The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments | Hacker News Reader

The Atlantic posts sponsored Scientology story, moderates comments

theatlantic.com

297 pointscoloneltcb253 comments

Without delving into the specifics of Scientology, I am reminded of a grellas quotation: "The most valuable asset of a lawyer is his reputation."

This applies to some journalistic endeavors as well. In some cases, I seek out the thoughts of those whose facts are unreliable, because their opinions are interesting or novel. But just as often, I seek out long-form, descriptive pieces to learn what reliable people believe is true. I cannot validate every aspect of the outside world, so I trust others to do this. When they are frequently right, like Nate Silver, say, I trust them more. When they lend their brand to more bizarre groups, I trust them less, not because the sponsored link itself changes the truth of the rest of the articles, but because it signals a lack of judgment that might have a common source with many other important and difficult decisions a magazine or newspaper must make.

For instance, when I read the Economist, I feel rather confident in their facts. They have a particular fiscally conservative slant, but in general they have proven to be realistic and relevant. They might not espouse particularly novel solutions, but they lay a solid framework for further thought. As it is, The Atlantic is reasonably trusted. That's almost surely the reason Scientology would like to place a sponsored story there, in addition to, or in lieu of, more popular outlets.

In the coming transformation of journalism, institutions like The Atlantic, or newer upstarts like Svbtle, will have to consider sponsored posts and similar "brand-lending." When they do, they'll have to decide whether they want to be a trusted brand, or an interesting one.

Indeed ... and once lost, trust is very hard to regain.

I subscribed to the Economist through most of the '90s, but did not renew my subscription following a rather blithe editorial saying Bill Clinton should resign.

I still have a measure of respect for them on non-controversial topics—they're very good at explaining technical details in a simple way, for instance—but my faith in their judgment is gone.

I used to hold the Economist in similar high regard in the early 2000's. In 2004 they hired a new editor-in-chief and the quality of their articles began to suffer immediately. Their perceived thoughtfulness (as a function of independence and novelty, at least in my mind) took an abrupt turn for the worse right after the resignation of a single man. I can't remember the name of the editor, but I can remember lamenting his resignation to my friends.

> for instance—but my faith in their judgment is gone.

That's the reason I almost never read their leaders. I also tried to forgive them for the financial derivatives-special issue they had around 2007 or so, just before the shit started hitting the fan, but they were at least trying to counter-balance that with regular (small) articles in the financial section about the housing boom.

Otherwise their world-news reporting I think it's the best out-there.

Judging by this sponsored story, it seems that the people running The Atlantic have already decided to turn this august publication into an "interesting" brand. It's a shame.

What doesn't make sense to me is that The Atlantic supposedly became profitable a couple of years ago -- see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13atlantic.... -- which, if true, means they didn't actually need to do this!

I like The Atlantic but they also got themselves banned from reddit for spamming their stories. (after people were already raving about the site regardless)

> The Atlantic supposedly became profitable couple of years ago

Things change fast.

Things change quickly.

[This message from the Adverb Defence League]

“Fast” has been used as an adverb since at least Old English…

http://i.imgur.com/GuFFX.png

Things have changed, gradually.

Wasn't their resurgence in large part due to Andrew Sullivan who then went to The Beast to their IMO mutual loss?

As with almost all publications, especially those with a deep print legacy, there is an old-biz back-slapper expectation that whatever you did last year that you copied makes you a genius. And you need to meet and beat at X% quarter over quarter. You'll have about a 6-month sliding window of wiggle room before you start notice the raised eyebrows of surprise when people see you in your cube.

After a few gimmicks run their course (e.g. using teams and friends of teams from The Atlantic to "digg" stories on HN for you to uptick visits while pages per visit plummet) in about 6 months the entire sales and/or product teams perform brutal "reshuffles".

For those in the vicious swirl, it is common practice to have a nicely fleshed out LinkedIn account at one's immediate disposal.

The sad irony is that it is the print medium and its advertising legacy (much like TV) brings in much larger sums of revenue overall. But the overhead costs overtake it dramatically. These days it feels very much like vinyl: better quality, but the law of diminishing returns is in full swing.

The other problem with this sort of story is that the sponsors can validate themselves by referencing the major publication in which they have been "featured."

This does appear to be a disturbing trend.

I recall reading articles in the NYT derived from Quora answers.

While it may in the short-term produce increased traffic, it may become harder to maintain quality, as minimally vetted 3rd party contributions grow in number. It makes one wonder, what that effect that will have longterm?

It's also interesting that users on syndicated sites containing user generated content, will now be able to claim they have "written for the New York Times".

http://xkcd.com/978/

Obligatory xkcd strip.

These type of ads are known as "advertorials". They are not new (read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertorial). They are new in digital realm. In print magazines/newspapers, we are also used to the concept of "advertising supplement". We are in early days of "advertorials" in digital world and they should mature over the time. They are ought to become better.

Typically advertorials use a distinct font and possibly rules (as in borders, lines) to differentiate itself from straight editorial. Sure, we know the difference. And yes, it actually does feel different, and yes that matters.

Iirc, there are even official guides or laws about distinguishing an advertorial from content.

In TIME magazine, each page is clearly marked 'advertisement' at the top, and the fonts and styling are typically distinct from normal articles.

"they'll have to decide whether they want to be a trusted brand, or an interesting one."

With sponsored stories to improve the PR of totalitarian cults, they're going to end up neither.

Well, they just destroyed my trust in them. Granted, I'm just one person, but I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way.

You most definitely are not. I'm disgusted as well by this. The concept of advertorials is reprehensible.

I'm not against advertorials but a "religious" ad in a supposed secular magazine? Yuck.

Please consider writing a letter to the Editor (at this url: http://www.theatlantic.com/contact/). Here's what I wrote:

Hello,

I've been very disappointed by Atlantic's decision to run the Scientology promo article under sponsored content (http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/scientology/archive/201...).

