Bonum Certa Men Certa

IBM Never Apologised For Making Billions Out of Overt Racism, Now It Wants to Ban Words Used to Communicate Such Issues and It's Bombarding Journalists to Seed Misleading Puff Pieces

Recent: IBM Racism Explained by an Insider (IBM also made lots of money from the literal bombarding of people)

IBM on race
Sent last night at the end of the working day (US)



Summary: For the purpose of denial of their harsh past (even very recent past), which is embarrassing, IBM managers try to paint themselves as champions of diversity who heroically battle against racism (even as they continue to profit from racism)

DURING the summer we wrote more than a dozen articles on an important topic, notably the idea that racism would be a thing of the past if only we banned a few words or replaced them with something else. That's the very corporate vision of 'activism', as bombing is profitable and changing words is cheap. Very, very cheap.



"That's the very corporate vision of 'activism', as bombing is profitable and changing words is cheap. Very, very cheap."Later today IBM will be planting lots of puff pieces as part of a new PR offensive intended to portray itself as the opposite of what it really is. So watch out.

Even IBM insiders formally complained in a petition: "We are disappointed that IBM CEO Ginni Rometty's open letter to President-elect Donald Trump does not affirm IBMers' core values of diversity, inclusiveness, and ethical business conduct."

IBM is not BLM

IBM staff isn't stupid. They can sense and can research these matters. IBM is googlebombing the World Wide Web, hoping actual information will be harder to find (drowned out by shallow PR).

As it turns out, IBM has hired external PR agencies to act as middlemen and 'reach out' to people with sites/blogs, including myself.

This is their template, which they sent me hours ago (screenshot at the top, including the part which attempts to prevent me taking about it):

Hi Roy,

This summer has seen a long overdue reckoning on race in America. While it’s easy to point out obvious racist language like the “whites only” signs once posted outside restaurants and public pools, we are only beginning to unravel the more insidious forms of racist language still embedded in our culture today.

For instance, tech engineers often use the terms “master/slave” to describe components in which one device controls another. Suspicious websites that may steal your data are put on a “blacklist,” and malicious hackers who violate computer security are known as “black hats.” Now is the time to cut out racist language in all its forms, and IBM is proud to take action to bring change to the IT community.

As part of a group of social justice efforts known as Emb(race), the *IBM Academy of Technology launched an internal initiative to identify and replace IT terminology that promotes racial and cultural bias.* In partnership with our style and diversity councils, IBM will conduct a thorough evaluation of each term that has been flagged for review, and in some cases recommend an unbiased replacement term. IBM’s goal is to promote inclusive language in IT and to provide opportunities for our employees to work together towards this goal.

Are you interested in learning more about Emb(race) and IBM’s initiative to eradicate racist IT terminology? Let me know and I would be happy to connect you with Tim Humphrey, VP and Chief Data Officer at IBM for an interview.

Best,

Michael


This isn't the first time they try this on us (gagging us while asking for puff pieces). If only they spent on anti-racism as much as they spend on PR agencies...

IBM logo on media



Sniffing around the IBM sites, I soon discovered that this campaign kicked off yesterday. IBM wants us to think that a form of censorship will tackle racism -- an oversimplistic if not idealistic viewpoint.

"If only they spent on anti-racism as much as they spend on PR agencies.."Yesterday I asked them: "Why are you contacting me specifically about this?"

My assumption was that it was possibly a targeted attempt to shift the public debate, under the headline "IBM Launches Initiative to Erase Racist Language in IT Industry..."

Is it always racist though? Or are they making racist assumptions about the meaning of words? See, it's not always (in all cases) as simple as they try to frame it.

We discussed this a few hours ago in IRC. People from different geographic locations and demographics...

Originally I thought I would take the offer to conduct this interview, warn them in advance about my questions being tough, then ask about Jamaica, Mr. Watson's Nazi medal, Ginni's relationship with Donald Trump (we covered this before), Modi's ties to Krishna etc. (even racism and a highly divisive leadership in India is perfectly fine with the new CEO).

"IBM wants us to think that a form of censorship will tackle racism -- an oversimplistic if not idealistic viewpoint."Basically, using an interview that's live (not predictable to the answerer) we could point out to them how silly and shallow they are, not to mention hypocritical. In the US, for example, they had an NYPD project that backfired spectacularly when the media found out about it. Then, for a number of weeks IBM constantly bombarded the media to distract from the bad press. They were making money by helping cops flag people by colour... and only months ago (years later) they finally withdrew from it.

