08.30.20
Posted in Site News at 6:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
I saw it from the inside, having been censored or self-censored regarding Microsoft (which became a sponsor/advertiser, in effect ‘bossing’ the publisher)
Summary: The way to perceive news sites (based on my personal understanding and experiences, having left the site Datamation, where I encountered the censorious behaviour disgruntled writers occasionally rant and moan about)
THE term “Journalist” isn’t one that I use a lot; yes, Journalism Schools exist and people are trained to become “Journalists” by occupation/profession. They’re taught how to fact-check, strike balance, give the accused/exposed an opportunity to respond before publication and so on. I’d be the last person to bash Journalism as an occupation, especially what’s known as Investigative Journalism (capitalised intentionally; it’s a label). Investigative Journalism takes a very, very long time (sometimes months to properly study just one topic). If financially compensated for the time, it’s very expensive (thus rare).
Then there’s this thing called “reporting” (where there’s this vague thing called “reporter” with a “report”); it can be just some person reporting from a protest, describing what’s going on, sometimes filming the event but rarely making a journal or preparing some text/video in lieu with standards of “professional journalism” (a label often used when one gets salaried by a publication, often owned by oligarch/s and/or corporation/s).
“…some former “professional journalists” have become cynical about the whole thing and became independent after getting censored or self-censored (or being assigned ‘stories’ which are actually commercials for sponsors, i.e. spam in “report” clothing).”I became a lot more cynical about the above, seeing the failure to cover scandals at the European Patent Office (EPO). I spoke to and even met some people who tried to cover the scandals. I heard all sorts of stories, which aligned with my personal experience as a columnist. The editors and publishers exercise control and pressure on people whom they supposedly employ and pay to cover truth. The real client or customer isn’t readers but advertisers; the audience is the “product” sold to the advertisers and the larger the audience, the more valuable the “product”. It’s a little distressing when one realises it; some former “professional journalists” have become cynical about the whole thing and became independent after getting censored or self-censored (or being assigned ‘stories’ which are actually commercials for sponsors, i.e. spam in “report” clothing). “Whitepapers” aren’t that much different from many so-called ‘articles’ (except the way they’re presented and disclosures/length/depth).
So… what is Techrights?
We’re quite versatile. But our sole guiding principle or goal is truth. Covering just truth isn’t always easy; you get bullied for it (e.g. lawyers and SLAPP). We already have a track record of accuracy and we try to always get the facts right, especially facts that are suppressed and commonly distorted.
“We’re quite versatile. But our sole guiding principle or goal is truth.”How is this achieved? Well, for one thing, quality evidence (e.g. police FOIA) is required. So we’ve established a high degree of trust with sources in various places, including disgruntled employees and former employees. Whistleblowers in some cases. They’re unhappy with press coverage that they encounter. Stenography is an insult to their intelligence. e.g. lies from António Campinos and Benoît Battistelli, or propaganda about software patents in Europe (usually from European law firms, looking to increase litigation, even at the expense of innovation).
Leaks are very important to us because this is how we can produce unique (the press says “exclusive”) stories that are backed by hard material, e.g. words right from the horse’s mouth. Those who have not established a solid publication record will struggle to get any leaks at all because a high degree of trust and technical competence with encryption is required. People don’t put their job at risk just to get some article or few articles published by somebody else. Protection of sources is something we’re proud to say we’ve excelled at; to the best of our knowledge we have a 100% source protection record, which is rare (even Wikileaks had many of its sources caught and prosecuted).
“There’s this misconception which goes along the lines of, the bigger the news site is, the more reliable it must be.”Regardless of labels (“journalism” or whatnot), what really matters is accuracy. We want to publish only truthful information. Sometimes we keep the corresponding evidence close to our chest (unpublished) because there’s no other choice for source protection.
Don’t be drawn in or enticed or seduced by graphical effects of sites, budgets of sites, number of employees etc. There’s this misconception which goes along the lines of, the bigger the news site is, the more reliable it must be. Such sites want people to think or at least feel that way; but their work is typically controlled by rich people who conditionally bankroll the whole operation, looking to get something in return (agenda-setting). █
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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software at 3:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Related: High-Level Criminals Associate Privacy With Crime Because They Want Privacy Only for Themselves (Control But No Accountability) | A New Tim Schwab Investigative Report on Bill Gates’ Bribery of the Media and Beyond (for Hagiographies and Salesmanship)
It’s not a new problem; the hypocritical people in positions of power want to commit the same offenses they accuse others of committing (and guess who’s offered immunity and impunity)
Summary: People need to increase the range of permissible speech in Free software communities because Free software without free speech is basically a corporate trap, controlled by those looking to crush (or exploit; “just shut up and code for me, for free!”) both programmers and their freedom of expression
There cannot be Free software without free speech; rich software owners constantly change the boundaries around what’s “permissible” speech, looking to oust anyone who deviates from the “script” and setting an example/precedent to scare everybody else. We’ve just shown how rude words were handled by Debian back in the 90s, well before we had all those truly ridiculous rules which made crimes against humanity totally acceptable (provided you’re a rich and well-connected corporation). At the moment, based on what we’ve been seeing, censorship (and self-censorship — that’s where precedents set in) apparatuses are devised to muzzle people who speak about true freedom and about corruption (impermissible subject?). Linus Torvalds thinks it's funny to compare the FSF to extremists and the Linux Foundation bans people for supporting the current US President (not that we support him ourselves).
