Facebook Admits Hiring PR Firm To Smear Google 172
hasanabbas1987 writes "The clash of the Internet Giants reached new heights after a spokesman for Facebook confirmed to Daily Beast that Facebook paid a high level Public Relation firm to publish and spread stories against Google throughout the media to study various methods to examine the allegations that Google has been violating user privacy."
Wow (Score:1)
How dickish.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
How dickish.
Indeed it is. And Facebook is not the worst offender by far. Ever notice that when a critical Microsoft story comes up, we are bombarded by comments from certain people? dave420, x**xy**yo(or whatever), bing tsher, westlake, d'aldredge, and many more names that escape me now. Of course, when a pro-Google story pops up, the usual suspects are right there to jeer them down. It is tiresome. Then the sock puppet accounts come to mod up the shills and mod down any dissenters.
Remember the Kin? Hordes of astroturfers came to tell us all that if we didn't see how a dumb-smartphone aimed at tweens with a plan of 80 dollars a month would succeed, we just didn't get it? Then the things sell less than 10000 units. Apparently nobody else got it either. Or the Zune HD? Took 10 seconds for the calculator app to start and then you were subjected to advertising to boot. But the shills kept screeching that it was just going to kill the iPod touch and they couldn't wait to sell "their" ipod to go get that piece of shit. And the shills keep telling us how good Vista was and how well 7 runs on netbooks even though it is slower than congealed shit. Of course, now the refrain is the iPad is just a "consumption" device and just wait for Windows 8. Yeah like $WINDOWS_CURRENT_VERSION's shortcomings will all be addressed when $WINDOWS_NEXT_VERSION comes out. Same refrain.
Just know shills, that shit may have worked on OS/2 vs NT when you all flooded usenet but, the competitors are much stronger now and people apparently think a little more critically.
If anyone really wants to see how the masters orchestrate this farce, start here [wikipedia.org]
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I can't remember seeing anyone having anything positive to say about the Kin at any time. Are you sure you're not paid by Facebook to post anti-Microsoft comments to Slashdot to get us riled up against our traditional enemy so that we forget about the topic at hand for a while? Come to think about it, why isn't a comment about (the practically non-existent) pro-MS astroturfing, veering into criticism of their products, modded off topic? Moderators on the pay as well?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
I was talking to my 23 year old sister about this phone. Not only did she not care about the lack of app store, she saw it as a bonus. It looks like MSFT was definitely listening to a consumer segment when they designed the phone. [slashdot.org]
Given a choice between an EnV or a Kin, the Kin is an easy choice [slashdot.org]
The thing is, not everyone is, and phones like this are going to have appeal to people who are looking one tier below a smart phone. [slashdot.org]
And so on.
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I'm clearly missing something here. Every single one of those posts merely suggests that the phones will appeal to someone. That looks nothing like what you were ranting on about.
Clearly, your anti-Microsoft sentiment is showing in spades. You feel the need to exaggerate your claims and the need to post AC drives the point home. You can't even stand behind your own message.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
And if you click through to the authors' profile page to look at their other comments, they're pretty typical slashdot posters. They comment on space exploration, file sharing, Lord of the Rings Online, and liberal vs conservative politics. If these are shills, they're doing a lot of random blabbing on company time, and not much actual shilling.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow again!
It's blatantly obvious that "...phones like this are going to have appeal to people who are looking one tier below a smart phone" is written by a marketing department lackey and not the type of person who would actually buy this phone.
"OMG!!! i hav to hav this to sent pony texts to my bff!!!"
That ^^^^ is the type of message an actual user of the Kin would send.
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I can't remember seeing anyone having anything positive to say about the Kin at any time.
I think the AC's post is spot on as a very specific response to your criticism by linking to several posts in the original Slashdot story that did have positive things to say about the Kin.
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As I read the thread, the post with links answered your comment, "I can't remember seeing anyone having anything positive to say about the Kin at any time."
Unsurprisingly, it didn't answer the question you hadn't asked. It also didn't answer your unsubstantiated ad hominem attack against the poster and the moderators.
