Disinformation, Subterfuge, and Propaganda
Late last week, on January 28th to be exact, four suspicious nominations were submitted to the recent post where I invited you to nominate your favorite Internet marketer.
After reading them, I suspected they were fake nominations. Here they are in the order they were received:
Comment #1
“TERRY KARLIN”
I would like to nominate Mike Filsaime.
His success speaks for itself. I’ve bought many of his programs through upsells.
Comment #2
“JOHN CARMICHAEL”
I am amazed that no has yet nominated the coolest IM guy ever: Frank Kern.
Frank is 100% down to earth, genuine, always over-delivers and completely devoted to customer service.
I love his videos and his laid-back attitude. His Mass Control 2.0 is awesome for any serious marketer. I was delighted to recently sign up for his monthly continuity program at only $297 per month. What a steal for such great material.
–John
For the record, “Terry Karlin” and “John Carmichael” both posted their nominations 7 minutes apart from IP address: 24.5.xx.47
But it gets better. Because then these two comments came in a few hours later:
Comment #3
“TERRY GOMEZ”
I would like to RYAN DIESS.
His Perpetual Launch model and software is sheer genius!
Through a clever piece of scripting you can make it look like you are giving a live webinar and hence capitalize on the “urgency” of a live event (cf. Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula) without the stress of actually delivering a live event. The software he provides completely automates the process and leads the viewers to believing whatever their active imaginations’ want. You can segment your list and mail to selected portions each week about the “event.”
His prior partnership with Perry Belcher, convicted felon, should not be held against Ryan.
Comment #4
“MARK PASSION”
My nomination for trusted, high integrity, high impact IM guy is Frank Kern.
Why? So many great products … and just view this super professional video on “The State of the Internet”: [link removed]
It’s rather long (about 30 minutes) but jam-packed with great information and just remarkable in what Frank says. It speaks volumes about his clear integrity and desire to make a difference for all of us in IM.
In a pattern nearly identical to the first two comments, “Terry Gomez” and “Mark Passion” both posted their nominations 12 minutes apart from IP address: 64.134.xxx.148
Digging a Little Deeper
It’s uncanny how similar the tone and even the words are in all of these nominations, isn’t it? Let’s examine some of the similarities.
First of all, there are the shared IP addresses. Both pairs of comments appeared on my blog the same day spaced a few hours apart.
Second of all, I find it humorous that while inventing four different people, our mystery commenter couldn’t even think of four different names. He had to use the name Terry twice: Terry Karlin and Terry Gomez.
What’s more, there’s “Kar-lin” and “Car-michael” used as last names in the first pair of comments. Obviously, the mystery commenter couldn’t use “Car-lin” and “Car-michael” — that’s too obvious. So a letter “K” was used in Terry’s last name.
Third, each of the four comments is completely anonymous. No gravatars. What appear to be fake email addresses used on all of them with the possible exception of Mark’s (he has come back to comment a few times).
Fourth: What’s most interesting of all is the similarity in word choice between John Carmichael and Mark Passion. Look at this:
“I am amazed that no has yet nominated the coolest IM guy ever: Frank Kern.” -John Carmichael
“My nomination for trusted, high integrity, high impact IM guy is Frank Kern.” -Mark Passion
Funny that both John and Mark like to use the acronym “IM” instead of spelling out Internet marketing. (Mark even uses the phrase a second time in the span of three paragraphs.)
Both John and Mark like to use a lot of superlatives. Their nominations are quite salesy and product focused.
In fact, Frank’s products are used as evidence of his character: “over-delivers,” “awesome,” “a steal,” “great material,” “great products,” “great information,” “remarkable.”
John and Mark really like the word “great,” don’t they? And is it just me, or do their comments sound more like thinly veiled sales pitches than genuine nominations?
Mark Passion’s Passion
Mark must not have liked how I flagged his comment along with the other three as being fake. He returned to my blog on Saturday night to try to defend himself. Here’s his comment verbatim.
Hi Ryan,
My entry to your excellent blog was NOT a fake!
Sorry to have to correct you, but my nomination of Frank Kern is quite legitimate. (As is that of my girlfriend for Ryan Deiss!). We wrote our nominations on the same laptop, right after each other given our joint visit to your blog. Is there something wrong with that?
I’m not sure what you hoped to achieve by publishing the IP address– Is that meant to somehow silence my voice and cancel my vote through some cloaked threat that you can hunt me down via a simple-minded IP lookup??
