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Is it disagreement if it’s paid for? How’s it any different than an ad?

• simonh 9y ago
  Suppose an attorney for the Electronic Frontier foundation posts an article or opinion piece on a digital rights legal issue. This has happened many times and I don’t remember ever seeing anyone call them a shill, yet they are a professional person paid to argue on these issues in public and in court. How is that different from advertising? How about legal experts on human rights? Environmental activism? Is anyone working for Greenpace as a lawyer or scientific adviser an environmentalist shill? If not, then how can we use that slur against people working for energy companies? I’m not some corporatist shill making this argument. I’m just making a liberal plea for tolerance and respect in public discourse. Legal experts on many different sides of many different debates have a reasonable expectation to have their opinions and arguments heard in public without harassment, abuse and intimidation. However there is a reasonable expectation of disclosure of such interests. The argument in this specific case seems to be n the amount of detail in the disclosure, but the fact is he was a Democrat appointee and he works for a law firm that represents Comcast. There was an attempt at some level of disclosure and he wasn’t actually acting as an attorney for Comcast. I don’t think this is as big a deal as is being made about it.