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Great. Not one of those supported your(?) claim that "hordes of astroturfers came to tell us all that if we didn't see how a dumb-smartphone aimed at tweens with a plan of 80 dollars a month would succeed, we just didn't get it". Someone claiming "phones like this" are going to appeal to some group isn't really into advertising, unlike yourself.
No, it's marketing hype aimed at investors and stock holders. It was certainly not written by a "real" slashdotter. It was an attempted to make people believe this thing would sell and the type of drivel that marketing execs actually believe because they are optimistic to a fault by their very nature.
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Right. Because Slashdot is swarming with investors and stockholders, and a 5 digit UID is less legitimate than your own. I have to admire the level of bullshit accepted by the average slashbot when it comes to Microsoft. The hatred makes you guys more moronic than some of the most delusional Apple fanboys. Then again, you're the same bunch.
Yes, investors get information from Slashdot. (Score:2)
That is definitely one way investors get information. They read the buzz on places like Slashdot.
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Then they are idiots. This place is swarming with corporate fanboys.
Why do YOU read Slashdot? (Score:2)
Because there is often useful information, even though there are a lot of uninteresting comments. Investors do the same.
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The vast majority of the information on Slashdot is wrong. I only come here to flame.
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Right. Because Slashdot is swarming with investors and stockholders, and a 5 digit UID is less legitimate than your own. I have to admire the level of bullshit accepted by the average slashbot when it comes to Microsoft. The hatred makes you guys more moronic than some of the most delusional Apple fanboys. Then again, you're the same bunch.
Actually, you are correct. I did not take the time to read the full comments carefully. However, after reading them, it is apparent that the posters were guessing as to what the marketing departments might be thinking. For example, take this comment:
You're right. There is a lot more to the mobile phone market than the high-end smart phone. Compared to any smart phone these two devices can't compete. But against the EnV, Backflip, etc I'd say they're more than interesting. I think the low to mid end of the mobile phone market is under-served with quality devices, there's a plethora of phones out there, but very few that are any good.
If these phones are executed well, they could definitely fill a gap in the market.
What I find most interesting about them is the ability to use a Zune Pass to download OTA. Either you're into music subscriptions or you're not, but I'm perfectly happy with the model and have used Rhapsody for years now. VZW currently has a rhapsody app for phones, but you can't use your to-go subscription to download songs OTA, and to rub salt in the wound it's something like 1.99 to purchase a song you can buy on your PC for .99. If you can download OTA for 'free' that could really increase the appeal of these phones.
Yeah, the phone is underwhelming if you're looking at it along with Android devices and the iPhone. The thing is, not everyone is, and phones like this are going to have appeal to people who are looking one tier below a smart phone.
Also note that the poster's name is BillG@Microsoft.com :-)
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Um, yeah. That is exactly what that post proves: hordes of astroturfers. They have been here, and everywhere else online for a very long time. In the case of the KIN they are easy to spot because despite the immense social campaign nobody bought the thing. It had 300,000 Facebook fans and 8,000 Facebook users against a rumored actual 500 people [slashdot.org] who had actually bought the thing with their own money. It had more supportive slashdot comments than actual buyers - and that's just slashdot, a trivial corner
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Microsoft is no exception when it comes to astroturfing. It's how advertising is done these days. Your comment, however, is just conspiratorial nonsense.
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That's the fun thing about conspiracy theories: you can recurse as many times as you want!
To understand conspiracy, you must first understand conspiracy.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be me. Fuck Microsoft and its shitty OutFuckingLook. I've wasted 3 weeks of my life because of that piece of shit.
1) Can't *COPY* a piece of mail, have to move it. So I have to export the mailbox in order not to screw with the user's mailbox.
2) exporting a 2Gig file out of outlook can take 1 whole business day.
3) Hell, syncing a 2G mailbox from sexchange can take 1 whole business day.
4) why is there no tools to convert from OST to PST?!
5) And how do you export to PST? File -> Open -> Import -> Export to a file. WHAT THE FUCK?
6) Indexing sucks more ass. I have a quad core 16Gig system. 1% cpu utilization. But NOOOOO, MICROFUCK MAKES IT SO THAT I HAVE TO WAIT ONE WHOLE FUCKING DAY FOR THE INDEXING TO RUN IN THE BACKGROUND WITH NO WAY TO INCREASE PRIORITY.
7) OK, now all done. WHERE THE FUCK IS THE SEARCH MENU? OH, IT'S PLAYING FUCKING HIDE AND SEEK. You have to click on the search box, then the fucking search menu pops up (so that I can find out what is the current indexing status)
8) Really, Microsoft, is it SO FUCKING HARD TO MAKE IT AN OPTION TO MAKE SEARCH ALL SUBFOLDERS THE DEFAULT? I'M IN THERE *SEARCHING* FOR SHIT. Why WOULD I NOT WANT TO SEARCH ALL THE FUCKING SUB FOLDERS?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU MORONS!
So, how many business days did I just waste, just so that I can search a mailbox for some terms and create a new mailbox with those emails?
On unix, with maildir, I can run swish-e, and be done in a couple of hours. The HATE AND LOATHING I have for OutFuckingLook just cannot be understated.
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I've been using Outlook for about 2.5 years. Never had a (major) problem with it. I'm not discrediting your issues of course, I just find it interesting how a program can have such varied reactions from different people.
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I've been using outlook for 2+ years at my last place, and 4 years here. As part of normal day to day work, it's... "OK". But when I had to do something outside the range of "normal", it sucks ass.
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That would be me. Fuck Microsoft and its shitty OutFuckingLook. I've wasted 3 weeks of my life because of that piece of shit.
Outlook may be crap, but the alternatives are worse (eww, Thunderbird! And holy crap is Apple Mail awful).
1) Can't *COPY* a piece of mail, have to move it. So I have to export the mailbox in order not to screw with the user's mailbox.
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. Not exactly rocket science.
2) exporting a 2Gig file out of outlook can take 1 whole business day.
About 30 minutes here. Can I work at your company with 30 minute days?
3) Hell, syncing a 2G mailbox from sexchange can take 1 whole business day.
Same as above
4) why is there no tools to convert from OST to PST?!
It's called "Export". Or copy/paste.
5) And how do you export to PST? File -> Open -> Import -> Export to a file. WHAT THE FUCK?
File > Import and Export.
6) Indexing sucks more ass. I have a quad core 16Gig system. 1% cpu utilization. But NOOOOO, MICROFUCK MAKES IT SO THAT I HAVE TO WAIT ONE WHOLE FUCKING DAY FOR THE INDEXING TO RUN IN THE BACKGROUND WITH NO WAY TO INCREASE PRIORITY.
Agreed. Indexing sucks. My Outlook data STILL isn't indexed, and it's been installed for over a year.
7) OK, now all done. WHERE THE FUCK IS THE SEARCH MENU? OH, IT'S PLAYING FUCKING HIDE AND SEEK. You have to click on the search box, then the fucking search menu pops up (so that I can find out what is the current indexing status)
Search sucks. You'll get no disagreement from me.
8) Really, Microsoft, is it SO FUCKING HARD TO MAKE IT AN OPTION TO MAKE SEARCH ALL SUBFOLDERS THE DEFAULT? I'M IN THERE *SEARCHING* FOR SHIT. Why WOULD I NOT WANT TO SEARCH ALL THE FUCKING SUB FOLDERS?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU MORONS!
Couldn't agree more, bar all the expletives.
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I'm using Outlook 2010. Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V didn't work for me. I thought I was being stupid, so I actually pulled in witnesses to all the stupidity.
Synching and exporting the 2Gig file - no idea what is wrong. Seriously. I'm sitting there, watching this - not running anything else box - just going I know I can, I know I can. But it's not the primary mailbox, it's secondary mailboxes I've attached to. I think Outlook just has issues with secondary mailboxes, because my primary mailbox (ie, *MY* mail acct)
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and how well 7 runs on netbooks even though it is slower than congealed shit.
