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HP The Media Censorship

HP Deletes Negative Corporate Blogger Comments 270

Posted by Zonk from the talking-out-of-turn dept.
Thomas Hawk writes "HP has recently been making the rounds promoting their new company blogging efforts. Nora Denzel, HP's senior vice president and general manager of HP's Adaptive Enterprise and Software Global Business Unit has started a podcast and a number of new bloggers including David Gee, the head of worldwide marketing for HP's management software business, have also started company blogs. So imagine my surprise when I tried to legitimately leave a comment critical of HP at David Gee's HP blog and had my comment quickly erased and my HP passport (required to leave comments) revoked. Is it one-sided blogging to only let people say positive things about your company on your blog?" Update: 05/07 04:24 GMT by Z : Indeed, "Update: It would appear that David Gee has changed his mind and has reinstated my comment along with a comment from him saying he would pass the feedback along. A good first step. I've asked for an explanation as to why it was removed and hopefully will hear back soon."
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HP Deletes Negative Corporate Blogger Comments More

HP Deletes Negative Corporate Blogger Comments

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  • change of heart? (Score:5, Informative)

    by lecithin ( 745575 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:25PM (#12459431)
    Sounds like they admitted what they did. Did it take a bunch of bad PR for them to have a change of heart?

    "Earlier this week, an HP customer posted a comment about his experience upgrading a media center PC. His experience was not good and he let us know. We pulled the comment. This was a bad decision and we have reversed it."

    • Re:change of heart? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Marnhinn ( 310256 )
      Point is - can you trust them not to do so in the future?

      They've pulled comments once and could easily continue to do so - I doubt most people would care enough to make a stink about it.

      • Re:change of heart? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by xstonedogx ( 814876 ) <xstonedogx@gmail.com> on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:42PM (#12459530)
        Can you trust their blogs in the first place? How do you know positive comments aren't just astroturf?

        I think the point is that corporate blogs can be (and will increasingly be) used as marketing tools and should be treated with the same skepticism that you'd treat an advertisement or PR release.

        • I think the point is that corporate blogs can be (and will increasingly be) used as marketing tools and should be treated with the same skepticism that you'd treat an advertisement or PR release.

          A week or two ago ./ linked to a story about "media hits" and how "the suit is back" was one well done media campaign for The Men's Warehouse because so many "news" stories picked up the advertising and treated it like actual news.

          In the same article there was speculation that one reason blogs are so popular is t
        • On a vaguely related note, has anyone else seen that 'Movie Nuttball' character from http://imdb.com/ [imdb.com] who goes around every film and computer game, pretending to be a normal visitor, giving it a glowing review from a standard template, calling it 'The Greatest Film Ever', and advising the reader to buy it from amazon.com?

          He's not even subtle: http://imdb.com/user/ur1132073/comments [imdb.com].

        • Say I'm an employee of Corporation X. My job, first and foremost, is to do everything I can to make buttloads of money for X's shareholders, be that in increasing revenue, decreasing costs, or inflating the stock price.

          Conversely, if I do something in your spare time, say, while blogging, which injures your company, my ass is on the grill. Hell, they could even roast me for due diligence if I fail to do something, say, remove somebody's negative comment on a highly public blog under my immediate control.

      • Re:change of heart? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 07, 2005 @12:01AM (#12459927)
        I have said many bad things about HP and -- I regret them all, they have my best interest in mind.. -- I could tell you more. Look at their printers, everything since the 5Si has been complete ly outstanding. In fact I know they would never edit posts.

    • Re:change of heart? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @11:06PM (#12459657) Homepage
      If they want to impress people clearing away the negative comments isn't the way. (I guess they know that now) The way to really impress people is how they can handle it by adding a good reply or response to the comment and certainly by attempting to make-up for it in some way.

      Every consumer knows not everything will be perfect every time. We expect it and while we accept that it happens, sometimes it is at the wrong time or is too expensive a mistake. A company can take such an opportunity to really shine their brightest by acting in the consumer's interests. Nothing could say more about how a company conducts business than how it handles the unfortunate situations that will occur no matter how hard they try to avoid it.