Despite the small label on top saying "Sponsored content" and a banner at the very bottom, which needs to be scrolled down to to be seen, I didn't feel that it had been immediately obvious that the content had been paid for and had not met the exacting standards of the Atlantic's editorial team. In fact, I had only realized that it was sponsored content once I scrolled down to the banner "sponsored by the Church of Scientology" at the very bottom.

I am afraid that continued publication of such sponsored content, especially in a subtly deceptive way like this, will invariably end up cheapening Atlantic's brand and marring your journalistic reputation. While I understand that running a magazine in the internet era is hard and subscriber revenue constitutes a smaller part of the total, I feel that the fact that this content is paid-for had absolutely not been made explicit enough and, as a subscriber, I feel that such blatant hijacking of Atlantic's identity betrays the trust of your readers and violates your journalistic duty to inform and enlighten.

Best regards,

Paul Milovanov

I had the same thought, here's what I wrote:

I just saw this article on your site: http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/scientology/archive/201...

It is a sponsored piece, which it does state, though I may not have noticed it if it had not been pointed out to me. It makes me very uncomfortable about continuing to pay for a subscription to your magazine. As such, I have cancelled my subscription.

The reason that this makes me so uncomfortable is that it steps outside the boundaries of traditional advertising, and steps into the role of your content. This is not so dis-similar to television shows that are chock-full of product placement, but I think that this goes even a bit further than that. This would be content that has no value at all, except for selling a certain brand beer, parading itself as a television show, dressed in the corporate logo. That is what this is, content of no value, parading itself in the Atlantic brand.

I don't appreciate this. And, I certainly don't appreciate fluff pieces that bolster organizations like Scientology coming from a company that I pay to deliver me the news. By intertwining your content with paid-for commercial interests, I simply can no longer trust that the things that I read from you will be those of journalistic integrity.

Thank you, and goodbye.

-John

A friend of mine just became an associate editor at the Atlantic. He's a good guy, rational and open minded, I sent him this URL and the story URL. I'll be interested to see what he comes back with on the issue privately.

You should go ahead and ask your friend for a copy of his resume, too, because he might be needing it passed around before too long.

You know, it's entirely possible for something like that to have happened as a result of a poorly thought out advertising initiative without any ill intent on the part of the overwhelming majority of employees of Atlantic. While the editorial office and the executives of Atlantic should really know better than this, I'm not necessarily willing to jump to conclusions based on this single incident, which, moreover, appears to have caused them to reconsider their sponsored content policies.

I do like the idea of assuming incompetence (or negligence) before malice, and, well, clearly someone hasn't done their job to allow this to happen, but that's probably the extent of what happened.

Why does everyone jump out of the woodwork to say this? Even if this was an accident, which I doubt, it's still gross incompetency. This wasn't caught inside the institution. Who knows what other complete lies they'll publish next?

This is an accident like photoshopping images. And worse, they let the criminals / cultists moderate the comments. This further hurts subscribers who would use the forums to discuss the validity of the content.

The scientology organization has killed those they disagreed with in recent history and church doctrine still specifically allows a number of horrible actions, many ultimately fatal. They're a terrorist organization.

Subscribers should be looking into legal options. They literally paid for spam, from a hate group.

I have been one of the biggest submitters of Atlantic links to HN in the past year (and, no, The Atlantic doesn't pay me to post links) and I will now cease submitting Atlantic links. I used to submit a lot of Atlantic links to my Facebook wall too, also never, ever being paid to do so, and I will cease posting Atlantic links there too. And I think I had better write to the editors of The Atlantic, like James Fallows, and tell them why I no longer recommend their publication. I will read The Atlantic from time to time based on recommendations from other readers I trust, but I will not put my own trust on the line to support their business anymore.

AFTER EDIT: For those of you who need to detox after seeing a Scientology puff piece on the Atlantic website, I recommend the Village Voice website, which has an extensive set of articles

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/scientology/

in a humorous but fact-checked manner on the inside story of Scientology.

HN should consider banning links to the Atlantic for a year.

Because they took questionable advertising from an organization we don't like? That's a bit much.

You should probably look into the organization's history in censoring the internet.

I'd go further. They're a dangerous, internet-hating cult.

And a literal terrorist organization.

The advertising isn't the problem, IMO. It's the comment censoring that is worrying.

reddit did.

Better yet, reroute them through a 90's website filter such as http://wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=3...

I'm always looking to trim my RRS feeds. This is a pretty good reason to drop The Atlantic. Such as a shame as I loved their journalism.

The Tampa Bay Times has a good long-running series on Scientology as well: http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/

So they're essentially letting Scientology use The Atlantic's "brand" to trick people into reading this? (Yes, I know it says Sponsored Post)

This, on top of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108929 and http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2012/06/13/reddit-... makes me pretty weary of trusting anything I read on TheAtlantic ever again

Yep, will never read anything from the atlantic again, just added it to my host file.

Thanks for the idea - just added here as well.

For anyone else who wants to do this too:

  theatlantic.com        38.118.71.170

</tongue in cheek>

Isn't that a bit much?

The human tendency to overreact should never be underestimated. The baby and bathwater idiom is not used often enough.

With Scientology's history? Hardly.

Nah, I'd prefer my news sources not report based on who gives the most money. There are plenty of other options.

It would be if this were some kind of isolated case of bad journalism. But in my opinion of the Atlantic (formed well before this debacle) I'd say:

"Isn't that a bit late?"

Not the first time they've published complete horseshit: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/12/the-ha...

> makes me pretty weary of trusting anything I read on TheAtlantic ever again

I agree.

It's a shame. Sometimes they have great content. I'd be happy to pay for that content. I even post links to that content in various places. But the sleazy way they submit posts everwhere, and this, and etc, all make me much less likely to pay them anything.

The Atlantic isn't what you think...

http://shameproject.com/?s=atlantic&x=0&y=0

This site reads an awful lot like a bunch of left-wing conspiracy nutters. I don't know if it actually is or not, but that's the impression I get after scanning through it a bit. Not exactly a bastion of journalistic neutrality.

http://shameproject.com/report/malcolm-gladwell-unmasked-lif...

I read this a while ago and I looked into it and it's pretty convincing, so the site meshes with me at least.

There's some anger there, but it calls out shills as it sees it. It's not a "left wing conspiracy" if those being targeted are literally being paid to sell a narrative.

Certainly - I'll readily admit that I didn't dig deep enough to form a solid opinion. It was just my impression after a quick scan through several pages. It's also worth noting that I didn't call it a "left wing conspiracy" - I said "left-wing conspiracy nutters", which is quite different!

I can appreciate the desire to call out shills, but if you're going to pin someone to the wall for being biased, it's best to try to do it in as unbiased and neutral a way as possible, IMO. Otherwise, you just end up looking like any other fringe whacko with a bone to pick with the people they don't like.

The facts are ~usually~ pretty good, but I'll cop that the language and phrasing is very preach-to-the-choir unnecessary. That's somewhat The Exiled's shtick, though. I just roll my eyes, they often have interesting things amid the shrillness.

Yeah, their style is off-putting to some at first glance, but the Exiled (and now nsfwcorp.com, where a bunch of exiled contributors continue to write) is pretty solid with the investigative journalism.

You have to wonder what it says about a group that they aren't afraid that their potential converts would find it weird that they need to pay for people to say how awesome they are.

Edit: fixed typo

Converts. It took me a minute.

Well, Hubbard flat out said that he should invent a religion in order to get rich long before he wrote Dianetics, so that tells you something about the typical scientology candidate's capacity for deductive reasoning.

The Church denies that though. Actually, the story surrounding that quote is a little murky but I'm sure it's true. I believe James Randi claims to have heard it. Anyway, followers of Scientology have a lot of other crazy stuff about Hubbard to make them weary of it, yet they persist.

Compared to their forced labor camps and harrassment campaigns of their critics, I'd say there are definite better things to focus on than apocryphal (but certainly possible) stories that persuade no one. It may be published in several unauthorized biographies and "vouched for" by a bunch of people who may or may not have even been at the convention, but it might as well be a story overhead in a bar for all it's going to persuade the credulous, who want to believe them with every fiber of their beings.

Logic and fact is needed, not conjecture.

I fear what will happen when the market for pure misinformation is fully realized. When it can be delivered as seamlessly as the real thing, the opportunity for profit is massive. The Atlantic is an example of media engineering for profit that fails to trick us -- but it is much closer than sponsored content has been in the past and certainly more effective at getting me to consume it than a regular ad.

Call me a conspiracy theorist but one thing the future holds for us is more of this. Except it will take place in scientific literature, respected publications, maybe in our own homes and (purposefully or not) by the people we know and trust. We'll need a factcheck.org for regular news.

"Sponsor post" is probably as good as we will ever get from The Atlantic.

If you haven't read Stephenson's "Anathem", one of the characters makes a reference to Bogons, false pieces of information inundating the Internet.

There are low-quality bogons (the example given is a file full of gibberish) and high-quality bogons, masquerading as legitimate data but differing in only a few places, and hard to detect as such.

This is definitely a fairly high quality bogon, at first glance.

For a (hopefully) fictional example of how this could already be happening without our knowledge, check out the film "The Joneses". Pretty entertaining film too.

I don't know. Although we are talking tail end of the 90s, there's passing reference in No Logo/The Shock Doctrine (forget which, but think the former) by Naomi Klein to lifestyle marketers that would follow a couple of people in their target demo around without their knowledge.

I found this advertorial (common in newstand rags) to be incredibly informative. First, Scientology is expanding around the world. Second, I thought Scientology was banned in Germany but they opened a Church in Hamburg. Perhaps I'm just ignorant, but that was a surprise to me given their problems in the EU. They have clearly figured out how to "manage" there. Third, politicians from both parties, federal and local officials attended these events. They are becoming more and more "mainstream"

Finally, this expansion and the choice of buildings means they have a lot of money. They also have a very good taste when it comes to architecture (IMO) - they didn't build giant $100M sun temples or edifices, they've found what appear to be amazing examples of local architecture and have adapted it to their purposes.

Would that most "real" editorials were so informative.

If I were to read something on there ever again, I now feel that I need to first look to see if it is a sponsored story or not every time.

>Sponsor Content is created by The Atlantic’s Promotions Department in partnership with our advertisers. The Atlantic editorial team is not involved in the creation of this content. Email advertising@theatlantic.com to learn more.

So if the Taliban wanted to pay for content they would be fine with that too.

That industry is getting rather desperate for money these days.

Journalism, that is.

The Taliban doesn't have the resources. Qatar did have the resources to build al Jazeera, which is much in demand. I suppose the problem is that the Atlantic has rented itself out rather than being owned lock, stock and barrel.

> The Taliban doesn't have the resources. Qatar did have the resources to build al Jazeera, which is much in demand.

Are you really likening the owners of Al Jazeera and the state of Qatar with the Taliban? Please tell me I've missed something.

Al Jazeera sounds so ~foreign~, obviously in cahoots.

Stories like this destroy the one major advantage established media, such as the Atlantic, has over new media. A trusted brand.

These types of ads (branded content, in feed ads or social ads, whatever we're going to call them) are just another step in the battle to outwit a readers BS detection system.

If I can easily tune out flashing banner ads, I can easily scan pass sponsored posts.

Not worth blowing valuable trust on a short term gain is it?

If you want a mindfuck, go to sears.com. Product results include, by default, items from Amazon affiliates. These dinosaurs truly have no clue what parts of their businesses could still have value.

So they are sending customers to their competitor just because they want to make a few dollars?

Losing a customer must cost them more than the affiliate payment they get.

But, much like Kris Kringle recommending Woolworths to Macy's customers in "Miracle on 34th Street", getting you the item you want elsewhere doesn't lose Sears a customer - It makes certain they'll check Sears first in the future.

They're sending customers to Amazon's affiliates because it gets them SEO results and they likely get a kickback.

Coming from my searches that've turned up the affiliate spam, these are generally items that have nothing to do with Sears's main product lines or that Sears is well sold out of.

