I'm not a shill paid for by Samsung, but I still think this story is bullshit. (Disclaimer, I own and enjoy a macbook and an iphone and do not own any samsung products)
First off, journalistic integrity is dead. This post was nothing but hearsay; there were no sources inside.
All it is is complaining that there's a strong anti-apple sentiment on the internet. That's... about the least surprising thing in the world. All anti-apple posts being upvoted and others downvoted is "just another day on the internet".
Some investigative article with actual resources into the corporate background of Samsung before all this fingerpointing would be a better idea.
I don't think you understand what you're even saying. Hearsay is information you've obtained from a third person i.e. not directly witnessed. The reporter directly witnessed a sudden spike in voting on the Disqus forum. He directly witnessed an articulate post being heavily downvoted.
He was not complaining that there was anti-Apple sentiment on the internet. He was complaining it was happening specifically on his site. And had the appearance of being coordinated.
It's generally not polite to lead comments with "you don't understand what you're saying", but I'll explain myself.
The main point here is that journalistic integrity is dead, which is still true. While seeing a spike of blog traffic isn't directly hearsay, it's still just drawing inferences, and pretty unprofessional. He's also acting like a redditor and complaining about downvotes for a volatile subject- which tends to be mass upvoted or downvoted depending on the crowd. A very reasonable explanation for thousands of downvotes would be if this post was found on a pro-apple forum or something; in fact, applying Occam's razor, a directed effort from Samsung HQ would more likely draw maybe 50 downvotes. To jump to conclusions and call conspiracy just from witnessing downvotes on his site is pretty silly.
I'd like to point out for the entire second half of the post the author literally reposts a blog comment, containing things like "Samsung is not well liked by Koreans". That's a pretty accurate description of hearsay.
Well, there is a large number of anti-Microsoft and pro-Google posts all over the internet as well, do you think that everyone defending Google is a shill too?
Or anyone who is saying that there isn't a Google funded smear campaign against Microsoft?
My guess would be that it was linked to on one of the many, many Android websites (Android Police, for instance). That would cause the exact same effect (and you'd be able to tell by checking the referrers, but of course that kind of thing wasn't mentioned in the article.
It's a shame if Disqus can't provide statistics about traffic sources versus action. I'd like to see what the referer traffic looks like, as well as the country lookup for IP addresses.
"Coordinated effort" means very little when anything going organically viral would produce the same results. To draw conclusions of conspiracy when the only evidence is a large number of views/posts/downvotes is irresponsible.
No, but because accusations of being a shill is running pretty strong, it's always worth mentioning. I'm a pretty typical american university student who has developer experience with both android and iphones, and a pretty neutral experience with both, if you're actually wondering.
Also, accusing me of being a shill is pretty ad hominem. If possible, focus on what's being written.
For someone focusing on what is being written, you really didin't. I made no accusation, I asked if you would say you were a shill, were that to be the case. And I admitted that if I were a shill, I would preface my statements with "I am not a shill". And the issue being discussed is about shills in technology comments, so even if I were to accuse you of being a shill, ad hominem this is not.
First off, journalistic integrity is dead. This post was nothing but hearsay; there were no sources inside.
All it is is complaining that there's a strong anti-apple sentiment on the internet. That's... about the least surprising thing in the world. All anti-apple posts being upvoted and others downvoted is "just another day on the internet".
Some investigative article with actual resources into the corporate background of Samsung before all this fingerpointing would be a better idea.