      • Re:change of heart? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06, 2005 @11:53PM (#12459884)
        While I agree with the parent's message in spirit, in practice it is incorrect to treat a corporation as monolithic. Legal doctrines arising from obscure footnotes in Supreme Court decisions written by clerks notwithstanding (Corporate Personhood) a corporation is actually a collection of disparate people of varying viewpoints, abilities, levels of knowledge, loyalty and engagement, often with widely divergent agendas, ruled over in an autocratic and massively inefficient manner. Those supposedly in control are insulated by so many layers of hierarchy from the actual day-to-day operations that they have no idea about what is actually going on in their business (a defense put forth in some of the recent corporate corruption trials), but instead rely on increasingly diluted summaries, overviews and statistics that are generated by people whose livelihood depends on putting the best face on things no matter what. Conversely, the directives received by the peons on whom the company actually depends are so mangled and misrepresented by the time they have filtered down through all the intervening layers of management as to scarcely resemble what the people at the top actually want. To the extent that corporations are successful, they are so because of the independent and often uncoordinated actions of small groups of talented and extremely dedicated people who manage to succeed despite their resistant corporate culture. When corporations fail, it is because these nuggets of productivity do not successfully counteract the rest of the rotting, bloated twitching carcass. My point is, we don't know, if it was simply the administrator of the blog who removed the negative comments, his manager who directed him to do it, or a stultifying policy straight from the top.

        • Re:change of heart? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Tim C ( 15259 )
          All of that is true, but sometimes the people at the top really *are* just that bad too.

        • Re:change of heart? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by winwar ( 114053 )
          "While I agree with the parent's message in spirit, in practice it is incorrect to treat a corporation as monolithic."

          Sure, in reality they aren't, but in reality it doesn't really matter. They were either allowed to do it (standing policy) or broke policy while doing it. But if someone does something in the name of their employer (a corp) it tends to become "corporate policy" regardless of the actual policy unless it is quickly and unequivocally dealt with.

          This would probably fall under their external PR

      • Not all customers. (Score:2, Redundant)

        by anti-NAT ( 709310 )

        Firstly let me say that I agree with all you've said, except the following. Note that I'm not endorsing what HP initially did, although I am endorsing their actions in putting the comment back.

        Every consumer knows not everything will be perfect every time.

        Unfortunately, there are consumers / customers that expect perfection every time, which I think is unrealistic, and commonly they're also the most vocal. Futher more, they're sometimes also the most stingy - they have "champagne tastes" on a "beer b

    • Loss of credibility (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Penguinoflight ( 517245 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @11:06PM (#12459661) Journal
      By revoking a comment simply because it was critical they showed they cant be trusted. Since HP is a big company and not just a 4 year old, saying "I'm sorry, and wont do that again" isn't good enough.

      They need to provide something to gain peoples trust back, which will either be very creative or take a immense amount of time. This move alone is just PR, and probably doesn't indicate anything. Even if it does, HP will still have to work for years to gain peoples trust.
      • HP lost credibility the last time I called tech support. This barely adds to that.
      • "Even if it does, HP will still have to work for years to gain peoples trust."

        We cannot nor we must not ever trust a corporation for any matter large or small. Certainly some corporations naturally carry more credibility than others, based off their current and past set of actions, but trust, no we must never trust them. For a corporation is nothing but a physical and legally instantiated embodiment of greed. As with all greed, it is all-powerful and all-corrupting and they will all eventually sour. Instea

    • How the situation went down (Score:5, Informative)

      by me at werk ( 836328 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @11:32PM (#12459777) Homepage Journal
      In Customer Intimacy [hp.com]:

      <May 5, 2005 2:26:43 PM PDT> thomashawk complained [hp.com] about the media center pc support

      (Tom's post disappears, Tom writes a /. story rightly believing he was censored)

      <May 6, 2005 4:14:43 PM PDT> D Gee responded [hp.com] and apologized for tom's bad experience

      <May 6, 2005 4:41:33 PM PDT> thomashawk replied [hp.com], saying: "Thanks for responding David. Can you explain why my initial comment was deleted and then reinstated? Thanks, Tom"

      <May 6, 2005 6:23:53 PM PDT> D Gee informed [hp.com] him: "Tom - you can see my response in my entry "Taking it on the chin""

      (Friday May 06, @07:24PM PDT, Slashdot post hits frontpage about HP censorship)

      We had no effect on this. They changed their mind BEFORE they got publically shamed for it. Not that I'm agreeing with them removing the comment in the firstplace, but it's interesting.
      • Here is some additional info on what went on during the day. I don't think that HP or David knew about the Slashdot post prior to the change of heart but I did start applying pressure earlier in the day.

