Dirty Tricks and Bribery: 10 Ways Big Media Companies Are Undermining Independent Publishers
Posted by Joshua Tyler | Published
We are forced to close daily publishing operations OFFICIAL It's FREAKIN A ROBOT. Which means I have a lot of time on my hands. Most of that time is now focused on our YouTube channel, but whatever I have left I plan to use to help independent publishers.
Not all people think they need help, so here's my first warning: They really want to get it.
Large media companies take many forms. Some of them are large new media groups run by hedge funds that have bought private properties and turned them into zombie content farms. Some old media monsters crawl through the content space like King Kong, smashing everything in their path.
Make no mistake: They see independent publishers as their enemy and always have. They will do anything to make sure that the independents can't get a foothold in what they are watching now, after eliminating the independent publishers who are creating the Internet, as their own domain.
Your biggest media brand competitors have endless money, endless employees, and endless connections. They use them in ways that you, as an independent publisher, would not imagine and may consider unethical. The following are a few tricks I caught them using to destroy this site, and now they're using them on you.
Entry
Every now and then, independent publishers try to form alliances as a way to fight the attacks of the big media companies that are used to destroy them. The big media companies then send teams to intervene and destroy these groups, often in subtle ways but sometimes very overtly.
They usually position themselves as a friendly force that wants to work with independent people. Like a carrot, they confuse the idea of even buying these sites and making their owners rich, or investing in them in some way. Sometimes they pretend to be friendly and considerate of others until they want to help.
It's probably not true at all. They mine data for you and keep you separate. They know exactly what they are doing.
Creating a Toxic Link
Ever wonder why your site has so many bad, suspicious sites linked to it, or never buy any links? Some of it happens organically, from content pirates who think they can make money by ripping it off. But not all.
Major media organizations use it regularly Bad SEO keeping small sites down. When you start entering a keyword that they think is theirs, they will begin to deliberately pay link buying services to buy toxic links that redirect to your website.
How badly this affects your search ranking is unknown, but it doesn't help.
Copying content
Most of the big media content farms use algorithms to decide what to post. Those algos are based on copying what works for their competitors. They analyze what others are doing and copy it. The algorithm they use assigns topics and topics and even creates outlines that instruct their writers what to write step by step.
So, if an independent publisher writes an article about the Best Star Trek Starships and starts doing well, the big media algorithms will see that and start creating copycat articles for themselves, which they assign to the authors.
They will generate dozens of Best Star Trek Starships articles at once, filling in the keyword they are trying to steal. They keep producing them using writers who, in some cases, get paid as little as $1 an article, until their content doesn't work for the actual article they're copying. It works, and eventually they will steal any traffic and power to create the original article.
Smear campaigns
Any independent publisher that starts to get a good buzz is seen as a threat, so major media companies use their PR teams to pose as readers and experts. Those fake accounts are then used to tarnish the competition.
That attack takes many forms. Sometimes they create entire Reddit threads with titles like “Site A is a Scam”. And because Google loves Reddit, anyone searching for “Site A” will now see that as one of the first search results.
Often, they increase comments on trust-testing forums and social media. They will always slander your personal name or advise people to stay away from you because you are lying or you will rip them off.
Threats and Intimidation
Any independent publisher that starts to do well, will inevitably face threats from the operators of large media brands.
These threats come in many forms and have different goals. Some will want you to remove posts they don't like. In some cases, they will want you to provide them with sources because they are not happy that you broke a story they believe is theirs.
The consequences of refusing to comply vary. They will often threaten to use their power to harm your PR contacts and limit your reach if you don't comply. In some cases, they threaten smear campaigns where they will use their high distribution to write negative articles about your site or use their PR teams to conduct online smear campaigns disguised as organic hate.
The law
In the early 2000s old media companies began to threaten distribution platforms such as Facebook and Google with legal cases if their content was not given special treatment than independent publishers. That worked, and it's not the only way they're using their well-funded legal muscle.
If an independent publisher makes the mistake of accusing a mass media brand of any of the things on this list, they may be subject to legal action.
You may think that the truth is the surest defense, but defending yourself against these types of lawsuits will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and in the end, any lawyer you can afford to hire will not match theirs. You will be forced to settle, pay them a small sum of money and promise to keep your mouth shut.
Provision of False Discovery
There are legitimate media companies that acquire small brands, who will then extract and discard their AI-generated content. However, some of the big media brands are constantly finding fakes that they offer to smaller sites to gain access to their data.
Once they have your data, they will then make an offer so low that they know you won't take it, and use that data to improve their sites and steal any keywords you might be hitting.
Backlink Stacking
Much of the way Google determines if a publisher is of high quality is based on backlinks. Big media brands spend money to create hundreds of thousands of backlinks to their sites in bulk.
If you want proof, look at the backlink statistics of any independent publisher that has received a great product. You will see a huge spike in the number of backlinks to that site, immediately after its acquisition is complete.
Did people suddenly start liking the site more and linking to it more just because some big company bought it? It's impossible.
Technological Destruction
When an independent publisher has something go down, that success is almost always followed by some sort of DDOS attack that takes down their server.
Trying to create an email newsletter subscription? Expect to be quickly bombarded with thousands of fake users signing up to report your newsletter as spam and have it blocked from appearing on email services.
Technological destruction takes many forms, and it is impossible to prove where it comes from. But if you've done this long enough, you'll start to notice a very suspicious pattern.
Beneficial Interactions with Major Platforms
At the recent Google Creators and Independent Publishers Talk event, Google seemed to express concern that giving independent publishers a place over larger brands could drive the big companies crazy.
Is it understandable that every forum seems to give big brands special treatment? Probably not.
Is it a mistake that Google just gave Reddit the top spot in all their search results right after they signed the AI deal with them? It's a question you have to ask.
Did I miss any dirty tricks? Let me know in the comments below.
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