowdsourcing

Several recent studies have examined the merits of crowd sourcing to aid in completing repetitive or complex tasks requiring human computation. In comparison, scant attention has been placed on the use of crowd sourcing for the purpose of meeting unethical objectives, which may or may not be known to the participants. In this paper, we explore the potential for which crowd sourcing may be used to bypass commonly-established ethical standards for personal or professional gain.