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How to Spot Diversion Tactics (Excuses and Distractions From Articles Not Convenient to the Reader)

Covered eyes



Summary: When the subject of an article harms oneself one is more likely to shoot the messenger (or the platform) rather than the article itself; here are some examples of patterns we've encountered/witnessed over the years

LET'S face it! There are companies out there that dislike Techrights because of things Techrights published about them. Those companies have employees and sometimes a loyal base of clients/supporters (Apple has plenty of these). So Techrights often becomes the target of cheap smears, with various individuals looking for excuses to never read Techrights and even tell people to do the same. It's very common among comments/commenters. Sometimes it's downright amusing.



If Techrights gets some facts wrong, state it out loud and upfront. But most complaints (almost all!) are saying nothing about the contents and instead changing the subject to something else (innuendo or nitpicking). Here are some examples: (I have encountered them all before)

"It's old news"

"I found a typo"

"The headline's capitalisation style is wrong"

"The site isn't mobile-friendly"

"The fonts are of the wrong size"

"The stylesheet isn't good with my browser"

"I don't like the site"

"I dislike the author"

"The site is not secure enough"

"The site is slow (or down at the moment, maybe due to load)"

"The English is grammatically correct, but I don't like its style"

"There's not enough background"

"The site links to itself too much"

"This is conspiracy theory!"

"The author is anonymous and thus lacks credibility"

"I saw some crank linking to this site, hence the site is run by cranks"

"This is clickbait because it makes me angry"

"This is insensitive or intolerant because it points out something correct like a crime (which I prefer not to talk about)"

"It's too strongly-worded and biased, e.g. it calls bribes "bribes" and not some euphemism like 'contribution' or 'sponsorship' or whatever..."

"The site looks like it needs a redesign and was made in the 1990s" (maybe it was! Doesn't discredit the substance, does it?)

"It's difficult on the eyes that I need to scroll and there's no glitz such as "like" buttons"

"Comment(er)s are foaming at the mouth and I will hold the original author accountable for these"

"The author does not understand the topic and is merely emotional"

"The article's site has a low budget; therefore, it cannot possibly get the story right"

"The format of the dates is American; I am not American, hence this site isn't for me"

"The site quotes an anonymous source to protect from retribution/reprisal; thus, the source is fabricated or is lying"

"There are too many articles in that site and I cannot keep up, hence there's something wrong with the site"

"The site covered this same subject before, hence it's merely repeating itself and the message thus lacks legitimacy/novelty"

"The author supports some particular politics or particular political party which I dislike, hence I will read no further"

"Authors aren't salaried for the work, hence they're not bossed by rich media owners and cannot possibly produce anything of value"

"The authors are too young to know what's going on; I'm older and I therefore know a lot more and have been around for longer; my views supersede all else"

"The article has far too many links; it really should be more like a professional newspaper, including not a single link or citation or traceable source"

"I don't have time to read something this long (tl;dr)"

"I don't like the picture in that article, so I will not read the article"

"This is pure hypocrisy because [add some smear about the author, whether factual or not]"

"Jealousy, hatred or bigotry/extremist views drove or motivated this posting; it's thus invalid"

"The article contains leaked communication, hence it does something borderline illegal and I should not examine the evidence at all"

The list goes on and on, but that's just exemplary.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Get Ready for Increase in PIPs and RAs at IBM, Red Hat, and Other Companies Devoured by IBM
IBM's "market cap" has just fallen to 199 billion dollars and it has about 70 billion dollars in debt
Like Kyndryl, Multiple Securities Fraud Investigations Into IBM
Remember what happened to Kyndryl
Who Next After IBM? (Bubbles Don't Last Forever)
the demise of companies with "ai" in their name/domain
GNU/Linux Estimated at 8% "Market Share" Today (in statCounter)
Days ago it said 7.1%, then 7.3% or 7.4%
 
IBM Down to $211.20, the Market in General is Up
No recovery for IBM today
UEFI 'Secure Boot' Still Not Secure in 2026, New Holes (or Bypasses) Still Being Found
In 2026 there are still many people who call it "secure" and pretend to themselves that it is about security. It's not. It never was.
Gemini Links 15/07/2026: Lab 6, Retrospective 2, and "Getting Back Into Gemini"
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2026: "Gianni Infantino Under Fire" and "Todd Blanche's Record Raises Alarming Questions About the Future of the US DOJ"
Links for the day
Allegedly More IBM RAs (Mass Layoffs) Same Day the Stock Crashed
No paper trail, so it never happened, right?
Techrights Was Right: Microsoft's Layoffs Tally Was False, Far More People Are Being Sacked
"The Xbox Bloodbath Is Actually Way Bigger Than It Seems"
IBM Sinking to Lowest Levels Since 2024, But Will Any Executives Be Arrested for Securities Fraud?
52-week high of $332.46 and now down to $212.94
Microsoft Whistleblowers Say "The Entire Thing is Going to Fall Apart" and There Are "No Benefits" to Being Part of Microsoft
"Multiple sources, who chose to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal"
IBM's Crash Continues Today
Stocks go up and down, but they don't typically go down by over 25% in a single day
How Long Before GNU/Linux is Measured at 20% in Chad?
The main way to get people to adopt Vista 11 is to sell them a new PCs and in poor countries it happens a lot less
Making Techrights Faster Down Under (Australia and New Zealand)
there's more to life than speed
Strikes at the EPO Approved for the Rest of the Year, "€1,3 Billion Taken From Staff Income"
Intensity can be revised and increased over time
Focusing on What We Really Ought to Focus on
Today we'll focus mostly on EPO affairs
Violence is Not a Joke
"Police say Widdecombe killing was targeted but motive remains unclear"
How to Properly Measure the Performance of a Patent Office
A "contribution from staff [which] is published by SUEPO Munich."
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part XIV - "Not One of Us" (How the Group Dubbed by EPO Insiders "Alicante Mafia" Pushes Out Talent, Replacing It With Friends)
misuses the EPO's budget like it is a fountain of money for his friends
LibreTech Collective Abandons Microsoft GitHub and All Other Proprietary Software
Each time a project eliminates control by a hostile party it stands to gain
Links 15/07/2026: US Regime "Cuts Two Utah National Monuments by More Than 90%", "Hormuz is Less Crucial Than It Was"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2026: Old Computer Challenge, "Trial by Fire", LLM Slop Destroying Companies
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 14, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Heshan de Silva-Weeramuni Becomes Program Manager at the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
Heshan's addition means that the FSF is growing after a solid financial year (best in years)
Michael McMahon Explains Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks on the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
The real solution is a curb on botnets. A mitigation strategy, however, would involve going static.
Matters of Public Safety
"Police say Ann Widdecombe killed in 'targeted attack' as motive investigated"
The Register MS and Its Promotional Microsoft Content
It's not too hard to see what the business model of The Register MS is
IBM: From $306 to $212 in 7 Days, IBM Won't Go Up More Than 50% to Where It Was at 'Peak Vapourware'
There's a limit to how much or how long a company can fake its performance and its potential [...] Early this morning a few insiders ("traders") cashed in on their "pump-n-dump"
Red Hat Staff Needs to Start Looking for the Next Job
Workers can conveniently lie or deny it to themselves, but waves of PIPs ("silent layoffs") will sweep over more and more units or teams as the company runs out of money to play with
IBM the Next Bear Stearns
IBM cannot recover if all it has to show is vapourware
IBM Stock Collapses and It's Only the Beginning
Will GAFAM soon follow and will any executives be arrested for the accounting fraud insiders have long cautioned about?
I'll Be Extremely Difficult for Microsoft to Sell Any XBox Consoles Now
Microsoft understands this
How Software Freedom Would Benefit Everybody
A society that denies control by greedy companies would do a disservice to monopolies and improve all services to citizens
Links 14/07/2026: Harsh But Also Fair Criticism of Hey Hi (AI) Slop, 'Open' AI Shuts Down Its Own Products as Funds Run Out
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/07/2026: Old CD Binder and AWK
Links for the day
In Defence of Physical Tickets
Tickets are not some "app" and not some "code" on some "screen"
Microsoft Layoffs Not Limited to XBox (False Narrative in the Mainstream Media)
Microsoft is becoming less relevant and workforce reductions won't end any time soon
Links 14/07/2026: Plagiarism Spun as "Training", Zelensky Announces Leadership Shuffle
Links for the day
The Register MS Has Just Published "AI" Webspam That Mentions "AI" 54 Times. It Was Paid to Do This.
Who pays for all this "AI" hype or "buzz"?
Gemini Links 14/07/2026: Self-Advocacy Online; "The Internet Is Dead: How the Web Lost Its Human Soul"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 13, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, July 13, 2026
Modern Technology Harms Women More Than Men (Because the 'Tech Bros' Who Dominate STEM Have a Poor View of Women)
“Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.”
Internet Relay Chat Trolls Are Not Expressing Opinions, They Are Saboteurs
For the record
Links 14/07/2026: "The Freedom of Information Act Is in Serious Trouble"; Irish Datacenters Use Up Almost 25% of Total Energy
Links for the day
The Register MS: "AI" Puff Pieces for Sale, Not Journalism at All, Just "Webspam"
The Register MS isn't the sole culprit
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 12, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, July 12, 2026
How We Do Techrights (and What's Changing Next Week)
Many former news sites no longer yield much non-meaningless news (not anymore); there's a gap to be filled