For the record I have a Lenovo S10-T atom based netbook/tablet convertible running Windows 7 and the speed is fine as far as I can see. On the other hand the tablet functionality is pure crap.
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What is the difference between a shill and a fanboi? I know its hard for you (and frankly for me) to believe that anyone would be a MS fanboi, but they ARe out there.
It boils down to human nature. Many people attach themselves to idea because they are either too lazy or unable to seperate those ideas from their identity and think critically. I make my money off of MS products (well MS and citrix, same thing). I am able to seperate myself from the tech that provides my paycheck. Im neither pro or anti MS. Ju
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
What is the difference between a shill and a fanboi?
A shill is paid whether he likes the product or not, generally follows some sort of script and is usually an account manned by more than one person. It's really a coordinated attack on the truth. A fanboy genuinely likes the product and, though extreme, is actually representative of the true fan base. It's the difference between grass-roots and astroturf to use the terminology generally associated with the phenomenon.
Real fanboys don't bother me because it's all in good fun but shills are pure poison and the practical differences are significant as what happened on usenet during the OS/2 NT wars. Say a product comes out and there are 10,000 people roaming around on the internet that actually care about it and post to message boards with a 50/50 distribution of for/against. Then a "relationship management" firm gets in the game with multiple shill accounts on the most important sites, i.e., Engadget, Slashdot, Zdnet, etc. It's not that hard to turn the conversation on its head with a coordinated campaign on a few target sites with the right kind of money in a specific time frame. Those 5000 people out of our hypothetical 10,000 can easily be drowned out by a room full of Indians shilling full time for the company du jour. This happens all of the time and has been going on for a while [catb.org].
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
What is the difference between a shill and a fanboi?
The same as that between a whore and a girlfriend.
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Erm. It's /. - we'll need a car analogy.
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Whilst I don't disagree with you about the problem, you seem to naively believe that only Microsoft partake in this.
It was only a few weeks ago we had two stories about Samsung in as many days that turned out complete and utter bullshit, just at the same time Samsung's phones and tablet was stealing a fair bit of the limelight from Apple at last. We regularly get feel stories about how Apple gave a free iPad to a guy whose wife told him to take it back, or how an iPhone survived a fall out a plane, or saved
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Though Ubuntu (and no doubt any other distro, but that is the one I have significant personal experience of on netbooks) does work better, both the latest release (which a friend of mine uses in dual-boot with W7
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No worse than XP anyway (unlike Vista).
Yea, Vista was so bad for netbooks MS had to continue selling XP for them.
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And how do you distinguish shills from the fanboys / antifanboys?
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No, seriously, there are all kind of people in this forums and I don't expect less, but It seems that it's the editor
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He does have a point, but he's making the point while shilling himself. I read a ve
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He's talking about the iPad quip. The iPad complaints and references to it as a 'consumption' device have absolutely nothing to do with the next iteration of Windows, by including this as part of the response it shows a disconnect from the reality of the community of us that aren't astroturfing comments on a website for compensation other than perhaps dumbass ego trips. Hell, I can almost guarantee it has more to do with Android tablets or just simply not giving a shit about an oversized touchscreen phone
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Those in glass houses...
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Why leave it there? It's pointless and irrelevant. It's like saying that because my superannuation scheme has shares in Microsoft and/or Google, I'm personally responsible for everything they do.
Ummm, what the eff? (Score:1)
Is it just me or is the end of the summary not really intelligible?
Re:Ummm, what the eff? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, and it should link to the original source of the story, not this crappy write-up on some unknown blog.
Original: [link] [thedailybeast.com]
Poorly written [Re:Ummm, what the eff?] (Score:4, Informative)
The summary is hard to read because the article itself is written in very poor English, making it hard to read. When there are two grammatical errors within in the first two words of the blog post, it's not a good sign.
