US-Funded 'Social Network' Attacking Pesticide Critics Shuts Down (theguardian.com) 21
The US company v-Fluence secretly compiled profiles on over 500 food and environmental health advocates, scientists, and politicians in a private web portal to discredit critics of pesticides and GM crops. Following public backlash and corporate cancellations after its actions were revealed by the Guardian, the company announced it was shutting down the profiling service. The Guardian reports: The profiles -- part of an effort that was financed, in part, by US taxpayer dollars -- often provided derogatory information about the industry opponents and included home addresses and phone numbers and details about family members, including children. They were provided to members of an invite-only web portal where v-Fluence also offered a range of other information to its roster of more than 1,000 members. The membership included staffers of US regulatory and policy agencies, executives from the world's largest agrochemical companies and their lobbyists, academics and others.
The profiling was one element of a push to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports. Lighthouse collaborated with the Guardian, the New Lede, Le Monde, Africa Uncensored, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other international media partners on the September 2024 publication of the investigation. News of the profiling and the private web portal sparked outrage and threats of litigation by some of the people and organizations profiled. [...]
v-Fluence says it not only has eliminated the profiling, but also has made "significant staff cuts" after the public exposure, according to Jay Byrne, the former Monsanto public relations executive who founded and heads the company. Byrne blamed the company's struggles on "rising costs from continued litigator and activist harassment of our staff, partners, and clients with threats and misrepresentations." He said the articles published about the company's profiling and private web portal were part of a "smear campaign" which was based on "false and misleading misrepresentations" that were "not supported by any facts or evidence." Adding to the company's troubles, several corporate backers and industry organizations have cancelled contracts with v-Fluence, according a post in a publication for agriculture professionals.
The profiling was one element of a push to downplay pesticide dangers, discredit opponents and undermine international policymaking, according to court records, emails and other documents obtained by the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports. Lighthouse collaborated with the Guardian, the New Lede, Le Monde, Africa Uncensored, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and other international media partners on the September 2024 publication of the investigation. News of the profiling and the private web portal sparked outrage and threats of litigation by some of the people and organizations profiled. [...]
v-Fluence says it not only has eliminated the profiling, but also has made "significant staff cuts" after the public exposure, according to Jay Byrne, the former Monsanto public relations executive who founded and heads the company. Byrne blamed the company's struggles on "rising costs from continued litigator and activist harassment of our staff, partners, and clients with threats and misrepresentations." He said the articles published about the company's profiling and private web portal were part of a "smear campaign" which was based on "false and misleading misrepresentations" that were "not supported by any facts or evidence." Adding to the company's troubles, several corporate backers and industry organizations have cancelled contracts with v-Fluence, according a post in a publication for agriculture professionals.
What's good for the goose... (Score:5, Funny)
[Byrne] said the articles published about the company's profiling and private web portal were part of a "smear campaign" which was based on "false and misleading misrepresentations"
So... kinda like the stuff you were doing to the critics of pesticides and GM crops?
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It's a nice stock phrase. Other's should use it too:
[hypothetical bad person says reports of their crimes are]... a "smear campaign" which was based on "false and misleading misrepresentations
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But once the victims realize that they can ask their AI what "turnabout is fair play" means, then the games may begin.
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Because the toxins kill you much, much, much slower than starving to death. Those toxins guarantee that Panama Disease doesn't destroy a country's entire crop of bananas, that Phylloxera Louse doesn't destroy all the grape vines. (Nowadays, farmers also use different breeds of a plant to minimize such plague and pestilence.) So you have food, even mediocre food that allows to you live healthy for a long time. Notice that health research is currently fixated on microplastics 'poisoning' the body, not ins
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It only works temporarily of course. If crops can be resistant to something, then so can pests. Just a question of evolution and monocultures speed up evolution. The failure of antibiotics is just the start.
Health research is interested in highly persistent chemicals too. Most new pesticides are organofluorine, persistence is so very nice for a pesticide. Unfortunately we can't evolve as fast as microbes, so accumulation is more of a problem for us.
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Notice that health research is currently fixated on microplastics 'poisoning' the body, not insecticides.
Welcome to capitalism, where research into what's killing us is directed by popular opinion.
Starvation was predicted by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock (1970) but it didn't happen because of new insecticides.
That was only way to make it not happen. We're making stronger, pesticide-resistant bugs, and we're killing off the bugs that predate on the harmful bugs. It's a delaying tactic, nothing more. We don't have a next plan for how to deal with insects.
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How on earth did human beings survive without starving for the thousands of years between the start of farming and today?
Re: Organics, bro (Score:2)
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By not destroying working ecosystems, like we've been doing since inventing agriculture. Nature had a kind of stasis in which the things which eat the plants and the things which eat the things which eat the plants were both developing. Now we've reduced the numbers of both of those things overall, but sometimes we lose control and it's the things which eat the plants which flourish because we've planted massive monocultures of their food while suppressing their predators. So we wind up creating plagues of
Re: Organics, bro (Score:2)
By living a full and happy life well into their thirties.
Punish the customers (Score:3)
No-one's talking about the people buying this harassing and defaming of people doing their job: The US government should punish the customers of v-Fluence. Otherwise, it's enabling 'wash, rinse, repeat'.
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" The US government should punish the customers of v-Fluence. "
Have you not been paying attention? The current alleged administration is populated with likely customers of v-Fluence.
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I was talking about the general habit of US politicians to not punish corporations while this crime is so egregious that politicians can't excuse their owner's bad behaviour. In that respect, the current administration isn't worse or better, it's just eliminating the middle-men (the politicians). As long as politicians protect corporations, the inevitable result will be an administration exactly like the current one.
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Have you not been paying attention? The current administration is finding and ripping out exactly the same sorts of operations all throughout the government. I wouldn't be surprised if we find out that USAID was literally funding these guys - the shutdown timing is sure suspect.
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The current administration is finding and ripping out exactly the same sorts of operations all throughout the government.
No, that's not what they are doing at all. If that's all they were doing, that would be great. What they are doing is shutting down whole agencies and then using the bad parts as an excuse, what they SHOULD be doing is excising the bad parts. But the plan was never "rip out these bad parts we have identified", it has always been "shut down as much of the government as possible to reduce the tax burden on and accountability for the wealthy". They pay 70% of the taxes while they take home 90% of the profit, t
Re: Punish the customers (Score:1)
The targets just don't align with the current administration's objectives, so the perpetrators' "talents" can best be used elsewhere...
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow, this is a spectacular abuse of corporate power, which is unlikely to result in any sanctions against the abusers. And it was paid for by the US government. You couldn't make it up.
The only hope for effective punishment probably lies in the EU's GDPR rules; I would imagine that the system didn't exclude all EU residents.
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