Quote:
Originally Posted by Landshizzle
What was unethical about this? Viral marketing (if this is an example) is everywhere and operates in this very same manner. It is done by every major corporation on the planet these days. Does that anger you in the same manner?
Either way, you are entitled to voice your opinion. As far as Trevor is concerned, my comment was not "giving permission", but a statement of fact. Would you react to other posts as vehemently and with as much personal outrage if you found out some other post was "dishonest"? In essence, the post was what we all post on here, an opinion. Whether it was a company or an individual, does it matter? Either agree or disagree. Take what you want from this board and leave what you don't.
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You can certainly argue that there's as far as most posts go you can either take it or leave it, god knows I've left it plenty (most of the stuff from gHost, blanch et al). I also don't think I've ever been outraged by comments on an internet message board.
However, I think that there's a distinction that must be made between an average poster and someone espousing a corporation's position without disclosure. Yes, you'll have 90% of the RCMB trying to sell you on an opinion: Whether the spread offense in theory can work, which recruits
MSU should be targeting, and yes, whether the helmets match the jerseys. The difference here is that someone, possibly in their capacity as an employee, attempted to infiltrate numerous message boards not for the purpose of establishing their opinion as the correct one but for improving their financial position. That's not to say that corporate interests can't be made on a message board. As president of one of the sports clubs at
MSU I did a little peddling and sponsorship hunting and overall corporate type spam. "Come to our games!" "Sponsor the team!" "Buy a shirt!" The thing was, I was up front about it. If I had made up 5-10 user names going "Hey, dodgeball is cool, we should all buy their stuff and catch a game!" and it was found out that it was a front put on by the team itself, there's an inherent dishonesty in that which typically meets with disgust. Same case here.