HBO CEO Confesses to Trolling Critics with Fake Tweets: Rolling Stone | Hacker News Reader

HBO CEO Confesses to Trolling Critics with Fake Tweets: Rolling Stone

rollingstone.com

53 pointstomcam19 comments

It is so important to remember that the only reason this is coming out, according to CNN, is because “Bloys' actions came to light as the result of a lawsuit filed by a former executive assistant who alleges discrimination, harassment and retaliation” — so that’s kind of an important detail and maybe a little related?

So these articles may and likely are emergency PR to shape the narrative around the Twitter misbehavior rather than the allegations, which is a common disaster PR tactic (partial truth as the whole article, republish to bury the story).

What a buffoon.

> “It’s very important to me what you all think of the shows,” Bloys said. “When you think about that, and then think of 2020 and 2021, I’m working from home and doing an unhealthy amount of time scrolling through Twitter. And I came up with a very, very dumb idea to vent my frustration.

We have this idea that CEOs are all emotionless, money-seeking robots. So it's a bit... refreshing? horrific? ... to see that they are still pretty petty.

I'm thinking of an interview with Frank Zappa, where he described record executives in the old days as these sleazy guys who would say "I don't care what it sounds like so long as it sells". But they were all replaced by young guys who loved music and were so passionate about it that they couldn't help themselves from meddling in everything.

That’s a great observation, both are biased, but it plays out very differently.

Frank’s music wasn’t really my thing, but I always loved his interviews.

A very well worded "I apologize this came to light" example.

I like to use this kind of case study to point out there really is no bottom sometimes with human beings and position and title and industry aside, sigh, just switch out the scenario with kids / socialization in youth and again, modeled behaviors...

Humans, at their base, are a garbage species.

There is A.L.W.A.Y.S. an asshole when dealing with humans, in pretty much every conceivable circumstance.

The thing about this is that it tells us a lot more about what media companies do online I wouldn't be surprised if most social interaction on various reddit forums are controlled by these companies after reading this. From the article.

"On Wednesday, Rolling Stone reported that in at least six instances between June 2020 and April 2021, Bloys and Kathleen McCaffrey, HBO’s senior vice president of drama programming, discussed using a “secret army” to respond to TV critics on social media and anonymous posters "

It's gunna get worse when they try and use AIs to control the narrative.

I assume it is already in use, at least by workers shilling for the business if not directly by bots.

Conde Nast owns Reddit, it's so obvious that most of the posts that make it to the front page are disguised ads for the media giants e.g memes featuring characters or actors for whatever show or book that's doing the rounds

Advance Publications owns Reddit (and Condé Nast), and has interested in many other media businesses such as WarnerBros Discovery (which sells MAX, formerly known as HBO).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications

While this is a good introduction to what's been going on, astroturfing has a long documented history on Reddit.

Edit: Not a media company, but someone else with money that wanted to influence public opinion on social media: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/04/whos-behind-the-reopen-d...

> “Who can go on a mission,” Bloys asked McCaffrey in June 2020, according to the messages, adding that they needed to find a “mole” at “arms length” from the HBO executive team to respond to VanArendonk’s tweet. “We just need a random to make the point and make her feel bad.”

This is just trolling?

I suspect bots and astroturfing are far more common than people think on social media.

It would certainly explain why Disney movies are tanking while social media looks good for them.

I'm also almost certain that Disney makes obvious, controversial decisions for the free marketing that comes from outrage. The common sentiment is that Disney does race swapping and alters source material in ways to pander to a very loud and righteous 2-dimensional audience, but I'm pretty sure they're really trying to antagonize the opposite audience, who will tweet angrily and start an online flame war that is free marketing for the movie.

And it kind of works, for example all the controversy around Snow White is the only reason I've heard of it.

Not just bots but “spam” plantations churn out a ton of comments and influencers are bought and paid for. The entire online space is sold as free discussion but totally controlled by the rich.