231–240 of 261 posts
There you go, one demonstrable example where complaining on the internet actually had an impact.
Please consider writing a letter to the Editor (at this url: http://www.theatlantic.com/contact/ ). Here's what I wrote: Hello, I've been very disappointed by Atlantic's decision to run the Scientology promo article under sponsored content ( http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/scientology/archive/201... ). Despite the small label on top saying "Sponsored content" and a banner at the very bottom, which needs to be sc…
A friend of mine just became an associate editor at the Atlantic. He's a good guy, rational and open minded, I sent him this URL and the story URL. I'll be interested to see what he comes back with on the issue privately.
I do like the idea of assuming incompetence (or negligence) before malice, and, well, clearly someone hasn't done their job to allow this to happen, but that's probably the extent of what happened.
This again? Every so often, the Church of Scientology goes up against the Internet. Every so often, the Church of Scientology gets its ass handed to it. This has been going on since 'the Internet' meant 'Usenet' for most people on the Internet. Heh. Maybe this time will be especially amusing.
These are not equal. They never get anything more than slaps on their wrist, and they employ enough lawyers and politicians to "every so often" make us all less free.
Looks like The Atlantic realized it had lost its marbles, and pulled this? I now get a 404, not only from the HN link, but also from the link on their site which still has the thumbnail of this propaganda piece: http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/scientology (If anybody has a cache, I'm mildly curious to see it...)
looks like you're right
http://boingboing.net/2013/01/14/dread-cthulhu-leads-his-cul...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In newspapers and magazines, sponsored content is very clearly labeled (which arguably this is) and made to look _different_. For example, most magazines require advertorial to be in a different typeface and font size, so that readers have a sense that it's somehow "different." The difficulty here is that, unlike a magazine in which you're flipping pages, you probably only saw _this_ page and thus have no sense about…
Then again, the only reason I saw this page is because we decided it needs to be on the top of HN. It's like the bizarro Streisand effect.
Looks like The Atlantic realized it had lost its marbles, and pulled this? I now get a 404, not only from the HN link, but also from the link on their site which still has the thumbnail of this propaganda piece: http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/scientology (If anybody has a cache, I'm mildly curious to see it...)
> We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads. looks like you're right
Disclaimer: 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…
sorry, but I agree. wholeheartedly immoral. Your doing exactly what corporations on the hill are doing to Congressman. Putting congressman in touch with corporations so that they might write our laws. Thats how I see you.
Google also mixes sponsored results in their search results. Is that immoral?
The most interesting part of the story, to me, is that none of the links have rel="nofollow." I wonder how much of this is motivated by SEO.
I would think it's pretty common that news sites don't nofollow links (indeed, a quick scan of some other Atlantic pages says they don't). If they don't do it normally, why would they do it especially if the point is to advertise Scientology?
Deliberate or not, I think it conflicts with Google's feelings about paid link placement.