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Isn't this what all firms do to each other, all the time? Like, isn't this just normal business these days? Isn't this sort of thing a natural eventuality in a
by wanda 5y ago
Isn't this what all firms do to each other, all the time?
Like, isn't this just normal business these days? Isn't this sort of thing a natural eventuality in a capitalist world?
Capitalism crowns the person who wins, regardless of how they won.
And besides, all press is good press because it's all exposure. Why wouldn't you do this sort of thing?
It's only wrong to get caught.
And even then, you can pay for a lawyer to prove that you were either:
- not doing anything wrong,
- not legitimately caught,
- or simply giving your opinion.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoPositive PR, where you pay someone to go around convincing reporters how great you are, is normal business and I'm not sure it could ever be otherwise. Negative campaigns that function solely to tear down your opponents, as the article says (and my experience matches), are relatively uncommon outside of politics.
- Jcowell 5y agoI disagree, the PC vs Mac is arguably not positive PR towards the PC industry but was very popular back when it aired. Even now Samsung sometimes poke fun at Apple mistakes. I would argue micro aggressive advertising is negative PR just with lipstick on it.
- afavour 5y agoThere’s a pretty large difference though. PC vs Mac were explicitly adverts, you knew Apple made them. This article describes the firm placing op-eds from “concerned parents” that they drafted themselves with no indication of their or Meta’s involvement. Whole different level.
- Loughla 5y agoThere's a pretty big difference between comparing the cool Justin Long and nerdy John Hodgman (I would argue those character roles are backwards from what they should be) and a massively cynical scare theater campaign about how a Chinese company is stealing your children's data, negatively impacting their mental health, and causing destruction of property from a company that makes money using your children's data and negatively impacting everyone's mental health.
- rsynnott 5y agoI mean, to some extent, those ads were popular/notorious precisely _because_ they were such an unusual tactic. Also, that was open advertising, not a covert disinformation campaign; it's a bit different.
- _jal 5y agoTell me you've never run a business without telling me you've never run a business. > Negative campaigns that function solely to tear down your opponents, as the article says (and my experience matches), are relatively uncommon outside of politics. If you have competitors, they will try to trash your name, I promise you. It doesn't matter what scale you're operating at. Trash talk is universal.
- ok123456 5y agoThe 'yellow peril' aspect of it was certainly disgusting.
- Loughla 5y agoSure, but what are the repercussions? If you know how to ride a media wave, you literally can't lose in today's media landscape (mixed metaphor, I know).
- ciupicri 5y agoWhat "yellow peril"?
- JadeNB 5y agoThe focus on Asia, specifically China, as a uniquely threatening force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril .
- Stupulous 5y agoIs China not a uniquely threatening force? They have the second largest GDP, the second-most expensive military with the most personnel, considerable influence over other important Asian countries, and a major role in manufacturing the world's products, and they continue to rapidly expand across all of those facets. They are very much in opposition to Liberal values (free speech, democracy, privacy), and they are somewhat aligned with other US adversaries (Russia, North Korea). In 1910, I'd absolutely attribute focus on China to racism. Today, if I were to rank the biggest threats to US for the coming decades, I would put China in distant first place. But I'm no geopolitics expert, am I missing something?
- mechanical_bear 5y agoAll of Chinese economic activity is subservient to the state, including companies like ByteDance. The information they gather goes back to the state. This is not “yellow peril”, this is “Sino peril” if you must call it something scary sounding. It has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with national security and ideology.
- boredumb 5y agoCapitalism has nothing to do with power disseminating information in an attempt to retain power. You are actually lucky for capitalism as it's two companies offering social media services playing PR games and not a totalitarian government operating under the guise of fascism/socialism/marxism pushing domestic propaganda demonizing people who think like you.