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Uber Threatens To Do 'Opposition Research' On Journalists
Nerval's Lobster writes A senior executive at Uber reportedly told a Buzzfeed writer that the company "should consider hiring a team of opposition researchers to dig up dirt on its critics in the media — and specifically to spread details of the personal life of a female journalist who has criticized the company." As detailed by the executive, Uber would spend a million dollars on the effort, which would involve "four top opposition researchers and four journalists," and dig into personal lives and families. Uber has pushed back against the report, insisting that it's never done opposition research, but the idea of any company engaging in such practices seems more like something Nixon would have dreamed up at his worst than a strategy by a "disruptive" startup.
I don't use Uber, never have, never will so I have no skin in this game. But... it may not be such a far fetched idea.
Look at what happened recently with Gruber and the Obamacare fiasco. The MIT professor Gruber was being paid (and paid handsomely) by HHS... He wrote Op Eds in newspapers which were then picked up by the Obamacare supporters as independent confirmation that it was a good thing. Here was an independent MIT professor saying this was good. No where did anything cite that he was a major player in forming it nor did they say he was being paid by the administration. It was a full blown circle jerk to fool the people.
Bring it full circle back to this article --> An article comes out against Uber and slamming the company. Well a little money and research into that "independent journalist" might just find that they're getting paid by X lobby, or Y company. Maybe their best friend is in charge of the Cabbie Union (I would imagine there is such a thing).
So go after the journalists family and children? That sounds like F.U.D. to me. But maybe check in to be sure the journalist is legit and not some shill like Gruber? Yeah... Might be time we start doing that before we all get fooled again.
#gamergate anyone?
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
See, my problem with this statement is that on the surface Uber is the source of their own bad PR.
I've seen some of the news coverage about them trying to move into a couple of cities. The cities are saying "OK, you need a license, the proper insurance, and you must do these things".
Uber says "Yarg, we're not a taxi company, we're teh interweb company, we won't play by the rules".
At which point you think, "wow, so these guys figure they're exempt from regulations". And then you don't have a lot of sympathy for them.
If you blatantly say that you don't believe the law applies to you, you deserve all the bad PR you get. Your magic interweb business model doesn't exempt you from that.
See, I think this "whole smear the source, screw the facts" mentality is complete and utter crap.
It's just public muck raking to obfuscate the issue. In some cases, they simply refuse to acknowledge the basis for the criticism and pretend like their magical unicorns exempt them from reality.
So, I'm of the opinion anyone who engages in "opposition research" is probably a lying, evil, twisted sack of shit of a PR guy, who engages in a "win at any cost" level of bullshit.
It has nothing to do with facts, just digging up dirt to discredit them and distract people from the fact that, yes, you do actually eat babies.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.