I was trying to find a place that had 30 round magazines in stock before the looming ban, and ironically sears.com was the one retailer that had them in stock (by way of some small mom and pop affiliate).

I'll see your implausible useful-Sears story and raise you mine - I bought some welding electrodes that Home Depot doesn't even carry at a physical brick and mortar Sears! Admittedly Lowes might have had them, but I was already in the area.

>>Sponsor Content is created by The Atlantic’s Promotions Department in partnership with our advertisers.

So The Atlantic actually created this content and some nebulous "advertisers" were mere partners?

UPDATE: Mat Mullen, Disqus employee got a comment past the moderator (maybe he knows someone):

This is the weirdest thing I've ever read on the Atlantic. You're actually letting the Church of Scientology sponsor content on your website?

if you go watch the 'upvote' count on his comment, it is flickering rapidly, up two, down one, up one, down two - fascinating.

Surely Scientology's army of Astro-turfers are working overtime tonight

And Reddit is probably on the case as well...

HN seems to be much more active on this topic, if you check Reddit's posted links here, some links, few votes, few comments yet: http://www.reddit.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlanti...

Good then, It's not just me.

I think any forum with upvote/downvote needs to have this, so cool to watch.

I don't know understand why its going down? The downvotes should be displayed separately and should not affect the upvotes, unless the upvotes are getting deleted (by somebody or by the upvoters themselves)

Because either the Atlantic is moderating the comments or the COS employs a lot of sockpuppets (my guess on the latter.)

A few minutes ago his comment had over 600 upvotes. Now it's teetering around 300.. it appears the moderators are also removing upvotes?

You can cause the same thing to happen to any comment by rapidly clicking the upvote button. This seems to cause the upvote count to drift upward, even though you would expect it to just oscillate between two values. I've just taken parkermoseyondown's comment from 0 to 40 upvotes.

Edit: This seems to be a UI issue. After reloading his comment is sitting at only 1 upvote.

Now his comment seems to have gone...

Yup. CREEPY.

Hrm, I'll be fascinated to know whether there's a COS employee of the Atlantic or whether they give moderator accounts to their advertisers, HuffPo-style.

interesting, could this be his Disqus employee "privileges" allowing his comment to bypass moderation and if so, how does that bode for websites using Disqus? They control the discussion unless someone at Disqus wants to talk? Although ~~from what I can tell it's a free service, so they can't do much damage by leaving.~~ nevermind, there is a disqus premium service.

how does that bode for websites using Disqus?

That was never a good idea IMHO... If you care about your readers, don't outsource comments. I cannot take websites seriously that are using Disqus (or Facebook, or other such shady, inaccountable stuff) to replace such a vital part of their online operations.

His comment is now gone ... it was by far the most up-voted and I'm a bit shocked that Disqus is in collusion with The Atlantic.

This sly comment remains though. :)

"Such beautiful buildings! It's a shame that Shelley Miscavige couldn't join her husband at the gala openings!"

Yes ... I appreciated that one too. I'm sure they're monitoring HN since this place is such a bastion of scientists, so it might be disappearing shortly.

They probably have a contract that Disqus wouldn't want the Atlantic to cancel.

"Collusion" seems like overstating the case a little to me. I'd be more shocked if the opposite were true -- if the site publisher wanted to remove a comment, and Disqus, for whatever reason, wouldn't let them. Disqus isn't supposed to be making editorial decisions on their customers' sites; if someone wants to be an idiot and moderate out non-cheerleading comments, it's not Disqus' place to override that decision.

""Collusion" seems like overstating the case a little to me."

Aren't they editing the comments for their customer?

Why would they be? Sites using Disqus can moderate their own comments, and Disqus claims to do no moderation beyond that -- see http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/466223-who-d....

I suppose you could come up with a theory where The Atlantic talked/bribed Disqus into doing the moderation for them, but it seems much more straightforward to assume that it's the admins at The Atlantic who were filtering comments.

By they, I mean the Atlantic, not Disqus. Though, it wouldn't surprise me if they had contract moderator options available for companies who don't want to employ their own.

    The Atlantic editorial team is not involved in the creation of this content.

I imagine the editorial team are currently drinking a shit ton of whiskey praying that nobody associates them with this.

Haha ... I think you're probably correct, but I'll bet the writers who show up in the sidebar on the right need something a little stronger.

s/be/bet/

They're just people who've written articles for the site, not that specific article.

The scariest part - from the article, elected government officials lend credibility:

The Church of Scientology opened its new National Affairs Office in Washington, D.C., in a ceremony led by David Miscavige. Joining him in this dedication were Members of U.S. Congress Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Danny Davis (D-IL); as well as Liz Gibson, Senior Program Manager, Federal Emergency Management Agency.

That's what a nice, fat campaign contribution will due for you. :(

I can't speak to the others but I live just outside Jackson-Lee's district. That woman is certifiably insane with or without appearing at a Scientology event. She thinks Neil Armstrong went to Mars and that Venezuela is a friendly nation.

She'll do anything to get on camera—I doubt she can even spell "Scientology."

Oh the irony.

In July 2012, "CNN's Effusive Coverage of Kazakhstan Is Quietly Sponsored by Its Subject" - http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/cnn...

Edit: looks like their Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/) is attempting some damage control by tweeting about a "the truth about Scientology" book. Heh.

I'm guessing that it's how the editors are fighting back. Remember, the sponsored content is managed by the sales team. Editorial has no input or control over that. Just think how those reporters feel.

So white supremacists or the Taliban (or even... Wikileaks!) could buy placement in The Atlantic and the paper's owners would have no problem with that?

There is going to be a lesson here over the next few days about how some advertising decisions can ruin a brand.

Single data point: I've been on the fence for cancelling them, but I'm calling them to do so tomorrow.

This is TERRIBLE. I really like The Atlantic, but this is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.

An ExxonMobile/BP ad or something would draw ire, but this feels like a wholesale sellout of their credibility, not to mention sanity.

Maybe this is just a brilliant move by someone at The Atlantic who wanted to demonstrate how bad of an idea sponsored content can be?

I wouldn't burn down my house to demonstrate how dangerous it is to store kerosene in the garage.

But would you burn down your office?

This doesn't seem worth the brand damage it causes.

I actually love the Economist "special advertising sections" about countries ("Mongolia: Open for Business", etc.). Those are clearly identified and also not damaging. Maybe Mongolia isn't worthy of 16-32 pages in the Economist on its own, but the content they do publish about it tends to be at least somewhat legitimate. Not sure if that's even possible to do about Scientology.

It helps when it's a topic that basically nobody is getting up in arms about, like Mongolia.

I read a whole issue like that on Libya on a trans-Atlantic (no pun intended) flight for a Christmas party in London. Couldn't decide where to go for the break, so figured I'd hit Libya, but it was too opaque trying to sort out how to acquire a visa, so I went to Tunisia instead. Then the revolution and the whole Arab Spring kicked off, hah!

I almost went to North Africa and the Middle East in September, 2001, just because it would have been a fun and obscure trip (probably would have skipped Libya, but Tunisia/etc. for classical reasons).

A friend of mine went six weeks after it all kicked off, said he really enjoyed it and never felt in danger.

Yeah, I knew people who were in Saudi during it. I would have felt safer as an American in most of those countries than as an Arab in the US, immediately post-9/11. I think there was a news article about some westerners in Yemen post-9/11; the people they were with were quite kind.

It still would have sucked for travel, and would have been pretty scary.

Clicking on the usernames of the pro-scientology comments surprisingly yields other generic positive comments on pro-scientology articles:

adamcroft croft posted a comment in David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year · 5 hours ago Nice pictures. So festive and grand. Scientology does so much good in the realm of drug and human rights education and it is only right that more places be reached and more people be helped. People need to know that illegal drugs are not worth it and that we should fight for each and every individual's human rights.

adamcroft croft posted a comment in Is Scientology Trying to Take Over Self-Publishing? · a year ago I've read about this facility, and it's quite impressive. Technology in the 21st century progresses so rapidly that it's mind boggling. Not only do we have the power to virtually publish infinitely, even print publishing has gone to a whole new different level. Having worked in the publishing industry, I certainly realize what a big deal this is.

adamcroft croft posted a comment in Facing Difficulties in Life? Scientology Has an iPad App For That · a year ago Thanks Portia for providing the information.

adamcroft croft posted a comment in Facing Difficulties in Life? Scientology Has an iPad App For That · a year ago The app actually looks pretty promising. It's free, and seems to be more useful than the books I find on the self-help section in the bookstore. I've always been curious about Scientology, and this is an easy way to find out more about it.

That's surprising to you? Obvious shills are obvious.

I suppose I was more surprised to find it so easily, rather than surprised it exists.

"I suppose I was more surprised to find it so easily, rather than surprised it exists."

Scientology is like a religious 419 scam, they target the sort of idiots who wouldn't check this and take the endorsement from random internet persons at their word, not guessing that the comments were coming from COS HQ.

Here is a similar piece of content, from GE, makers of nuclear weapons and microwave ovens and former owners of NBC (now Kabletown)

http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/ideas-roundtable-workin...

Yeah, but here's literally what you see as soon as you open that story (with adblock off):

http://cl.ly/image/0W1d2f3P0L25

That's pretty darn clear that it's a sponsored piece of content.

Large parts of it even use GE's font, making it even more clear.

The story has been replaced with: "We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads."

There you go, one demonstrable example where complaining on the internet actually had an impact.

I understand that this is "sponsoderd content" AKA an ad.

I have seen "sponsored pages" in newspapers for many years about a lot of crap, is there a reason to consider this one worse than the average?

(Yes, scientology is evil but they are not forbidden from making ads I reckon?)

edit: the "sponsored" bit is right on top of the page, as it is in dead-tree-form newspapers too.

When you run sponsored content, you're tying your brand to the brand of the advertiser who you are promoting. This usually isn't a problem, since most outfits will choose to run advertising deals with well-respected brands, and both brands become stronger (and wealthier) because of the association.

In this case, I can't imagine any outcome except for significant brand damage to The Atlantic. They had better have been cut an absolutely toe-curlingly-large check, because I expect they're going to pay for this in credibility loss pretty heavily.

They are allowed to run ads, but media should allow ads based on ethical decisions - lots of countries treat Scientology as a criminal organization (Germany: "It views it as an abusive business masquerading as a religion and believes that it pursues political goals that conflict with the values enshrined in the German constitution" Source [1], another example from Belgium: [2] )

Running a sponsored article for Scientology is, to me, akin to running an article about the great employment opportunities at Mexico's Zetas.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_in_Germany

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/belgium-prosecutes-...

There are "stories" to the right that are really pro-Scientology ads, but not marked as "advertisement". The whole thing feels slimy, not even considering the subject.

In newspapers and magazines, sponsored content is very clearly labeled (which arguably this is) and made to look _different_. For example, most magazines require advertorial to be in a different typeface and font size, so that readers have a sense that it's somehow "different." The difficulty here is that, unlike a magazine in which you're flipping pages, you probably only saw _this_ page and thus have no sense about whether it "looks different."

Then again, the only reason I saw this page is because we decided it needs to be on the top of HN. It's like the bizarro Streisand effect.

There is a Streisand effect-like phenomenon when notorious publicity-seekers become famous due to widespread criticism. The attention, negative or not, is exactly what they want. The biggest example is probably the Westboro Baptist Church.

The current top comment by Matt Mullen is being upvoted at a rate of about 3 votes/second!

He appears to work at discus - did he use admin powers to comment on the article?

edit: "Tom Cruise • a few seconds ago I paid you for this?! Thats not nearly enough confetti"

The other interesting thing is that it seems to have -1 downvotes. Hax? Or a javascript bug?

Someone is trying to delete downvotes as fast as they can, except more votes are arriving even faster. Stare at the counter for a few minutes, and you'll see the vote count go up and down.

Looks like the comment moderator went on break.

Ctrl-F confetti, the comment is now gone.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., John Greenleaf Whittier and James Russell Lowell all just retroactively disavowed any connection to The Atlantic.

This is disgusting and unethical. I didn't notice the "sponsor content" bar at the top and had to go all the way to the bottom to see the disclaimer.

Someone ought to write an adblock-like extension that incorporates jwz's HERP DERP filter to arbitrary URLs, starting with http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/*

How convenient that this Tampa Bay Times article highlighting the FBI's investigation into the cult just came out yesterday:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1270036.ece

I don't think this sponsored content is a smear on The Atlantic so much so as it is a smear on the sad state of journalism as a whole and the ever increasing lengths to which news orgs will go to finance their operations these days.

There is a lesson to be learned here about using third-party vendors in sensitive parts of your business.

IF you're a news outlet and you're going to let people publish "sponsored stories" and promise them the ability to moderate comments, AND you use a third-party add-on from a comments vendor, THEN you should not be surprised when an employee of that third-party company is allowed to leave whatever comments they like — no matter what your agreement with your client says.

Of course, I'm not sure that if you're a news outlet it's a good idea to let people publish sponsored quasi-news content. Newspapers have been pushing the envelope on this in the last couple of decades — remember in 1999 the LA Times upset their own staff's sense of balance when they printed a 168-page supplement on the Staples Center and split ad revenue 50/50 with the Center (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec99/la_times_12-...).

But if you're gonna do this, you've really got to do it right!

Looks like The Atlantic realized it had lost its marbles, and pulled this? I now get a 404, not only from the HN link, but also from the link on their site which still has the thumbnail of this propaganda piece:

http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/scientology

(If anybody has a cache, I'm mildly curious to see it...)

Works for me. Try Google's cache http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&safe=...

It is suspended now.

> We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.

"Temporarily", what absolute bootlicks they are.

Gives them the opportunity to re-up the article once the internet forgets.

> We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.

looks like you're right

You can still see the meat of the article via skeletonjelly's google cache link, but I gather the fun was in the comments. The 'article' reads like a typical cult/church promotional flyer...

I love how they captured the confetti in mid-air in each and every photograph. There's nothing scientology does that isn't choreographed and there's nothing scientology does that isn't bullshit.

I keep looking to see the April Fools disclaimer or any indication this is a joke, but I am not seeing it.

Perhaps I am a victim of Poe's law.

Yeah, but read the content of what is actually up on the site. It's patently transparent bullshit. "All we do is open buildings! Everything is wonderful in out world! Banner year!" It makes the church look even MORE cultish. The motives are obvious: they're getting hit thanks to the new Lawrence Wright book, so they respond with this utterly idiotic pap. It's amazing that to me that they think ANYONE would actually buy this as a real article. I imagine the Atlantic thought the same. They're providing the noose for Scientology to hang itself. It's not journalism, per say, but there is a truth revealed by this article that is WAY beyond what the church wanted and The Atlantic provided the forum.

Then why are they deleting any negative comments? If they're trying to distance themselves from the North Korea-level bullshit they're publishing for cash, the best way to strike back would be to allow users to respond without being silenced in the name of their advertisers.

This is why I'm sad that Google's Sidewiki failed.

You can have free and robust comments moderated by the author or publisher, it works most of the time.

But why not just carry our commenting services with us, independent of content?

(Or is that basically what we're doing now?)

In next year's recap they can talk about the big recruiting breakthroughs they made by writing enormous checks to struggling media outfits which allowed them to trick readers into thinking puff pieces were real content.

Wow ... 12 new buildings!

It must really pay to start a religion and I guess in addition to emptying my congregant's pockets, there are some nice tax breaks for both the 503c and the reverends.

Can I interest anyone in an investment? I'll start the church of fleeciology and will take the first 12 people to wire one meeeeellion dollars into my Cayman Islands account as my board of trustees. Your share of the earnings will be 6%.

Our chuches won't have steeples, but there are plenty of sheeples that we can turn into paupers. There's no end to what a charismatic speaker can earn in today's market, so be the first to sign up now!

A sample of moderator approved comments:

Seems like David Miscavige and Scientology are on a roll. Also it appears the media have been missing the real story.

I hadn't realized there were so many new churches opened this past year. Great report!

Finally the true story of scientology is being told!

An insidious evil, thought defeated, but quietly gathering strength.

Right, they're still sitting on a LOT of real estate tax-free. They can weather 4chan's disrespect and bide their time until say, loyalist Will Smith decides to "come out" in their favor, gaining a ton of new celeb-obsessed converts.

The true story of scientology has already been told. A mediocre sci-fi author realized he could make a lot of money by inventing a bullshit story [1] and then proceeded to recruit a bunch of brownshirts [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5055604

And frankly, I think it's high time to kick them the fuck out of Berlin, at the very least. We tried radiating the cancer; it's time to reach for the scalpel.

I don't disagree, but it is socially unacceptable to say such things about thugs in other religions, just Scientology - and they may be freely promoted in the press with equal quantities of distortion - this bothers me a great deal.

it is socially unacceptable to say such things about thugs in other religions

It is? I didn't get that memo. To me it's socially unacceptable not to. People just ought to realize that being free-thinking, and in parts actually intelligent people gives them so much more power and so much more agility. Just look at scientology, look at their messiah, look at Tom Cruise.. they aren't that bright. They're bottom-feeding, they are preying on weak and/or vulnerable people.

What gets me about Scientology is how stupid it is, how obvious, and how white middle-class. It's hard to accept it was taken seriously for a second decades ago, but that they are expanding? It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor, sometimes I really really wonder what kind of planet I'm on.

Maybe the idea is to make it all so crazy and horrible that people will cling to any story? I mean, let's just assume scientology was 100% true and correct: why has nobody successfully achieved their god status yet? They're just recruiting, never arriving, besides being super selfish assholes(oh yeah, those "body thetans", deported and mass killed people.. they are causing problems, let's get "rid of them"... just wow) on that never-ending way .

And yes, you could say exactly that about many other religions as well, and certainly Christianity and Islam; but that isn't reason to criticize any individual one less, the opposite is true. I say lean into it. It can be ugly, or even scary, but I believe appeasement would have scarier results.

Haven't you noticed the relentless pounding the Catholic church has been taking for years and years now? Or listen to Penn Jillette's or Louis CK's remarks on Mormonism, or a great deal of George Carlin's material... many religions prey on the powerless, but we are offended by the efficiency with which Scientology drains its' adherents bank accounts and their will.

There's also no shortage of criticism for Islamic fundamentalism / Sharia law.

People generally don't have much patience for rhetoric that calls all religious belief evil, but specific accurate criticism usually has a place in public discourse.

Why is this relevant? It's irrelevant to Scientology's abuses and untrue. If we had the opportunity to shut down Christianity's past and current abuses, we should pursue this, whether Christianity "did it too" does not need to be brought up in every article.

I didn't say Christianity, so why did you attribute that to me? The comments on this article have drawn out some extreme vitriol about Scientology and I believe it is relevant that this is incredibly specific to Scientology, giving exceptions for other organizations which may simply be older.

I'm not quite sure if it's 'sellout' or if it's just the church having key people at The Atlantic to make this happen, sort of like how the church had infiltrated key government organizations around the world.

Retraction: http://imgur.com/5yVvT

"Statement from The Atlantic

Regarding an advertisement from the Church of Scientology that appeared on TheAtlantic.com on January 14:

We screwed up. It shouldn't have taken a wave of constructive criticism — but it has — to alert us that we've made a mistake, possibly several mistakes. We now realize that as we explored new forms of digital advertising, we failed to update the policies that must govern the decisions we make along the way. It's safe to say that we are thinking a lot more about these policies after running this ad than we did beforehand. In the meantime, we have decided to withdraw the ad until we figure all of this out. We remain committed to and enthusiastic about innovation in digital advertising, but acknowledge—sheepishly—that we got ahead of ourselves. We are sorry, and we're working very hard to put things right."

The comments are quite amusing. The "church" is apparently sending its minions en masse to post mindless applaud.

This practice is probably not limited to The Atlantic. Reportedly CNN has published content that was "sponsored" by autocratic governments:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/04/cnn-busi...

Good to see Jeffrey Goldberg biting the hand that feeds him: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/a-wonder...

Interesting.... in the last minute I (coincidentally) watched as they pulled down the page and replaced it with:

We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads

And if a pro-Scientology adverticle wasn't enough, every page has at the top "A Wonderful New Book About Scientology, By a Wonderful WriterJeffrey Goldberg". I'm sure this other article is totally not related to the sponsored content.

This appears to be a sarcastic response by Goldberg to the presence of the advertorial. The book he's talking about is quite critical of Scientology.

The post has been removed: We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.

"Subsequent comment threads"? You don't say.

They're most likely talking about the article's own comment thread, as opposed to discussion across the web.

The side bar shows a link to an article by Jeffrey Goldberg, "A Wonderful New Book About Scientology, By a Wonderful Writer", about a book by L. Wright. Not sure if this goes with or against the post, as the Amazon description of the book seems rather positively inclined toward Scientology. I haven't read the book though.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/a-wonder...

Bizarrely, it isn't even written very well. It's basically:

Scientology Opened 12 new offices/churches.

Followed by 12 pictures, all pretty much staged the same way, with blanket text following each picture written the following way:

City, State: Date

David Miscavige dedicated the new Church of Scientology (City) in ceremonies attend by (nnn) Scientolgists, their guests and city and state dignitaries. The Church building, which used to be (XXX) is located near (YYY)

The entire "Sponsored Content" feels like it was programmatically generated.

I'd expect better out of a high-school english student.

Don't underestimate their marketing skills. They know exactly what they want out of their piece on The Atlantic.

Disclaimer: I run startup that helps publishers to create these types of sponsored stories.

Sponsored stories are much better way to monetize content, especially for journalism industry. However, the issue is publishers should control what type of 'ads' should go live since they know their audience best. Editors should be in control of these type of ads rather than sales people. "Content Marketing" is relatively new in digital realm and I hope these type of mishaps will be avoided as industry matures.

startup that helps publishers to create these types of sponsored stories.

What does that mean, in practice? Are publishers not capable of running an article by themselves and adding a "Sponsored Content" banner/notice at the top?

It's not that simple. There are lot of pieces. Feel free to send me an email (in my profile page). I don't want to sidetrack current topic.

They apparently don't do it convincingly enough.

What you are doing is basically deriving monetary benefit from the considered act of deliberately manipulating people's views on behalf of corporate interests.

That is not only morally wrong, but it is disgusting that you attempt to justify it as completely normal and right through allusion to 'monetization'.

(Telling example - monetization of hatred: http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/AP.pdf)

> What you are doing is basically deriving monetary benefit from the considered act of deliberately manipulating people's views on behalf of corporate interests.

No way. Even we are users too. We have family members who are not as tech savvy as us. We are not doing anything deliberately. In fact, if we are deceiving users then it won't be advertising. We are equally concerned of maintaining sanctity of advertising. We (as a startup) don't work with news websites. But we strongly believe ads should be clearly marked as "advertising". Even people were concerned about Google's sponsored results (adwords). But it worked fine. Mark Suster wrote excellent blogpost on this topic - http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/22/the-case-for-i...

> (whole lot of tangents with no actual response)

Pragmatically, you do seem to be in the right industry.

sorry, but I agree. wholeheartedly immoral. Your doing exactly what corporations on the hill are doing to Congressman. Putting congressman in touch with corporations so that they might write our laws. Thats how I see you.

> sorry, but I agree. wholeheartedly immoral.

Google also mixes sponsored results in their search results. Is that immoral?

You are not mixing sponsored pages in with your content. Your content IS that sponsored page.

I haven't read all these comments, but this could not be a big deal at all.

We had a "sponsored" story written about FamilyLeaf for The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/bank-of-america/archive...