The intent of this new campaign is obvious. They obviously want people to stop talking about racism at IBM.

Alexei asked: "Is it racist how poorly terms like "denylist" translate into other languages?"

Alexei is based near Saint Petersburg. English is not his first language. Over the past few months, I saw in online forums people who mention that in some Slavic countries with other languages, folks have a different interpretation of the proposed terms. "Of course they probably won't bother and just use the local equivalent of "blacklist"," Alexei said, "but that raises the question of whether there was anything wrong with it in the first place. [...] though maybe a simple adjective can do like "запретный список", but "a forbidden list" doesn't sound like it's the contents that are forbidden..."

"I had pointed that out," he said, "and that Ukrainian would have even a harder time than Russian for lacking a certain form of participle that Russian loaned from OCS."

"The intent of this new campaign is obvious. They obviously want people to stop talking about racism at IBM.""oiaohm" from Australia then explained: "deny list generally translates well if you include the space. Deny by most translated [languages] comes Denial [sic] then Denial is translated. So Denial List and deny list are fairly close on meaning."

We could lay out profound issues such as eugenics, nukes, and other things IBM profited from. Suddenly these debates about words seem like a distraction. Alexei suggested "чёрный список", or "a list that is black, simple..."

"oiaohm" said, "remember not all usages of black align to bad. Few languages have 20 words for black. Deny though translating at worst leads to 2 words in any language. Black can take you as wide as 400 different words. [...] The issue I am talking about you can see with google translate. I cannot remember the direct 20 wide. But if you go to google translate and put in black as english and lao you will see 5 different spelling for black with the same define. Deny gets you 2. Basically translating documents around between languages black can end up with a mess of different spelling so black so making searching for black harder."

There are typically issues with suggested alternatives, too. "Maybe it could be translated like "список отказов"," Alexei wrote, "but that's more like a list of rejections, not the right connotation at all. I still haven't come up with a good translation for it [...] It's tough. It has an implicit ambiguity built into it, it works that around by English being generally vague with its terms."

"A denylist," Alexei later added, "is it a list that was denied, a list of denies? what's a deny?"

"Notice how a discussion of ethics and morality in the context of race is being reduced to words rather than actual substance?""oiaohm" said "deny is in fact a common word to most languages." MinceR joked that "[the word] "deny" is the new name of the color that used to be known as "black"..."

Alexei suggested "список того, что было запрещено, it's as simple as that, a list of such that was forbidden. With a participle it can go down to "список запрещённого"... "deny" has a nasty property of implying something instantaneous [...] While a blacklist is something more permanent..."

Regardless of what words or concepts are turned into, those are not going to stop, or cause racism on their own.

Alexei said that "if "blacklist" is deemed racist, then it's a bit hypocritical to expect other languages to continue using it when it's the most neat form there is for them."

Notice how a discussion of ethics and morality in the context of race is being reduced to words rather than actual substance? There will be a lot more in the IRC logs (tomorrow morning), but we'd rather debate IBM's past and present, not the latest PR blog post.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Someone Should Remind Microsoft Lunduke That Microsoft Hires Many Sexual Criminals and Pedophiles as Well
Microsoft Lunduke on an "expedition" to find one or more perverts, then generalise to everyone in the "community"
Cash Machines (ATMs) Make Mistakes and They're Proprietary Software
Correcting mistakes is a colossal challenge
Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
"I am no MS shill."
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
 
Links 29/07/2025: Data Brokers Gone Wrong/Rogue and "Copyright Thicket"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linuxconfig.org, Linuxsecurity.com, Fagioli, The Register
Today's "Slopwatch" isn't the first article about LLM slop
We Cover Topics Other Sites Are Too Afraid to Cover (Even When They Know the Facts)
It's not that they doubt the truth, they just realise there may be consequences for talking about it
They Try to Tell Us the Free Software Foundation Inc is Dying, But Its Revenue Doubled Since the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
Being in "Activism" is never easy; but it does positive things for society
It's About the Cost of Workers, Not the Fictional Skills Shortage (That Does Not Exist, the Media Spreads False and Sometimes Self-Fulfilling Narratives)
This issue isn't limited to computing, some dub it "globalism"
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles