[the_watcher]

It's pretty obvious when you look at who is quoted in these articles that someone is paying for at least one PR push related to this. PG wrote about how this works in one of his older essays, in fact: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

[vogt]

This is so insightful, thank you so much for posting it as I have never seen the article yet it clarifies so much I have always hypothesized. I’m curious if there is any level of transparency (anywhere, not simply the US) as to what PR firms work with specific groups of publishers. Of course I highly doubt this, but I’d love to trace the origins of a lot of these coordinated narratives.