Bonum Certa Men Certa

As the Days Go By, Less Hope is Left for Neutrality in Media

As we recently pointed out, Microsoft controls media outlets and sometimes even search engines. Bill Gates continues to own some of the press and several media companies, so there is gross bias therein. Microsoft's role as an advertiser has an effect as well, but none of this is news. At the end of the day, public understanding of the Novell deal and OOXML, for instance, will be a case of media projection.

The sad news from yesterday relates to a video that we showed just the day beforehand. The Federal Communications Commission refuses to police control of the media, thus relinquishing control and letting corporations run it for their own benefit.

By the narrowest of margins, the Federal Communications Commission adopted proposals by its chairman to tighten the reins on the cable television industry while loosening 32-year-old restrictions that have prevented a company from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.


Only last week, Bill Gates wrote an article that was published very generously by the tax payer-funded BBC. The article spoke about a new Microsoft-commissioned study (Microsoft's Bill Gates invests in analysts too). It was arguably self-praising and The Register was very sarcastic about this:

BBC pinches hot new columnist from Microsoft



[...]

In response to the BBC's move into business leader PR expert opinion, El Reg has decided to up the ante with a special video webinar on the secrets of success from the important leather-bound office of one of America's A-grade entrepreneurs...


Let's take a quick step back and consider the BBC's iPlayer, which we mention quite regularly [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. iPlayer is a product built by Microsoft using Microsoft's own proprietary stack. It seems like a response to open delivery methods of video content. DirectX, for example, was done as a response to OpenGL because OpenGL facilitates competition (cross-platform)

Microsoft doesn't like competition, so it made ActiveX, DirectX, OOXML, and lots of other anti-standards weapons. iPlayer is just one of these weapons. It's also one of the latest. There's a new Microsoft DRM issue at the BBC and it isn't resolved yet. As Glyn Moody puts it:

This does matter, because if the catch-up service remains Windows only, it turns the BBC into a vector of Microsoft's DRM and products - hardly what the public broadcaster should be doing.

Moreover, fine words butter no parsnips: can we trust the BBC Trust to follow through on this? If they don't, at least we can be sure that the OSC will be there with a sharp stick goading them to do so.


”They are, in essence, agents for monopoly.“This is a nice small step, but the corruption cannot be forgotten (see links at the bottom). The download service is still Windows-only because of Erik Huggers and Ashley Highfield (among a few others who have connections with Microsoft). Until they port this software to other platforms (which they said they would), they treat all platforms except for one like second-class citizens. They are, in essence, agents for monopoly.

Mind you, only public backlash made a difference here. They would not have bother to make any changes otherwise. What's more, a proprietary stack was never needed, but the BBC is now virtually a Microsoft partner. As we showed above, using an example from last week alone, Bill Gates started writing self-praising columns for the BBC, which is funded by tax payers. The bias remains.

Related articles:



A software lobby group is campaigning to highlight the role of software giant Microsoft Corp. in the British Broadcasting Corp.'s digital media strategy by petitioning Great Britain Prime Minister Gordon Brown to address the issue.




BBC viewers have flooded the corporation with complaints over how it covered the launch of Microsoft Vista earlier this week.




Today the BBC made it official -- they have been corrupted by Microsoft.


More about this here.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
 
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.