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LinuxToday Astroturfing Explained
cigarky sent us Paul Ferris' account (fwiw, Paul is a good guy) of the LinuxToday astroturfing that we mentioned a few weeks ago. Much more explanation about how Executive Editor Kevin Reichard was posting numerous comments under numerous aliases on the LT forums. Even more scary is the editorial war regarding linking outside content. My opinion is that LT's only value was the outside content they linked: until Dave and later Paul left, they were the best url for finding comprehensive Linux news. A real eye-opening piece about "Journalism" and Internet.com. (Note: LT and Internet.com are sorta competitors, although I never really cared much. My opinions are probably skewed somehow because of that ;))
There is a petition going around. The idea is to try and put some pressure on the LT staff to put out some answers. To date it's had little effect. We've had a very hard time getting the normal outlets to take notice of us.
Many of them feel that this story should die.
Other think that it's not really a story, that it's not important.
And still others seem to think that the community needs to be "protected."
It's linked at the bottom of Paul's article, but I'll include it here too.
LT Petition
Myddrin
I was a big fan of LinuxToday for a few years now, because it was a smaller weblog with far less trolls than our beloved /. (even with their astroturfing) They do moderate the posts, though, which may help account for that. But it always struck me as strange that a bunch of blatantly anti-Linux seemingly blindly-in-love-with-MS posts would consistently make it through.
Since Slashdot first reported on the astroturfing, and especially because I haven't noticed a response from LinuxToday admitting to this, I have lost a good deal of respect for them. It's a shame that Linuxtoday had to resort to posting flames in order to get more visitors to come to their site. It's the same tactic that's often attributed to eWeek and others. If they would at least publically admit on their site that they were astroturfing, then maybe I can respect them again...
Other than these philosophical issues, it is a decent news site if you're interested in some of the noteworthy linux headlines.
make world, not war
I also have to wonder about the validity of these emails and message board posts that show up on shows like CNN's 'talkback live' or 'news site'. Not trying to sound like a conspiracy nut, but we know the media massages news to their liking, how are we to know that they dont try to portray joe six-pack as being in favor or against said subject?
This happens in dead-tree publications on a routine basis, so I'd be surprised *not* to see it in online publications that let the admins - as opposed to the users - choose which replies have prominence.
[User-moderated boards have their own problems, as we all know.]
In the publications around here (Toronto, Canada), papers will typically print "letters to the editor" that either a) continue an existing argument amongst readers, or b) provoke a flood of replies. Note that sanity and accuracy are not listed as requirements; they're an incidental side effect. Sometimes.
The purpose of the letters section is the same as any other section of the newspaper (other than ads) - to get people reading and keep people reading. Not to be accurate for accuracy's own sake.
Astroturfing and other message forgery is still illegal, but selective filtering is standard practice.