Slashdot Mirror
Greenpeace Admits Targeting Apple Grabs Headlines
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo published this morning allegations by the bromine industry claiming that Greenpeace's report on the iPhone was inaccurate and alarmist. They got an official rebuttal to the bromine industry by Greenpeace, but the most interesting part is their acknowledgment that their targeting of Apple, even while they have similar reports on every manufacturer, is a deliberate attempt to grab headlines. While it's logical and not surprising, I find it quite shocking to see them be so cavalier, and even hypocritical, about it."
a good old fashioned hippie ass whoopin'
They got an official rebuttal to the bromine industry by Greenpeace, but the most interesting part is their acknowledgment that their targeting of Apple, even while they have similar reports on every manufacturers, is a deliberate attempt to grab headlines.
Well, that's the double-edged sword of having the "hot" product in any market. I'm sure if they had done a similar report on the XBOX 360, the media would have been all over it in a similar manner.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Greenpeace has been pulling stunts like this for publicity since the 1980s, why should it surprise you that they are alarmist and seeking headlines by bashing one company in particular?
Regardless if you agree with their goals or not, they left credibility behind a long time ago.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Some might argue that Slashdot is just as guilty as Greenpeace of using Apple's success to grab headlines / make money.
Personally, I don't really care, because we're all in it to make or raise money. PETA says and does offensive things to grab headlines, the WWE does, and 90% of the articles on CNN and even Digg are sensationalist headlines designed to get you to "click through".
Who cares?
rm -rf
Links without slashdotted anonymizer (really, if you think Gizmodo is tracking you maybe you shouldn't be on the Web) here and here.
no. the top five photographs of all time is the absolute truth about those pictures. the top five reasons to vote for Ron Paul are real, reasonable reasons. the funniest clip of colbert ever on youtube, is well, the funniest ever. that's not offensive or sensationalist - it's the honest to Dawkins truth.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I used to work on factory trawlers in Alaska and although we fished species that travel in very clean schools, attacking that particular part of the industry brought them the most attention, even though most of their information was incorrect.
I will say that I witnessed procedures and practices that bothered me and probably affected the overall industry in the end. However, the crap Green Peace used was totally fabricated and didn't have any basis in truth.
I quit fishing in 98', started using macs in 02' and now the fuckers are attacking something I like and profit from again. I didn't know 10 years ago that I would be working in IT with macs, but I feel like the fuckers are following me.
What's even more ironic is that all the tree-hugging hippies I have known over the years, even those from Green Peace, have been Apple users!
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Greenpeace has a very long story for even TAKING MONEY to attack someone. Id go as far as to say that, for example, they promoted the idea of dolphin killing tuna fishers everywhere else but the US. They were paid off by american tuna fishers who dont kill dolphins NEAR THE STATES, but they happily do so with dolphin from the philipines.
They also promoted the idea that a harbor project for the large (largest in the world, actually) salt mine down under in Baja was a risk to the gray whales, so that the harbor project was stopped. The pier was projected so big, that a damned whale coud pass under it from ANY possition.... SIDEWAYS. That time they were paid by competing Australian salt miners.
I, for one, have never ever believed anything coming out of greanpeace. They are nothing but a rent-a-hoolingan shop.
NO SIG
What Greenpeace does is to ride the hype wave and nobody but Apple has recently released any majorly hyped, or hype-worthy, electronic products.
Greenpeace rides the hype wave in other areas too (ie. not just electronics). This is a very effective way of operating since it relies on the fact that people are already tuned in to the subject and Greenpeace can tack on an environmental angle with far less resources.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Greenpeace is to the environment and public safety as Pat Robertson is to Christianity.
I love animals and believe we need to clean up the earth and all that, but every time I hear about Greenpeace and one of their stunts, I want to go kill a baby seal and wear its fur. Just like every time PETA does some of their bullshit I go eat lunch at KFC.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Like any political organization that has been in place for too long, its purpose is no longer to accomplish the goals it was founded for, but to simply perpetuate its own existence and increase its power base.
"Environmental extremism arose in the mid-1980s. It arose because the majority of people accepted all of the reasonable points in the environmental agenda, and the only way to remain adversarial and confrontational and anti-everything was to adopt even more extreme positions - eventually abandoning all science and logic altogether."
~ Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace.
All of you with an ideological bone to pick are frothing at the mouth out of pure ignorance. Not only is it *not* hypocritical to go after high-profile targets, thus extending the reach and efficacy of your message - but it's downright good strategy to go after a target that's more likely to fold and thereby become an industry leader in the values and policies you advocate. In fact, this approach is *standard*. Groups across the ideological spectrum follow this playbook, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
You can certainly criticize Greenpeace for the particulars of this campaign, but criticizing them as "hypocritical" for going after the highest-profile target most likely to achieve success for their campaign? Cry me a river.
Admitting targeting Apple to grab headlines grabs headlines too :)
Now, how long until this recursion dies with out of memory error...
Hyperom.com
Problem: People worldwide are concerned about the environment, human rights, and peace/security. Many feel that multinational corporations are making things worse. But multinational companies are really good at avoiding regulation by 'traditional' democratic institutions, namely governments.
Solution: Brands are already signifiers of complex emotional meanings. Marketers would love to define these meanings for us, but the meaning of a brand is a contested space. Holding high-value brands accountable for the sustainability of their actions becomes a powerful tool, but ONLY when those brands defy the values of their customers. Turns out many customers don't like toxics leaking out their landfills and so on. They never did. But now that marketeering has taught us that brands have deep things to say about who we as customers are, well gosh, suddenly brands that represent poisoned water tables are in deep shit. Because branding is about feeling, and poison-water feels bad.
Think about it: Greenpeace's only action was to release information. Not exactly threatening, unless that information drives customers. If Greenpeace doesn't share the values/ethics of the people who shop at Apple, there's absolutely no effect. But they do. Greenpeace picks targets that have value-added brands, brands with emotional resonance. It's hardball tactics and it's completely fair because what they said about Apple is true. Generic companies are also bad, but those companies don't have fanboys and big brand-name markups. Apple makes all kinds of promises to its customers wrapped into "Think Different". Turns out the customers want that to means something.
The interesting thing about this is that far from destroying brands, it actually makes them more powerful. Suddenly brands go beyond marketing language to become signifiers of real corporate ethics, where a value-added brand is even more desireable, because we customers know that a company that claims to "Think Different" but isn't will get crucified. Outing liars increases trust. Good for everyone: markets are more efficient with more information.
...Any more than Larry Craig is concerned about gays. The so-called environmental movement is a religious institution, a profit center designed to exploit people's legitimate concerns in order to enrich itself. It's just a racket, that's all it is.
Just do this exercize. Watch some Sunday TV and look at what the preachers are doing... yamming up about some horrific topic and threatening the wrath of God, if you don't give them money. Then, turn on the likes of PBS or the Discovery or Science channel, and, if you happen to find a good environmental documentary, you'll find some jackass yamming up about some horrific topic and threatening the wrath of mother nature, if you don't give them money. While I doubt it it would be politically possible, but I bet if you could have switched Jerry Falwell and the head of Greenpeace and made them do each other's jobs for a year, they wouldn't have missed a beat, because they are all doing the same thing.
Please don't get all hot and bothered about some nonsense that says: "yeah, but they do such good work." These people are con artists, 99% of the time, and what they sell is entertainment. It's entertainment, that's all it is. Just like in Christianity, if you want to save someone, so it is in the environment. If you want to save the world, start with your own life first.
This is my sig.
First off, I'm not a fan of Greenpeace, and I do think that they targetted the iPhone because of the increased publicity it would bring.
However, Greenpeace did not admit that is what they are doing. The summary is incorrect.
If you think we just protest against Apple then look out for soon a report covering a wide range of manufacturers as we have done in 2006. While it might not make as many headlines as the iPhone it doesn't mean that we are not focusing on all manufacturers to remove toxic chemicals from their products.
What Greenpeace said is the opposite of what the summary claims they said. Greenpeace said that they recognize that their report on the iPhone did capture more headlines, but that they do, and have done, the same thing with other phones. Greenpeace is claiming that they did not focus on the iPhone in order to capture headlines, that it happened because the media is more interested in news relating to the iPhone. Which also makes perfect sense, because that is what their readers want to read about (not whether it's right or wrong for them to report what the people want to hear, but that is the way it is).
So again, I agree that Greenpeace almost certainly did focus on the issue in order to attract attention to the issue, and that that is their standard operating procedure, it is clearly false that they admitted to it.
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Does this count as slander, or is it simply FUD?
Greenpeace is funded by private citizens, and doesn't even accept funding from governments, corporations, or other organisations that might compromise their independence. The only way in which companies are requested to "pay up" is by reducing their damage to the environment. If you have evidence to the contrary, I would love to see it.