The Atlantic is coming under fire for an “article” that appears to be nothing more than a paid advertisement for the Church of Scientology. The piece, which practically deifies church president David Miscavige, looks suspiciously like an actual Atlantic article, with only a small yellow label denoting its status as “Sponsor Content.”
Check out @TheAtlantic photo gallery of brainwashed morons – no, wait, it's an ad for Scientology! http://t.co/SXArnaV0
— Jacob Weisberg (@jacobwe) January 15, 2013
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/290993558436069377
Utterly gobsmacked as to why The Atlantic would accept money to run this Scientology propaganda. http://t.co/iCwLHY2v
— Rhodri Marsden (@rhodri) January 15, 2013
https://twitter.com/joshgreenman/status/290994399553404928
https://twitter.com/joshgreenman/status/290994782422069248
[SPONSORED] Wow, Scientology is really on a roll with all these new churches!
— Parker Higgins (@xor) January 15, 2013
Look, I understand sponsored content is sponsored content, but Scientology is Scienfrickintology.
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) January 15, 2013
Honestly, an ad department flub shouldn't reflect badly on a whole media publication. But it is a flub.
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) January 15, 2013
FYI, all comments on Atlantic scientology piece have to be approved by a moderator. No moderation on regular stories. http://t.co/qAfAZTvT
— Ross Neumann (@rossneumann) January 15, 2013
The squelching of negative comments did not go unnoticed, as anyone knows that troll-free comments sections are not a naturally occurring organism in the ecosystem that is the Internet.
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https://twitter.com/jstrevino/status/290995144877039617
So, I left a comment on the sponsore Scientology article. Just "Are the comments sponsored too?" We'll see if it ever shows up.
— AntiFa Jinx ? ™®©° (@Jennyjinx) January 15, 2013
Comments weren’t 100 percent positive, though. It looks as though one cheeky employee at Disqus was able to override the aggressive comment moderation and sneak in some criticism.
https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/290992618287017984
https://twitter.com/mjrobbins/status/290989787647717376
https://twitter.com/explanoit/status/290993335022280704
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedAndrew/status/290995351454892033
That seemed to break the dam, allowing other negative comments in.
Negative comments now up on the Atlantic Scientology advertorial. Linked to @JohnStumbles' observation that a Disqus staffer weighed in?
— Adam Banks (@adambanksdotcom) January 15, 2013
Even magazine employees expressed discontent. A note on The Atlantic website explains that sponsored content is produced without the input of the magazine’s editorial team. Correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg took the occasion to post a piece on The Atlantic website touting the book, “Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief,” even including an Amazon link. His link to that piece was retweeted by James Fallows, another Atlantic correspondent.
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedAndrew/status/290998808765161472
https://twitter.com/JamesFallows/status/290998052850892802
Atlantic senior editor Alexis Madrigal also gave a shout-out to “Going Clear.”
https://twitter.com/alexismadrigal/status/290999794598563841
https://twitter.com/thehedrick/status/291019230399307776
https://twitter.com/alexismadrigal/status/291020377960894464
The buzz about The Atlantic’s choice of sponsor content was so strong that it even generated a parody account.
https://twitter.com/TheAtlanticAds/status/290988840850694145
https://twitter.com/TheAtlanticAds/status/290985001191866369
Brilliant!
* * *
Update: The infamous Mat Mullen of Disqus weighs in and laments that his comment disappeared as well.
RT @rossneumann: Is this guy who commented on Atlantic scientology piece only able to comment b/c he works at Disqus? http://t.co/c2QqCToi
— hundreds of billions of triangles (@alexnklein) January 15, 2013
@alexnklein @rossneumann Doesn't work like that, it ended up getting deleted just like all the others unfortunately.
— Mat Mullen (@matmullen) January 15, 2013
Update: The Atlantic has removed the Scientology ad “pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.”
https://twitter.com/alexismadrigal/status/291045087440412672
More here:
https://twitter.com/ali/status/291114593059737600
Editor’s note: The title of this post was amended to reflect that it was not firmly established that a Disqus employee circumvented comment moderation to get his negative comment approved. Tweets about his comment making it through moderation were speculation.