Bonum Certa Men Certa

More Microsoft Employees as ZDNet 'Writers', Microsoft Bribes Bloggers for AstroTurfing

"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]



Perlow velociraptor in the park
Photo with permission from Jason



Summary: ZDNet's Microsoft bias becomes ever more simple to see; it is fair to say that it is corrupt as a publication

TECH TABLOID/PR rag ZDNet was not corrupted by accident. It was corrupted by design, and sadly enough it saturates news feeds and now works with a conglomerate, CBS.

Mr. Perlow, who was promoting Miguel de Icaza and other Microsoft agenda at times, is now working directly for Microsoft.

Our contributor Iophk says, "does the "mandatory author disclosure" show M$ Zack's conflict?" He refers to other Microsoft folks who work as writers for ZDNet.

"ZDNet now needs to let Perlow go," he says. "I was wondering why you all of a sudden started posting all these pro-MS blogs, and now I know why."

"Windows 8" continues to be entire section in ZDNet and many Microsoft staff have been "writers", so the bias makes sense. Why select people with conflicts of interest? After bashing Stallman Perlow wrote some FOSS-hostile pieces and now this: "Open-source and free software: Free, as in beer," says his latest article.

The FTC has been cracking down on fake journalism (we filed complaints and got responses at times), so why the failure to identify simple cases? As this new article puts it:

The guidelines also take aim at bloggers who provide information or reviews in exchange for products or services. In one example, the FTC shows a blog post about house paint in which the writer states at the end that she received a free can of paint. According to the agency, such disclosures must be clear and conspicuous and not tucked away after a series of links or other distractions. The new guidelines may affect companies like Microsoft that have paid bloggers to ”astroturf” on their behalf.


We wrote quite a lot about Microsoft AstroTurfing and gave many examples. Watch this as an example:



Is this is suitable article for a Microsoft employee to plant in news feeds through ZDNet's brand? Paula, the Open Source writer in ZDNet, recently left or lost her job (like Dana Blankenhorn, who at times did decent work), leaving just Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols as a form of regularisation in ZDNet. While many Microsoft cronies like Mary Jo-Foley and Ed Bott praise Vista 8, he has been trying to give a reality check. Here is his latest go:

Windows 8, like Vista before it, is on its way to the trash heap of PC history unless Microsoft makes some big changes as soon as possible.


Meanwhile we learn about more technical problems in Vista 7, which ZDNet seems to have been paid to promote in the editorial -- not advertisements -- side of things.

The reality is, Windows is failing very badly (cannot complete with or imitate Android/Google), but ZDNet will hardly tell that to readers because it is corrupt. It chose to become agenda driver, not journalism.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 19/06/2025: Unix Primitivism, Zine Club, and Gemini Protocol Turns 6 at Midnight
Links for the day
 
Microsoft's Windows is a Niche Operating System in Africa
African nations aren't a large contributor to Microsoft's income, but if many African nations move away from Windows, then the monopoly is at risk
Links 19/06/2025: WhatsApp Identified as Assassination 'Crosshairs', Patreon Now Rips Off People Even More
Links for the day
"Told You So": Another Very Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Now Confirmed in Mainstream Media
So we were right to believe the rumours, based on the credibility of prior such rumours
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 18, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Gemini Links 18/06/2025: Magit and Farming
Links for the day
Slopwatch: BetaNews is Now a Slopfarm (Like Linuxsecurity) and Google News is Overwhelmed by Slopfarms
The Web is bad
Links 18/06/2025: SCOTUS Decision on Fentanylware (TikTok) Still Ignored, 4.5-Day Work Weeks
Links for the day
Links 17/06/2025: Windows TCO and G7 Rifts
Links for the day
The Right to Know and the Freedom to Report on Crime (at the Higher Echelons)
I'd like to do the same thing for the next 20 years
BetaNews Appears to Have Fired All Of Its Staff
Even serial sloppers
After the Web Becomes Slopped to Death
A lot of people are rightly fed up with the "modern" Web
Gemini Protocol Turns 6 on Friday
Active (online) Gemini capsules are estimated by Lupa at over 3,000
Like Most Social Control Media, Microsoft LinkedIn is Collapsing
One reason for Microsoft acquisitions is debt-loading, i.e. offloading and burying its debt
Microsoft is Losing Its Richest Clients
Unlike some very poor countries, Germany and the EU are a considerable source of income to Microsoft
Proprietary Means Not Secure
Proprietary software tends to rely on secrecy, not good design
Slop in 'AI' Clothing is a Passing Fad, We'll Get Past It (Like Blockchain Before That)
Many people cheat in exams using slop and there are professionals that try using slop as a "shortcut"
GNOME Does Not Campaign Against Microsoft, KDE Does
It's good to see that KDE is still active in promotion of Free software - a term that it uses
Slopwatch: BetaNews, Linuxsecurity, and Other Prolific Slopfarms
name and shame the sites that establish such proliferation of slop
Gemini Links 18/06/2025: Birch Lake and Loon Pond
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 17, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Links 17/06/2025: "The Grift Economy" and Kubernetes Does Proprietary
Links for the day
Microsoft's "FUD-as-a-Service" (Against Linux) Not Functioning Well
This is the kind of contribution companies like Microsoft and Google have to offer to society
Betanews Becoming a Slopfarm is "Betanews Growing Alongside You", According to Betanews
Their first 'article' in over two weeks is 52% "AI-generated" (slop), 33% mixed (edited slop), 18% human-written, says an advanced scanner.
Coffee Day and LLM Sloppers
The LLM slop "bros" are a lot like fake-money bros; they lie to people, they boast that they lie to people, and they're generally bad people, BS artists in colloquial terms
Double-Dipping the Docket for Microsoft Glory and Censorship of Microsoft Critics
same lawyer, same barrister, all US, all Microsoft
TheLayoff Censorship of IBM Threads Has Gone Truly Ludicrous
we do not argue that TheLayoff should not cull LLM slop
More Stallmanites Added to FSF Board and Summer Fundraiser Commences
There's some good news from the FSF
Gemini Links 17/06/2025: Consistency and Notes About NixOS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 16, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 16, 2025