13 ms·

Wow. If there was one article you had to read to understand how large corporations systematically and unethically try to vilify their critics to shift focus fro

by r0h1n 13y ago

Wow. If there was one article you had to read to understand how large corporations systematically and unethically try to vilify their critics to shift focus from their own dangerous behaviours, this is it! Just a few of the things Syngenta turned out to be doing: 1. paying for detailed sychological profiles of critics, including weaknesses (“grew up in world (S.C.) that wouldn’t accept him,” “needs adulation,” “doesn’t sleep,” was “scarred for life,” "investigate wife") 2. paying others to not just discredit Hayes' work, but to make him look "as foolish as possible" 3. putting together a team of over 100 people, including 25 professors, to act as "spokespeople on Hayes" 4. buying Google keywords for his name and variants to astroturf people searching for him. Searching Google for "Tyrone Hayes" brings up "Tyrone Hayes Not Credible" 5. getting paid scientists to write op-eds accusing Hayes of being a "junk scientist" 6. leaning on universities (Nicholas School of the Environment, at Duke) so they wouldn't hire Hayes 7. trying to get Hayes to bait himself (“set trap to entice him to sue,”) 8. sending sock puppets to Hayes' talks whose job was to only ask him the same embarrassing questions (“everywhere Tyrone went there was this guy asking questions that made a mockery of him. We called him the Axe Man.”) There's so much more in the article that this could become either (a) a primer for scientists and critics to understand how corporations target them, or (b) a ready reckoner for corporations on what tactics to use to smear opponents.

cinskiy 13y ago
Searching Duck Duck Go on the contrary, gives credible results as Wiki page and his own anti-atrazine website
- jval 13y ago
  This is the reason why I feed DDG all my data, even if I'm going to use their !g function to do a Google search anyway. A monopoly on search is a monopoly on the truth.
  - r0h1n 13y ago
    I'm curious when you say you feed DDG all your data. What does that include? Also, instead of allowing competitors access to your data, what would you lose by denying everyone access to it?
    - jval 13y ago
      I mean that I run my searches through DDG, I dont think there's a way to even allow them to have anything else as they strictly don't track. There's no other way to have a search engine other than by having an IP and a search query so I think that's about the best I can do.
masklinn 13y ago
The industry has already taken care of building (b), there's little risk of that at this point.
dbingham 13y ago
> 2. paying others to not just discredit Hayes' work, but to make him look "as foolish as possible" > 3. putting together a team of over 100 people, including 25 professors, to act as "spokespeople on Hayes" > 5. getting paid scientists to write op-eds accusing Hayes of being a "junk scientist" > 8. sending sock puppets to Hayes' talks whose job was to only ask him the same embarrassing questions (“everywhere Tyrone went there was this guy asking questions that made a mockery of him. We called him the Axe Man.”) These are the truly terrifying ones. The weight of people -- supposedly credible scientists -- that they were able to bring to bear to speak against him calls into question effectively every controversial scientific finding. If that much 'scientific' expertise can be bought, then you never know if that failure to reproduce certain results was bought and paid for or not! Following the funding sources isn't always possible. It completely corrupts the whole scientific process and destroys its objectivity. If you want to see a similar example, look at what's happening to the team that discovered irregularities in rats generated by Glysophate. They're being discredited in a very similar way, only much more thoroughly. How do we know that all of that paper's detractors haven't been bought in a similar way?
- ScottBurson 13y ago
  I once came across a very scientific-looking paper, with lots of tables and graphs and technical prose, arguing that aluminum containers are less energy-intensive to produce than glass because the amount of energy required to produce the container from the virgin material is smaller. Yes, I imagine that once you have a sheet of pure aluminum, it takes less energy to form it into cans than it does to melt glass. But of course this completely overlooks the massively greater amount of energy it takes to produce virgin aluminum from raw bauxite! Much more than it takes to produce glass from sand. The paper was a total piece of shit, and yet it looked completely legitimate. > The weight of people -- supposedly credible scientists -- that they were able to bring to bear to speak against him calls into question effectively every controversial scientific finding. Yep.
  - Daniel_Newby 13y ago
    That aluminum paper was right. Firstly, aluminum is originally made on-site at hydroelectric plants in inconvenient places. While it is energy intensive, nobody else is competing for that electricity. Cost = price of dam ÷ decades of aluminum production. Secondly, aluminum recycles really well. Dumb machines can separate and purify it to high levels. The majority of aluminum has been recycled at least twice, amortizing the energy cost over a much larger amount of products. Thirdly, aluminum is ductile (does not shatter) so containers can be made paper thin, and researchers are constantly devising ways to make it thinner. With recycling and thinness, the original production energy can be amortized over 10-100× more containers than an equal strength of glass.
contingencies 13y ago
9. Syngenta hired a communications consultancy, the White House Writers Group, which has represented more than sixty Fortune 500 companies. In a memo describing its strategy, it wrote that, "regarding science, it is important to keep in mind that the major players in Washington do not understand science."
- chii 13y ago
  which is why it's crazy that they get to decide what funding science research gets!
loceng 13y ago
The only way to combat this is through whistle-blower rewards. This kind of behaviour is so damaging to the society that it's worth government monies for this - and meanwhile, you can recoup costs by fining the companies. It will at least minimize the damage, and incentivize companies away from this kind of behaviour. Some companies have billions of dollars of profits to protect, and business-wise, spending as much of that as they need to maintain the sale of their product or service is "smart" business - though if a chemical causes harm to the environment and/or people, then it needs to not be pumped into our environment.
dba7dba 13y ago
Cost of doing all of the above (travel, paying people) would run what? Hundreds of thousands? A Million a year? What about the very people who ran the operation? They were probably retired law enforcement or some govt intelligence type. I can't think of normal office worker (CPA, MBA types) being capable of the methods described. They must've been paid pretty highly in part because the higher ups wanted to buy silence from the operatives... All the methods are NOT assumptions but from internal notes of the company. Pretty amazing. Shouldn't this be investigated by the govt attorneys who go after racketeers? They sold a product that was damaging and did pretty much everything (except physical injury) to try to continue selling it.
- 10feet 13y ago
  Who are these people, and why are they not being named?
- brenschluss 13y ago
  Syngenta has 14B in revenue every year; a few million seems like chump change for a company to use underhanded unethical tactics to protect their flagship product.
wtbob 13y ago
I see very little of that as unethical. What is objectionable about researching one's opponent and try to discern his weaknesses? What is objectionable about mocking someone who is a risk to one? What is wrong with paying someone to write an article? That is wrong with trying to trick one's opponent into tripping? I am slightly troubled by their use of Google keyword searches. I'll note that the Left didn't have those concerns with their 'smirking chimp' campaign. Frankly, from the article Hayes appears to be either his own worst or second-worst enemy. One can either try to win a chess game or upend the board, but one can't choose to upend the board and then try to maintain one's dignity. Edit: I forgot one important point. The items you mentioned overlook one very key issue: is atrazine actually net harmful? That's the only real question. If it is, then its makers have a duty to cease production; if it is not then they have a duty to continue. If it is net-positive, then it is _good_ for them to discredit someone who opposes it, since by definition his course of action will be net negative.
- dontusually2 13y ago
  The article refers to a growing body of research supporting Hayes, yes.
- zaroth 13y ago
  Let me try to explain to your why it's unethical to behave this way. You don't attack the messenger, you attack the message, and you do it with better science. No, it's not OK to bring the fight to the gutter if an honest man is making an honest attempt to follow the science. An ethical response to a challenge from the scientific community on the efficacy or safety of your product is never a win-at-all-costs response. When a scientist is researching your product, unless you can show the research itself is a fraud, the only acceptable response is to accept or further the research. An ideal response is not only to pour funding into furthering the research, it's to work alongside the other team collaboratively in doing so. The ethics don't change depending on whether atrazine is actually net harmful. The only way to determine if atrazine is net harmful is through research exactly like this. We need this kind of research to happen, or net harmful chemicals will remain in use. Remember, Tyrone Haze starting his research on atrazine because Syngenta asked him to. From that point forward he was performing a public service. Hope this helps you understand why it's NOT acceptable for companies to behave like this.
sukuriant 13y ago
I am not a lawyer, not even close; but isn't this systematic destruction of a person's image illegal? Libel (2,3,5)? Stalking (8)? Etc?
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Making someone look foolish is not libel.
  - sukuriant 13y ago
    Yes, but what about: 3. putting together a team of over 100 people, including 25 professors, to act as "spokespeople on Hayes" 5. getting paid scientists to write op-eds accusing Hayes of being a "junk scientist"
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Defamation of character is tortuous: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Defamation+of+character http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Defamation+of+... Conspiracy to defame would also be tortuous, and in the context of this case, possibly criminal.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > Defamation of character is tortuous [sic] No, it's tortious. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tortuous http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tortuous : "full of twists, turns, or bends; twisting, winding, or crooked: a tortuous path." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tortious http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tortious : " having the nature of or involving a tort; wrongful."
      - dredmorbius 13y ago
        Thanks, yes.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Setting people up to make fools of themselves is not defamation though. Nor is factual spin.
dredmorbius 13y ago
The scary thing is just how commonplace, and how well-thumbed the playbook is. Look up the stories behind the disinformation and smear wars waged on behalf of tobacco, leaded paint, MLK, labor organizers, environmental activists, global warming (especially), and others, and you'll find the same story again and again. It's very useful to read these stories, because the tricks simply don't change. In a recent posting on documentaries, "The Corporation" was listed, and I took the opportunity to watch it again. Yes it's long and repetitive, but it's good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6zQO7JytzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6zQO7JytzQ A friend of mine lost his father as a child in an industrial accident which turned out to be the manufacturer's fault. That process involved years of litigation, much of it lead by his mother and a young attorney (the other families were less active) against a major corporate titan. They attempted to smear her character and play all sorts of other dirty tricks, but did eventually lose. The whole affair did form the basis of an excellent education in corporate cynicism, however.
- lutusp 13y ago
  > A friend of mine lost his father as a child in an industrial accident ... A few minutes spent editing could have prevented this -- surely your friend's father wasn't killed as a child in an industrial accident. Unless that child was sexually far ahead of his peer group.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    English wasn't my first language this morning.

by r0h1n 13y ago

cinskiy 13y ago

Searching Duck Duck Go on the contrary, gives credible results as Wiki page and his own anti-atrazine website

jval 13y ago
This is the reason why I feed DDG all my data, even if I'm going to use their !g function to do a Google search anyway. A monopoly on search is a monopoly on the truth.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  I'm curious when you say you feed DDG all your data. What does that include? Also, instead of allowing competitors access to your data, what would you lose by denying everyone access to it?
  - jval 13y ago
    I mean that I run my searches through DDG, I dont think there's a way to even allow them to have anything else as they strictly don't track. There's no other way to have a search engine other than by having an IP and a search query so I think that's about the best I can do.

masklinn 13y ago

The industry has already taken care of building (b), there's little risk of that at this point.

dbingham 13y ago

> 2. paying others to not just discredit Hayes' work, but to make him look "as foolish as possible" > 3. putting together a team of over 100 people, including 25 professors, to act as "spokespeople on Hayes" > 5. getting paid scientists to write op-eds accusing Hayes of being a "junk scientist" > 8. sending sock puppets to Hayes' talks whose job was to only ask him the same embarrassing questions (“everywhere Tyrone went there was this guy asking questions that made a mockery of him. We called him the Axe Man.”) These are the truly terrifying ones. The weight of people -- supposedly credible scientists -- that they were able to bring to bear to speak against him calls into question effectively every controversial scientific finding. If that much 'scientific' expertise can be bought, then you never know if that failure to reproduce certain results was bought and paid for or not! Following the funding sources isn't always possible. It completely corrupts the whole scientific process and destroys its objectivity. If you want to see a similar example, look at what's happening to the team that discovered irregularities in rats generated by Glysophate. They're being discredited in a very similar way, only much more thoroughly. How do we know that all of that paper's detractors haven't been bought in a similar way?

ScottBurson 13y ago
I once came across a very scientific-looking paper, with lots of tables and graphs and technical prose, arguing that aluminum containers are less energy-intensive to produce than glass because the amount of energy required to produce the container from the virgin material is smaller. Yes, I imagine that once you have a sheet of pure aluminum, it takes less energy to form it into cans than it does to melt glass. But of course this completely overlooks the massively greater amount of energy it takes to produce virgin aluminum from raw bauxite! Much more than it takes to produce glass from sand. The paper was a total piece of shit, and yet it looked completely legitimate. > The weight of people -- supposedly credible scientists -- that they were able to bring to bear to speak against him calls into question effectively every controversial scientific finding. Yep.
- Daniel_Newby 13y ago
  That aluminum paper was right. Firstly, aluminum is originally made on-site at hydroelectric plants in inconvenient places. While it is energy intensive, nobody else is competing for that electricity. Cost = price of dam ÷ decades of aluminum production. Secondly, aluminum recycles really well. Dumb machines can separate and purify it to high levels. The majority of aluminum has been recycled at least twice, amortizing the energy cost over a much larger amount of products. Thirdly, aluminum is ductile (does not shatter) so containers can be made paper thin, and researchers are constantly devising ways to make it thinner. With recycling and thinness, the original production energy can be amortized over 10-100× more containers than an equal strength of glass.

contingencies 13y ago

9. Syngenta hired a communications consultancy, the White House Writers Group, which has represented more than sixty Fortune 500 companies. In a memo describing its strategy, it wrote that, "regarding science, it is important to keep in mind that the major players in Washington do not understand science."

chii 13y ago
which is why it's crazy that they get to decide what funding science research gets!

loceng 13y ago

The only way to combat this is through whistle-blower rewards. This kind of behaviour is so damaging to the society that it's worth government monies for this - and meanwhile, you can recoup costs by fining the companies. It will at least minimize the damage, and incentivize companies away from this kind of behaviour. Some companies have billions of dollars of profits to protect, and business-wise, spending as much of that as they need to maintain the sale of their product or service is "smart" business - though if a chemical causes harm to the environment and/or people, then it needs to not be pumped into our environment.

dba7dba 13y ago

Cost of doing all of the above (travel, paying people) would run what? Hundreds of thousands? A Million a year? What about the very people who ran the operation? They were probably retired law enforcement or some govt intelligence type. I can't think of normal office worker (CPA, MBA types) being capable of the methods described. They must've been paid pretty highly in part because the higher ups wanted to buy silence from the operatives... All the methods are NOT assumptions but from internal notes of the company. Pretty amazing. Shouldn't this be investigated by the govt attorneys who go after racketeers? They sold a product that was damaging and did pretty much everything (except physical injury) to try to continue selling it.

