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.

blogosphere CAN be healthy, too

[yagu]

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 [slashdot.org] . 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.

Re:Blog Bashin' Fools

[RLiegh]

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.

DMCA abuse

[slavemowgli]

What I find surprising is that nobody has pointed out yet what Dan Gillmore [bayosphere.com] 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.

Pamela Jones sidebar is trash

[SydShamino]

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.

Lovely sidebar on 'Fighting Back'

[shawnmchorse]

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.

Re:Blog Bashin' Fools

[Egorn]

That's why AOL/Time Warner is trying to buy into them [reuters.com] and regain control of journalism.

mr. pot, meet mr. kettle

[nadamsieee]

Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns.

That's an interesting statement coming from a magazine that frequently publishes personal attacks [groklaw.net] and smear campaigns [groklaw.net]. Come to think of it, since a blog is by definition a personal web-log, this entire article is just one mass personal attack...

Boing Boing.

[An Onerous Coward]

One of the great points made in the BoingBoing commentary is that, if a corporation follows certain bits of the article's advice, they could open themselves up to liability. For example, if you do as the author suggests, find "copyrighted text" on their site and then use it for the basis of a DMCA takedown notice, they might be able to justify their usage via fair use. If so, it's possible for them to countersue you for sending a misleading or inaccurate takedown notice. Again according to the commentary, Diebold got hit with $125,000 in fines for precisely this reason.

Not terribly responsible journalism by Daniel Lyons. Of course, you may remember the earlier Lyons article in which he defended [forbes.com] Maureen O'Gara's attack on groklaw's [groklaw.net] PJ. He doesn't appear to be an open source enthusiast. For example, in an article on Marc Fleury of JBoss fame, he writes [forbes.com]:

"Poor guy. Did he not get the memo? This is what open source software is all about: creating knockoffs and giving them away, destroying the value of whatever the other guy is selling."

"What's new is that now open-source companies are turning on each other."

Memo to Slashdot, and to myself: YHBT.

Subjective? No, defensive.

[roystgnr]

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.

On Kryptonite locks

[Tsiangkun]

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.

Hail Xenu?

[Tackhead]

> Sage advice from Forbes on what to do about those evil bloggers:

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.

1. Spot who is attacking us.

2. Start investigating them promptly for FELONIES or worse using our own professionals, not outside agencies.

3. Double curve our reply by saying we welcome an investigation of them.

4. Start feeding lurid, blood sex crime actual evidence on the attackers to the press. (LRH)

- Dead Agenting [xenu.net]

> 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.

"Reporters are a kiss of death unless one really is an expert PR man himself. Reporters have to be handled and well. If truly friendly, they have to be wooed. If not they have to be handled. The routine is (1) Whisper of a bad story (2) Get a lawyer (3) Threaten suit (4) Totally discredit using the technique of the Dead Agent caper which MUST be understood in full."

- Dead Agenting [xenu.net]

> 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.

ENEMY: [Suppressive Person] Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.

- Fair Game [xenu.net]

and

"The purpose of [a lawsuit] is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause his professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly."

- "A Manual on the Dissemination of Material" (1955 edition) [cmu.edu]

If you're running a UFO cult, and you're doing so in the media environment of the 1950s-1970s, L. Ron Hubbard's policies will work just fine. He may have been a raging nutbag, but he knew where the defects were in the news-gathering and news-dissemination networks of his day were, and his cult developed policies to exploit them successfully.

Most organizations have adapted to the new reality, and have come up with effective ways of managing the media - whether you agree with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, or whether you agree with Michael Moore and moveon.org, both groups have become effective in getting their respective messages out.

The Co$, ironically, is the final proof -- part of Cult doctrine is that the words of Hubbard must be regarded as both true, and immutably so. By its own doctrines, the Co$ has been unable to adapt to the new media reality -- because (by virtue of the doctrine of the immutable truth of Hubbard's writings) to deviate from these 1950s/60s/70s-style media manipulations is heresy. The fact that the cult has gone from "that kinda-weird ultra-wealthy Hollywood religion" to "a money-grubbing UFO cult that's the laughingstock of the planet" is testam

Re:Blog Bashin' Fools

[Burz]

Seems like part of the author's message is pleading for a return to consumers who cannot easily defend themselves against against corporate swindliers and incompetence... and right-wingers. Are we surprised?

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.

No target is too mighty, or too obscure,

Its great being both mighty and obscure, isn't it? Rich crooks [theyrule.net] are under attack by concerned citizens and consumers; Now that small-fry crooks have joined the fray, the blogosphere must be litigated into oblivion??

Re:I'm sure Alexander Hamilton said the same

[tootlemonde]

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:

Being frequently censur'd and condemn'd by different Persons for printing Things which they say ought not to be printed, I have sometimes thought it might be necessary to make a standing Apology for my self, and publish it once a Year...

He then gives 10 things for his critics to consider, among them:

4. That it is as unreasonable in any one Man or Set of Men to expect to be pleas'd with every thing that is printed, as to think that nobody ought to be pleas'd but themselves.

8. That if all Printers were determin'd not to print any thing till they were sure it would offend no body, there would be very little printed.

Re:DMCA abuse

[cyberformer]

There's a comment from an EFF attorney addressing this in the linked BoingBoing discussion (not TFA itself --- I don't want to give those bastards a pageview, even with adblock on). It's stupid advice that could cost companies a lot of money.

Basically, the DMCA is bad, but not that bad. Diebold tried to abuse it in exactly the way that Forbes is suggesting, and got fined $125,000.

Can we please stop linking to Forbes stories?

[linuxguy]

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.

Re:Lovely sidebar on 'Fighting Back'

[Bogtha]

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.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Forbes advocating barratry [law.com] here? Something that happens to be illegal across the whole of the USA?