12.01.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

Condé Nast (Owner of Reddit and Many Other Microsoft-Funded Sites) Promoting Software Patents

Posted in Deception, Law, Patents at 8:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum 6db8ca6bdf056b9d669021af0407d08e
Ars Technica-lly Lame
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: SoylentNews is boosting Condé Nast fluff, including glorification of software patents which ought not be granted at all after 35 U.S.C. § 101/Alice (SCOTUS, 2014)

TEN days ago we published this video about Reddit, which is owned by Condé Nast and therefore promotes a Microsoft agenda. It’s a firehose of Microsoft PR disguised as “community” and it’s many other bad things. This company basically thrives in the illusion that it is something it is not and likely against.

Editorial control should not be absolute, but as we've just shown, in open (to manipulation) social control media abuse and mischief are warranted, even inevitable. It happened to Slashdot before and it happens in many other sites, especially when they grow to attract large audiences. Those with the money (corporations) can overwhelm the process by means of bribes and AstroTurfing. In Reddit, for instance, Microsoft adopted both approaches.

Microsoft is the worst and the most shameless about this. “They’ve been astroturfing nonstop before during and since Team99,” an associate recalls, linking to more examples “from back when The Register was still independent,” noting that a lot of journalism about this went offline. “I guess it is to their credit that they have not deleted nor ‘reorganized’ away the old articles. The same goes for Wired.”

“It’s a firehose of Microsoft PR disguised as “community” and it’s many other bad things.”The video above responds to poor editorial choices by SoylentNews. It’s one among several recent examples, which include misinformation (and sometimes resort to including Microsoft propaganda). We didn’t mention it at the time, but it has been getting worse. The site is now linking to this puff piece about software patents. █

“Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!”

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New

  1. Not Tolerating Proprietary 'Bossware' in the Workplace (or at Home in Case of Work-From-Home)

    The company known as Sirius ‘Open Source’ generally rejected… Open Source. Today’s focus was the migration to Slack.

  2. The ISO Delusion: A Stack of Proprietary Junk (Slack) Failing Miserably

    When the company where I worked for nearly 12 years spoke of pragmatism it was merely making excuses to adopt proprietary software at the expense of already-working and functional Free software

  3. Debian 11 on My Main Rig: So Far Mostly OK, But Missing Some Software From Debian 10

    Distributions of GNU/Linux keep urging us to move to the latest, but is the latest always the greatest? On Friday my Debian 10 drive died, so I started moving to Debian 11 on a new drive and here's what that did to my life.

  4. Stigmatising GNU/Linux for Not Withstanding Hardware Failures

    Nowadays "the news" is polluted with a lot of GNU/Linux-hostile nonsense; like with patents, the signal-to-noise ratio is appalling and here we deal with a poor 'report' about "Linux servers" failing to work

  5. Microsofters Inside Sirius 'Open Source'

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ has been employing incompetent managers for years — a sentiment shared among colleagues by the way; today we examine some glaring examples with redacted communications to prove it

  6. Links 29/01/2023: GNOME 43.3 Fixes and Lots About Games

    Links for the day

  7. The Hey Hype Machine

    "Hey Hype" or "Hey Hi" (AI) has been dominating the press lately and a lot of that seems to boil down to paid-for marketing; we need to understand what's truly going on and not be distracted by the substance-less hype

  8. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 28, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, January 28, 2023

  9. Unmasking AI

    A guest article by Andy Farnell

  10. The ISO Delusion/Sirius Corporation: A 'Tech' Company Run by Non-Technical People

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ was hiring people who brought to the company a culture of redundant tasks and unwanted, even hostile technology; today we continue to tell the story of a company run by the CEO whose friends and acquaintances did severe damage

  11. Links 28/01/2023: Lots of Catching Up (Had Hardware Crash)

    Links for the day

  12. IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, January 27, 2023

  13. Microsoft DuckDuckGo Falls to Lowest Share in 2 Years After Being Widely Exposed as Microsoft Proxy, Fake 'Privacy'

    DuckDuckGo, according to this latest data from Statcounter, fell from about 0.71% to just 0.58%; all the gains have been lost amid scandals, such as widespread realisation that DuckDuckGo is a Microsoft informant, curated by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft (Bing is meanwhile laying off many people, but the media isn’t covering that or barely bothers)

  14. This is What the Microsoft-Sponsored Media Has Been Hyping Up for Weeks (Ahead of Microsoft Layoffs)

    Reprinted with permission from Ryan

  15. [Meme] António Campinos Wants to Be F***ing President Until 2028

    António Campinos insists he will be EPO President for 10 years, i.e. even longer than Benoît Battistelli (despite having appalling approval rates from staff)

  16. European Patent Office Staff Losing Hope

    The EPO’s management with its shallow campaign of obfuscation (pretending to protect children or some other nonsense) is not fooling patent examiners, who have grown tired and whose representatives say “the administration shows no intention of involving the staff representation in the drafting of the consultant’s mandate” (like in Sirius ‘Open Source’ where technical staff is ignored completely for misguided proposals to pass in the dark)

  17. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, January 26, 2023

  18. Sirius Relegated/Demoted/Destined Itself to Technical Hell by Refusing to Listen to the Technical Staff (Which Wanted to Stay With Asterisk/Free Software)

    In my final year at Sirius ‘Open Source’ communication systems had already become chaotic; there were too many dysfunctional tools, a lack of instructions, a lack of coordination and the proposed ‘solution’ (this past October) was just more complexity and red tape

  19. Geminispace Approaching Another Growth Milestone (2,300 Active Capsules)

    The expansion of Geminispace is worth noting again because another milestone is approached, flirted with, or will be surpassed this coming weekend

  20. [Meme] Cannot Get a Phone to Work... in 2022

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ wasted hours of workers’ time just testing the phone after it had moved to a defective system of Google (proprietary); instead of a rollback (back to Asterisk) the company doubled down on the faulty system and the phones still didn’t work properly, resulting in missing calls and angst (the company just blamed the workers who all along rejected this new system)

  21. [Meme] Modern Phones

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ is mistaking “modern” for better; insecurity and a lack of tech savvy typically leads to that

  22. The ISO Delusion: Sirius Corporation Demonstrates a Lack of Understanding of Security and Privacy

    Sirius ‘Open Source’, emboldened by ISO ‘paperwork’ (certification), lost sight of what it truly takes to run a business securely, mistaking worthless gadgets for “advancement” while compelling staff to sign a new contract in a hurry (prior contract-signing scandals notwithstanding)

  23. Links 26/01/2023: LibreOffice 7.4.5 and Ubuntu Pro Offers

    Links for the day

  24. Links 26/01/2023: GNU poke 3.0 and PipeWire 0.3.65

    Links for the day

  25. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, January 25, 2023

  26. Companies Would Collapse Upon Abandoning Their Original Goals (That Attracted All the Productive Staff)

    Staff with technical skills won't stick around in companies that reject technical arguments and moreover move to proprietary software in a company that brands itself "Open Source"

  27. [Meme] Listen to Your Workers, Avert Disaster

    Companies that refuse to take input from staff are doomed to fail

  28. The ISO Delusion: When the Employer Doesn’t Understand the Company's Value Proposition (Building Systems) and Rejects Security

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ has failed to sell what it was actually good at; instead it hired unqualified people and outsourced almost everything

  29. Links 25/01/2023: NuTyX 23.01.1 and GNU Guile 3.0.9 Released

    Links for the day

  30. Links 25/01/2023: Stratis 3.5.0 and Many Political Links

    Links for the day

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts