Deception Watch: AstroTurf, Lobbying, and Dirty Politics
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-01 13:42:51 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-01 13:42:51 UTC
Media Bias
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The BBC has been accused of yielding to political pressure since the last election and allowing a right-wing bias to emerge in its journalism.
The serious criticism by a distinguished media professor suggests that the BBC has compromised its impartiality by depending too heavily on sources from business, the media, law and order and politics.
Covert Marketing
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Two-time "Worst Company In America" winner Electronic Arts isn't doing its publicity department any favors. The company's new freemium game Dungeon Keeper tricks frustrated players into leaving bad reviews on its own site, instead of on the Google Play Store, Gamasutra reports.
Politics
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Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., is defending his actions after he physically threatened a reporter at the Capitol after President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.
The confrontation began Tuesday when Michael Scotto, a reporter for New York cable news station NY1, asked Grimm about a Justice Department investigation into his campaign finances.
After cutting the interview short, Grimm told Scotto, "You ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this (expletive) balcony." He also threatened to "break (Scotto) in half."
NY1 posted video of the incident on its website.
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The Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity (through its Wisconsin Reporter and Watchdog.org websites) has aggressively attacked the "John Doe" probe into possible campaign finance violations during Wisconsin's 2011 and 2012 recall elections. Its outlets have also published new information about the apparent targets of the investigation, but they have omitted an important detail: Franklin Center has close ties to individuals and groups that may be caught up in the John Doe.
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Google, the tech giant supposedly guided by its “don’t be evil” motto, has been funding a growing list of groups advancing the agenda of the Koch brothers.
Organizations that received “substantial” funding from Google for the first time over the past year include Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the Federalist Society, the American Conservative Union (best known for its CPAC conference) and the political arm of the Heritage Foundation that led the charge to shut down the government over the Affordable Care Act: Heritage Action.
South Korea
Revisionism
Consumerism and Distraction
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This ad strongly promotes the values of consumerism, and implies that consumerism leads directly to happiness. In the ad, the girls bought these shoes, are wearing them, and are now fashionable, popular, and happy. This message encourages the belief that spending money and obtaining material goods is the only path to happiness for girls. This big lie will lower girls’ self-esteem and perhaps cause them to purchase unnecessary goods in their quest to appear cool and likeable.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- "The War on Children" Explained by The Cyber Show
- Consumer protection and the war on children
- In statCounter, a Lot of "Unknown" Turns Out to be GNU/Linux
- GNU/Linux has more than doubled
- Silent Layoffs (PIPs) Have Allegedly Accelerated Since IBM's Stock Cratered
- "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- Being Pro-Slop is Death Knell to One's Credibility
- It's not hard to see Ubuntu users resisting and antagonising this
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- Many CEOs Are Just Glorified Scammers With Suits and Ties
- Economies cannot function when few people abuse them for self-enrichment
- After statCounter Figures Out Many "Unknowns" Were in Fact GNU/Linux the "Market Share" Estimate in China More Than Doubles
- Japan is the same for similar reasons
- peppe8o - a Site About Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Electronics - Has Turned Into a Slopfarm
- We won't be linking to it anymore
- Feeding 'the Children'
- Maybe some time soon we'll do a fund-raiser to help feed the birds
- Japan: GNU/Linux Crosses the 5% Threshold, Two Years Ago It Was Only 1%
- Now it's at over 5%
- We Need More Transparency
- Our heads of state are very much aware of and concerned about SLAPPs and censorship
- EPO Cocainegate and Current EPO/EU Series to Carry on for Months to Come
- Another week has begun
- When IBM "Managers Have to Mark 15% of Their Teams as Low Performers" a PIP Means Likely Layoffs (Disguised as a Performance Issue)
- "IBM is a Law firm with an I/T department."
- Links 27/07/2026: Chatbots Lead to Suicides, Social Control Media Intentionally Designed for Addiction
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 26, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 26, 2026
- Daniel Pocock in Mainstream Media Again
- AFR wrote an article today. It is about Pocock and another contender.
- Millions of Daily Requests
- 4.5+ million requests in 4 days
- 3,500 Active Gemini Capsules Soon
- How much longer before 3,500+ active? A month?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: European Eclipse, Writing About Writing, and Comments on Formatting Gopher Posts
- Links for the day
- Stigma of Being Laid Off by Microsoft
- One might call this the "curse" of having worked for Microsoft
- Non-Techs Using Slop Run Fedora and It's Turning Out to be a Total Disaster
- RIP, Fedora?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: Beach Day, CAs, and Plaintext
- Links for the day
- Sweden Needs GNU/Linux and Free Software, Not GAFAM
- home of IKEA and ABBA
- Maintenance Today
- Preparing for more mass-publication activities
- Links 26/07/2026: "Zelenskyy Says Russia Wants To Bring North Korean Troops Into Ukraine", Muslim Van Ramming Attack on Berlin Pride
- Links for the day
- Centrica fraud exposed: worse than Palestine Action 'terrorists' with cardboard placards
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 26/07/2026: "Nate Silver Discovers the Educated Poor" and "India’s “Cockroach” Protest Movement Faces State Repression"
- Links for the day
- The Slop Bubble is Killing the Planet, Not Just the Economy
- The chatbot/LLM speculation bubble not only causes a health crisis, a mental health epidemic, and climate change; it's also crashing the economy on several levels
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IBM Hammers a CoI Into a CoCed Fedora, RIP Fedora?
- Also in the "Fedora is dead" dept. today
- Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Zoo, MUD, Literature, EMF Camp, and e-ID
- Links for the day
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Solution of No Choice: A Shortlist of One
- deployment of the "shortlist of one" by Campinos
- Wife of Dan Williams Has Explained Mental Factors Leading to His Death
- "We need to be open and honest about mental health," his wife pleads
- Several New Series Coming Soon
- we'll publish 8 series in tandem, in parallel
- Insolvency as the New Norm in the United States' Economy
- this is vastly worse than then 2008 subprime mortgage crisis
- IBM's CEO Might 'Retire' or 'Step Down' by Christmas
- PIP the CEO
- Misleading Articles About YouTube and Google Financial Performance
- The future of Google is self-serving monopolisation and destruction of the Web
- Microsoft Cannot Survive the Fall of Windows
- It has amassed way too much debt
- Links 25/07/2026: Hong Kong Squashing Criticism/Dissent, Mirror Caught Breaking Into Voicemail
- Links for the day
- PIPs Are Shrinking IBM and "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- IBM is going down the drain
- IBM is Killing the Fedora Community, Replacing It With LLM Slop From IBM Staff
- Krishna buys companies only to gut them. They've all learned this from experience.
- Give Me Your "Dumbest" (Devices)
- Why can't people accept that a "modern "smart" "phone" isn't necessary to check the time (overkill) and playing social control media "on the go" is far from necessary?
- Earlier This Year Dan Williams Prepared for Scenario Where Linus Torvalds Dies
- He had only just started a job at NVIDIA
- Links 25/07/2026: Data Breaches Abundant and Attribution Imperiled in the Age of Slop Hype
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Poetry and Plaintext Pages
- Links for the day
- What is Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- In many cases, the acronym became a misnomer
- IBM PIPs Continue Until Morale Improves, Silent or Quiet Firings at IBM Explained
- IBM is a dying company
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 24, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, July 24, 2026