Please keep an open mind and please do allow everyone to link to Frank Kern’s simply remarkable “State of the Internet Address” at [link removed]
If you have some real evidence or verified data that Frank Kern should NOT be nominated, then by all means please post it publicly so that we can all see it and make up our own minds. Your censorship of the link smacks of totalitarianism. Let’s keep the web open for everyone to decide for themselves.
I’m sorry if my nomination offended you but I did follow your guidelines.
Thanks!
Mark
In addition to this response, Mark used his anonymous twitter profile (“TraderPassion”) to tweet my post.
But of course he twisted the truth to make it look as if I had christened myself “sheriff” to clean up Internet marketing. He also claimed I was preventing Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, and Ryan Deiss from being nominated. See for yourself (click to enlarge):
None of Mark’s claims are true.
I have not anointed myself sheriff. I’m not trying to clean up Internet marketing. And I’m not preventing legitimate nominations.
I am trying to prevent fake nominations. Big difference.
In my opinion (and I could be wrong), all four of the nominations I’ve listed above are fake. And I’m not afraid to say it.
The Holes in Mark Passion’s Defense
In Mark’s defense of himself, he claims that he and his girlfriend were using the same laptop to read my blog, and that’s why the two comments came from the same IP address.
I don’t buy it.
Most females I know would not nominate a guy for his “sheer genius” and then immediately deliver a blatant sales pitch for “a clever piece of scripting” designed to fool would-be customers.
(Ladies? Can I get an amen?)
And what normal person comes out of nowhere saying, “His prior partnership with Perry Belcher, convicted felon, should not be held against Ryan.”
I also find it unusual for Mark Passion to be so passionate about promoting Frank Kern. This goes beyond a nomination. Twice he has attempted to link to Frank’s blog — the second time with the admonishment to “keep an open mind” and “please do allow everyone to link to” Frank’s blog.
Huh??
This is not the behavior of a normal person nominating someone.
Then there’s the issue of Mark’s Twitter account, TraderPassion. (Update: As of 2/2/2010, this Twitter profile has now been deleted.) Notice how Mark tries to spin the story to make the gurus look good and make me look bad.
Based on what I know about Frank’s products, it appears to me the person behind this is trying to turn this into a story about how Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, and Ryan Deiss are really the good guys who’ve been unjustly attacked.
Frank did the same thing when he got busted by the FTC. He took the story and turned it into a selling point.
Last but not least, there’s Mark’s parting comment: “I’m sorry if my nomination offended you but I did follow your guidelines.”
Oh, yeah. That’s right. I didn’t say, “No fake comments.” So like any normal person, Mark thought it would be totally okay to pose as multiple fake customers and plug his favorite gurus’ products.
Disinformation, Subterfuge, and Propaganda
One of the problems with the Internet is the ease with which you can pretend to be someone you’re not. The temptation to be anonymous is too tempting a power for some.
If you’ve read the comments on Salty Droid, you’ll often see a dissenting voice appear. More often than not, it’s a guru engaging in some kind of subterfuge.
Back when people were finally becoming disillusioned with James Brausch (a.k.a. “Diego Norte”), James himself lead a campaign of disinformation on Crunch Gear to confuse people and make it look like he was really a good guy.
He even took the fight to a different web site and made false accusations against the author of the original post, John Biggs. Biggs then had to run a follow-up post to defend himself. The comments got so crazy on the second post that he was forced to close them. He wrote:
I’m closing comments because whatever Ponzi scheme these guys are running it’s clear they’re crazy as all get out.
Fortunately, there’s no army of interns leaving fake comments on this blog. At least not yet.
So far, it appears that the fake comments are coming from either Frank Kern, Mike Filsaime, Ryan Deiss, or one of their buddies.
Either way, it’s kind of sad that in the absence of legitimate nominations they’ve resorted to fabricating nominations so they’ll get on the list of ethical Internet marketing teachers.
Which, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a good way of making sure you’re not included on the list.
-Ryan M. Healy
P.S. Mark Passion tried to make the argument that censoring his comment “smacked of totalitarianism.” Let me point out that propaganda is a technique much favored by totalitarians. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse-tung come to mind.
So when you think about it, my censorship of Mark’s propaganda is fighting fire with fire. A totalitarian technique requires a totalitarian response.
P.P.S. Contrary to the recent propaganda, legitimate comments are welcome. Post one below.
