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Yes, I have.
They have a delightful public face, but their internal stuff is absolutely batshit crazy.
The CoS's reputation as a manipulative, abusive, destructive, and deceitful organisation is well-deserved.
The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
161–170 of 261 posts
Re: The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Though plenty has been said elsewhere about the content of Scientology's beliefs and books, the post you're replying to said nothing about it. If you're going to have a knee-jerk reaction or post some other canned response, you could at least try to make it a little bit relevant. EDIT: Wait a minute...it seems that was a top-level comment. Were you even replying at all?
[deleted]
I think there is probably something wrong with the mere fact that Scientology exists. :)
Re: The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
#163Strange they didn't celebrate their Toronto location.
https://plus.google.com/117604621668852819090/photos?hl=en
I hope this correlates with Canadians not giving them money :)
Re: The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Though plenty has been said elsewhere about the content of Scientology's beliefs and books, the post you're replying to said nothing about it. If you're going to have a knee-jerk reaction or post some other canned response, you could at least try to make it a little bit relevant. EDIT: Wait a minute...it seems that was a top-level comment. Were you even replying at all?
[deleted]
I fail to see what is wrong with that.
Sponsored "news" articles or paid-for comment moderation? It depends on what your definition of 'wrong' is I suppose.
The idea of a news publication for most readers is that it should be unbiased. Of course, that's probably impossible in an absolute sense, but presenting paid content with "news" brings disrepute upon the publication.
Of course they marked it as paid content, but some people noticed that disclaimer and some folks did not. So we could discuss the degree to which the notice was prominent enough, or whether The Atlantic is simply offering its masthead (along with any remaining credibility) up for sale.
Of course, the reason we're talking about this specific case of The Atlantic selling sponored content or Scientology buying ad placement is because it seems to be such an odd juxtaposition to most of us.
Edit: Wow, I like to say "Of course" a lot. I must think I'm pretty hot stuff!
Re: The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
#165Without delving into the specifics of Scientology, I am reminded of a grellas quotation: "The most valuable asset of a lawyer is his reputation." This applies to some journalistic endeavors as well. In some cases, I seek out the thoughts of those whose facts are unreliable, because their opinions are interesting or novel. But just as often, I seek out long-form, descriptive pieces to learn what reliable people believ…
"they'll have to decide whether they want to be a trusted brand, or an interesting one." With sponsored stories to improve the PR of totalitarian cults, they're going to end up neither.
Well, they just destroyed my trust in them. Granted, I'm just one person, but I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Re: The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
#166Clicking on the usernames of the pro-scientology comments surprisingly yields other generic positive comments on pro-scientology articles: adamcroft croft posted a comment in David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year · 5 hours ago Nice pictures. So festive and grand. Scientology does so much good in the realm of drug and human rights education and it is only right that more places be reached and more people…
That's surprising to you? Obvious shills are obvious.
"I suppose I was more surprised to find it so easily, rather than surprised it exists."
Scientology is like a religious 419 scam, they target the sort of idiots who wouldn't check this and take the endorsement from random internet persons at their word, not guessing that the comments were coming from COS HQ.
Re: The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
#167Re: The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
#168Re: The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments
#169Disclaimer: I run startup that helps publishers to create these types of sponsored stories. Sponsored stories are much better way to monetize content, especially for journalism industry. However, the issue is publishers should control what type of 'ads' should go live since they know their audience best. Editors should be in control of these type of ads rather than sales people. "Content Marketing" is relatively new…
What you are doing is basically deriving monetary benefit from the considered act of deliberately manipulating people's views on behalf of corporate interests. That is not only morally wrong, but it is disgusting that you attempt to justify it as completely normal and right through allusion to 'monetization'. (Telling example - monetization of hatred: http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/AP.pdf )
> What you are doing is basically deriving monetary benefit from the considered act of deliberately manipulating people's views on behalf of corporate interests.
No way. Even we are users too. We have family members who are not as tech savvy as us. We are not doing anything deliberately. In fact, if we are deceiving users then it won't be advertising. We are equally concerned of maintaining sanctity of advertising. We (as a startup) don't work with news websites. But we strongly believe ads should be clearly marked as "advertising". Even people were concerned about Google's sponsored results (adwords). But it worked fine. Mark Suster wrote excellent blogpost on this topic - http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/22/the-case-for-i...