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Summary: SoylentNews is boosting Condé Nast fluff, including glorification of software patents which ought not be granted at all after 35 U.S.C. €§ 101/Alice (SCOTUS, 2014)

TEN days ago we published this video about Reddit, which is owned by Condé Nast and therefore promotes a Microsoft agenda. It's a firehose of Microsoft PR disguised as "community" and it's many other bad things. This company basically thrives in the illusion that it is something it is not and likely against.

Editorial control should not be absolute, but as we've just shown, in open (to manipulation) social control media abuse and mischief are warranted, even inevitable. It happened to Slashdot before and it happens in many other sites, especially when they grow to attract large audiences. Those with the money (corporations) can overwhelm the process by means of bribes and AstroTurfing. In Reddit, for instance, Microsoft adopted both approaches.

Microsoft is the worst and the most shameless about this. "They've been astroturfing nonstop before during and since Team99," an associate recalls, linking to more examples "from back when The Register was still independent," noting that a lot of journalism about this went offline. "I guess it is to their credit that they have not deleted nor 'reorganized' away the old articles. The same goes for Wired."

"It's a firehose of Microsoft PR disguised as "community" and it's many other bad things."The video above responds to poor editorial choices by SoylentNews. It's one among several recent examples, which include misinformation (and sometimes resort to including Microsoft propaganda). We didn't mention it at the time, but it has been getting worse. The site is now linking to this puff piece about software patents. ⬆

"Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!"

--Microsoft, internal document [PDF]