Sunday, July 29, 2018

How to get a job at Mother Jones

Ben Dreyfuss tweeted this insight about his hiring process at Mother Jones:


This raises the question:  What if a person genuinely would have sided with BuzzFeed over Gawker in a hypothetical war?  Did Ben presume all the applicants who answered 'BuzzFeed' were being disingenuous?  (Apparently so!)

In any case, if you find yourself interviewing for a job at Mother Jonesand especially if you're being interviewed by Ben Dreyfussbe alert for this type of question.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Another random spammer on Reddit: /u/anyebejoe511

Here is another spammer on Reddit, /u/anyebejoe511:
https://www.reddit.com/user/anyebejoe511

His account is 11 days old.  He spams links to the YouTube channel "Core Link."  The channel only has 189 subscribers (up from 141 yesterday), and the most popular video only has 48 views.  Most of the uploads are news clips taken from CNN, or Fox News, or BBC.

One of his videos was titled "BREAKING: Major OUTBREAK At US Hospital – HAZMAT Evacuation In Progress."  It's one of those videos with a robotic voice reciting a script, and I assume the story is based on the incident at Johns Hopkins Hospital earlier this month.  If you run a search for the title on YouTube you'll get about a dozen results from various channels.

Most of /u/anyebejoe511's Reddit threads have either 1 upvote or 0 upvotes.  The most successful thread got 35 upvotes, and that was posted in /r/The_Donald.  /u/anyebejoe511 also posted in /r/Donald_Trump, /r/DonaldTrump, /r/Trump, /r/WorldEvents, and /r/ShitPoliticsSays.

We regret to inform you the duck is racist

Monday, July 16, 2018

Another spammer on Reddit: /u/hotnew11 and News Today

I noticed another spammer on Reddit, with the username /u/hotnew11:
https://www.reddit.com/user/hotnew11/

/u/hotnew11 is sharing videos from the YouTube channel News Today.  The videos have eye-catching titles pertaining to politics, such as: "WHOA,WHOA…!!! Hillary'S Collusion With Russians Confirmed As Her Aide Flips On Live Tv"


News Today has 4,790 subscribers.  The channel uploads about a dozen videos each day, and it's not unusual for a video to get 10,000+ views.  The videos all seem to have the same format:  A static image combined with voiceover commentary.  Some of the audio clips are taken from Fox News shows (e.g. Tucker Carlson Tonight).  I don't know who's creating these videosthere's a whole ecosystem of YouTube channels with similar formats.  Some of the recent videos on News Today make references to events that occurred months ago, and there isn't a clear timeline.

My guess is that /u/hotnew11 is just a run-of-the-mill spammer, and that he's not part of some larger plot.  I did find seven other Reddit accounts sharing links to News Today:


These accounts have been active in some of the tiny political subreddits, but so far their activity consists of  spamming the same YouTube channel as /u/hotnew11.  Here are the subreddits where they posted:


The vast majority of submissions only have 1 upvote, so I doubt Reddit is driving much traffic.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Openteq.ga

Openteq.ga is yet another site that plagiarizes content while displaying AdSense ads.

Here is an article from Openteq.ga, dated June 8, 2018, titled "Wisconsin legislator to propose banning marijuana tests for most jobs."

Here is an article from Isthmus.com, dated February 14, 2018, titled "Wisconsin legislator to propose banning marijuana tests for most jobs."

The opening from Openteq.ga:
Eric Marsch doesn’t understand why some companies are still testing employees for THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana. 
“Especially with cannabis being legal in so many states, no one should have to worry about losing their job for recreational cannabis use,” says Marsch, an organizer with the southeastern Wisconsin chapter of NORML — the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws.
The opening from Isthmus.com:
Eric Marsch doesn’t understand why some companies are still testing employees for THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana. 
“Especially with cannabis being legal in so many states, no one should have to worry about losing their job for recreational cannabis use,” says Marsch, an organizer with the southeastern Wisconsin chapter of NORML — the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Michael Tracey leaves Young Turks

Damn, man:
Now who will detail all the ways the US media is overreacting to the Russian election meddling story?  Michael Tracey always pointed out how irrational the media (and politicians in general) had become.  He was obsessed with showing how obsessed we were.  He was our voice of reason.

Godspeed, Tracey.  May you find another outlet, and soon: