• @[email protected]
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    1201 month ago

    Yeah, they used paid models to do some weird shit who took the job and by hashtagging it, retweeting it and sharing it on Lemmy you just put the PaloAlto logo in front of millions more people…

    Its almost like their plan worked perfectly

    • @Kecessa
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      661 month ago

      “on Lemmy”

      “millions of people”

      Lulz

      • @[email protected]
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        91 month ago

        Like when people say nationstates and corporations are astroturfing lemmy, I’m sure bruh, manipulating all those thousands of people will have dire geopolitical outcomes.

        • @[email protected]
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          41 month ago

          This is the same ignorant shit as “I don’t mind surveillance, because i’ve got nothing to hide.”

          Marketing agencies and the likes actually like new platforms as they rarely have strict spam prevention mechanism and analytics to prevent astroturfing, multiple accounts, automation, proxies and everything relating to brigading.

          Do you think automating some shit posting on an online forum costs a million dollar or something?

          An intern could code a bot in an hour and add in to the already operating workflow. There are also ready-made products that just fill in forms and do social shit.

          But sure bruh, no one’s doing anything you don’t know. You got it all figured out.

          • @[email protected]
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            1 month ago

            I didn’t qualify my comment because I was just shit talking but seeing you’re passionate about the subject let me further share some of my opinions.

            I actually do believe that a place like lemmy could be used as testing grounds before bigger campaigns. I know this because I saw the first instances of Russian propaganda and Russian trolls in LiveLeak back in 2008. I see now a lot of the same strategies and talking points that they were employing a decade and a half ago. It feels as if liveleak was a sandbox where they honed a lot of their strategies before taking it to a wider audience.

            That being said, I saw people crying about astroturfing on Lemmy because they were salty about something, when their clearly wasn’t anything going on. Also, having dealt with it for decades I think it’s pretty easy to pick up when trolls are present manipulating narratives. It’s like seeing a bad actor in a play, you just knownthey are acting. And also, even as a sandbox I don’t think there are armies of trolls dedicated to Lemmy. I can see maybe a handful of actors maybe coordinating. Hasbarah, who is clearly very active on Reddit, doesn’t seem to have done much here on lemmy which would be fertile grounds for them. Same with the 50 Cent Army and Russian trolls.

    • @[email protected]
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      281 month ago

      Or we call out this weird shit loudly, don’t treat it like some “companies will be companies” thing, and maybe the people who would have worked with PaloAlto previously will reconsider working with the weird company that tried to present women as objects.

      Not talking about this stuff is what got us here in the first place.

      • @[email protected]
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        -131 month ago

        So if one of the models was a man in a suit with a lampshade on their head you would have no problem and this would be perfectly normal?

        • @Dentzy
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          1 month ago

          Here, boys, girls and everyone in between, we can see a textbook example of a strawman fallacy; you made up a scenario that is not the one being discussed, then you assigned OP a reaction to that made up scenario that you cannot know if it is true -as that is not what OP is reacting to- and that made up position is what your comment is criticizing.

          We don’t know OP’s reaction to men in lampshades because that is not what we are seeing in the picture, we are seeing two women dressed as lampshades, so, as long as new, different pictures do not show up, OP and me will think that Palo Alto treat women as objects, we might change our position if new information goes out, but for now, that is what we have to judge.

          And -before you try it again-, no I would not think it is OK if those were two men, neither if those were a man and a woman, or a kid and a parent or two grandpa’s or two grannies… Should I keep making up scenarios so you can focus on the one at hand? Or is this enough?

          • @[email protected]
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            1 month ago

            Not the person that asked the question, but I am someone who asks those types of questions:

            They asked if you would feel the same if the only thing that was different was it being a man in a suit instead of a woman in a cocktail dress. They’re trying to understand where exactly your objection lies - and you did answer, at the end, which is useful. It seems like your objection to this display is in fact in presenting people as objects; not just because it’s women, not because of their clothing, not because of where it is or who’s doing the hiring. Is that right?

            But the question was not a strawman, or insincere; it was a valid comparison question which appears to be from someone looking for an answer. I think you read aggression into it that was not there. Edit: Okay, I understand why you’d take that impression on the re-read and I can’t say for sure it wasn’t insincere, I’m just giving the benefit of the doubt. They need to work on their communication skills, but that’s hardly uncommon, and it doesn’t make the question a strawman.

            Another question then, and this one is also sincere: there are plenty of art installations that present people as objects in some way. Is that fine in your book? If so, is this objectionable because it’s advertising? I would think you’re fine with it in art of i had to guess, but I’ve been surprised before!

            • Aedis
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              101 month ago

              It was definitely a loaded or insincere question. The use of “you would” instead of “would you” suggests that the person who is asking this question has already made up their mind about OP’s opinion. And no, I don’t think that was a typo, a Freudian slip maybe, but not a typo.

              • @[email protected]
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                1 month ago

                Re-reading the post, I absolutely agree that it was phrased badly and unfairly ascribed a view to @Dentzy they hadn’t espoused, but I still don’t think it was fair to characterise it as a strawman. As to malice, I find Hanlon’s Razor to hold more true than Occam’s, and I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt wherever reasonable if I’m up to it.

