Deception Watch: AstroTurf, Lobbying, and Dirty Politics
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-01 13:42:51 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-01 13:42:51 UTC
Media Bias
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The BBC has been accused of yielding to political pressure since the last election and allowing a right-wing bias to emerge in its journalism.
The serious criticism by a distinguished media professor suggests that the BBC has compromised its impartiality by depending too heavily on sources from business, the media, law and order and politics.
Covert Marketing
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Two-time "Worst Company In America" winner Electronic Arts isn't doing its publicity department any favors. The company's new freemium game Dungeon Keeper tricks frustrated players into leaving bad reviews on its own site, instead of on the Google Play Store, Gamasutra reports.
Politics
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Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., is defending his actions after he physically threatened a reporter at the Capitol after President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.
The confrontation began Tuesday when Michael Scotto, a reporter for New York cable news station NY1, asked Grimm about a Justice Department investigation into his campaign finances.
After cutting the interview short, Grimm told Scotto, "You ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this (expletive) balcony." He also threatened to "break (Scotto) in half."
NY1 posted video of the incident on its website.
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The Franklin Center for Government & Public Integrity (through its Wisconsin Reporter and Watchdog.org websites) has aggressively attacked the "John Doe" probe into possible campaign finance violations during Wisconsin's 2011 and 2012 recall elections. Its outlets have also published new information about the apparent targets of the investigation, but they have omitted an important detail: Franklin Center has close ties to individuals and groups that may be caught up in the John Doe.
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Google, the tech giant supposedly guided by its “don’t be evil” motto, has been funding a growing list of groups advancing the agenda of the Koch brothers.
Organizations that received “substantial” funding from Google for the first time over the past year include Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, the Federalist Society, the American Conservative Union (best known for its CPAC conference) and the political arm of the Heritage Foundation that led the charge to shut down the government over the Affordable Care Act: Heritage Action.
South Korea
Revisionism
Consumerism and Distraction
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This ad strongly promotes the values of consumerism, and implies that consumerism leads directly to happiness. In the ad, the girls bought these shoes, are wearing them, and are now fashionable, popular, and happy. This message encourages the belief that spending money and obtaining material goods is the only path to happiness for girls. This big lie will lower girls’ self-esteem and perhaps cause them to purchase unnecessary goods in their quest to appear cool and likeable.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
- The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
- For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
- Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
- su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
- Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
- A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
- What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
- Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
- A day later he speaks in Sweden
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- Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
- They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
- Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
- Links for the day
- Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
- Links for the day
- Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
- Links for the day
- Microsoft is Losing Europe
- Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
- The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
- New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
- Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
- Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
- What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
- XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
- Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
- not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
- Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
- Links for the day
- Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
- Links for the day
- Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
- Links for the day
- Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
- The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
- After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
- Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
- Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
- The core goal should be freedom
- Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
- Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
- Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
- users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
- IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
- IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
- Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
- In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
- Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
- These slopfarms help misplace blame
- Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
- Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October