Bonum Certa Men Certa

When the EPO Liaised With Capone (Literally) to Silence Bloggers, Delete Articles

Like history's most genocidal regimes, the EPO's management started an aggressive information warfare campaign this autumn

Lord Bryce



Summary: A dissection of the EPO's current media strategy, which involves not only funneling money into the media but also actively silencing opposing views

THE EPO is doing more malicious things than we have time to cover. As noted in the previous post, DDOS challenges aren't helping (lost 2 hours this morning) and the EPO's expensive distortion of the corporate media is well under way, with Battistelli sending to influential people articles from his greased up 'media partners', Les Échos for instance [1, 2, 3] (now Battistelli's mouthpiece, his master's voice).



"The EPO is now using public money to sue or threaten to sue journalists, activists etc. via dubious tactics and dubious people with a name like "Capone" (yes, it's a real name!)."One important observation that we wish to point out very quickly (I must rush and dash outdoors really urgently if not soon) is that the EPO bullies bloggers at the same time that it is greasing up the corporate media (look at the dates on the leaked letters and see they're just weeks apart). The EPO is now using public money to sue or threaten to sue journalists, activists etc. via dubious tactics and dubious people with a name like "Capone" (yes, it's a real name!).

The EPO is clearly fighting an information war (read the Wikipedia article on "information warfare") right now, combined with psychological warfare that mostly takes its toll on staff representatives. It wants to deprive its opposition of a voice while literally buying its own voices. This is the hallmark of imperialistic behaviour that must not be tolerated but at the same time can be difficult to crush (those who can end it are subjected to constant brainwash which only a lot of money can buy).

"This is the hallmark of imperialistic behaviour that must not be tolerated but at the same time can be difficult to crush (those who can end it are subjected to constant brainwash which only a lot of money can buy)."Contrary to media reports, the EPO did not bully me over one single article. It did this repeatedly. I later received another threatening from the EPO, regarding yet another article. That's an outrageous sign that the EPO's goal was to systematically remove a lot of articles -- if not all articles -- which I ever wrote about the EPO. As per advice that I received, maybe at the end I'll just take legal action and charge for illegal takedown attempts -- takedown of stuff that is factually correct. Such action is in itself illegal. It's akin to bogus DMCA takedown requests (censorship). But wait, does the EPO even care what's legal? Remember that the EPO is effectively above the law. It exploits that. Even when losing cases in court the EPO refuses to obey the rulings.

Believe it or not, Mr. Capone (yes, real name!) was the person doing legal bullying for the EPO. They seem to have gotten a cheap and unprofessional 'lawyer' (grossly abusing the law, which he does not even seem to understand) because a serious lawyer would laugh them out the door, fearing that the legal firm itself can be sued for SLAPP and bullying.

"Remember that the EPO is effectively above the law. It exploits that."No public word on this situation yet, but please understand that the EPO seemingly dumped their lawyers and moved to a more aggressive firm. It's all about intimidation and as we revealed in our first post on the subject, this seems to be a widespread campaign. Do not assume that Techrights is the only site under attack. We know that it's not because we spoke to another blogger, the person who built a site opposing the Unitary Patent. The EPO bullied him (trademark-trolling). Sometimes, especially nowadays, I fail to see how Europe is safer than China for journalists...

These people have no shame; they describe a false scenario or a misrepresentation of the law in an effort to compel for action based on misinformation. Similar tactics were reportedly used against staff representatives while their lawyers were absent. The EPO's bullies sent me threatening letters just before midnight on a Friday night, probably for similar reasons (more on that in future articles). We are going to expand on that some other day and provide more proof of our allegations, for I've run out of time and I must leave.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Getting Rid of Microsoft Does Not Go Far Enough
Microsoft already has many problems. One day Microsoft won't exist anymore. But that does not guarantee users' freedom.
Alyssa Rosenzweig's LibrePlanet Talk About Freeing the Apple GPU
Alyssa Rosenzweig is the graphics witch behind the reverse-engineered drivers for the Apple GPU. She previously led Panfrost, the free drivers for Arm Mali GPUs powering devices like the Pinebook Pro. She graduated in 2023 with a Computer Science degree from the University of Toronto and now writes free software full-time.
Links 30/06/2024: LLMs Under Fire and Dictatorship of the Old
Links for the day
[Meme] Walking Outside the Guardrails of the Walled Gardens Built by Monopolies
So-called "advertiser-unfriendly" material was never a problem for Wikileaks
This War Crime Footage, Nothing Political Per Se, Is What They Made Julian Assange Plead Guilty To (War Criminals Not Convicted, Only Those Who Expose Them)
Wikileaks' Julian Assange: Exposing the US Military Crimes
20 Years Passed, Let's Go Even Faster Now
We are hoping to bring more original stories
 