        Thursday evening, May 5th at 9:41 pm. I sent the following message to David Gee at HP "Nice. At least I took a screen shot."

        On Friday morning at 7:15 a.m. I still had not heard back from Gee or had the post reinstated so I blogged about my experience.

        At 9:07 a.m. on Friday morning I submitted the

    • This is hardly new.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by the_rajah ( 749499 ) * on Saturday May 07, 2005 @12:35AM (#12460097) Homepage
      Back in 1999 I had problems with the Rockwell modem in a new HP Pavilion desktop that I bought. The modem would dial and connect but could not maintain even a 28.8 connection on the admittedly noisy POTS line that I have in this older neighborhood. Every other computer in the house, including a Toshiba PII laptop had no trouble connecting and staying connected for hours. I went to the HP discussion forums for my model and posted questions. I called tech support and got a the news that it was a fine modem and that it was my phone line in spite of telling them that all other modems worked fine. I saw a post from someone else that had the same problem...and the next day it was gone. I posted my comments outlining the situation above and my message disappeared by the next day.

      I wrote to the CEO, whoever that was before Carly, and pointed out the situation and mentioned that I run a discussion forum site of my own that gets around 75,000 visits a month and that my next step was to post a serious discussion about the modem and how I was treated on the HP forum. I mailed from Illinois on a Thursday. On Tuesday I got a call from a staffer at the CEOs office telling me that if I'd go buy whatever kind of modem I wanted and fax them the receipt, they cut a check for that amount and mail it the same day. I went and bought a US Robotics USB modem, the latest greatest, for some $239.00. I faxed the receipt, didn't even open the plastic wrap on the modem and returned it. By this time I'd already bought a Zoom external for $99 anyway. I got the check in 3 days and have lived happily ever after.

      • Re:This is hardly new.. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Dogtanian ( 588974 ) on Saturday May 07, 2005 @08:21AM (#12461503) Homepage
        I'd like to point out that, while your exploitation of the situation was probably justified in that HP were only willing to help out under the threat of bad publicity, if they'd done the same thing in the first place, it would have placed it under a quite different light.

        I've heard more than once people on /. comment that you should go to shop 'X', try out a product, then go to shop Y who sell it cheaper. Now, if X is a known overpriced box-shifter, fair enough. But as a general rule, this is ethically really lousy, and promotes the 'bad' retail practices that ./ers claim to hate. Frankly, it's "chicken and egg"; people bitch about bad retail practices, but if they encourage them, it's debatable who's to blame.

        Of couse, /. is made up of individuals with differing views, but I'd be willing to be that those exploiting retailer X would be quite happy to complain about "bad service" chain stores.

        This reminds me that I *personally* don't compliment/publicise retailers enough when they provide good service... :-(

      • Re:This is hardly new.. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gkuz ( 706134 ) on Saturday May 07, 2005 @09:41AM (#12461750)
        I find it astoundingly hypocritical how you could write two long paragraphs about how you, in essence, stole money from HP, then finish that off with a sig saying "Do the Right Thing". If you really did what you described in your story, that was -- at best -- dishonest. Doing "the Right Thing" would, of course, have been sending them the receipt for the modem you actually kept and used, in case you are too ethically challenged to be aware of that.

    • Re:change of heart? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by syousef ( 465911 )
      Leave a negative comment about Linux on /. and see how quickly you end up with a post modded to -1 troll.

      Guess what. No one likes being criticized.

  • It's their web server (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quarters ( 18322 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:27PM (#12459441)
    They have no obligation to host data on their servers that doesn't benefit them. If you have something negative to say about HP you have every right to publicize your message. HP doesn't have to pay for it, though.
    • It's also deciving to people who think they can speak their mind to the writers. I doubt they have a clause in their terms of use that includes "your comments can't damage our corporate image."

    • HP is trying to have it both ways. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hirschma ( 187820 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:38PM (#12459507)
      It would be one thing if HP called the site a Postive Comments Only Blog, or something like that. But they call it a blog, a term that means one thing - a site for public news and discourse. Then they try to make it something else that suits their PR.

      Either have a blog, or don't. That's their right, as it is their servers. But if you ask for feedback from the community, and you give the appearance of being impartial - deal with the consquences.

      jh

      • a blog, a term that means one thing - a site for public news and discourse



        When it comes right down to it, a blog is just a set of web pages that are updated frequently in a diary-like fashion. Why should they treat them any differently than other pages on their web site?



