Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Flogging

Ovvero chi sono quelli dlla Stern, de Cesari e altri
The Internet remains an uncontrolled source of information.
As a result, governments and public relations firms have entered the fray.
A few years ago, the consumer technology industry became aware of the threat
of internet forums.
People can post negative comments about products and employees may covertly
blow whistles.
Companies soon directed their advertising firms and public relations
officers to engage in what has become known as "flogging."
They pose as regular folks on forums to write about a great product.
They post great reviews of books and products and attack anyone who posts
negative comments with childish insults, in hopes of quieting the truth.
Defense contractors joined in several years ago.
They destroyed many military forums with their full-time floggers.
They pose as experts and dismiss negative reports as "old news" and claim
problems have been fixed.
They accuse negative posters of working for a rival company, and dismiss
critical media reports as ill informed.
They claim that negative postings are "opinions" not facts, which can only
come from the contractor.
They badger those who post inside info to identify themselves so they can
contact their bosses and have them fired.
Floggers have caused endless turmoil with the good people at Wikipedia by
constantly challenging negative information.
Last year, the EU made flogging an offense.[6]
Bloggers fear this will allow abusive governments to prosecute people who
post information on the Internet.
Some feel that current “truth in advertising” laws already require floggers
to openly disclose their employer. Meanwhile, governments have begun to
engage in flogging.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry recently began a program to recruit a thousand
foreign language speaking Jewish volunteers to flood blogs with pro-Israel
opinions.[7]
These efforts are similar to letter-to-the-editor campaigns used to badger
news organizations to avoid certain issues.
The U.S. military admits that it assigns personnel to “engage” bloggers to
ensure they post accurate information.
U.S. Army Major Richard McNorton commands an “engagement team” and explained
that because of assistance from his military engagers: "Now readers have the
opportunity to read positive stories.
At least the public can go there and see the whole story.
The public wants to hear these good stories," he said, adding that news
stories the military generates are "very factual."[8]
Meanwhile, American Generals routinely arrest reporters in Iraq for
publishing negative stories.
The CEO of the world’s largest news service, the Associated Press, recently
stated: "Top commanders have told me that if I stood and the AP stood by its
journalistic principles, the AP and I would be ruined."[9]
There is nothing regular citizens can do about this continual deception.
Laws have loopholes while major corporations can hire small private
contractors in the public relations world who may ignore laws to manipulate
the public on the Internet, as they do with television and print media.
If one encounters an aggressively rude or irrational person on the Internet,
it may be a flogger working full-time to squash open discussion.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to distinguish them from the common crazies
that plague the Internet.
Saluti
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/


Addendum
Pro-Israel media: Bloggers join media war
Some 1,000 new immigrants and foreign-language-speaking Jews volunteer to
army of bloggers set up by Absorption Ministry and Foreign Ministry with the
stated objective of flooding blogs with pro-Israel opinions
Arye Sharuz-Shalicar, 31, whose parents emigrated from Iran to Germany, is a
one-man PR show. He speaks Persian, German, English, French, and Spanish and
can also get by in Russian, Turkish, Arabic, and Italian.
Sharuz-Shalicar is one of the front-line soldiers in the Ministry of
Absorption's new "army of bloggers" that was recently established in
cooperation with the Foreign Ministry's public relations department
following Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.
Media War
 
The Absorption Ministry is recruiting new immigrants and Jews living abroad
who have access to a computer and who speak a second language to a volunteer
effort to improve public relations for Israel on the internet. The campaign
was launched last week.
In the cross hairs are problematic blogs, talkbacks, online social networks,
online polls, Youtube videos, and more.
The ministry was amazed by the massive response to the effort. More than
1,000 interested applicants contacted them, of which 350 are Russian
speakers, 250 English speakers, 150 Spanish speakers, 100 French speakers,
and 50 German speakers.
A range of other European languages are also represented among the
volunteers: Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian,
Polish, Greek, Bulgarian, and Danish. Persian-, Turkish-, and
Arabic-speaking Jews also offered their services. The ministry even got an
application from a Chinese speaker.
Some 60% of the applicants are immigrants, old and new. The rest are Jews
living in the Diaspora, Israelis living abroad, and even non-Jews who
support Israel and want to help out.
The Absorption Ministry forwarded the volunteers' details to the Foreign
Ministry, which briefed them via email and provided up-to-date material on
the situation, including video clips that could help them in the field.
While the Absorption Ministry is tasked with recruitment, the Foreign
Ministry will be responsible for directing the volunteers online. Each time
the ministry identifies an anti-Israel trend on a foreign-language blog,
news site, or other website, it will immediately put out a message to the
volunteers to flood the site with pro-Israel opinions.
Absorption Ministry Director-General Erez Halfon commented, "This provides
an important opportunity for new immigrants, who have always been a strong
Zionist nucleus, to feel like they are contributing to improving Israel's
image in the world. The foreign-language-speaking immigrants are a real
asset, and it is important to take advantage of this. From our perspective,
it was like an emergency call up, and I am thrilled that the response was so
great."
Noam Katz, director of the Foreign Ministry's PR department, said, "We are
in the process of thinking how to utilize these volunteers not only during
conflict, but also during regular times as well."


 Pro-Israel media: Bloggers join media war
ce n'è un altro su IP, è così fesso da sputtanarsi fin dal nick


Sarebbe?


 Sarebbe?
i'm with israel