“Get used to it or fight back against this toxic (a word they like to misuse against people who speak out against corruption) corporate culture, which basically rewards criminals and ejects those who oppose criminals.”Microsoft has repeatedly expressed willingness to do completely illegal things (like bribery, which isn't a thing of the past), but the OSI is happy to accept bribes from these criminals and even give them keynote speeches (what this bribery is for). Months ago the OSI banned its own co-founder and former president for warning about an attack on the OSI (on the OSI’s mailing list). So a mere mortal says a word like “loony”, then gets banned for life. Microsoft commits loads of serious crimes and gets the podium.
“People who expose criminals aren’t criminals; but when the media and various organisations get infiltrated and/or bought by rich criminals they’d have us believe that criminals are the victims and whistleblowers are criminals, not heroes who essentially do us all a public service (at great personal risk/sacrifice).”Double standards? You bet!
This is the world we now live in. Get used to it or fight back against this toxic (a word they like to misuse against people who speak out against corruption) corporate culture, which basically rewards criminals and ejects those who oppose criminals. They’d take money from ethnic cleansers and then lecture us all about how those ethnic cleansers aren’t too be criticised because they actually support peace and harmony (and pay bribes as “sponsors”).
People who expose criminals aren’t criminals; but when the media and various organisations get infiltrated and/or bought by rich criminals they’d have us believe that criminals are the victims and whistleblowers are criminals, not heroes who essentially do us all a public service (at great personal risk/sacrifice). █
Also read: Bill Gates Said He Was on a “Jihad” Against GNU/Linux, But GNU/Linux Users/Developers Engaged in Self-Defense Are Foul-Mouthed ‘Microsoft Haters’?
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Posted in Debian at 2:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Some dude called “Mark Shuttleworth” in 1996:
Jeff Waugh: “What happened was, we’ve had some very… some of the very early initial meetings (when, you know, there were about 10 people) and Mark [Shuttleworth] showed this picture… and it was of a girl called Sabrina, or that’s the name that he gave her. And it was a very [?] tone, Vaseline on the lens kind of shot, and it was a… a very beautiful shot, but it was with a girl with her face turned away but her breasts perfectly visible. And he saying to everyone, ‘this is what I want the desktop to look like.’”
In 1997:
Summary: The very polite “politeness” imposers (focus on words more than underlying substance) as seen in secret mailing lists back in the 1990s
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Posted in Debian, GNU/Linux, GPL, Kernel, Videos at 1:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The above clip (cropped) isn’t new, but it’s becoming increasingly relevant for a number of different reasons; we’ve narrowed things down to two sets of questions on two topics
Original/full video (starts at 41:15; GPL portion starts at 47:20 and ends at 56:53)
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Posted in Boycott Novell, Debian, Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell at 12:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
‘Happy stories’ are for PR (fantasy) departments
Summary: We need to talk about threats to Free software and constantly remind ourselves of the attacks on software freedom (otherwise we cannot confront the attackers)
FREE SOFTWARE is not about price; it’s more about justice or addressing injustices (that needn’t have happened in the first place — but happened anyway). We don’t need to emulate what we’re trying to replace. We don’t want PR (lies) departments to sweep issues and legitimate concerns under a rug. Here in this site we started with a boycott of Novell and lots of protests against software patents, including software patents in Europe (still being illegally granted by the Campinos- and Battistelli-led EPO). We’ve never just relayed mindless PR, not even for so-called ‘Linux’ companies. We just don’t do that. We want truth, not marketing. When the USPTO grants millions of patents that patent trolls then use to bully programmers we speak out, uncensored. That’s just what we do.
At the moment it may seem easy to accuse us of being ‘against’ Debian even though it’s what everyone here uses and many in the Debian community are rightly concerned about secrecy at the top. There’s a two-tiered (class-like) system where some people exploit worker bees (known as DDs) and some of these people never even wrote a single line of code. People join Debian in order to replace a corporate culture. They’re volunteers. They want to know what happens around them and it’s important to understand who exploits the free labour.
“5 years of “Microsoft loves Linux” lies are going down the PR drain (lost budget, trying in vain to mislead the general public) and we see more projects moving to self-host their SCM, e.g. GitLab.”So again, like we said at the start (and the title), by no means conflate criticism of something with disdain of the whole. When we called for a boycott of Novell we sought to save GNU/Linux from a collective and widespread patent attack by Steve Ballmer/Horacio Gutierrez/Microsoft. It mostly worked. Years later Novell went the way of the dodo and it was rendered a pile of patents (mostly expired by now). GNU/Linux is still around and it is doing very well. On Web servers, for instance, Microsoft was reduced to just 4% of the market. In supercomputers and phones? Microsoft is at around 0%. It’s being ‘slaughtered’, so now it’s trying to steal ‘Linux’ using bribery and vendor capture. We must respond to that. Seeing that Debian now rejects Microsoft money (or Microsoft no longer bothers bribing Debian), we have reasons for hope. 5 years of “Microsoft loves Linux” lies are going down the PR drain (lost budget, trying in vain to mislead the general public) and we see more projects moving to self-host their SCM, e.g. GitLab. Nowadays version control is done by a more extensive suite of tools with advanced features, which include bug tracking.
Don’t be afraid to become critical of what’s happening. The worst thing we can do is stay silent, allowing Microsoft (and media it corrupts to serve as loudspeakers) to change the narrative to promote ruinous falsehoods. █
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