I'm pretty sure the author was just a freelance writer that BofA was sponsoring to write about startups, and we didn't pay a cent or do anything weird to get the piece.

CNN does this too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/04/cnn-busi...

Write to them and tell them what you think! Here's what I said:

-------------

Sir,

The Church of Scientology has a well documented history of deceit, manipulation, and ruined lives. The best way to limit the harm they cause is by discrediting them. I was, therefore, extremely disappointed to see that you have lent them some of your credibility.

The "Sponsored" tag at the beginning of the article wasn't nearly prominent enough.

In future, I hope you will take more care in your dealings with cults and quasi-religious organizations.

The Atlantic has had a consistent subjectivist and egalitarian-nihilist bias, to the point that I don't read them unless I want to debate and argue and grind my teeth.

So, this isn't as far out of character as everyone else seems to think.

I don't understand the connection between Scientology and the other stuff I mentioned, but even before this, it could not be said that this publication had integrity or practiced honesty.

The most interesting part of the story, to me, is that none of the links have rel="nofollow." I wonder how much of this is motivated by SEO.

I would think it's pretty common that news sites don't nofollow links (indeed, a quick scan of some other Atlantic pages says they don't).

If they don't do it normally, why would they do it especially if the point is to advertise Scientology?

Without nofollow, the Atlantic is effectively telling Google that the links in this paid advertisement are as authoritative as their organic links by objective journalists.

Deliberate or not, I think it conflicts with Google's feelings about paid link placement.

This was enough to get me to cancel my print subscription, which is really the best way to show my disgust over this.

Atlantic going from sponsored to censored. I sure hope it was some kind of night mod that did that. http://www.scribd.com/doc/120420141/The-Atlantic-14-January-...

Does this mean that The Atlantic is not a CIA front, or does it mean that it is? Semi-in-jest.

Wow - did not know it had come to this.

OT but I felt like Frontline 'softballed' the piece on Michelle Rhee the other day. Not that I disagreed with the piece just left feeling that I did not get a critique - which is what I am used to from them.

Strange they didn't celebrate their Toronto location.

https://plus.google.com/117604621668852819090/photos?hl=en

I hope this correlates with Canadians not giving them money :)

Meanwhile, some sponsored content from Boing Boing:

http://boingboing.net/2013/01/14/dread-cthulhu-leads-his-cul...

VERY poor choice. You would have to blind, deaf, and in coma to know this would not cause some type of backlash. I too enjoyed their content - unfortunately now have to reconsider before reading.

Article has been pulled and replaced with the following:

"We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads."

It looks like a Disney religion, really. Look at the balloons at the Tel Aviv opening. Look at the cute bow they have on each of the churches! I wonder if they have rides...

The "super power" orgs have beautiful shells but rotten, partially constructed or otherwise unoccupied interiors.

I've asked PG to ban/delete links to theatlantic.com: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5058360

I think this is just way overreaction. I'm not happy about it and think the Atlantic should revise their policies but I don't think we should ban all links because of this. It's basically just an advertisement that has been allowed to parade itself as an article; nevertheless it does not take very long to realize it is a sponsored article.

It's basically just an advertisement that has been allowed to parade itself as an article

Yeah, and since the advertisement is for Scientology, punishment needs to be swift, precise und merciless. You can call a lot of things "just an ad", including NSDAP propaganda.

TL;DR: We are building a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude. We have forged our spirits in the tradition of our ancestors. David Miscavige has our gratitude.

They have removed the article:

"We have temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads."

By the way, can anyone even document the validity of this COS bullcrap? From what I understand they are either barely growing or shrinking from their peak.

Check out the Village Voice, they have a lot of coverage of this. Scientology is a blip, their propaganda would have you believe that is growing at an enormous rate but that could not be further from the truth, at least in the reality based community.

Talk about sell out.

Funny how the pictures all look and feel so similar.

Newspapers have done this for a long time, but at least they usually put a prominent headline "Advertizing" at the top of the ad.

Contra the best article they ever ran... what's next? Why diamonds actually are scarce and valuable, sponsored by deBeers. ??!!

Amusing considering that one of their greatest articles (to my recollection) was http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you...

Where's the line with "sponsored content"? Does anyone have some examples of where it has been done well? Can it be done well?

Often Mashable has How To articles that are sponsored, but the content is generally neutral.

This demonstrates that journalism's money problem is not linked to the rise of the Internet, but to credibility.

While unfortunate they ran the ad in the first place, it's worth noting that it was pulled down within 3 hours.

Aaaand they've closed the comments.

Has anyone seen the Goldman Sachs content? Pretty sad stuff there, as well.

This is disgusting.

I liked the part where it said:

Under ecclesiastical leader David Miscavige, the Scientology religion expanded more in 2012 than in any 12 months of its 60-year history.

EDIT: before downvoting...read it again. :-)

Very unethical and unprofessional of The Atlantic

wasn't The Atlantic a reputable magazine?

Apparently not. Sad.

Disappointing...

Wasn't The Atlantic blacklisted from Reddit a while back for spamming links? [1] So, they're not exactly known for being 'white knights'. In fact, I'm a little surprised that the greater HN community didn't remember this episode.

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/reddit-bans-atla...

This again?

Every so often, the Church of Scientology goes up against the Internet.

Every so often, the Church of Scientology gets its ass handed to it.

This has been going on since 'the Internet' meant 'Usenet' for most people on the Internet.

Heh. Maybe this time will be especially amusing.

> Every so often, the Church of Scientology gets its ass handed to it.

They get a few wins too.

(http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1997/sep/helmers.html)

That one frustrated me. I was teaching a class and told everyone about that service as a way to send me anonymous feedback.

Then someone tried, and found that the service had been shut down. :-(

"Every so often, the Church of Scientology goes up against the Internet. Every so often, the Church of Scientology gets its ass handed to it."

These are not equal. They never get anything more than slaps on their wrist, and they employ enough lawyers and politicians to "every so often" make us all less free.

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