Slashdot Mirror
Forbes Goes After Bloggers
walterbyrd writes "In a recent article, Forbes bashes bloggers big time (forbesdontbug/forbesdontbug)." From the article: "Blogs started a few years ago as a simple way for people to keep online diaries. Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns. It's not easy to fight back: Often a bashing victim can't even figure out who his attacker is. No target is too mighty, or too obscure, for this new and virulent strain of oratory. Microsoft has been hammered by bloggers; so have CBS, CNN and ABC News, two research boutiques that criticized IBM's Notes software, the maker of Kryptonite bike locks, a Virginia congressman outed as a homosexual and dozens of other victims--even a right-wing blogger who dared defend a blog-mob scapegoat. " BoingBoing has a long post about the article.
Hmmm, have to register to read the article, I hate that.
But, from the slashdot summary, ..., Microsoft has been
hammered by bloggers; so have CBS, CNN and ABC News, two research
boutiques that criticized IBM's Notes software, the maker of Kryptonite
bike locks, a Virginia congressman outed as a homosexual and dozens of
other victims--even a right-wing blogger who dared defend a blog-mob
scapegoat...,
As with all sea changes in communications comes (especially early on) a high noise to signal ratio. Hopefully reasonable readers apply reasonable filters to what they read.
There may be incendiary posts, unnecessary posts, and inappropriate post (including but not limited to trolling, flaming, and slander), but in the collective body of blogs are useful nuggets worth mining. Vendors, companies, and individuals benefit if they choose by tuning in to this.
The evolution of airing a complaint has evolved from snail mail (good luck), to phone calls (good luck), and with the internet, to "Contact Us" (hmmm, good luck). None of these in my experience have been as effective as I prefer because the receiving complainant can easily ignore the missives as so much whining, and invisible that they don't have to be responsive.
Not all ignore complaints, pleas for help, etc. Notably (and I'm only picking a couple) I've always received timely and helpful replies from Amazon.com and Thumbnails Plus . These are only two examples, I could cite more.
But with the volume raised, the signal amplified with the more public blogosphere I've seen signs there can be positive outcomes. Again, while some posts are inflammatory only, valid complaints about activities, governments, and companies in such a public forum spur action faster and more effectively than in the past.
And, as with all emerging conduits, mechanisms are being built and refined eventually improving the signal to noise ratio to a much more acceptable number (case in point... you troll or flame too much here, even anonymously, you get shut down until you clean up your act).
I am looking forward to the future that is the blogosphere.
CBS, CNN and ABC News: Big media are lap dogs to the powers that be. To afraid to really speak out for fear of harming revenue, stock value, etc.
And that, as I'm sure you're aware, is precisely what scares Forbes and those of their class. Traditional journalism is a tamed parrot which only says what its' owners have trained it to say.
They needed be afraid though; history has shown that independent social movements and forms of communication remain independent for a very brief period of time before becoming absorbed into the tame and vapid mainstream of social thought and expression.
Blogs scare the societal elites now; but in five years from now they'll be just another corporate form of propaganda, pushing the sheeple in the direction which the top 1% want them to go.
What I find surprising is that nobody has pointed out yet what Dan Gillmore has mentioned: namely, that the article encourages firms to "(f)ind some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act".
Geez. Talk about an abuse of the (already abusive) DMCA and the justice system in general. I really lost a lot of respect for Forbes when I read that - going after people who exercise their right to free speech and disagree with you is bad enough, but bringing fraudulent lawsuits against them and their ISPs is, well, criminal. Or if it's not, then it should be.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Daniel Lyons deserves to be banned from publishing in Forbes for his sidebar on Pamela Jones. Completely paints one side of the story without any attempt at balance, and uses quotes out of context to twist the meaning of the words.
>> When O'Gara's story about her quest appeared in Linux Business News, an online magazine, indignant bloggers went on the attack. They said the story was unethical and demanded that the site take it down. (So much for free speech.)
>> Jones responded by penning a pious thank-you to her defenders. "My faith in the human race is restored," she wrote. "It means so much to me to know that there is still a line, an ethical line, and some things we agree we ought never to do to a fellow human."
If I recall correctly, O'Gara's story attempted to question Jones' sexual orientation or something else of that nature, and Pamela Jones' reply about "an ethical line" refers to this.
Daniel Lyons completely left that bit out, instead talking only about O'Gara as simply trying to meet Pamela or verify that was her real name, and that bloggers ravenously swarmed to keep that information secret.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Sage advice from Forbes on what to do about those evil bloggers:
BASH BACK. If you get attacked, dig up dirt on your assailant and feed it to sympathetic bloggers. Discredit him.
ATTACK THE HOST. Find some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That may prompt the ISP to shut him down. Or threaten to drag the host into a defamation suit against the blogger. The host isn't liable but may skip the hassle and cut off the blogger's access anyway. Also:Subpoena the host company, demanding the blogger's name or Internet address.
SUE THE BLOGGER. If all else fails, you can sue your attacker for defamation, at the risk of getting mocked. You will have to chase him for years to collect damages. Settle for a court order forcing him to take down his material.
That's why AOL/Time Warner is trying to buy into them and regain control of journalism.
Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
Not terribly responsible journalism by Daniel Lyons. Of course, you may remember the earlier Lyons article in which he defended Maureen O'Gara's attack on groklaw's PJ. He doesn't appear to be an open source enthusiast. For example, in an article on Marc Fleury of JBoss fame, he writes:Memo to Slashdot, and to myself: YHBT.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
This is just more trash talk from Dan Lyons, Forbes own resident pro-SCO, anti-"Linux crunchies" troll. He's apparantly realized that his only hope of keeping his job indefinitely is to convince his bosses that having one's arguments meticulously dissected by flaw-finding weblogs is a meaningless annoyance that happens to everybody, and to dissuade his bosses from ever paying close attention to the flaws found in Dan's own work.
Don't even click the link and give them an ad impression. Unless the man has just lost his mind, the whole reason for writing these shrill rants is to draw more "Slashdot effect" hits. It's quite possible that Forbes is thrilled to see all the attention in their web server logs, not yet realizing they're getting it by driving away the "Wall Street Journal" audience in favor of the more populous "National Enquirer" crowd.
Those bitches sold me something as a lock, having only a single key to open it, and a guarantee against pick based attacks. In reality I bought a heavy ass paper weight. ANY person with a bic pen could open it. I bitched about it in my blog, after they refused to replace the lock because I lacked a receipt. Many others did the same thing.
They still wouldn't exchange it.
I bitched on my blog about how it's very unlikely I stole the lock, and waited for the owner to mug him for the key. Many others did the same thing.
Eventually they opened up exchanges to anyone with a lock and a key to open it.
Blogs give people the power to alter the pereption of a company, affect their bottom line, and coerce them into responsible actions.
I still won't buy kryptonite products because of their complete failure to immediately and resposibly stand behind their products. It took so long for Kryptonite to stand up and replace the locks, I was forced to buy from another company to product my investment in my bike. By the time they actually implemented the exchange program, it was pointless because they fucked over everyone who had their their locks, and forced everyone to buy new locks from other manufacturers out of necessity.
Pretty un-sage. And pretty un-Forbes-like. Sounds a lot like a certain UFO cult, actually.
> BASH BACK. If you get attacked, dig up dirt on your assailant and feed it to sympathetic bloggers. Discredit him.
> ATTACK THE HOST. Find some copyrighted text that a blogger has lifted from your Web site and threaten to sue his Internet service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That may prompt the ISP to shut him down. Or threaten to drag the host into a defamation suit against the blogger. The host isn't liable but may skip the hassle and cut off the blogger's access anyway. Also:Subpoena the host company, demanding the blogger's name or Internet address.
> SUE THE BLOGGER. If all else fails, you can sue your attacker for defamation, at the risk of getting mocked. You will have to chase him for years to collect damages. Settle for a court order forcing him to take down his material.
and
Yes, paid shills are an odious problem. But why not simply call them that? Could the author himself be a shill? One has to wonder.
Its great being both mighty and obscure, isn't it? Rich crooks are under attack by concerned citizens and consumers; Now that small-fry crooks have joined the fray, the blogosphere must be litigated into oblivion??
I'm sure Alexander Hamilton said the same Of Ben Franklin's newspaper.http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/pop_apolo gy.html>
Indeed. Should blogger feel the need to respond, they might do no better than Franklin's response to criticism of his Pennsylvania Gazette, May 27, 1731.
He begins:
He then gives 10 things for his critics to consider, among them:
It is quite obvious to me and many others that Frobes and Daniel Lyons are trolling for ad impressions.
Please do not give them the satisfaction. By going and visiting their site you are only encouraging them.
Many people have tried to reason with Daniel Lyons. It is obvious to most people that he does not listen to reason.
So please, pretty please. With cherry on top. Let us all ignore Forbes and Daniel Lyons and his kind. Thanks.