Corporate thugs, bullies and paranoia
There are days where I just have to shake my head in disgust at how some companies and individuals, hiding behind the anonymity of the internet can get away with things that would otherwise find them in front of judge learning there are rather serious consequences behind libelous and slanderous behavior.
Sys-Con Media and its rather thuggish CEO, Fuat Kircaali, in many respects can be the poster boys for this. For years, this guy and his paranoias have been a source of amusement for me. I almost lost my lunch one day, a couple of years back, reading a blog post of his involving an attempted kidnapping of him and what ever arm candy was in the passenger seat of his car at a Mediterranean resort. If nothing else, this guy writes damn good pulp fiction.
Then there was the time , in his role as head of the corporation, that he responded to a certain Jamie-Ane Ervin regarding a couple of suggestions she had made regarding the SysCon site. His reply, unmasks him as somewhat delusional and as the schoolyard bully he really is.
Of course there is the entire Maureen O’Gara fiasco which resulted in the resignation of the senior editorial staff of LinuxWorld. Again, the bullies were brought out and Fuat hid bend them.
The latest round of bullying has been directed at a friend of mine, Aral Balkan. Apparently, and many of us who know Aral were astounded to learn, he is, leading a band of “social media terrorists from within Adobe’s Flex user community”. He then goes on to say he had demanded that Shantanu Narayan, Adobe’s CEO rein in these attacks. The last a lot of us heard was that Aral was still living in Brighton and doing quite well as a freelance Flash and Flex developer. Being an Adobe employee is not something Aral aspires to. Adobe chose to ignore Fuat’s demand whereas we have already seen Fuat’s rather vulgar response to a gentler suggestion.Which kind of makes one wonder whose is the “classier” company?
Of course I could make the same request to Fuat: Rein in Yeshim Deniz and we know that won’t happen.
Then it gets better.
Sys Con has this service called Ulitizer that seems to have as its sole purpose to hawk SysCon’s “confereneces” which, inevitably are regarded as no more useful than a Mary Kay Cosmetics or Amway Sales gathering. There is an individual, Yeshim Deniz who launched a rather nasty attack against Aral.
Here’s where it gets rather shady and cuts right to the heart of SysCon’s brutish behavior.
No one can confirm whether Yeshim Deniz is a real person or a Nom De Plume, The photo of the person writing the post is a model from a Stock Agency and the “purported” photo of Aral on the page is first off not Aral and secondly looks suspiciously like a rather famous Turkish Terriorist. The upshot is the creditibility of the post, the person writing the post and the people, SYS CON, paying for it is suspect. When a publication loses its credibility there are consequences.
What makes this whole post so tragic is the subhead - Wouldn’t it be easier for these spammers just to conduct legitimate business like everyone else?
I agree. Totally. So here’s what I would like to see SysCon do: Next week, reprint Yeshim’s article as an ad in the New York Times and the Washington Post. Let’s put this whole affair in the legitimate media space and “conduct legitimate business” in an honorable manner. The courts will most likely get involved because of the defamation of the Turkish people or because the newspapers will refuse to accept the ad and Sys Con will sue to defend its honor.
What makes this episode more tragic is the fact that there are some very large corporation whose ads are clustered around the blanket defamation of the Turkish people and the slandering of Aral. I am sure that were these companies to be aware of the fact their names and banner ads are associated with this behavior they would pull their ads in a heartbeat and dissociate themselves from this for a very long time.
Finally, Fuat and Yeshim, this really is a picture of me and what I have done.It is not some guy pulled out of a stock photo library. As you may have guessed I don’t hide behind the skirts of anonymity and call people names. So how about you guys suck it up, and start “conducting legitimate business like everyone else.”
You could start with an apology which would be the honorable thing to do. Then again, based upon your business conduct, maybe the word honorable is foreign to you. As such, I will most likely be the subject of a slanderous article,campaign or email which won’t bother me in the least because, in the final analysis, honor trumps sleaze any time.