        Eric
      • I don't understand why this is such a big deal. weblogs, by their very nature, are one-sided. an individual (or tightly-knit group) decides what posts to make, the topics for discussion, and the scope of comments that are tolerated. weblog readers know to expect an information oligarchy; is it such a surprise that weblogs associated with corporations would be so different?
      • It would be one thing if HP called the site a Postive Comments Only Blog, or something like that.

        Oh my god, what a compelling argument! QUICK +5 INFORMATIVE! wHAT'S an appropriate reply? You aren't the boss of me! This is a free coutnry!

        Caps lock and spelling errors are both the result of alcohol and intentional.

      • Maybe they should have taken the slashdot approach with their blog. Let other readers judge the value of each comment. After reading what he wrote, it looks like he has more links to his own writing in that single comment than a Roland Piquepaille article. Not to mention that it wasn't the most on-topic post. At best, I'd give it a -1, Overrated.

      • Re:HP is trying to have it both ways. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Cecil ( 37810 ) on Saturday May 07, 2005 @12:45AM (#12460156) Homepage
        But they call it a blog, a term that means one thing - a site for public news and discourse.

        Oh, is that the definition. Interesting. And here I was thinking "Blog" was merely a stupid abbreviation of "Web log". It would therefore mean that it is some kind of a web-journal where regular entries are made.

        And personally, on my weblog, I'm not going to have any inhibitions about deleting whatever comments I want, for whatever reason I want. It's not a "site for public news and discourse". It's a site where I spew lies, write boring shit, display my incompetence for all to see, and occasionally put something interesting up (Much like Slashdot!) I think HP ought to have the same privilege on their own site.
        • There are very informative blogs out there, containing useful info. Such as hidden product defects, flaws, and other critical breakspots about products.

          HP, like any other big company, put too much $$$$ into these engineering projects. They can't afford to have it not be profitable.

    • Re:It's their web server (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @11:06PM (#12459656)

      They have no obligation to host data on their servers that doesn't benefit them. If you have something negative to say about HP you have every right to publicize your message. HP doesn't have to pay for it, though.

      True. However, if the goal is to have an open discourse towards the improvement of their products, this type of behaviour is, umm, not so good.

      Then again, this could always be a post-Carly spin pseudo event designed to draw attention.

      Yes, I have an original HP-11C and you can pry it from my cold, dead hand.
      • Yes, and eventually it will degrade their website to not much more than a fan-boy forum, or a crowd of "ditto-heads".

        Such places rarely get educated traffic, or even much of the traffic of their clients, as people who really want to evaluate the product or fix their installations will be Googling for "Product X problems" which will never hit thier site.
    • You're right on so many levels it cannot be argued that you are "wrong". I think the thing I don't like about it is they are providing a forum that an average person would believe is supposed to be made of general opinion, and then they delete what is not in their interest. This is fine as you point out....sort of.

      With that, it should be mandatory their content is labeled an advertisement like magazine articles that try and play like an article.

  • From Hawks Blog (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:27PM (#12459443)
    Update: It would appear that David Gee has changed his mind and has reinstated my comment along with a comment from him saying he would pass the feedback along. A good first step. I've asked for an explanation as to why it was removed and hopefully will hear back soon.

  • Why YRO? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:29PM (#12459454) Homepage Journal
    Did you think you have the RIGHT to post something on their site and have it published continuously? It's their server, they can do what they want. Publish your own freaking blog. Your Rights Online, indeed.

    • Re:Why YRO? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You do have the right to know when a collection of postings has been filtered and censored. That's just truth in advertising. If they don't clearly state that the published comments are unrepresentative of the comments received, and you buy something based on that collection of comments, they have committed fraud.

      Of course, maybe you're OK with that if you are one of these "I have a fiduciary duty to steal" type of people.

      • Re:Why YRO? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by chez69 ( 135760 )
        No, you don't have a 'right' to know if a collection of postings is filtered. Use your freaking brain and figure it out. Do you think that a company would allow a bunch of people to troll their stupid astroturfing blog site? of course not.

      • Re:Why YRO? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Malor ( 3658 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:59PM (#12459616) Journal
        I think that's exactly right. Newegg is a classic example of censored comments... but they admit it right up front, basically telling you right to your face that they delete negative comments about products and that you shouldn't make buying decisions solely based on their product feedback.

        Now, I don't like their deletion policy, but their honesty about HAVING one means I still trust the corporate entity and continue to buy from them. I mostly ignore the comments, because I know they're biased. I'd PREFER for the comments to be mostly unedited. They would be more useful to me that way. But when they tell me right up front they're not, I have no problem with it.

        So it CAN be done that way, and it's still ethical. Without that kind of disclaimer, however, a public comments section carries an implication that the public can freely comment. I don't expect fully uncensored comments, since they ARE a corporate entity and can't exactly be publishing every trollish, obscene, or off-topic thing that anyone wants to say, but it should be edited as lightly as possible.

        Deleting negative comments because they are critical is highly unethical unless you are most clear, in big bold print, that you are doing so.
        • it's still quite easy to find negative comments about products on newegg. so they definitely don't delete all of them. perhaps they only go after the troll posts.

        • Re:Why YRO? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by vwjeff ( 709903 )
          I've found that newegg does not censor negative comments regarding products. They do however censor inappropriate comments. If the comment has nothing to do with the product, service, ect. it is deleted.

          As an example, this comment would be deleted:

          Did any of you see the game yesterday? I can't believe the Vikings won.

          This comment would be acceptable:

          Yesterday I watched the Vikings game on this TV tuner card. The software was easy to install and the package got here fast.

          This comment would also be a

      • Re:Why YRO? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Chess_the_cat ( 653159 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @11:02PM (#12459635) Homepage
        You do have the right to know when a collection of postings has been filtered and censored.

        The foresight of the Founding Fathers to add that to the Bill of Rights was truly astounding.

        • What does this have to do with the Constitution? I assume you mean the First Amendment, which starts out "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech..."

          It's HP's site. They get to do whatever they want with it.
    • It's just a topic title, not the word of law. While not really a "right", it's certainly in the same genre of discussion. Try not to be so literal.

      While HP can certainly do what they want with their server, the whole "customer service" aspect of the site goes down the tubes as soon as they start censoring legitimate claims. Why is it whenever someone or some company has a legal right to something, people start acting like the right to do something also means they haven't done anything wrong? The law an
  • corporate blogs are just another arm of their public relations department, everything needs to be positive, big whoop. Once in a while they might include *insider* information, but thats usually sanctioned..

    Really, find a way to blog anonymously and rip your company to shreds. Fucked Company [fuckedcompany.com] or whatever is probably a good way to go about it.
    • "corporate blogs are just another arm of their public relations department, everything needs to be positive, big whoop.

      Even if negative stuff was allowed, I'm not sure why anybody would trust a corporate blog as the ONLY source of information. I'm not thinking about the common sense factor of it here, but rather the different ways people express themselves. For example: I create 3D artwork. That means I have specific uses for 3D cards. If I have an issue with my card, I'm FAR more likely to ask the q

  • Jackass (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bitpart ( 711523 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:37PM (#12459498)
    You made a jackass comment that was neither well written nor respectful (as you described it in your own blog post) on a company blog. I'm surprised they even put it back up. [hp.com]
    • I don't see why blogging as a company PR move should make it under any obligation to host a seemingly bitter and vindictive comment from someone who admits to going around and telling people how horrible they are and not to buy their products.
    • He didn't swear, call anyone names, made no personal attacks, etc. He's simply expressing his displeasure at the poor customer support he's received. I really don't see how much nicer, but honest he could have been. How do you expect people to express dissent? Or do you perhaps think a company blog should just be full of yes men who love the product?

      If HP doesn't want people to say negative things about the company, don't let anyone post any comments at all. It's as simple as that.

    • Re:Jackass (Score:2, Interesting)

      by seventysevens ( 882080 )
      The comment wasn't even relevant to the post or the blog's overall topic (management software/HP OpenView). The blogger certainly isn't responsible for hosting off-topic comments about Media Center PCs!

  • What was that proverb? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cytlid ( 95255 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:38PM (#12459503)
    Some Japanese thing saying "If you believe everything you read, you shouldn't read."

    I like screwing with people. I like managing a webserver. I'd give someone free hosting for their blog and change all kinds of stuff on them, bofh style.

