Bonum Certa Men Certa

'A Fish Rots From the Head Down': ZDNet is Managed by Microsoft Fans, Who Employ Other Microsoft Fans, So It's Not Really a News Site

Larry Dignan on Microsoft 2020
Larry Dignan on Microsoft 2019
Larry Dignan, Editor-in-Chief at ZDNet, who fired the "Open Source" section's team and scuttled the section



Summary: ZDNet in 2020 (and even in 2019) is little but Microsoft propaganda; ZDNet quit even pretending to be something other than agenda-peddling apparatus, where videos are inserted to promote the very opposite of any article's subject (the top story in the "LINUX" section at the moment is "New Windows 10 preview drops WSL2 Linux kernel, adds AMD nested virtualization" and articles about GNU/Linux are preceded by Nadella videos)

THE criticism of the ZDNet tabloid oughtn't be made personal; we've attempted to keep it as impersonal as possible. But the culprits are usually the same and they're all managed by the same person (their boss). That person knows who pays the bills and acts accordingly.



"Boycott ZDNet. Because ZDNet isn't a news site anymore; not even remotely."Suffice to say, regularly doing Microsoft podcasts does not contribute to the perception of objectivity and even the "LINUX" section is full of Microsoft and Windows (in 2020 it became totally laughable, hardly even believable). Back in the old days Paula and Dana ran an "Open Source" section, but Dana was fired by Dignan and Paula just vanished as well. Dana was prior to that redirected to another section, which no longer exists, perhaps setting him up for this outcome.

SJVN is still there, working for the 'genius' who wrote pieces like these one, along with other notorious Microsoft boosters like Ou.

Larry Dignan on Zune



Many others are still there; some worked for Microsoft, some still work for Microsoft, and several shadow for Microsoft. Several were hired after a track record of anti-Linux pieces. Natural selection when the goal is to make everything about Microsoft and even spike/censor pieces critical of Microsoft.

We've been saying it for months and we ought to say it again: Boycott ZDNet. Because ZDNet isn't a news site anymore; not even remotely.

"You want to infiltrate those. Again, there’s two categories. There’s those that are controlled by vendors; like MSJ; we control that. And there’s those that are independent. [...] So that’s how you use journals that we control. The ones that third parties control, like the WinTech Journal, you want to infiltrate."

--Microsoft's chief evangelist



Recent Techrights' Posts

The World's 'Richest Country' Chooses GNU/Linux
This has gone on for quite some time
Apple's LLM Slop Told Us Luigi Mangione Had Shot Himself, BetaNews Used LLMs to Talk About a Dead Linus Torvalds
They can blame it on some bot
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part XI
By Dr. Andy Farnell
GNU/Linux and ChromeOS in Qatar Reach 4%, an All-Time High
Qatar has money to spend, but not much of it will be spent on Microsoft, or so one can hope
This 'Article' About "Linux Malware" is a Fake Article, It's LLM Slop (Likely Spewed Out by Microsoft Chatbot)
They're drowning out the Web
Early Retirement Age: Linus Torvalds Turns 55 Next Week
Now he's almost eligible for retirement in certain European countries
 
Links 23/12/2024: The Book of Uncommon Beings, Squirrels, and Slop Ruining Workplaces
Links for the day
Links 23/12/2024: North Korean Death Toll in Russia at ~1,100, Oligarch Who Illegally Migrated/Stayed (Musk) Shuts Down US Government
Links for the day
Richard Stallman on Love
Richard Stallman's personal website includes a section that lists three essays on the subject of love
Microsoft, Give Me LLM Slop About "Linux" and "Santa", I Need Some Fake Article...
BetaNews is basically an LLM slop site
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 22, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, December 22, 2024
Links 22/12/2024: Election Rants and More Sites Available via Gemini
Links for the day
Links 22/12/2024: North Pole Moving and Debian's Joey Hess Goes Solar
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/12/2024: Solstice and IDEs
Links for the day
BetaNews: Microsoft Slop is Your "Latest Technology News"
Paid-for garbage disguised as "journalism"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 21, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, December 21, 2024
Links 21/12/2024: EU on Solidarity with Ukraine, Focus on Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court in the EU (UPC)
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsofters at the End of David's Leash
Hand holding the leash. Whose?
Deciphering Matt's Take on WordPress, Which is Under Attack From Microsofters-Funded Aggravator
the money sponsoring the legal attacks on WordPress and on Matt is connected very closely to Microsoft
Gemini Links 21/12/2024: Projections, Dead Web ('Webapps' Replacing Pages), and Presentation of Pi-hole
Links for the day
American Samoa One of the Sovereign States Where Windows Has Fallen Below 1% (and Stays Below It)
the latest data plotted in LibreOffice
[Meme] Brian's Ravioli
An article per minute?
Links 21/12/2024: "Hey Hi" (AI) or LLM Bubble Criticised by Mainstream Media, Oligarchs Try to Control and Shut Down US Government
Links for the day
LLM Slop is Ruining the Media and Ruining the Web, Ignoring the Problem or the Principal Culprits (or the Slop Itself) Is Not Enough
We need to encourage calling out the culprits (till they stop this poor conduct or misconduct)
Christmas FUD From Microsoft, Smearing "SSH" When the Real Issue is Microsoft Windows
And since Microsoft's software contains back doors, only a fool would allow any part of SSH on Microsoft's environments, which should be presumed compromised
Paywalls, Bots, Spam, and Spyware is "Future of the Media" According to UK Press Gazette
"managers want more LLM slop"
Google Has Mass Layoffs (Again), But the Problem is Vastly Larger
started as a rumour about January 2025
On BetaNews Latest Technology News: "We are moderately confident this text was [LLM Chatbot] generated"
The future of newsrooms or another site circling down the drain with spam, slop, or both?
"The Real New Year" is Now
Happy solstice
Microsoft OSI Reads Techrights Closely
Microsoft OSI has also fraudulently attempted to censor Techrights several times over the years
"Warning About IBM's Labor Practices"
IBM is not growing and its revenue is just "borrowed" from companies it is buying; a lot of this revenue gets spent paying the interest on considerable debt
[Meme] The Easier Way to Make Money
With patents...
The Curse (to Microsoft) of the Faroe Islands
The common factor there seems to be Apple
Electronic Frontier Foundation Defends Companies That Attack Free Speech Online (Follow the Money)
One might joke that today's EFF has basically adopted the same stance as Donald Trump and has a "warm spot" for BRICS propaganda
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 20, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, December 20, 2024
Gemini Links 21/12/2024: Death of Mike Case, Slow and Sudden End of the Web
Links for the day