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Samsung flew bloggers to Berlin, then threatened to leave them there
- Empro 14y agoWow. Samsung really needs to clean up its act.
- denzil_correa 14y agoTo be fair to Samsung, I do not think this is a Samsung specific issue. It raises larger concerns about well known companies also like TNW, TheVerge, Engagdget etc. FWIW these websites directly affect consumer choices.
- potatolicious 14y agoWait a sec, a blogger goes to great pains to state that he won't shill for a company that's paying for his trip to a trade show. He verifies that this is okay with the company several times, and states categorically that he will cover other products and be impartial about Samsung's, repeatedly. How does this "raise larger concerns" about these blogs? It seems like the blogger here has gone out of his way to ensure that his impartiality isn't challenged. This sort of behavior - from Samsung or otherwise - is despicable. They need to be held to full account for this sort of fraud.
- denzil_correa 14y agoA lot of people have grossly misunderstood my statement. Please take a moment to think that in this specific instance the blogger refused to dance to Samsung's tunes and hence, got reported. If the blogger would have sgreed all this may have been swept under the carpet. Therefore, it raises "larger concerns" about bloggers who give product reviews. I am in no sane mind defending Samsung or any of it's actions. I just want to take this incident to pause & introspect over the ongoings in the technology review industry.
- Aissen 14y agohttp://www.theverge.com/ethics-statement http://www.theverge.com/ethics-statement
- michaelhoffman 14y agoCompare with the sort-of ethics statement The Register used to produce. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/22/register_tariff/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/22/register_tariff/ "Integrity — we've heard of it."
- dagw 14y ago"With our Diamond Plus account you can have any Reg staffer's vital organs dispatched to you overnight." I think we can safely say that that document is somewhat tongue in cheek.
- denzil_correa 14y agoRaises quite a few issues about conflict of interests. Should there be a rule for such declarations by writers who are paid to promote brands ?
- bradmccarty 14y agoThe FTC does have governance over endorsements and testimonials. Not sure that it applies completely here. The trouble comes when you start talking about people and companies outside of the US. International law for bloggers or journalists seems like a difficult situation to say the least. http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm
- sbierwagen 14y agoThe extended quotes, and TNW's reputation, makes me think that this may be blogspam, but I can't find an original post.
- eddanger 14y agoThe only winner out of this is Nokia who paid for the hotels and flights home of those bloggers. http://twitter.com/clintonjeff/status/242358009249026049 http://twitter.com/clintonjeff/status/242358009249026049
- conradfr 14y agoI will buy one of their Android phones instead of a Samsung one. Oh wait ...
- perlpimp 14y agoNokia is awesome ++
- tripzilch 14y agoIn 2008 Nokia's joint-venture with Siemens, Nokia-Siemens-Networks, developed and built "monitoring centres", on-site deep-packet-inspection and Internet filtering infrastructure for Iran and later also for Egypt and Iran. This wasn't just selling custom routers or something, but a large engineering project where they knowingly agreed to aid oppressive regimes in controlling their citizens and abusing human rights. We all know what role these packet filtering systems played in the Arab Spring, etc. So, Nokia is not very awesome++ at all, in my opinion, and in fact even though what Samsung did was very shitty, it kind of pales in comparison. In all fairness, two and a half year later, a human rights lawyer contacted them and told them this was not okay, and they stopped doing it. Or, to quote someone on Metafilter: "Big company does something any sane, thinking person would automatically know is immoral. Film at 11." http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/22/iran-nokia-siemens-networks http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/22/iran-n... http://www.metafilter.com/82687/Nokia-Siemens-and-the-Iranian-Government http://www.metafilter.com/82687/Nokia-Siemens-and-the-Irania... http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/news-events/press-room/clarification-on-nokia-siemens-networks-business-in-iran http://www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/news-events/press-room/c... (this is their mea culpa, it almost sounds like they learned a lesson, except that it took over 2 years and a human rights lawyer before they stopped helping oppressive regimes with human rights abuse) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nokia+siemens+internet+filtering+egypt+iran https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nokia+siemens+internet+filtering+e...
- truxs 14y agoThis ain't new for Samsung, they did the same during the olympics. Officially they were invited to live the games from the inside but in the end they worked as Samsung publicist for free. http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the-london-olympic-games/ http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the-lo...
- yesbabyyes 14y agoThe author wrote it in English, too: http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the-london-olympic-games/ http://int13.net/france/blog/i-won-a-contest-to-go-to-the-lo...
- rm999 14y agoInteresting, from the comments: > As a Cheil member, I want to express my deeply sorry to make you feel that way. We’ll try to do our best not to make any inconvenience around this matter. And I promise that your comments will be reflected to upgrade and elaborate our Moilers program. I hope you to keep in touch with us and show your opinion at any time. Whatever it is, it will be welcomed From Wikipedia: >Cheil Worldwide Inc., is a global marketing and communications company headquartered in Seoul, South Korea.[1] It is South Korea's largest advertising agency and was ranked 16th in the world by Advertising Age in 2006... Internationally, Cheil has carried out communications campaigns for Samsung Electronics, including the “Imagine” branding campaign spanning 80 countries. It also provides marketing support for Samsung’s role as a Worldwide Olympic Partner Overaggressive third party marketing company? I wonder how Samsung will respond to this article and other feedback.
- tripzilch 14y agoFunny how their name is even a homonym for "shill" :-)
- KaoruAoiShiho 14y agoI don't get this story. They were asked to wear a samsung t-shirt. That's not how shills typically work, isn't it typically, pretend you're independent, give good review, rather than, pretend you're part of our PR team? Why would it benefit Samsung to have random Indians bloggers demoing devices in Berlin? Something about this story doesn't make any sense.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoPerhaps to prevent them seeing demos of anything else and reviewing them too?
- KaoruAoiShiho 14y agoIf they wanted to do that they could've just sent samsung devices to the bloggers at home instead of bringing them out to a show. I think that's what most tech sites typically get.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoGood point. Still very strange.
- Negitivefrags 14y agoI'm almost certain this must have been a communication issue within Samsung. Someone got it in their head that this group was hired to promote their product and told subordinates to deal with the group. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
- chris_wot 14y agoI'm quite a fan of the expression "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." But I'm sorry, threatening to leave a blogger (and then carrying this out!) with little money stranded in Germany is most certainly malicious!
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- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- revelation 14y agoBeing stranded in Berlin is certainly not the worst that could happen to you. That said, this is exactly what happens when, as a journalist, you start to blur the lines. As a reader it's hard to feel any sympathy when reading paragraphs that try just a bit too hard to rationalize the behavior: Again, a reminder – Behavior such as Samsung’s is not uncommon in the world of tech coverage. It’s perhaps considered more normal in some parts of the world
- drx 14y agoYes, blame the victim. Not to mention your remark about being stranded in Berlin not being so bad.
- revelation 14y agoI believe in incentives. In this case, more potential free all expenses covered trips are stacked against "I'm a professional, theres a way for me to do this and stay neutral". I don't think that ever really worked out.
- dschobel 14y agoI have to agree with you. While it is possible to accept gift airfare and hotel worth thousands of dollars and remain neutral, it certainly looks dodgy. Especially if you're a broke blogger. If the allegations are true, Samsung acted reprehensibly but these guys were naive.
- theorique 14y agoThere's a very big difference between: on the one hand, being subtly 'encouraged' to write favorable blog posts or reviews via enjoyable junkets, and on the other hand, being expected to act as a real part of the PR team, wear company-branded clothing, and film promotional videos. One is normal practice in tech journalism. The other is something quite different, and more aggressive. It seems like the bloggers expected the former - not especially naively - and got the latter via pressure and bait-and-switch.
- azakai 14y ago"Use your left/right keys to browse stories" - seriously? A single click of the left or right arrow moves to a completely different page?
- barbs 14y agoI also find this really annoying
- akldfgj 14y agoIt's the next innovation after Blogger's "touch your phone's screen to randomly flip to the next or previous story."
- DeepDuh 14y agoBlogsite owners probably think "well, if it works for pornsites and pirate movie streamers..." Of course, I only know the behavior of aforementioned services from my 'friends'.
- grannyg00se 14y agoHow could this scenario have gone well for Samsung? Did they think the bloggers would suddenly change their moral stance and do a complete 180 on what they had been insisting for weeks? It seems it would be much easier to find people who are willing to be brand ambassadors and be up front about it if that's what you are looking for.
- codeka 14y agoThis story seems very strange to me. As you say, why would Samsung do this? In what universe do the events described in the article sound like the actions of a rational company? The whole story is entirely one-sided and to be honest if it sounds too crazy to be true, I suspect it probably is too crazy to be true.
- csense 14y ago> rational company If you're a tiny startup, your internal communication lines and org chart are small and simple enough that everybody is usually on the same page. But if you're a huge company like Samsung, it's very easy to have situations where the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. That may well be what happened here. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
- duncan_bayne 14y ago> In what universe do the events described in the article sound like the actions of a rational company? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Kies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Kies Having been forced to use this monstrosity to get files onto a Galaxy Tab, I don't see _where_ you get the idea that you're talking about a rational company.
- brokenparser 14y agoYou don't need Kies to transfer files to your tab, in fact you don't need Kies at all since they "leaked" ODIN (which has been independently re-implemented as "Heimdall", not to be confused with Heimdal).
- Roritharr 14y agoI'm part of the Samsung Mobilers program which is very similar to what they did. I've never experienced as much pressure as described here, but i guess the Indian Samsung subsidiary is managed by different minded people. It was clearly just a communication problem. Samsung expects you to do things at these events and you get your trip and stay for free in return, sometimes a little cash on top. Noone wants to use the word work, for all the red tape this would create...
- r00fus 14y ago> Samsung expects you to do things at these events and you get your trip and stay for free in return, sometimes a little cash on top. Noone wants to use the word work, for all the red tape this would create... Legal? - possibly. Ethical? - not to me. How is this not evasion of labor laws? That this is par-for-the-course is pretty dismaying.
- Roritharr 14y agoIt's not as bad as it sounds. It's targeted toward students that are tech-savvy. You get a free trip to an international destination that you otherwise most likely wouldn't have a chance to travel to with people that share your passion. It can be a lot of fun if you know what you're signing up for.
- chris_wot 14y agoI'd love to know what labour and Visa laws they violated if they were forced to work in a stand. It's very clear that they were going to report on the products, not work for Samsung for absolutely nothing!
- andreasvc 14y agoYes, work can be a lot of fun if you know what you're signing up for. But let's call a spade a spade.
- raverbashing 14y agoyou know what you're signing up for This should be EXPLICIT from the beginning "It's targeted toward students that are tech-savvy" Newsflash Samsung, Bloggers != 'tech-savvy students'. It may overlap, but don't count on it
- indrax 14y agoThis is a human trafficking story. Clearly this is not remotely as horrific as the usual connotations, but the structure of bait-and-switch coercion is very similar.
- fruchtose 14y agoThis is the ugly side of "new media"--the big companies are able to push around the little people who lack the support of their own big companies.
- philhippus 14y agoPretty sure that had they gone to the German authorities and explained how Samsung "trafficked" them into the country with an expectation of being provided a ticket home, Samsung Berlin would get a call from German immigration - and promptly pay for the tickets.
- NameNickHN 14y agoYou have a lot of faith in the German authorities. The Indian embassy and the Indian consulate would be probably of more help.
- TillE 14y agoThe German authorities generally don't take kindly to companies trying to skirt around labor and immigration laws. No guarantee that they would deal with the issue promptly, of course, but some kind of threat or formal inquiry to whoever was in charge at Samsung probably would have made them back down.
- spartango 14y agoFrom the start, the offers that Samsung made seemed ethically questionable. Yes, they may be common, especially where review device access is limited, but they seem very much like bribes. I like The Verge's ethics statement, which they post publicly, for this reason. http://www.theverge.com/ethics-statement http://www.theverge.com/ethics-statement "We do not allow trips or any portions of trips (including but not limited to airfare, hotel, or car rentals) to be paid for by third parties (these are known in the industry as 'junkets')." They make expectations for readers and device-makers crystal clear.
- mpclark 14y agoThat's a nice sentiment if you're making serious money or are otherwise well funded. Maybe their writers ought to take a vow of celibacy too, just in case.
- pessimizer 14y agoOr if you think it might be wrong to lie to strangers for money.
- mpclark 14y agoIs that reductio ad absurdum in action?
- chris_wot 14y agoIf it is, then it's a major fail because all it would take would be for the bloggers to state that Samsung paid for their travel and accomodation when they went to the event, but they are independent reviews. That should be sufficient for people to make up their mind.
- pessimizer 14y ago>Samsung paid for their travel and accomodation when they went to the event, but they are independent reviews Only if the word "independent" has decided to become a synonym for 'sassy' and leave behind the boring 'disentangled.'
- saib16 14y agoSamsung will travel in Nokia way in India.
- boundlessdreamz 14y agoSamsung India seems to be full of morons. First they deny payment to ppk http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/03/never_ever_do_b.html http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/03/never_ever_d... Now they are threatening bloggers.
- briandear 14y agoThis is typical of Korean companies. I worked in Korea for years and some of my naïve colleagues would even have their passports held hostage for the duration of the employment contract. This was in the education industry, but these kinds of extortions are pretty standard in Korea. I love Korea, but I avoid doing business in Korea because of this type of tomfoolery.
- miahi 14y agoI keep hearing about this "passport kept hostage" problem. What keeps you from going to your embassy and reporting the passport missing or stolen? As the passport is not your property but is actually the property of the issuing country, a company or even another country's government cannot hold the passport without causing trouble. That hostage-passport can only hold if there is something else going on, like working without a permit (when the workers know their status and fear the punishment if they go to the embassy).
- dagw 14y agoYou might not be close to your local Embassy, and in many countries you need your passport to fly domestically and even stay in hotels. So just getting to your embassy without a passport might be non-trivial. Also you might actually want to stay and work in the country, and kicking up a fuss over a 'stolen' passport is a sure fire way to get your visa canceled.
- briandear 14y agoYou can't get punished by your embassy for working in another country illegally. As far as getting a replacement passport, that's no problem. The passport hostage taking will prevent you from staying in the country or being able to get another job in the country because while you can get a new passport, you can't easily get a new visa. It's actually against Korean labor law to withhold a passport however a foreigner has little chance of winning that fight because they delay the process effectively leaving you without a job and the ability to get a new work visa from another employer while the process drags along. In the old days (a few years ago,) you couldn't even leave the country unless your employer released you from your visa. Trying to exit without a visa can get you detained an heavily fined. So keeping your passport has the practical effect of keeping you stranded because you can't get a replacement visa for the new passport without the employer's permission. Korean immigration is a mess.
- Indyan 14y agoIt may come as a surprise, but based on the various anecdotes "Nokia India" is actually among the few that gets how to handle the new media.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- xmen 14y agoNow check this - Samsung Mobilers IFA 2012 – Agenda & Facts / Emails Sent to Bloggers - http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/samsung-mobilers-ifa-2012/ http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/samsung-mobilers-ifa-2012/
- dagw 14y agoIt sounds like the blogger is question had balked those requirements, asked for an exemption and (thought that they'd) gotten one.
- Indyan 14y agoAnother Indian blogger - Amit Bhawani, who was also there at the event has a different version of the story. http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/samsung-mobilers-ifa-2012/ http://www.amitbhawani.com/blog/samsung-mobilers-ifa-2012/ According to him, Samsung had always billed CJ as a promoter and not as a reporter. This seems to be a case of miscommunication. However, even in that situation, what Samsung did was extremely immoral. If they believed CJ was not playing his part they should have flown him back to India, had a discussion, and ejected him from the program. Not leave him stranded in a foreign country.
- tripzilch 14y agoExactly. The miscommunication is not the issue here. It's obvious that there was one. The scandal is how Samsung handled it.
- xmen 14y agoSamsung statement - Samsung Mob!lers is a voluntary community of active Samsung mobile device users, who are offered the opportunity to participate in our marketing events across the world. At these events, all activities they undertake are on a voluntary basis. No activities are forced upon them. We regret there was a misunderstanding between the Samsung Mob!lers coordinators and the relevant blogger, as we understand he was not sufficiently briefed on the nature of Samsung Mob!lers’ activities at IFA 2012. We have been attempting to get in touch with him. We respect the independence of bloggers to publish their own stories. via - http://asia.cnet.com/should-samsung-have-stranded-a-blogger-at-ifa-update-62218570.htm http://asia.cnet.com/should-samsung-have-stranded-a-blogger-...
- tripzilch 14y agoHuh? If you threaten to strand them in a foreign country, how is that not forcing them to undertake these activities? That's not a "misunderstanding between the coordinator and the blogger", that is your coordinator fucking up. I can't believe that a company still thinks that "we regret there was a misunderstanding" is any sort of apology when you should have said "we regret we made this mistake and apologize", trying to pin it on the blogger, damn...
- Udo 14y agoDon't feed the underpaid troll.
- tripzilch 14y agoActually not sure if that was a troll? They were just quoting Samsung's statement (which is relevant info ITT), I'm not sure if they agreed with it or considered it a sufficient apology. (actually, given that it's three days without a reply, that pretty much rules out "troll", by the definition that I've come to know and love)
- Udo 14y agoIn retrospect I think you could be right on both counts. First, I should have called the guy an astroturfer instead of a troll to use more correct terminology. Second, yes, the guy may not be a Samsung forum shill after all, but I'm basing this possibility solely on the fact that he took the time to add some profile information about [himself | some real person]. The reason why I didn't believe this account is real still exists though: it was created and used solely for the purpose of commenting on the Samsung thread. While this may or may not be a coincidence, my reaction is so negative by default because recently there have been a lot of single-purpose accounts that seem to exist only for one thread before they're being abandoned. They are usually employed to troll, to attack someone personally, to post or promote blog spam, or to shill for something. In fact, it has gotten so bad I can usually tell by the post's content and style whether this person is engaging in a quick hit-and-run or if they intent to stay around. I believe we're still putting too much weight on "green" accounts. Maybe their posts should be gray by default. I might have come up with a false positive in this case, but there is no evidence to support that yet.