Bonum Certa Men Certa

'Wired' Under New Management (Condé Nast) is a Microsoft and Bill Gates Grooming Operation

Condé Nast: the nastiest purchaser of independent media that you may never have heard of

Condé Nast Photo by Doc Searls from Santa Barbara, USA



Summary: Attacks on Free/libre software and propagandised coverage of Microsoft now the standard practice (or consensus) at Condé Nast

MOST PEOPLE probably don't know what Condé Nast is. It's not a publication, so a lot of people never even heard of it. Residing near Wall Street in New York City, Condé Nast is the quiet owner of many publications. One can guess what the business model is. It's not really about publication, it is about profit. It is owned by a company with a revenue of 6.56 billion dollars (as of 2013). It is part of the corporate media, which is basically made of just a few giant corporations that control information or build (one might say "manufacture" even) public perception. A lot of people don't seem to know that even Reddit sold out to Condé Nast, which might explain Reddit's special service to Microsoft since then and also the extensive censorship that gains media attention these days. Prior to buying Wired, this magazine was actually quite well known for being a thorn on Microsoft's side, especially amid antitrust battles. Now we have a Wired that's a Microsoft propaganda outlet a lot of the time.



We are deeply disturbed by the disappearance of independent media and the purchase of even communities such as Reddit by the corporate media that's a neighbour of Wall Street. It's too easy to see how the acquired sites and publications are changing. Ars Technica was purchased by Condé Nast only a few years ago and the difference has been stunning since then.

To give just the latest example among many, here is a very long Microsoft advertisement and hogwash. A lot of effort went into this propaganda. It is very personalised. It is one of a series of these articles, one of which was portraying Bill Gates, who wrote his Letter to Hobbyists (famous attack on FOSS) as an "open source" proponent. As usual, it is a pack of lies and spin, painting the NSA'a biggest software partner as an NSA sceptic with sentences like: "This is why, when the NSA story broke, Russinovich was part of the small team that worked to remake Microsoft’s online security."

Nonsense like this you don't read every day. Mind the author's portrayal of Russinovich as a Microsoft "critic". He must be joking, if not lying (which is worse). So a man who is on Microsoft's payroll is now being introduced (in the headline even) as its foe, only to sell an article which is basically a Microsoft advertisement for the most NSA-friendly platform (Azure). It's worse than deceiving because Microsoft voluntarily passes data from Azure to the NSA and to paint Microsoft as an NSA sceptic while promoting Azure is basically to entrap people and businesses, maybe even governments. But anyway, that's Condé Nast.

Watch who used to write for Wired and who writes for it today. Condé Nast hired Microsoft boosters from The Register and when they are not busy seeding FUD against GNU/Linux (as Goodin does) they conveniently distract from Microsoft's complicity with the NSA and the company's utter incomptence when it comes to security. Just look at all the people who cover Microsoft, FOSS, etc. at Ars, which is run by the same owner (parent company). They are all pro-Microsoft, even those who run the so-called 'FOSS' section. It is quite easy to see. Cade's series of whitewashing (Bill Hilf, Bill Gates and now Russinovich) is very telling because someone is assigning him to write such advertisements. Who are the bosses and who are their mates?

Wired, the sister publication of Ars Technica and a longtime Microsoft whitewashing powerhouse (since purchase), is on a roll this year and in some prior years. Readers of Techrights routinely show us the bias and it almost always comes down to Condé Nast.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October