10feet 13y ago
Who are these people, and why are they not being named?
brenschluss 13y ago
Syngenta has 14B in revenue every year; a few million seems like chump change for a company to use underhanded unethical tactics to protect their flagship product.

wtbob 13y ago

I see very little of that as unethical. What is objectionable about researching one's opponent and try to discern his weaknesses? What is objectionable about mocking someone who is a risk to one? What is wrong with paying someone to write an article? That is wrong with trying to trick one's opponent into tripping? I am slightly troubled by their use of Google keyword searches. I'll note that the Left didn't have those concerns with their 'smirking chimp' campaign. Frankly, from the article Hayes appears to be either his own worst or second-worst enemy. One can either try to win a chess game or upend the board, but one can't choose to upend the board and then try to maintain one's dignity. Edit: I forgot one important point. The items you mentioned overlook one very key issue: is atrazine actually net harmful? That's the only real question. If it is, then its makers have a duty to cease production; if it is not then they have a duty to continue. If it is net-positive, then it is _good_ for them to discredit someone who opposes it, since by definition his course of action will be net negative.

dontusually2 13y ago
The article refers to a growing body of research supporting Hayes, yes.
zaroth 13y ago
Let me try to explain to your why it's unethical to behave this way. You don't attack the messenger, you attack the message, and you do it with better science. No, it's not OK to bring the fight to the gutter if an honest man is making an honest attempt to follow the science. An ethical response to a challenge from the scientific community on the efficacy or safety of your product is never a win-at-all-costs response. When a scientist is researching your product, unless you can show the research itself is a fraud, the only acceptable response is to accept or further the research. An ideal response is not only to pour funding into furthering the research, it's to work alongside the other team collaboratively in doing so. The ethics don't change depending on whether atrazine is actually net harmful. The only way to determine if atrazine is net harmful is through research exactly like this. We need this kind of research to happen, or net harmful chemicals will remain in use. Remember, Tyrone Haze starting his research on atrazine because Syngenta asked him to. From that point forward he was performing a public service. Hope this helps you understand why it's NOT acceptable for companies to behave like this.

sukuriant 13y ago

I am not a lawyer, not even close; but isn't this systematic destruction of a person's image illegal? Libel (2,3,5)? Stalking (8)? Etc?

sliverstorm 13y ago
Making someone look foolish is not libel.
- sukuriant 13y ago
  Yes, but what about: 3. putting together a team of over 100 people, including 25 professors, to act as "spokespeople on Hayes" 5. getting paid scientists to write op-eds accusing Hayes of being a "junk scientist"
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Defamation of character is tortuous: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Defamation+of+character http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Defamation+of+... Conspiracy to defame would also be tortuous, and in the context of this case, possibly criminal.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > Defamation of character is tortuous [sic] No, it's tortious. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tortuous http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tortuous : "full of twists, turns, or bends; twisting, winding, or crooked: a tortuous path." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tortious http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tortious : " having the nature of or involving a tort; wrongful."
    - dredmorbius 13y ago
      Thanks, yes.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Setting people up to make fools of themselves is not defamation though. Nor is factual spin.

dredmorbius 13y ago

The scary thing is just how commonplace, and how well-thumbed the playbook is. Look up the stories behind the disinformation and smear wars waged on behalf of tobacco, leaded paint, MLK, labor organizers, environmental activists, global warming (especially), and others, and you'll find the same story again and again. It's very useful to read these stories, because the tricks simply don't change. In a recent posting on documentaries, "The Corporation" was listed, and I took the opportunity to watch it again. Yes it's long and repetitive, but it's good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6zQO7JytzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6zQO7JytzQ A friend of mine lost his father as a child in an industrial accident which turned out to be the manufacturer's fault. That process involved years of litigation, much of it lead by his mother and a young attorney (the other families were less active) against a major corporate titan. They attempted to smear her character and play all sorts of other dirty tricks, but did eventually lose. The whole affair did form the basis of an excellent education in corporate cynicism, however.

lutusp 13y ago
> A friend of mine lost his father as a child in an industrial accident ... A few minutes spent editing could have prevented this -- surely your friend's father wasn't killed as a child in an industrial accident. Unless that child was sexually far ahead of his peer group.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  English wasn't my first language this morning.