10.18.20

Gemini version available ♊︎

The Different Types of Spammy ‘Articles’ and ‘Reviews’ Which Have Killed ‘Professional Journalism’ (Nowadays Mostly SPAM)

Posted in Deception at 11:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Betanews SPAM
New example of ‘spamview’ (marketing SPAM disguised as “review” from Beta ‘News’), complete with googlebombing of “Linux” (this comes with Windows, not GNU/Linux)

Minisforum EliteMini

Summary: The media has become so rogue that a lot of it is merely an extension of the marketing/PR industry; unless this is corrected, online publishers will fail to earn or maintain any degree of trust

THE Web is littered or polluted with stuff that’s optimised for money, not for information, so any kind of Web search is likely to yield something that’s not what the title (or headline) claims. Here are just 3 common scenarios (for pages presented as “news” or “reports”):

  1. A product ‘review’ which is actually product promotion, sometimes complete with ‘test unit’ as a bribe (Microsoft does a lot of that)
  2. A survey or review of products which is actually just a catalogue with specially crafted links (typically Amazon or similar online stores) for revenue by referral
  3. An ‘article’ which is ghostwritten or partly prepared by a PR firm hired by the company that it’s all about

“It’s hardly surprising that many people no longer trust the media (for news, reviews, analysis and so on). It’s hard to blame them. Because the underlying presumption is correct.”Every day I receive some spammy E-mail trying to lure me into the third (of the above). The (1) above is also attempted sometimes, but less frequently. IBM attempted (3) several times over the years, e.g. in 2011 and earlier this year (Dell did the same months ago). Many GNU/Linux ‘news’ sites have sadly become mostly or partly (2), so in effect they’re full-time or part-time marketing SPAM sites.

It’s hardly surprising that many people no longer trust the media (for news, reviews, analysis and so on). It’s hard to blame them. Because the underlying presumption is correct. Publishers are, with rare exceptions, in it for the money. Those that aren’t eventually perish as they aren’t sufficiently well funded. Economic downturns make that only worse. █

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New

  1. Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

    Links for the day

  2. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Hidden Communities and Exam Prep is Not Education

    Links for the day

  3. Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

    Links for the day

  4. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Bubble Woes and Zond Updates

    Links for the day

  5. Links 03/06/2023: Apache NetBeans 18 and ArcaOS 5.0.8

    Links for the day

  6. IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 02, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, June 02, 2023

  7. The Developing World Abandons Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs on Desktops/Laptops

    Microsoft, with 80 billion dollars in longterm debt and endless layoffs, is losing the monopolies; the media doesn’t mention this, but some publicly-accessible data helps demonstrate that

  8. Links 02/06/2023: Elive ‘Retrowave’ Stable and Microsoft's Half a Billion Dollar Fine for LinkeIn Surveillance in Europe

    Links for the day

  9. Linux Foundation 'Research' Has a New Report and Of Course It Uses Only Proprietary Software

    The Linux Foundation has a new report, promoted by Clickfraud Spamnil and others; of course they’re rejecting Free software, they’re just riding the “Linux” brand and speak of “Open Source” (which they reject themselves)

  10. Links 02/06/2023: Arti 1.1.5 and SQL:2023

    Links for the day

  11. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Vimwiki Revisited, SGGS Revisited

    Links for the day

  12. Geminispace/GemText/Gemini Protocol Turn 4 on June 20th

    Gemini is turning 4 this month (on the 20th, according to the founder) and I thought I’d do a spontaneous video about how I use Gemini, why it's so good, and why it’s still growing (Stéphane Bortzmeyer fixed the broken cron job — or equivalent of it — a day or two after I had mentioned the issue)

  13. HMRC Does Not Care About Tax Fraud Committed by UK Government Contractor, Sirius 'Open Source'

    The tax crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported to HMRC two weeks ago; HMRC did not bother getting back to the reporters (victims of the crime) and it’s worth noting that the reporters worked on UK government systems for many years, so maybe there’s a hidden incentive to bury this under the rug

  14. Our IRC at 15th Anniversary

    So our IRC community turns 15 today (sort of) and I’ve decided to do a video reflecting on the fact that some of the same people are still there after 15 years

  15. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 01, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, June 01, 2023

  16. Links 02/06/2023: NixOS 23.05 and Rust 1.70.0

    Links for the day

  17. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Flying High With Gemini and Gogios Released

    Links for the day

  18. Links 01/06/2023: KStars 3.6.5 and VEGA ET1031 RISC-V Microprocessor in Use

    Links for the day

  19. Gemini Links 01/06/2023: Scam Call and Flying High With Gemini

    Links for the day

  20. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day

  21. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023

  22. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)

  23. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day

  24. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

    Links for the day

  25. Links 31/05/2023: Armbian 23.05 Release and Illegal UPC

    Links for the day

  26. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, May 30, 2023

  27. Gemini Protocol About to Turn 4 and It's Still Growing

    In the month of May we had zero downtime (no updates to the system or outages in the network), which means Lupa did not detect any errors such as timeouts and we’re on top of the list (the page was fixed a day or so after we wrote about it); Gemini continues to grow (chart by Botond) as we’re approaching the 4th anniversary of the protocol

  28. Links 31/05/2023: Librem Server v2, curl 8.1.2, and Kali Linux 2023.2 Release

    Links for the day

  29. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Bayes Filter and Programming Wordle

    Links for the day

  30. [Meme] Makes No Sense for EPO (Now Connected to the EU) and Staff Pensions to be Tied to the UK After Brexit

    It seems like EPO staff is starting to have doubts about the safety of EPO pensions after Benoît Battistelli sent money to reckless gambling (EPOTIF) — a plot that’s 100% supported by António Campinos and his enablers in the Council, not to mention the European Union

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts