Fox News Engaged In Institutionalized Astroturfing Of The Internet

from the shocking dept

While we all know that the internet is a lawless place where you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy, there is still an etiquette. You should always back-link to stories you're commenting upon, rule #34 is always assumed, pics or it didn't happen, and thou shalt not engage in astroturfing or your cause will be subjected to discredit and laughter. Astroturfing is the practice of faking a popular response by falsifying that response through anonymous internet comments, stories, etc. It is typically used by dastardly, horrible organizations with no thought for accuracy, civility, or common decency.

You know, like cable news organizations, which I remind you once again are awful organizations that you should never patronize. One of those cable news cartels, Fox News, was recently the subject of a new book by NPR's David Folkenflik who details Roger Ailes' institutionalized program of internet astroturfing.

On the blogs, the fight was particularly fierce. Fox PR staffers were expected to counter not just negative and even neutral blog postings but the anti-Fox comments beneath them. One former staffer recalled using twenty different aliases to post pro-Fox rants. Another had one hundred. Several employees had to acquire a cell phone thumb drive to provide a wireless broadband connection that could not be traced back to a Fox News or News Corp account. Another used an AOL dial-up connection, even in the age of widespread broadband access, on the rationale it would be harder to pinpoint its origins. Old laptops were distributed for these cyber operations. Even blogs with minor followings were reviewed to ensure no claim went unchecked.

The book goes on to state that it is unclear if these practices are still currently in place, but perhaps our own comments section will give us a clue. But, see, that's the really stupid part of these kinds of astroturfing campaigns. Think about it logically. First, anyone engaging in this kind of uncouth behavior had better learn quickly that they're more likely to get caught than get away with it. And, thanks to the Streisand Effect, such as the fact that now blogs like Gawker are propelling this story into the headlines, it's going to make the astroturfing organization look bad. But the negative reaction doesn't end there.

As I mentioned, it's overwhelmingly likely that in the comments of this very piece, someone is going to come out and defend Fox News to some degree. The really damning effect of being caught astroturfing is that comments like what might appear below are no longer taken seriously by anyone. There may be very real and very earnest commentors that want to stick up for Fox, but they will find zero purchase because the wider public is going to assume that there's a real chance the comment could part of the astroturfing campaign. Bingo, Fox has now nullified their own real support. Way to go, guys!

Filed Under: astroturfing, fox news
Companies: news corp.

And, Right On Time, Here Comes The Blame Video Games Train For The Navy Yard Shooter

from the blame-game dept

Perhaps it makes me a cold, heartless son of a bitch, but when I read the news reports about Aaron Alexis, who shot up the Washington Navy Yard and killed several people, I immediately wondered how long it would take before we got someone blaming video games. It simply happens every time. Whether it's simple accidental shootings, the Aurora theater shootings, or the Sandy Hook tragedy, pundits and advocating blame-shifters just love to take the gun out of the shooter's hands and place it squarely at the feet of violent media. It's the kind of culpability avoidance that has so frustrated the American public over our legal system. So, again, I wondered how long it would take.

One freaking day, that's how long. It starts with an obviously distraught friend of Alexis', who it should be noted is a restaurant owner and not a practicing psychotherapist.

The darker side to Alexis's character saw him playing violent "zombie" video games in his room, sometimes from 12.30pm until 4.30am. Mr Suthamtewakul said: "He could be in the game all day and all night. I think games might be what pushed him that way. He always had this fear people would steal his stuff so that's why he would carry his gun all the time. He would carry it when he was helping out in the restaurant which scared my customers."

From there, cable news, which is the bane of all intelligence, took the stupid ball and ran with it.

New Fox & Friends host Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Tuesday suggested that “the left” was trying to make Monday’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard about “gun control,” when what the country really needed was a registry to track video game purchases.

“Are more people susceptible to playing video games?” Hasselbeck wondered. “Is there a link between a certain age group or [demographic] in 20- to 34-year-old men, perhaps, that are playing these video games and their violent actions? What about frequency testing?” she added. “How often has this game been played? I’m not one to get in there and say, monitor everything, but if this, indeed, is a strong link, right, to mass killings then why aren’t we looking at frequency of purchases per person? And also, how often they’re playing and maybe they time out after a certain hour.”

Ah, the classic "I'm just asking questions" routine. Does Hasselback know she's reading from the nutso conspiracy theorist's script? Regardless, the problem is that we've seen time and time again that the evidence suggests there is no link between video games and violent behavior. Yet the response should be government monitoring of our entertainment choices? And this is from a Fox News anchor!?!?