                Personally, I find @Dentzy’s opinion that it wouldn’t be okay in any scenario (meaning with any combination of people) a little odd. The specific problems for women in tech make this carry connotations that wouldn’t be there if it were adult men under the lampshades for example. But, I can understand and generally agree with the idea that “presenting people as objects is not okay”, even if I would put an asterisk on it because I think there’s artistic value in that presentation in some situations (for example, as an illustration of the way that rich people or corporations view the majority of us).

                • @[email protected]
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                  11 month ago

                  A strawman argument is still a strawman even if there was no malicious intent and it was made through ignorance of making a proper argument.

                  The phrasing isn’t just poor, though, it has a connotation/implication that can only be learned through social context. There’s absolutely aggressive intention with the phrasing. At the very least a “gotcha” attempt. Maybe they were raised in that environment and thus are uneducated and generally antagonistic, but then Hanlon’s Razor would extend to any acts of hate.

                  I always like to ask “are you being judgemental or curious?” (Thanks, Ted Lasso)

          • @[email protected]
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            -11 month ago

            Here, boys, girls, and everything in between…

            When calling someone out, it’s best not to be condescending yourself in your opening. You didn’t elevate the discussion with that, you invited them to a slap fight.

            And like the other person said so well, there is sincere reason for the question. But you clearly don’t want to engage honestly and instead be dismissive yourself.

            • @Dentzy
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              126 days ago

              The problem is that, by now, asking that question cannot be viewed as sincere, it is the constant tool used by misogynists to take away any conversation about women’s rights/issues.

              Is there a time and a place for that question? Yes. Was this post that time and place? No.

          • mad_asshatter
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            -11 month ago

            100% correct, but your comment won’t supercede theirs or the other misguided ones.

    • Optional
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      91 month ago

      I had this discussion when Tiger Woods’ affair, et. al., was in the news. My friend argued the classic, “No such thing as bad press.”

      And I disagreed.

  • Optional
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    781 month ago

    Even if we accept the idea that “booth babes” are a legitimate marketing ploy, this symbolic blinding-and-deafening of them and removing their faces (symbolically, their humanity) is superfuckingweird.

    Seriously, how this got through to execution is pretty shameful.

    • @Kecessa
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      241 month ago

      Booth babes turned me off car and motorcycle shows… Get me someone who can talk about the product, not a girl hired to look good around it.

    • @Soulg
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      -11 month ago

      It’s happy hour, having a lamp shade on your head while drunk at a house party is a very old media trope, you are reaching SO hard.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 month ago

        You normally dress up in slinky black dress and stand motionless in front of some advertising for a multi-billion dollar computer company at these house parties?

        This is a shame too, as Paloalto has some good products. Now they have a layer of “skeeve” slathered on.

      • Optional
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        41 month ago

        For men. It’s a very old trope for men.

        Because women in the 1950s when the trope started wouldn’t put something stupid on their heads. Even if they were drunk.

        You’re rationalizing SO hard.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 month ago

    I use to be in corporate sales, did a lot of conferences. Even in the most “professional” corporations the sales team culture is pretty garbage. My company was a little bit wilder than the others so I know the kinds of people that would be capable of doing this type of shit. The only way I can describe is as shock value, kinda “look what we did haha” and Im pretty sure thats whats going on here. Pretty childish.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 month ago

      Depends on which ones:

      Booth babes are mostly making minimum wage + 50% to be hired as a model. ~$20 usd

      If you see her name anywhere she’s getting an appearance fee $1000/hr+ but that usually applies to local celebrities or hired talent.

    • @sugar_in_your_tea
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      11 month ago

      Dunno, but these lamps probably make about half of what regular lamps make.

  • @[email protected]
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    201 month ago

    Looks like someone managed to work their forniphilia kink into the event booth. I don’t even know how this would tie back to Palo Alto in the slightest

    • Match!!
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      21 month ago

      omg i completely forgot it had a name i had just been calling it jd vance syndrome

  • @[email protected]
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    101 month ago

    This has more to do with cybersecurity than you think: Anyone who thinks this booth is related to cybersecurity urgently needs cybersecurity advice.

    • @[email protected]
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      61 month ago

      This is undoubtedly a cocaine fueled decision.

      Long drag off of 13th consecutive cigarette

      “Yeah man, yeah! And then we can have sexy lamp bitches at the entrance and a guy doing chainsaw ice sculpting and…”

    • @[email protected]
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      1 month ago

      idk, maybe that women have a bright mind.

      But I don’t think they want us to tell anything at all, other than that it’s marketing that makes people look.

  • Monkey With A Shell
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    51 month ago

    It’s marked on the poster as a happy hour event. The old ‘lampshade on head drunk’ character is what I’d guess the intention was, nothing more. It’s a bit at odds with a formal dress since it’s normally associated with a more raucous frat party type image, so not the best thought out particularly in a business presentation, but I doubt it was anything more sinister than that.

    • @Soulg
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      21 month ago

      Yeah the ideas people are having in this thread is far more gross than what this actually is, imo. Those people need to go outside and interact with real people instead of sitting on xitter and lemmy all day.

  • @[email protected]
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    31 month ago

    As long as they’re getting paid well to do a job they want to do and have breaks, I don’t see the problem. It’s a job and in this capitalist world, bills have to be paid somehow. Pretty low effort way to earn some money.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 month ago

        Woah woah woah who said anything about a living wage?

        You be getting market rates here at ShittyTechCorp AND NO MORE

        (I’d drop a /s but we all know that’s what they unironically think)