    Who cares, really? What if I wanted to say wh ILOVESLASHDOT ILOVESLASHDOT ILOVESLASHDOT nd that was on here for example, you don't think they'd edit it, do you?
  • HP, of course, associated with these people (read: they pay them to blog). The blog is meant to get them attention, and free advertising. Posting thoughtful comments is really not what they have in mind: they want "HP Goooooooood" comments on the site. Naturally, someone being critical of the company that is hosting such a site will be silenced.

  • Slashdot $$$ (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 06, 2005 @10:44PM (#12459538)
    "Is it one-sided blogging to only let people say positive things about your company on your blog?""

    Slashdot is wonderful! OSTG is great! No I'm not being paid to say such things

    • Re:Slashdot $$$ (Score:2, Insightful)

      by game kid ( 805301 )
      It's great to know VA Software is censo^Wactively poring over our complaints and comments to bring us the best meta-news environment possible.
  • You have all the freedom in the world to say just about anything you want on your OWN press (i.e., your own server and your own blog). You have NO right to say what you want on somneone else's press or blog. And if you violate the terms and conditions of the site in question, don't be surprised if bannination ensues.

    You have the right to speak, but no one is required to listen.

    You have no right to use anyone else's press, be it my web page, HP's blog, or Fox News. Freedom of the Press doesn't override

  • "Company blogs" sound like the stupidest quasi-astroturfing lame-o crap to ever hit the Internet. And if an HP employee blogs about the company on the company's servers, does anyone really expect that any negative comments about the company will necessarily be allowed?

    I fully support HP's right to delete any comment from HP-hosted blogs at will, and I further support everyone's right not to waste precious minutes of their one and only precious and oh-so-finite lifetime reading such drivel. Why do you car
  • Means that when you own it, you have the right to censor it. Not going to argue if it's a good diea or not for HP to do this, but they are will within their rights.

    I mean when you get down to it, all blogs exist for pushing the point of view of the owner. Even if you allow comments, they certianly dont' have the same prominence as your own posts and many blogs don't have them at all.

  • It's about intellectual honesty (Score:3, Insightful)

    by twigles ( 756194 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @11:00PM (#12459618)
    HP's stated intention on that blog is to have an open dialogue with customers. That *implies* both good and bad comments. It does not explicitly say that they are going to publish anything, but there is an expectation that they will publish negative comments as well. To do so reduces the blog to another advertising avenue, which is fine except if they admitted that then no one would go there.

    So basically HP was intellectually dishonest about the intention of the blog, and if you read the rest of the comments you see they are almost all a bunch of ring-kissing cheerleader posts. The fact that they re-posted the comment is not impressive at all, it just means they aren't completely incompetent at damage control.

    Personally I have nothing for or against HP, but this blog doesn't really seem worth the time or effort to look at, and the people involved with it have lost my trust.
  • IMHO, the real point here is wouldn't you like to live in a world where companies and people actually could be honest and open? The current ethical cesspool really benefits no one.

    I'm so tired of overly affluent, unethical people who claim to be where they are because of honest efforts. Sure.
  • This is corporate America we are talking about--not freedom of speech. Their marketing people are all about "positive spin" for everything. They're profiteers cashing in on a new fangled fad where you're nothing but an emerging market demographic.

    You must be smoking crack if you even thought your negative comment would go unchecked on a large corporation's website.

    Now, it would be nice to live in a Utopian world where people are treated fairly, corporations aren't greedy, and their products don't have

  • There have been a number of comments here saying that you are not obligated to host what you don't want to. Makes some sense. But...

    Are you obligated to route stuff you don't want to? If I'm Quest or Verizon or somebody, and my router sees a packet coming in that contains the plaintext "Verizon sucks," am I obligated to route that?

    What if I have routers and I'm the Chinese government?

    • If I'm Quest or Verizon or somebody, and my router sees a packet coming in that contains the plaintext "Verizon sucks," am I obligated to route that?

      Aren't those companies "common carriers"? Wouldn't that be equivalent to the phone company bleeping your calls every time you said "boy I sure hate my phone service!" into your telephone during a conversation? I'm pretty sure THAT'S illegal (I hope).
  • Something similar happened to me and others with the HP support forums. See the following thread: http://tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID= 2 1659&whichpage=3 [tabletpcbuzz.com]
    In particular (since that site can not take much trafic)
    ---- citing relevant parts of the thread on tabletpcbuzz:
    Hmm. My efforts turned out to be futile, since HP removed all my complaints about the loud fan from the support forums. Maybe I was a bit intrusive after few days, when both technical support couldn't help, and my complaints r

  • This happens all the time on political blogs (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Very regularly. Try going over to http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/ [j-bradford-delong.net] and entering something which departs from the party. Then count to ten...

  • Um, check out the screenshot of the comment (Score:4, Insightful)

    by elo_sf ( 838722 ) on Friday May 06, 2005 @11:21PM (#12459729) Homepage
    Not respectful, not on topic, not even clear what the complaint is.

    If I were HP, would delete it simply for incoherence.

    See http://thomashawk.com/hello/305309/1024/HP%20Comme nt%20Screenshot-2005.05.06-08.19.47.jpg [thomashawk.com] for screen shot.
  • Ok, so, I read Gee's reply "Taking it on the Chin".

    Uhmm, I thought that that phrase was a reference to oral sex... but that really doesn't sound like something that that would make it into HP's blog.

    What does the phrase taking it on the chin mean?
  • It just backlashed at them with the /. story.

    [nelson]Ha hah![/nelson]
  • This entire post would make more sense if someone would explain what a "blog" was.
    • A blog is short for "web log" and it's basically a public online diary. There is often the feature to comment on the diary entries.

      Most importantly, there were public online diaries long time before the invention of the buzzword "blog". It's not particularly cool to have an online diary, but it's way cool to have a blog, even if they are the same thing. It's like iPod versus any other portable mp3 player.

  • This is why HP has fallen so far from where it once stood as technology company.

    A customer makes a bonafied and honest comment regarding his experience with one of their products and what do they do? Delete and then ignore it.

    His complaint wasn't even highly critical. Regardless of the retraction which only seems to have occured because of bad PR it has really solidified by view of HP overtime. The old HP is truly dead and dead.

    I'm sorry but this is enough for me to make sure that I stay away from HP stu
  • I was on The Daily Kos, they posted about how a Conservative Republican was acting like a terrorist, I posted on how some other politicans who were Liberal Democrats who also acting like terrorists, and my account was "anonymized" in that the post was deleted and my account was no longer able to post or create a diary.

    I heard The Free Republic does that to people who hold different views too, but I am not on there to confirm it.

    Same thing with Kuro5hin, I had a different point of view than some editors there held, and I was "anonymized". Lots of users got "Anonymized" as I recall. Many signed back on with new accounts, protesting their rights being taken away.

    Apparently the freedom of speech does not apply to blogs. None of them, apparently, support the freedom of speech to one who posts a negative comment or a different point of view.

    On other forums, like IWETHEY, you will get flamed for having a different opinion than the groupmind.

    Apparently this is abuse from those who hold a majority point of view, editor, or administration access of a blog or forum. Fascism, Communism, it don't matter, because your right to post your opinion is taken away without even a warning or reason why it was taken away. If not, you are personally attacked until you are forced to leave.
    • But if they're going to filter out negative comments, they shouldn't be surprised when people don't trust them worth a flying *** and consider them a bunch of liars. No law against lying, except in certain circumstances, but wise people don't do business with them.

      Now IF they had been clearly up front about things, this wouldn't be the perception or the reality. As it is... well, you make your choice, I'll make mine.

      Actually, this isn't quite fair, as my choice was made by the last call that I made for
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • That blog seems to be sitting behind a diode.

    A very sophisticated diode, that is.

  • It's their right (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitalgimpus ( 468277 ) on Saturday May 07, 2005 @12:25AM (#12460037) Homepage
    but its also our right to discuss their policies, and not respect them as a company as a result of them.

    They now have a PR fire to put out. They can get the lawyers if they want... but they will need years to put this one out.

    They are now known for silencing anyone who disagrees with them among the tech community.

    Personally I don't censor anything on my blog unless it's: illegal, obscene (and I'm rather liberal about this one), racist, etc. I don't really care about critical comments. I just don't want people to read and be offended by what they read in my visitors comments.

    HP's going to need a lot of PR to undo the damage this slashdot story will do to it.

    Sorry HP, you blew it. Go ahead, for now on, your blog community is useless as a PR tool because nobody trusts it. Even Business Week realized how important blogs are to business. And you managed to ruin your blog presence. Bravo.