Hey, heads up to all you folks that want to use this crime to blame guns, video games, movies, heavy metal music, football, or Pokemon: the guy had mental health issues. He was hearing voices and had already contacted the V.A. to get help. Oh, and he was apparently shuffled through the civilian contractor application process without a proper background check, because we all know the DoD doesn't have any reason to be more strict when it comes to civilian contractors these days. This was a failure on many levels, with the ultimate responsibility falling into the hands of the man who was firing the weapon into the innocents: Aaron Alexis. You know where there wasn't any culpability? Video games.

Filed Under: aaron alexis, elisabeth hasselbeck, fox news, navy yards, video games, violence, washington navy yards

Fox News Too Cowardly To Refuse Critical Ad Because It's Critical, Claims Copyright Instead

from the wimps dept

It's become something of a sport in the past decade for roughly half of America to mock, dismiss, and otherwise tear down the Fox News channel. Personally, I'd rather like to see all of cable news go away, but there are times when I think the criticism is a tad selective and unfair. For instance, it'd be very easy to lambaste the network for the man-clowns they trotted out in the wake of a Pew Research study that showed that mothers currently make up nearly half of American household's primary wage-earners. What was for me a meh-inducing announcement was a sign of the surely-coming apocalypse for Lou Dobbs, Erick Erickson and Juan Williams. They're easily targeted as examples of the bad on the station, but if you're blinded by ideology or party alliance, you probably didn't bother to shine a light on the absolutely glorious rebuttal by Fox News host Megyn Kelly.

What we have there is an example of Fox News presenting two sides of the debate and among their own hosts to boot. In case you can't see it, Kelly uses clips from Lou Dobbs' show within her own to demonstrate her point. I mention this only to demonstrate that Fox News was not sufficiently embarrassed by the dumb things said by some of their commentators to keep from re-airing them on another of their shows. When an advocacy group wants to use those same clips for an ad-spot, however, suddenly the scramble to copyright claims has occurred. An anti-sexism group named UltraViolet submitted the ad to air on Fox's channel, painting the commentators in a negative light and then asking them to be retired from Fox News. You might expect the channel to dismiss the ad simply on the grounds that they don't want to denigrate their own programming, but that wouldn't help in trying to keep the spot off of other networks, would it? So Fox instead relied on the go-to protocol for censoring negative information. Per UltraViolet's media buyer, Buying Time, LLC:

Team – Just heard back from Fox Business. Unfortunately, Fox has rejected the ad. Due to their copyright rules, they can’t air an ad that uses their material in a spot.

It's a dumbfounding refusal on its face and is almost certainly being used as an excuse rather than a legitimate claim. Certainly nothing in copyright law would keep a network from airing commercials that use its own footage, valid copyright claim or not. It's their footage. Beyond that, this seems like a clear-cut case of fair use, the clips being central to a critique which does not seek commercial gain, are not significantly long in use, and in a way that certainly doesn't compete against Fox's own programming. Watch the ad for yourself:

Whether you think that women being primary bread-winners is okay, or whether you think that it's just the first step in the lizard-people's plot to systematically ruin American families so that children will be easy pickings for their hungry salamander love-children, using copyright claims to put down criticism is an abuse. Thankfully, UltraViolet is savvy enough to still put their spot up on YouTube instead of being too scared to show it.

Filed Under: commercials, copyright, critics, fox news

The War On Journalists: DOJ Claimed Fox News Reporter Was An 'Aider, Abettor, Co-Conspirator' With Leaker

from the wow dept

Following the DOJ's brazen collection of info on AP reporter phone calls, we noted that it was not the first time the DOJ had been overly aggressive in going after reporters. Now, the Washington Post has another horrifying story, talking about the DOJ's investigation into a leak from the State Department to Fox News concerning classified info on North Korea. That investigation resulted in charges against Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department security adviser, but the investigation included heavy surveillance of James Rosen, the Fox News reporter. They obtained his phone records, security-badge data and email exchanges. In order to get all this, they claimed that Rosen wasn't just a reporter, but "an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator" in the crime itself. For doing basic reporting.

By now it should be abundantly clear that this has little to do with protecting national security, and everything to do with a war on investigative reporting about the federal government. Almost everything seems to be designed to threaten reporters, and to put the fear of the federal government into any whistle blower who might have information to pass on to a reporter. As people have pointed out, what Rosen did in this case is what any national security reporter does all the time. Others have pointed out that this shatters the basic concept that those who report on the news are protected by the First Amendment in doing so.

The Reyes affidavit all but eliminates the traditional distinction in classified leak investigations between sources, who are bound by a non-disclosure agreement, and reporters, who are protected by the First Amendment as long as they do not commit a crime. (There is no allegation that Mr. Rosen bribed, threatened or coerced anyone to gain the disclosure of restricted information.)

And, not surprisingly, this tactic of going to war with reporters appears to be working.

Mark Mazzetti, who covers national security for the New York Times — one of several leading investigative reporters I reached out to today — says he is experiencing a greater reluctance on the part of sources to talk to him.

"There's no question that this has a chilling effect," Mazzetti said. "People who have talked in the past are less willing to talk now. Everyone is worried about communication and how to communicate, and [asking if there] is there any method of communication that is not being monitored. It's got people on both sides — the reporter and source side — pretty concerned."

The end result, of course, is less ability to keep government abuses -- of which there appear to be many -- in check.

Filed Under: abettor, aider, co-conspirator, doj, emails, fox news, intimidation, james rosen, jin-woo kim, journalism, leaks, subpoena

Fox News Tells AP Not To Use Clips From GOP Debate; AP Apparently Unfamiliar With Fair Use

from the no-surprise dept

The Associated Press has a history that suggests it doesn't like fair use, even though its reporters and staff rely on it constantly. Yet, perhaps the AP is finally putting its money where its mouth is and will no longer rely on fair use at all. As Tim Lee points out, in this video clip the AP put together of the GOP presidential candidates' debate, there is no footage of the actual debate shown, and the AP says (at about 28 seconds) that "Fox News Channel did not allow AP to select excerpts of the debate for use in this online video story." But, of course, short clips from debates are always used by competing news channels and they know that it's protected by fair use. There's so much that's bizarre about that single line in the story when you think about it. Why would AP ask permission in the first place? The whole point of fair use is that you don't need permission. Why would Fox deny the permission? Fox relies on fair use just as much as others do, and "denying" another news provider seems likely to come back and haunt them. Why didn't the AP use the video clips anyway and stand up for their basic fair use rights?

Filed Under: copyright, debate, fair use, fox news, gop
Companies: associated press, fox, news corp.

How To Debunk A Fact-Free Fox News Fearmongering Piece About New Video Game

from the a-few-options dept

I'm admittedly late to the game in discussing the (unintentionally) hilarious Fox News fearmongering attack on the new video game BulletStorm, that (among other things) quotes someone suggesting that it will lead children to rape women because certain actions in the games (which includes no sex) include "sexual" names. For example, shooting someone's torso off is called "topless," while killing a bunch of enemies in one shot is called a "gang bang." A bunch of folks submitted this story last week, but I only had a chance to read it now, and... wow. It's a "classic" in the almost totally fact-less genre of how video games will lead children to their doom.

Since I'm so late to the story, rather than directly going through all of the laughable (or downright false) claims directly, I'll simply point to three of the best debunkings that were done to show you how to properly debunk this type of thing:

• There's the straightforward debunking, done by folks like Winda Benedetti at MSNBC, which calmly and rationally responds to many of the claims that Fox News reporter John Brandon made in the original review (or quoted people to make). For example, Brandon quotes Carole Lieberman, a psychologist, who claims that "The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games." The only problem? As video games have become more popular, rape rates have gone down.
  
  
• If that's not enough of a debunking, John Walker, over at the RockPaperShotgun blog went with a dig deeper debunking, in which he contacted folks quoted by Brandon in the article, and discovered (surprise, surprise) that Brandon appears to have selectively chosen his quotes in at least some of the cases, to make "experts" say something quite different than what they really said. Walker got the full email interview that Brandon did with Billy Pidgeon, a video game analyst with M2 Research, which Brandon uses to suggest that the game won't sell well, since people aren't interested in such violence. But that's not what Pidgeon said at all. In fact, Brandon mixed and matched parts of Pidgeon's answer to have him "say" something quite different than what he actually said. On top of that, Walker's research shows the way that Fox News approached this story, asking incredibly leading questions.
  
  Update: In the comments, Patrick points out that Walker has posted another "dig deeper" debunking of Carole Lieberman's "research" to attempt to prove her claims. It's a long and thorough takedown.
  
  
• And, finally, we have the absolutely epic takedown debunk, as done by Eddy at Botchweed, where he did a giant image of the entire Fox News piece, overlayed with his own commentary (including a chart showing the rape rates declining next to the quote mentioned above). Here's just a snippet of the image, but you should see the whole thing:

So there you go. When someone like Fox News publishes a ridiculously wrong and misleading attack on video games, three perfect templates for debunking.

Filed Under: bulletstorm, debunking, fearmongering, fox news, video games

Rupert Murdoch's Anti-Fair Use Comments Used Against Him In Court Yet Again

from the careful-what-you-wish-for dept

Remember back when Rupert Murdoch acted like fair use was a myth that would be "barred by the courts" when challenged? Yeah, that's been coming back to bite Murdoch. Earlier this year, we noted that a former advisor to Michael Jackson was suing News Corp. over Fox News' decision to air interview footage without a license, and the complaint highlighted Murdoch's anti-fair use statement. Of course, when it came time to defend itself (guess what?) News Corp. lawyers relied heavily on fair use.

Looks like that's happening again. News Corp. has been sued yet again for copyright infringement, this time for airing a video (without licensing the clip) of Brad Pitt having trouble driving a motorcycle. Instead, Fox News folks simply downloaded it from TMZ, a property owned by AOL. Wait a second... so with Rupert Murdoch running all over the place claiming that Google News linking to his content is "theft," yet Fox News has no problem downloading a video from a competing media organization and using it? Fascinating.

And, of course, the folks suing waste little time before bringing up Murdoch's comments on "fair use" in the complaint itself (bottom of page 2): I actually agree with Fox News that this should absolutely be considered fair use, but it's astoundingly hypocritical of Murdoch to mock fair use, claim that courts won't recognize it, accuse others of "theft" for merely linking to your content... and then step up and claim fair use when you downloaded an entire video off another site and used it on your TV station.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, fox news, rupert murdoch
Companies: news corp.

Fox News Caught Aggregating Others Copyrighted Photographs... Something Murdoch Insists Is Illegal

from the well-how-about-that dept

Rupert Murdoch and the top execs at News Corp. keep insisting that sites that aggregate content from elsewhere on the internet are "stealing." Of course, as we've noted, News Corp. has an awful lot of sites that rely on aggregating content from elsewhere -- so apparently it's only legit when Murdoch does it himself. Murdoch, of course, has also famously claimed that fair use is a doctrine that courts would "bar altogether" if challenged in the courts -- but at the same time, his own company regularly claims "fair use" to defend its own actions.

That's generally called hypocrisy.

And it keeps getting worse. The latest is that TorrentFreak has noticed that Fox News recently put together a photo gallery of the Icelandic volcano eruption, and used some photos from Flickr -- even though the photos were limited were covered by copyright and not free for others to use without permission and/or license. The photographer in question has tried contacting Fox News and has so far been totally ignored. And yet Murdoch just mentions in passing -- incorrectly -- that he thinks Google News "steals" his content by sending him traffic and its front page news...

Filed Under: aggregating, fox news, murdoch, photographs
Companies: news corp.

Fox News Sued For Copyright Infringement; Complaint Mocks Murdoch's Comments On 'Stealing' Content

from the gonna-come-back-to-bite-you dept

It's always funny how those organizations that seem to be against the concept of fair use have it come back to bite them. You may remember, a few months ago, as part of his campaign against "aggregator" sites that "steal" from him, Murdoch commented that fair use would likely be barred in the courts if properly challenged, suggesting he didn't believe in fair use at all. We already noted the irony of this, given how many different aggregator sites Murdoch owns as part of News Corp. Now those statements may also be causing a bit of a problem in court as well.

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news that a former advisor to Michael Jackson who apparently holds the copyright on certain interview footage is suing Fox News over airing parts of the interview recently. In response Fox has claimed "fair use," over the use in a news program -- and I actually agree that it seems like a case of fair use -- but the copyright holder actually uses Murdoch's words against him:

The filing chides Murdoch, who has threatened to sue the British Broadcasting Corp. and others for copyright infringement because he claims they are stealing content from his company's newspapers.

"Fox sanctimoniously operates unencumbered by the very copyright restrictions it seeks to impose on its competitors," the lawsuit states.

Once again, it appears that a copyright holder doesn't believe in fair use for others, but only for themselves.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, fox news, infringement, rupert murdoch
Companies: news corp.

Once Again, Before Sending A DMCA Takedown, It Helps To Actually Own The Content

from the just-a-suggestion dept

Jason points us to the news that, once again, someone who doesn't own the copyright to something has sent a DMCA takedown on a YouTube video. The link doesn't fully explain the situation, which is explained in the following video: But, basically, someone used a video to respond to a guy from the Discovery Institute concerning a recent appearance he made on Fox News. The Fox News video is Fox's copyright. Yet, the Discovery Institute sent the takedown notice. Furthermore, the use of the video (even if Fox had sent the takedown) is almost certainly fair use. It was used for commentary in a non-commercial manner. The last time something like this happened (quite similar, actually) the EFF got involved, and forced the false DMCA issuer to rescind the DMCA notices, take a copyright law course and issue a public video apology.

Filed Under: dmca, fox news, takedown
Companies: discovery institute