The Daily Beast article is much better written. (It links back to the USA Today article: http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2011-05-06-google_n.htm [usatoday.com] , which lays out the campaign, although doesn't name Facebook)
On the Plus Side... (Score:3)
Given /.'s affinity for Dup's... we can be assured that within 24 hours, this story'll be reposted, but with reference to the DailyBeast article. Ain't redundancy great? :D
Summary is wrong (Score:5, Funny)
Facebook didn't hire them to publish stories against Google. That would be libel. They merely hired them to help educate the public about Google's anti-privacy practices that may violate the Consumer Protection Act. That's all. It's just part of Facebook's ongoing efforts to help educate us all and make us better consumers.
And who better to educate us on privacy than Facebook, after all--a company well-known for its respect for user privacy?
Re:Summary is wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Not if the stories are true.
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I'm pretty sure Google would contend in a court of law that they are not. So that would at least mean the possibility of a lawsuit. If Facebook were to concede malice right off the bat, Google would already be halfway there. But nothing malicious about a mere educational campaign, right?
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"I'm pretty sure Google would contend in a court of law that they are not."
Did you already forget the story either yesterday or before about Yahoo, Google, etc sending out a letter to California Legislature stating essentially that if they were not allowed to violate our privacy, the economy would go to shit?
That's the first piece of evidence I'd submit against them to show they're full of shit.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not if the stories are true.
They don't have to be true to avoid being libel.
They just have to avoid sufficient provable malice or negligence rising to the level of malice for a claim of libel to succeed.
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You answered the wrong question. The point you make is not relevant to the post you respond too.
In the UK, saying something TRUE can be libel. In the US, saying something TRUE can not be libel.
In both cases, you can say something untrue, but it still does not fall under libel.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the UK something which you can prove to be true cannot be libel. However, the onus is on the defendant to prove that the statement they made was true, rather than the onus being on the plaintiff to prove that it was false.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the UK something which you can prove to be true cannot be libel. However, the onus is on the defendant to prove that the statement they made was true, rather than the onus being on the plaintiff to prove that it was false.
I think that there are very rare exceptions - things deliberately intended to mislead. Like if I say "XXX visited a prostitute five times" but I knew perfectly well that he was a doctor acting in the course of his work and had a nurse present.
Insightful rather than Funny? (Score:2)
They merely hired them to help educate the public about Google's anti-privacy practices that may violate the Consumer Protection Act.
Personally I *LIKE* it when Facebook or anyone else calls out another companies questionable privacy policies; even if it comes from one of the biggest offenders themselves. I hope this inspires Google to help call out questionable privacy policies of Facebook too.
It's just like when China and the US point fingers at each other or Human Rights violations. I vehemently disagree with those who say the US shouldn't criticize China until it looks at it's own abuses or vice-versa. IMHO it's good any tim
Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess Buzz and Google's other efforts really did scare them.
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You know what? I think Buzz works very well and i like it, much because of the people using it. Instead of a crazed cacophony of updates i couldn't care less about i can read interesting stuff from people i know wont degenerate into pre-pubertal shouting.
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You've got the wrong friends.
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Their business models collide in the "selling user's private information" market.
That's only part of the business model. Facebook garners information via a social network, Google does it via search engine, email, videos, et al, but not social networking. And another thing, for all these tech companies being with in a few miles of each other (Oracle, Apple, Facebook, Google, etc.) I dont see nearly enough real-world pranks going on at rivals' campuses.
Re:Why? (Score:4)
Oracle's pranks are always at their customer's expense.
EverythingNew.net might want to consider... (Score:4, Informative)
...hiring a native speaker to edit their English language edition. Anyone who has successfully completed third grade could help them.
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Slashdot editors failed 3rd grade? That's unpossible.
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Yes, in 3rd grade we learned not to include vital information in the title if you're going to start your comment there. Also, we learned that the wooshing sound some people sometimes hear doesn't quite register.
Which is why education is important (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why the dumbing-down of our educational system is so tragic.