Eko K. A. Owen, New Outreach and Communications Coordinator for the FSF
Nice to see many new additions to the FSF's team
[Meme] Smart Alec Poettering
How many Microsofters can the Debian Project withstand?
Microsoft Has Slaves and Enablers, Not Partners
Obligatory meme too
Windows in Åland Islands: From 100% to Less Than Half
Åland Islands lost the sense of urgency to move to GNU/Linux
Tobias Platen Covered Freedom-To-Play Games in LibrePlanet 2024
Freedom-To-Play games using Taler
[Meme] Opening a 'Webapp' With 'Only' 4 GB of RAM
Until 2020 none of my PCs ever had more than 2 GB of RAM
Destination 'Five Percent'
We reckon GNU/Linux can break the 5% barrier some time by the end of this year, even without counting Chromebooks
A Crisis of Online Journalism
Almost a week ago a journalist was forced to plead guilty for an act of journalism
Germany One of Many Countries Where Microsoft's Bing Lost Market Share After All That LLM Nonsense (Bing Chat and Further Rebrands/Renames)
openai.com traffic plunged 60% last month
Microsoft’s Latest Antitrust Scrutiny
4 new stories
Microsoft Layoffs, Mass Plagiarism, and More
outrage included
GNU/Linux Climbed 0.25% This Month (in statCounter)
Around midday on Tuesday we'll start seeing preliminary data for July
Ilya Gulko Introduces Pollyanna
"Pollyanna is a web framework that makes it easy to create your own libre social space, such as a social network or blog."
'FSFE': Underage Labour, GAFAM Fronting, and Identity Theft to Undermine the FSF's Current Fundraiser
looking to raise funds at the same time as the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 29, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, June 29, 2024
Links 29/06/2024: Astronauts at Risk, Ukraine Updates
Links for the day
Fedora and Red Hat Leftovers
mostly redhat.com
Microsoft is Now Googlebombing or Spamming 'Open Source' and 'Linux' to Promote Proprietary Surveillance, Azure
Notice the title and the image, what's being promoted etc.
Seychelles: GNU/Linux Doing OK
Seychelles cannot be considered poor
Gemini Protocol Isn't Even Remotely "Dead"
"Lupa knows of 505,000 (half a million!) working Gemini URLs at present, up from about 425,000 this time last year"
About 10 New Free Software Foundation (FSF) Members Per Day
The total changed from 46 to 47 while typing the article
Vista 11 Adoption Unusually Low in Germany and It's Going Down, Not Up
This is not happening only in Germany
Kevin Korte on Computers Being Allowed to Make Decisions Based on Cryptic Algorithms and Proprietary/Secret Data
It uses buzzwords where none are needed
[Meme] Garbage In, Garbage Out (linuxsecurity.com)
It is neither Linux nor security, just chatbot-generated slop
Microsoft-Invaded CISA Spreads Anti-Free Software FUD (as If Proprietary Software Has No Memory Safety Issues), Brittany Day Uses Chatbots to Amplify and Permutate the Microsoft FUD
linuxsecurity.com became an anti-Linux spam site
Microsoft Laying Off Staff in an Act of Retaliation and Union-Busting
retaliatory layoffs at Microsoft
Gemini Links 29/06/2024: Content Drowning in 'Goo' and LLM Slop
Links for the day
Windows Lost Almost 92% Market Share in Egypt
From over 99% to just over 7%
In Ecuador, GNU/Linux Adoption Surged From Under 1% to Over 4% in About 3 Years
Not even counting Chromebooks
LibrePlanet: Cultivating Backups (of Recordings)
an appeal to recover some of these talks
Microsoft/Windows Machines Are Turned Off (or Windows Deleted/Decommissioned) in Web Servers, as the "Market Share" Collapse Continues
Taking full history into account, this is a decrease of over 90% in some cases
Corwin Brust Hosting Freedom: A Behind-the-scenes Tour With the GNU Savannah Hackers
"the "smiling faces" behind it."
Android at 90% or More in Chad
Windows below 2%
David Wilson: Cultivating a Welcoming Free Software Community That Lasts
"a feeling of shared ownership for all users."
Julian Assange Might Continue Wikileaks, But Certainly Not Yet (Recovery Time Needed)
And probably at a symbolic capacity only
Bringing in 12 Santas and Taking 13 Out (Old Interview With Julian Assange)
Julian Assange's life inside the Ecuadorian embassy
Neil Plotnick on GNU/Linux in the High School Classroom
uploaded to the LibrePlanet instance of MediaGoblin
Asia Appears to be Fastest to Adopt GNU/Linux
the home of a considerable majority of the world's population
Alexandre Oliva's LibrePlanet 2024 Talk About "Software Enshittification"
in spite of technical difficulties encountered while recording
What They Used to Do With Mono They Now Do With Systemd (Lower and Deeper Down Than Userspace)
Now we have a project started primarily by Red Hat (and managed by Microsoft GitHub, which is proprietary) being managed by Microsoft and primarily serving Microsoft and IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 28, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, June 28, 2024
Links 28/06/2024: Kangaroo Courts and Patents Spam, EFF Still Fighting for CPC's TikTok (a Digital Weapon)
Links for the day
Links 28/06/2024: Overton window and Polarization
Links for the day
[Meme] In 50 Years...
Microsoft's Vista 11 will take 50 years to be fully adopted
Only About 1 in 8 Russian Windows Users is Using Vista 11
it looks like over the past 12 months Vista 11 hardly grew and it remains very low at around 12% of Windows usage in Russia
Links 28/06/2024: More Attacks on the Press, More Censorship in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/06/2024: Christmas Prematurely, Self-hosting
Links for the day
IBM: So Long, Suckers. Your Free OS is Now Proprietary. Pay IBM or Else.
almost exactly a year after turning RHEL into proprietary software
Vista 11 is Doomed and Despite Lack of Adoption Microsoft Already Speaks of Vapourware ("12")
"Microsoft has pulled a Windows 11 update after users reported boot loops and startup failures."
ChromeOS Reaches Highest Share in Years at the World's Most Populous Nation, Windows Now at All-Time Low of 13%
We're talking about India today
[Video] "It Is Incredible That Julian Assange Survives"
There was a positive and mutual relationship between Wikileaks and Dr Jill Stein
Never Assume That Because the Law Exists the Powerful Will Follow the Law
Who's going to hold them accountable now?
Nearly a Month Has Passed and Nobody at the Debian Project Even Attempted to Explain What Seems Like Back-dooring of Debian (and Hundreds of Distros That Are Debian-Derived)
I can cynically guess that only matters when a user with a Chinese name does it
[Video] Julian Assange Explains Wikileaks' Logistics
predating indefinite detention
IBM Was Never the "Good Guy", Just a Self-Serving and Opportunistic Money- and Power-Hungry Monopolist, Living Off of Taxpayers' Money (Government Contracts)
The Nazi Party of Germany was its second-biggest client at one point and now it's looking to profit from the work of slaves
"I Hated Working at IBM. They Were the Most Unfriendly People."
Don't forget what Watson the son did to a poor woman on a plane
State of the News (and Depletion of Journalism Online, Not Just Offline)
Newspapers are not coming back and the Web is not coming back either
GNU/Linux Consolidates in North America
Android rising a lot this year, too
[Meme] More Monopolies Granted While Patent Examiners Die (Overworking for Less Compensation)
Work more; Get less
Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) is Taking the New Pension Scheme (NPS) to an International Tribunal (ILOAT)
SUEPO wants more EPO staff to participate in collective action
Stella Assange and the Legal Team Speak to the Media a Day After WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrives in Australia
Published yesterday by a number of mainstream publishers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 27, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, June 27, 2024
RIP Daniel Bristot de Oliveira, Red Hat death
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock