Bonum Certa Men Certa

Many Reports About Microsoft's Financial Report/Performance Are False, Fake News, Churnalism/Parroting, and LLM Slop (Machine-Generated Lies)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 04, 2025,
updated May 04, 2025

Older articles about this phenomenon:

Yesterday a reader wrote to say the media, as was all along expected by us, said "Microsoft earnings beat expectations, stock soars" (whose expectations and what about the real economics?)

"Contrary to articles on the Techrights site," the reader said (alluding to older articles), "the latest quarterly report by Microsoft claims high earnings. If you disagree, it is okay, but you should mention what Microsoft itself is saying."

I saw what Microsoft said and saw loads of slopfarms (bot-generated garbage) parroting the same, but that does not change fact Microsoft is losing money in the buzzwords. Then Microsoft says, "WE ARE INVESTING!"

OK, so the word "investing" now means the same as losing money.

When IBM says "investing" it means paying salaries. So it is basically a lie.

People tend to assume what the "majority" of sites may say (even if many are mindless slopfarms that "flood the zone" or wash away legitimate, analytical articles out of view/discovery) is most likely true. This means that Microsoft-controlled LLMs can help lend credibility to lies, spin, or even fraud.

LLMs are a very big problem and once sites begin to play with them they cannot stop (and not because the LLMs are good!), as one can see in LinuxSecurity, whose latest fake article is ripping off real work.

Tails 6.15

Obviously slop, as usual from this slopfarm and Serial Slopper/Drunken Plagiarist:

Let’s explore the key features, changes, and fixes introduced in Tails 6.15 and what they mean for your role as a security-conscious admin.

Even if you see a thousand sites saying that Microsoft is performing well ask yourself why the company is rushing to fire tens of thousands of workers and cancelling datacentres [1, 2] (a clear and direct contradiction of what Nadella said to shareholders last week). This has been happening for years already. They're lying and slopfarms nowadays help amplify lies. Even news sites that aren't sloppers can get persuaded of somewhat influenced by such slopfarms. It's called groupthink.

"Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when the cost of options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of outstanding options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18 billion, according to Smithers."

-The Economist, 1999

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