Bonum Certa Men Certa

CBS Continues to Get Heavily Occupied by Microsoft Staff to Spread Microsoft Propaganda

"The author of the email, posted on ZDNet in a Talkback forum on the Microsoft antitrust trial, claimed her name was Michelle Bradley and that she had "retired" from Microsoft last week.

""A verbal memo [no email allowed] was passed around the MS campus encouraging MS employee's to post to ZDNet articles like this one," the email said.

""The theme is 'Microsoft is responsible for all good things in computerdom.' The government has no right to prevent MS from doing anything. Period. The 'memo' suggests we use fictional names and state and to identify ourselves as students," the author claimed."

--Wired Magazine



Summary: The CBS-owned ZDNet continues to hire people who have worked or are currently working for Microsoft and unsurprisingly enough they use their newly-acquired positions to praise Microsoft and bash Microsoft's competition, usually with no disclosure of their conflict of interest

Microsoft's infamous strategy (which it privately admits to) of conquering the technology media has evolved. A week and a half ago we showed how CBS had hired yet another Microsoft person to cover Microsoft matters (or Microsoft's competition). We have lost count of the number of people with such a conflict of interest, especially in CBS (far worse than any other large network). As a side note, CBS also hired senior people from the CIA, which helps explain its grooming of Microsoft's super-special partner (the NSA) and the pro-war agenda, especially as of late.



Having taken control of ZDNet, the CBS network has become absolutely flooded with Microsoft staff past and present (some work for both at the same time) and days ago we noticed Eileen Brown writing for ZDNet. What's not evident in the page (not in her intro, but in only in her disclosures, a page away) is that she too comes from Microsoft. The separate page (not even HTML) clearly states that "She worked at Microsoft from 2001 to 2009." So CBS has essentially hired yet another Microsoft propagandist for articles that cover Microsoft, like this new example. Bing marketing. How much marketing and grooming should CBS be allowed to get away with? How long before it's widely recognised that CBS is not a serious news network but corporate media working for selected corporations?

Here is another new example.

Longtime Microsoft booster Mary Branscombe ridicules people who self host and promotes "cloud" lunacy. Much of the time she just spends promoting Microsoft and it should be no surprise as she has done that for decades. To quote her own intro:

Mary has been a technology writer for nearly two decades, covering everything from early versions of Windows and Office to the first smartphones, the arrival of the web and most things inbetween.


In her blog there is not even a effort at providing information. She is making an effort to appear balanced and historically she has also smeared Microsoft's rivals. There are many more examples like that and no site demonstrates that quite as clearly as ZDNet (with about a dozen Microsoft-connected writers); CBS is bad, CNET is worse, but ZDNet is by far the worst and all are operated by the same company. It's like advertising and agenda disguised as "news". It runs 24/7 in many countries. One might even call that "AstroTurfing".

It's one thing when Microsoft promotes Microsoft, but it's another when a media company pretends to be a source of news but actually promotes Microsoft and employs people from Microsoft. Here is a new example of Microsoft staff bamboozling the media. It is Michel van der Bel, not to be confused with ECMA's Microsoft mole, van der Beld. Here is what Ahonen has to say about him:

Microsoft Lies. Then there is the perennial Microsoft propaganda and lies machine. On May 23, 2011, the Microsoft mafia decided to spin a story about Nokia Lumia Windows success in China. They picked the wrong target when they compared the supposed success to the iPhone in China. Microsoft mouthpiece Michel van der Bel (Microsoft COO of China) got himself quoted in the press claiming that Windows Phone smartphones like Lumia 800c were outselling the iPhone in China. You don't spread lies like that on my watch! So I debunked that sillyness with 18 separate items of proof. When the numbers came out two months later, I was of course correct and Mr van der Bel has not been seen in the press about this ever again. But for a brief moment there as this alternate reality created by the Microsoft Imaginarium. Who debunked them comprehensively and immediately for you to keep your Apple facts straight? Yeah.


It is very common for sites like those of CBS (which owns a lot of influential news sites) to parrot such technology disinformation and unsurprisingly, as CBS hires many people from Microsoft, it is inevitable that these lies from Microsoft will be relayed to the press, enter news feeds, and ultimately change perceptions based on lies.

Avoid CBS. It's not journalism.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Plagiarism and "Linux" Articles by Bots
Sites that do this won't survive; many of them rely on slop services (suppliers) that will cease to exist after the bubble bursts
New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Staying Happy in Times of Crackdowns on Civil Society
Optimism in this sort of "new reality" or "new normal" seems like something for the irrational person
"Nobel" Exploited Posthumously for "AI" Hype, Now They Do the Same With "Quantum"
ere have been many jokes about "Nobel" for peace (often granted to pro-war people) and a fake one for "Economics" (establishment propaganda)
Distinguished Lecture by Richard Stallman This Coming Monday in Rome
After "Free software, Crucial for Freedom in a Digital World"
Links 10/10/2025: Putin Admits Russia Downed Azerbaijan Airlines Jet, More New Heat Records
Links for the day
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually