Bonum Certa Men Certa

Mike Masnick Mistakenly Calls ZDNet 'Tech Press', Not Realising It's Agenda-filled Blogs Pretending to be Journalism/News

ZDNet is run by a company in Manhattan

Skyscrapers near CBS



Summary: How a big lie about extortion is being spread by gullible (or at worst malicious) writers whom CBS pays to run blogs

Journalism, as per its definition, is dead or dying. It rarely pays to tell the truth. In the age of public relations and perception management [1, 2] we have descended to a state of turmoil where people who 'report' are just trying sell us something, usually a brand or an ideology.



Over at ZDNet, a new anti-Android piece titled "Is Android's market share really a 'joke'?" represents the old FUD pattern of IDC and Gartner, where money is the only yardstick by which to measure 'share'.

In the same site we find this whitewashing of Intellectual Ventures (Microsoft's patent trolls). The trolls are picking on a longtime rival of Microsoft, which was willing to pick up a fight with Microsoft over it [1, 2]. Rachel King is completely ignorant about this, or maybe she is deliberately doing a hogwash piece (which would be even worse as that would be malice, not neglect or incompetence).

“ZDNet's Rachel King recently wrote about Salesforce.com paying off Intellectual Ventures not to sue it by basically reprinting IV's press release, to the point of describing IV not for what it actually does, but as a company that "invests in and works with investors and technology businesses to drive innovation and invention."”
      --Mike Masnick
Mike Masnick calls ZDNet "Tech Press", but this is just a CBS tabloid made out of blogs, many of which are run by Microsoft people (staff, former staff, peripheral staff, etc.) and flamebait artists.

Masnick says: "It appears that Intellectual Ventures, the world's largest patent troll, is testing out some new hilarious spin concerning its business of shaking down companies who innovate, getting them to pay huge sums of money to avoid getting sued. And, ridiculously, some in the tech press are falling for it. ZDNet's Rachel King recently wrote about Salesforce.com paying off Intellectual Ventures not to sue it by basically reprinting IV's press release, to the point of describing IV not for what it actually does, but as a company that "invests in and works with investors and technology businesses to drive innovation and invention." Of course, if you know anything about Intellectual Ventures (or, hell, do a Google search) you'd quickly learn that what IV does has nothing to do with driving innovation or invention. It buys up crappy patents that are mostly worthless on their own, bundles them together in a big batch and then tells companies to pay up to (a) avoid getting sued and (b) get in on the deal by letting them use that big batch of patents at times. "

These are essentially lies published by ZDNet. These lies are entering news feeds.

Tell Google to stop syndicating ZDNet in Google News. Those blogs are rotting people's brains and helping very mean companies. Wherever possible, avoid linking to ZDNet and attempt to never read it. Your mind will thank you. By reading it you merely feed the monster -- the same monster which feeds Bill Gates by reputation laundering, facilitating the looting of a blinded society.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
 
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025
Links 30/03/2025: Security Breaches, Crackdowns on Dissent/Rival Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: London Soundtrack Festival, Superbloom, gmiCAPTCHA
Links for the day
Phasing Out Vista 10 in Nations Where ~90% of Windows Users Still Rely on It
Recipe for another Microsoft disaster
The Cost of Pursuing the Much-Needed Reform/Shield Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
The LLM Bubble is About to Implode, Gimmicks and Financial Shell Games Cannot Prevent That, Only Delay It
To inflate the bubble MElon is now doing the classic trick of buying from oneself for a fictional value
Links 30/03/2025: Contagious Ideas, Signal Leak, and Squashing Lousy Patents
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: "Quantum Randomness" and "F-1 Visa Revoked" in US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: US as a Threat, Returning to the WWW
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOA, Turkey Arrested Many Journalists
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 29, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 29, 2025