Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft is Lying About Everything, Even the Layoffs

A month ago when it fired dozens of 'journalists' it was misusing media partners to spin/misreport it as an "HEY HI" (AI) story and now this...

Microsoft layoffs spin



Summary: Microsoft's non-existent stores (not to open anymore) are spun by Microsoft as some kind of strategic brilliance in some of the press, reaffirming the media's failure to properly assess what is happening (relaying Microsoft PR and face-saving lies, instead)

I've long been cynical about the media, having seen from the outside and from the inside how it truly operates. A lot of publishers receive bribes, yet they never call these anything like "bribery" but "sponsorship" or "advertising". In some of the above one can find familiar names; to them, as soon as Microsoft announced the shut-down of all stores (see the misleading title from Microsoft) it was imperative to spin, so they crafted a bunch of nonsense to make it seem like good news, a tinge of innovation. Just under a month ago those same people told us that Microsoft dumping staff was actually a sign of Microsoft's excellence in "HEY HI" (AI). The Mixer shutdown was spun as a Facebook story a week ago. What on Earth?!



"Just under a month ago those same people told us that Microsoft dumping staff was actually a sign of Microsoft's excellence in "HEY HI" (AI)."Later on, when people use terms like "fake news" don't blame China or Democrats or Donald Trump (who all leveraged that ridiculous term, in that order); blame the actual practice of "commercial journalism" (or corporate press), which is in the business of subtle PR or cleverly-worded nonsense. To be fair, about half the sites that we saw covering this (late on Friday or Saturday morning) got the story correctly. We assessed a couple dozen. Had Microsoft announced this any other day of the week (working days), many more people would be notified. Then want this to slip under the radar (or misframed as advancement).

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Slop Presumption Rule
Tainting oneself can take one day
August 2026 Microsoft Layoffs Are "Secret Layoffs" or "Silent Layoffs"
It's all about secrecy, isn't it?
Newer Not Better: Treadmill Updates Cause Problems
after 2 years the un-updated machines still fine
SLAPP Censorship - Part 136 Out of 200: Lawyers That Get Paid to Mess About
They were already outnumbered and understaffed
 
We Are Witnessing the End of IBM
IBM cannot find growth by moving downwards, by lowering standards
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 01, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, August 01, 2026
Gemini Links 02/08/2026: Older Books, Esperanto Music History, and Slop Making Things Worse
Links for the day
Sharing and Empathy
Be more like Stallman, not Linus
Fedora 'Community' Became 100% IBM Staff, Drawing Up Policies Like CoC and CoI (Where the IBM is Excepted From Conflict of Interest Policies)
IBM has in effect killed Fedora
Gemini Links 01/08/2026: Planner Season is Upon Us, Slop "Apocalypse", and USENET
Links for the day
Cuts at IBM, Allegedly More Shutdowns to Come, CEO Visits Complicit Media to Promote Lies and Products That Will Never Exist (Misleading Shareholders)
IBM is collapsing
Links 01/08/2026: GAFAM Falling Deep Into Trillion in (Secret) Debt to Keep the Slop Bubble From Popping Already, Anger Over "FIFA’s World Cup Privatisation Plan"
Links for the day
The Cyber Show on the Slop Bubble
new article about the implosion of the slop bubble
Links 01/08/2026: New York Times Trying to Inflate the Slop Pyramid Scheme (at Cost to Its Own Reputation) and "Iran Appears to Be Blasting Amazon Data Centers Off the Map"
Links for the day
Positive Political Momentum
Daniel Pocock is taken seriously by many people who contact us privately
Google "AI" is Plagiarism, the Case of Richard Stallman (RMS)
Why would anyone choose LLM slop over the originals, curated and fact-checked by domain experts?
Explaining That Software Patents Are Neither Legal Nor Desirable
Many of our readers work in the legal sector
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 31, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, July 31, 2026
Gemini Links 01/08/2026: Retirement, Bike Trips, Quake Stuff, Usenet Reborn
Links for the day
Links 31/07/2026: Microsoft Now Says Slop is Bad (LinkedIn Cracks Down on It), LinkedIn Narrows Down Size (No Expansion)
Links for the day
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: From Alicante to Munich: Another Smooth Ride
Campinos is intent on transforming what was originally envisaged as a temporary public office into his own permanent personal feather-bed
Daniel Pocock and the Important Observation About Threats of Cult-Like Behaviours (No Rationality, No Reason, Just "Mob Rule")
It's a threat to Europe's sovereignty
The "PIP Parade" of IBM's Lousy Management, Which Said "Blockchain" Was the Future
In a healthy company such a CEO would be punished for utterly wrong visions and predictions. Not at IBM...
SLAPP Censorship - Part 135 Out of 200: Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) That Does Not Disclose Financial Activities Before August
It certainly looks like they keep losing the remaining women that still exist in the firm
Links 31/07/2026: "Climate Cover-Up Continues" and Pesticides "Cook the Planet"
Links for the day
Datacentre 'Boom' Sceptics Aren't Luddites, They Recognise a Threat to Human Survival (Not Limited to Climate Change)
Archaeologists very well know that no species will survive forever
Microsoft's Claims Are Based on a Big Lie
the bubble is coming to its hard limits
Don't Lose Sight of the Impact of "End of 10" (Vista 10)
GNU/Linux has taken off fast
Microsoft's Debt Continues to Steadily Increase, Not Counting Hundreds of Billions in Secret/Hidden Debt
The mass layoffs will carry on, maybe labelled LITE
IBM is Circling Down the Drain, the 'Growth' Comes From Beancounting Tricks and Salary Cuts
IBM was down 2.17% yesterday
Microsoft's "Headcount" Distracts From How Big a Cull It Had This Month
It also speaks of numbers "[a]s of June 30" though the "buyouts" were effective July 1 and since then well over 10,000 workers have vanished
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 30, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, July 30, 2026
Gemini Links 31/07/2026: Music, Journaling, and Longing
Links for the day