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
- Links 05/09/2026: "Let’s Stop Buying New Phone" and 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Drowning in Lawsuits
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 05/09/2026: Polarization, Warped Maps, and Emacs rectangle-number-lines
- Links for the day
- Software Freedom, Even If Difficult to Attain Due to Outside Pressure, Does Make You Happier
- Peer pressure and opinionated employers can make friends and staff more miserable if they dictate bad software
- You Can Run GNU/Linux on a Desktop/Laptop for 1,000+ Days Nonstop
- To me, the long uptime is a way of "marketing" GNU/Linux as robust and stable
- Profiting From Global Warming (and Making More Money the More You Cause Warming)
- Unregulated bank and pyramid scheme
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 172 Out of 200: The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Complicit in the SLAPPs by Inaction (Didn't Even Study Any Evidence, Only Wasted Time and Budget)
- "SRA placed into special measures due to 'disappointing standard of leadership'"
- China Does Not Need American (US) Products Like GAFAM's
- China has abundance of technical things it can leverage to preserve its autonomy
- RMS Didn't Make Enough Backups
- Making backups is important
- Refresher: Why EPO Staff is on Strike This Year (Aside From the EPO Acting Like a Corrupt, Above-the-Law, For-Profit Corporation That Violates Its Own Charter)
- One core issue at the EPO is erosion of purchasing power
- Gemini Links 05/09/2026: Fireflies, Shore Pine, and ASCII Art
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 04, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, September 04, 2026
- The Legal Services Board (LSB) Takes on Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Utter Failures, We'll Resume Our SRA Series to Illuminate How Bad the SRA Really Is
- a quick overview of the latest news
- Links 04/09/2026: Notorious Patent Trolls' Judge Enters the Private Sector (Corruption, Revolving Doors), Gloria Steinem's Life in Pictures
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 04/09/2026: Worries, Upgrades, and CS Students
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman's Web Site Back Online, But It Seems Like a 2-Months-Old Snapshot
- Latest political notes are dated July 2 (2026)
- SPAM Disguised as Benchmark or Comparison: The Register MS "PARTNER CONTENT" is Getting Weirder by the Month
- Sites that promote fake 'coins' or pyramid schemes to their audience(s) aren't worth tolerating
- PIPs at IBMs are Layoffs Because They're Impossible to Satisfy (or They Terminate Workers Despite Satisfying Them)
- What insiders say
- In the United Kingdom You Can No Longer Make the Assumption People Use Windows (or 'Smart' 'Phone')
- As autumn arrives Microsoft faces a crisis
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 171 Out of 200: Talking About Corruption and Violence Against Women
- Today the Labour Party (UK) speaks about corruption
- Warming Up for Investigative Journalism About the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest and Probably Most Corrupt Institution in Europe
- It continues to exploit diplomatic immunity for impunity
- Microsoft Handing Out PIPs by the Thousands, Anxiety in GAFAM Building Up
- Years ago I heard from people who pretended to be ill to avoid getting fired
- BRICS in the Windows: Brazil's GNU/Linux Share (as Measured by CDN) Has Hit Highest Point in a Month
- The largest Web CDN, Clownflare, sees GNU/Linux at 8.1% right now in Brazil
- Corporate Media Will Always Glorify Its Owners (Corporations That Value Nothing But Capital)
- Collecting "money" like it's a form of competition where they track "score"
- We'll Never Do Slop!
- Being against slop is not being "left behind"
- Thieves Complain About the People They Steal From
- "When you point the finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back to you"
- Links 04/09/2026: "The Rise of the Billionaire Lobby", the "Imperialist Delusions", and Digital Restrictions (DRM) From Nvidia
- Links for the day
- Buying From China
- Nations must begin to speak about their digital sovereignty, which Free software is best equipped to grant and best positioned to assure in the face of outside resistance
- GNU/Linux Continues to Grow in China
- GNU/Linux reached its highest point in a month
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 03, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, September 03, 2026
- Gemini Links 04/09/2026: Forgotten Realms Avatar Series and Slop Plagiarism's Footprint in Gopher/Geminispace
- Links for the day
- Like Uber, Paypal's Debt Has Shot Up 2.5 Billion Dollars in 3 Months, Now the Mass Layoffs Come to India
- even reducing the salaries by offshoring isn't enough to save the company
- IBM Eliminating Over 20,000 IBM Workers by Year's End, Insiders Claim
- the layoffs are silent
- Microsoft "engineers who aren’t critical are let go" this week/month (silent layoffs)
- "stack ranking"
- Is Microsoft Trying to Kill What's Left of XBox by Year's End?
- How many people will still bother purchasing these consoles by the end of the year?
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 170 Out of 200: Downtimes
- Yesterday traffic skyrocketed here
- The Register MS Publishes More Word Salads Promoting "AI" Because It's Paid to Do So
- Hype, name-dropping, and scaremongering
- Gemini Links 03/09/2026: Google Maps, Gemini's Early History, and Suppressing Slop Plagiarists
- Links for the day
- Links 03/09/2026: Unsafe Skies, Thunderbird Adopts Proprietary / Vendor Lock-in Traps, "Xbox Live Down Again"
- Links for the day
- Growing Thirst for Free Software, the LibreOffice Edition
- LibreOffice is in "high demand"
- Links 03/09/2026: John Ternus Enters Apple Amid Mass Layoffs, Journalist İrem Delice Arrested
- Links for the day
- Stallman.org Down Due to Virtual Machines Issue, "Senior Engineers are Investigating the Issue" Since Saturday
- RMS site down due to virtual machines issues upstream
- Linux Foundation is Plagiarism Hub, Linux is at Risk From It
- Torvalds never looked weaker and more compromised
- Gemini Links 03/09/2026: Back in Japan, Another New Year, Reasons to Avoid Have a "Smart" "Phone", and Rant About Built-in Batteries
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 02, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, September 02, 2026