Microsoft AstroTurfing: GitHub's First Puppet CEO May Be Violating Wikipedia Rules With Reputation Laundering by Proxy (Hiding the Serial Strangler From Microsoft/GitHub)

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2022-10-16 22:44:39 UTC
Modified: 2022-10-16 22:44:39 UTC

About a week ago: Nat Friedman Seems to Be Employing a PR Agency to Turn a Wikipedia Page About Him Into Hagiography and Hide His Strong Links to the Serial Strangler Alex Graveley

Before (heavily focused on one topic)

After (account removed)

Summary: Wikipedia is being manipulated and is becoming a Public Relations machine; today we take a closer look into the 'cover-up' that comes after Nat Friedman, Miguel de Icaza, and their close friend Alex Graveley 'leaving' Microsoft

FOLLOWING last week's quick post we noticed that "theauthentic.co" sort of 'vanished' itself from Wikipedia (screenshots above). Who are they and who's employing them?

Details of domain registration are redacted for "privacy" and anyone trying to find their corporate registration would be disappointed. They're very secretive. Also, someone who looked on LinkedIn said "they were founded in August 2019" and they've deleted their Wikipedia account as well.

So let's dive deeper.

Well, there was a working account there a week ago. It seems to be closely connected to or obsessed with Nat Friedman. Is he a client?

We found an LLC in Ohio where they're supposedly based, but it's not in the city that they are based in. The address attached to it is a virtual office:

AUTHENTIC CREATIVE CO LLC Ohio Rregistry 1

AUTHENTIC CREATIVE CO LLC Ohio Rregistry 2

AUTHENTIC CREATIVE CO LLC Ohio Rregistry 3

AUTHENTIC CREATIVE CO LLC Ohio Rregistry 4

AUTHENTIC CREATIVE CO LLC Ohio Rregistry 5

This seems to be connected to "STREICHERT CONSULTING, LLC" under the name of "ASHLEY STREICHERT":

Tampering with history and manipulating facts is a very Microsoft thing. Microsoft keeps getting caught and Jimbo Wales slammed them for it.

Less than 10 days ago we pointed out that in a very Microsoft fashion a former CEO of GitHub had 'his' Wikipedia article turned into some hagiography, owing so a shadowy entity. He must have noticed. We do know that this bunch is watch us closely, based on communications with their representatives. They have plenty to hide! ⬆

An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle": Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances: Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman: "The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights: We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours: Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either): "No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning: Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?: very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl: Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims): What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11: Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day: “Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025: IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs): We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing'): That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies: What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux": It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant: Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords: Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD): What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper): We never used "the cloud"
Amazon Web Shenanigans: An ongoing, experimental endeavour
Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy: Links for the day
They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised): we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science): Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse: Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens: Everything here will persist as normal
Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple: Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
The "Infinite Bread": The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works): If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time: The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data): Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025: IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot'): Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With: 4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
Liberation From 'The Feed': They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD): We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM: Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom: Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective: In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value): "More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism: This won't end well
Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud: Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week: They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
Richard Stallman Back at the "Rudolf-Diesel" Hörsal "MW 2001" in About 40 Hours: He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox: A crashing franchise
Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest: Links for the day
Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News: Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic: Links for the day
As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad): French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals: there's nothing unreasonable about it
A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol): Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK": Links for the day
US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux: GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype: Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month: some weeks ago
All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop: Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains: Each year it gets worse
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025: IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025

Microsoft AstroTurfing: GitHub's First Puppet CEO May Be Violating Wikipedia Rules With Reputation Laundering by Proxy (Hiding the Serial Strangler From Microsoft/GitHub)

Recent Techrights' Posts