The fact is that we have access to more information than any people in history, but if one is unable to think CRITICALLY about the data, it's almost worse than useless.
Why, do you suppose, Fox News is telling us about Obama's latest gaffe?
Why, do you suppose, a failed presidential candidate makes a movie telling us how the world is going to hell?
Certainly, the basic information could be true or false; more likely it's a careful presentation of the factual or a blend of fact and supposition in order to encourage a specific response in the reader.
Without a good education we're unable to participate as useful citizens, and are merely a remotely-controlled 'demographic' that marches according to what the media tells us to. Sadly, this programming has always been with us and always will. The educational system used to program us to be good, unquestioningly patriotic citizens, but at least squeezed in some knowledge in the meanwhile. Now it programs our kids into reflexive iconoclasts, that they are 'good' regardless of what they do, and that their self-esteem is far more important than any silly facts, particularly if those facts came from dead white men.
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Re:Which is why education is important (Score:4, Interesting)
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Has the education system EVER been about being able to think critically about the data? Prior to "higher education", it seems to go out of the way to discourage it.
I think you missed the line where he said "Sadly, this programming has always been with us and always will."
Re:Which is why education is important (Score:5, Insightful)
Having ACCESS to the data, and having the data itself in front of you are two completely different things. Do you think that I'm going to spend my day looking for hard facts about Google or any other company I don't really care about. I have things to do!!
This is all about the media industry and its _actual_ role as a hired out propaganda apparatus. Wealthy interests pay newspapers, radio and TV station to publish the stories those interests wish to see published. That's how the media operates and that's how it will _always_ operate.
All that claptrap about "the free press" and "guardians of democracy" is a pile of cow dung, as anyone who lived through the last 10 years can easily tell. Read your history books and you will see that it has always been thus. The media consists almost entirely of hired shills, whose job it is to influence your opinion in exchange for money. This story is simply and admission by one of their clients.
Todays Fun Fact: Most PR employees are in fact former journalists(or journalism majors).
Re:Which is why education is important (Score:4, Insightful)
Perfect example of this is the spanish-American War which was fermented (but not initiated) almost by newspapers in New York. Pulitzer and Hearst should be curses.
I think you ment "fomented"... (Score:3)
... although "fermented" does work here, come to think of it.
media history (Score:3)
All that claptrap about "the free press" and "guardians of democracy" is a pile of cow dung, as anyone who lived through the last 10 years can easily tell. Read your history books and you will see that it has always been thus.
This is true only if U.S. history begins at World War II. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were labor papers which were mainly subscription supported, with local news, educational articles, and union events. There were many of these, some small, some with a broader reach. For example as late as the 1930s the Institute for Propaganda Analysis [wikimedia.org], which taught people how to read and think critically, had significant influence.
The media consists almost entirely of hired shills, whose job it is to influence your opinion in exchange for money.
While this is generally true of US corporate news, here are four exceptions: Amn [amnesty.org]
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If you think that government-run schools want to produce people who are capable of critical thinking, then you're probably a product of the government-run school system.
Wouldn't it be just as effective.... (Score:2)
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Stockholm Syndrome.
Many victims of Zynga suffer severely for it, and Facebook is all about it.
privacy piracy (Score:2)
Never mind the immediate intrusions that facebook allows by making everything public by default, until you navigate to each individual item's options and raise the security settings to ensure not everyone can see it. But that was 'with your permission' I guess?
But we at facebook who brag about
Put this on pause (Score:4, Informative)
The reporter "confirming" the story is Mr. Dan "Linux stole from SCO!" Lyons. A stopped clock twice a day and all that, but I wouldn't trust Lyons to report that water is wet and the sky is blue. I'd wait for confirmation from reputable sources before getting on opinion on this.
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That's very true, and I respect that he fessed up and admitted it. No hemming and hawing - he flat-out said that he was wrong. But for four years, by his own admission he cheerfully accepted SCO's claims at face value and repeated them to his audience. Because of that, I don't give him any credibility in any other venue. That may change if his track record stays better than it had been, but that won't happen for me any time soon.
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I might be mixing Lyons up with some other big-name proponent of SCO, but didn't he also blame his failure to think critically on slashtards? Something about how all the vociferousness just made him want to double-down rather than actually apply any critical thinking?
Corporate Mottos 2011 (Score:5, Funny)
Google - Don't be evil.
Microsoft - Be incompetent.
Intel - Be oligopolistic.
Dell - Be beige.
Acer - Be shoddy.
HP - Be recurrent.
Cisco - Be expensive.
Sony - Be invasive.
Twitter - Terse.
Apple - Be exclusive.
Facebook - Be evil.
Re:Corporate Mottos 2011 (Score:5, Funny)
Amazon - Be cloudy.
Slashdot - Be a dupe.
Yahoo - Be mediocre.
Slashdot - Be a dupe.
Wikipedia - Be {citation needed}.
Ebay - Be A+++++.
Youtube - Be dat vid suked ur gay u faget.
Craigslist - Be a prostitute.
RIM - Be outdated.
Verizon - Be abusive.
T-Mobile - Wear a sun dress.
AT&T - Be... [carrier lost]
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PayPal - Be greedy.
Wikileaks - Be there.
Oracle - Be arrogant.
SAP - Be a PITA.
IBM - Been there, done that.
Novell - 'been nice while it lasted.
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Dell - Be beige
Perhaps this is referring to something else? Their cases have been black since the late 1990's.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beige_box [wikipedia.org]
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Sony - Be invasive.
Shouldn't that "Be invaded." ?
"I know you are, but what am I?" (Score:2)
As a way of deflecting criticism, it is the first bit of rhetoric we all learn in our lives.
And it apparently works in kindergarten, national politics, and corporate PR warfare.
Pot Calling the Kettle Black? (Score:2)
I don't trust either pan to hold my data. I might get burned.
Re:Pot Calling the Kettle Black? (Score:4, Informative)
So, why don't you trust Google to hold your data, out of curiosity. I'm biased for various reasons, but I think it's a fair question to ask. I trust my bank to hold my data, even though I'm pretty sure they abuse it (after calling to ask about a refinance of my mortgage, for example, I got 5 cold-calls about mortgages in 2 days). I trust my ISP with my private data even though I'm pretty sure they have a direct tap for warrantless wiretapping. I trust all sorts of entities with my data who I know to be lying bastards, but I've never known Google to be such.
Everyone I know who works for them honestly believes that they try to do the right thing as often as they can. My friends who work for Yahoo! don't say that. My friends who work for Amazon don't quite say that, though they think it's better than most. My friends who work for many large corporations laugh a little or just get real quiet if you ask them that...
So the evidence that I have at my disposal says that:
1) Google's S1 filing [udel.edu] is fairly honest (go read it... it's fascinating)
2) Google is, at worst, an altruistic company that may well change over time.
3) Given the choices that you do make to share personal data (with banks, ISPs, etc.) Google looks pretty good.
Original Daily Beast article (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a link to the original article if anyone wants to read about it without the inventive grammar and composition of the awful linked blog post:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-12/facebook-busted-in-clumsy-smear-attempt-on-google/ [thedailybeast.com]
Google doesn't need to do the same back, 'cause... (Score:2)
...Facebook is its own negative-PR department.
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Google does a pretty good job of making an ass of themselves all on their own, that whole "do no evil" thing Google used to swear by, it is a load of crap,
That is a load of crap, because it's "don't be evil [wikipedia.org]", troll.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptocracy [wikipedia.org]
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The last 7 of the 10 commandments are generally enforced by law books in most countries by thousands of laws. The first 3 are the ones that bear direct reference to a religion.
Quoting the last 2 should not have resulted in an attack on religion. They are basic commandments to stay out of the legal system. Violation of most of them even outside the church system is not a good idea.
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"The last 7 of the 10 commandments are generally enforced by law books in most countries by thousands of laws."
Which countries have laws against coveting?
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