    If I were a VP at HP, I would seriously consider terminating who ever made that policy decision. That easily costs millions in PR (the fact that it ruined the "blogs as PR" strategy). You can make a mistake at work, but one one that ruins a marketing strategy of such large size.

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out. My guess is HP is not just going to read this slashdot article and ignore it. Heads may turn, they may lash out at bloggers who comment on it, and try to scare them... but they will respond.

    Lets just hope they learn something, and other companies get the idea: silence customers, and they ruin your business.

  • Before Screenshot? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by eluusive ( 642298 )
    How did he get the before photo? I don't know about you, but I don't go around taking screenshots of my desktop randomly... Did he start with the assumption that HP is evil and would therefore delete his comment and thus need the evidence?
    • One of the best things that I've ever seen on the internet was a Powerpoint presentation where a guy broke up with his girlfriend via Powerpoint. It was brilliant. The sarcasm, the humor, it was just over the top. I was thrilled to have found it. Shortly after I found it though it was popularized through some site (Boing Boing, I think) and shortly thereafter it was gone. Poof. Like it had never existed. I kicked myself that day for losing what was one of the most brilliant things I'd ever read. It
  • So it's friday night and i'm spending it reading the posts around the public discussion i had with Tom http://h20276.www2.hp.com/blogs/gee/2005/04/12/111 3321761000.html [hp.com] which started in earnest today. to be honest, when tom posted yesterday, i was travelling back west from the east coast and didn't know his post was removed until i got into the office this morning PST and reversed the decision which is being so passionately debated here. We run a commercial enterprise which lives and dies by our ability
  • HP has recently been making the rounds promoting their new company blogging efforts.
    [...]
    So imagine my surprise when I tried to legitimately leave a comment critical of HP at David Gee's HP blog and had my comment quickly erased and my HP passport (required to leave comments) revoked.
    It sounds like several people at HP need to read the Cluetrain Manifesto [cluetrain.com].

  • This reeks of HP (Score:2, Interesting)

    by skomes ( 868255 )
    Yeah, this is definitely HP's style. After the uproar that they had decided not to offer a windows mobile 2003se upgrade for their PDAs (even though they had already developed the upgrade and had shown it at a trade show, and I used this info when I decided on my purchase of a 2210) so that they could make way for their new lineup of PDAs using 2003se. The massive uproar in the forum was very well controlled, nonetheless, it was moderated, and eventually, the entire thread regarding the subject was closed,
  • What right is being violated or threatened here? The servers belong to HP, the way I see it they have the right to delete anything they want. It might not be nice, but that's an entirely different matter.

    Slashdot editors, can you at least *try* to keep the section on topic please?
  • Some of these fool authority figures think that it is the blog that has the credibilty, and not the honesty that has the credibility. They think they can have it both ways, at least for a little while. So they censor all balance and negativity out of the blog, and think it'll keep its credibilty, hopefully indefinitely, but at least long enough for them to make the next quarterly sales and stock targets. By then, the next medium with an undeserved reputation for honesty will be ready for exploitation.
  • Let's be honest... as things stand we only have one isolated incident to base things on. Comments like "this proves HP can't be trusted" have about as much credability as Gee's decision to remove the comment in the first place.

    I agree with the guy who said you can't treat a company as a single entity. This was plainly an error of judgement by one guy who decided to pull a comment he didn't like on his blog. The error was compounded because he didn't consider at the time that it could end up somewhere l

  • If its HP, they can control the content as they feel, and welcome to the real world.

    If its not HP, then bring it up to the owners.
  • Chris Locke [rageboy.com] predicted this behavior with his book Gonzo Marketing. [amazon.com] Some exerpts from it are here. [riccistreet.net]

    People are interested in REAL conversations, not the contrived sort of marketdroid speech that makes people want to gag. People are also very good about recognizing BS when it occurs, and the internet is an effective way to provide negative feedback. (How long will it be before the HP blog comes down?)

  • Thomas Hawk is a rude, arrogant prick (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dorzak ( 142233 ) <dorzak@@@gmail...com> on Saturday May 07, 2005 @07:37PM (#12464720) Journal
    I personally don't like this Thomas Hawk, from this whole thing.

    1) If you read his blog about it, he insults ALL IT professionals and tech support people in particular.

    2) His post on HP's site was not well written.

    3) He then expects slashdot to rally behind him.

    Sure, Slashdot didn't post it before it was changed back, however he sought this avenue before that point.

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