<![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES - Gizmodo Comments]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES - Gizmodo Comments]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> The more I read of Gizmodo, the more I like it...and this is one of the shining examples of why. Thanks for denying that sell-out status and encouraging that the truth be heard.

10ninjas

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Oh, and by the way, daringfireball.net has a nice commentary on your situation that puts the whole thing in prespective.

Hammer Time!

NotMe

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> "You earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity..."

What part of the above statement aligns with your mixing Nokia's sneaky anti-iPhone ads in with legitimate articles? You know, the ones that don't mention Nokia at all, and that pretend to be just another informative Gizmodo article.

Get off the soapbox, Gizmodo. You pissed some people off and you got banned for it. That's life. It's not like nobody ever got banned here pissing you off or anything. I'm not referring to the douchebags who spew racist hatred or the gay bashers, I'm talking about the people who disagreed with an editor a little too much, or that raised one objection too many.

I'll probably take a ban hammer to the skull for this comment, but the truth is the truth.

NotMe

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> What the hell is irreverent about turning off a TV? Grow up! BLAM's response to the incident (not prank) is a load of crap. Morons! There are a lot of tech blogs out there and I would rather invest my time with people that demonstrate a modicum of common sense (or even a good sense of humor). I would think that there will be far reaching (and yet unknown) consequences for Gizmodo in response to these actions.

Journalists report the news, generally, they are not the architects of it.

What's next for you pranksters? Maybe some water balloons for next year?

smartin2007

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I understand CES banning attendees who turn off equipment during presentations - this is pretty much the reason they have an age limit for attendees.

Alot of people are like 'whats the big deal' - its not a big deal, its just a no-brainer for CES to ban people who screw with presentations.

Its exactly like the middle-schooler pointing the laser pointer at the movie screen - no not a huge matter in the scheme of things, but certainly there is no reason to have that kid welcomed back - why would you want him back?

brundlefly76

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @khorsia: There's nothing wrong with humor. I'm sure most everyone who has posted here has a decent sense of humor. The problem is, this prank wasn't humorous.

ParrotHeadFL

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> If a company like Motorola can show that they too have a sense of humor, then *I* believe that the others were simply whiny and far too self-involved and important to understand that humor is an all important and integral part of how we, as humans, deal with things and that poking a little fun never hurt anyone. I very much doubt that this cost ANYONE *any* money whatsoever, but it's very much like the CES Borg. I stopped attending years ago because of "invasion," if you will, of these personality types (as in those who have, apparently, had a personality bypass operation).

khorsia

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> For the love of Mario! They turned off TVs which can turn back on, it's not like they insulted Oprah or anything, which would have been the death of Gizmodo

Tukdude

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @JOHNNYABNORMAL: Yeah, well, I see you're back too, so what's the point of, well, pointing out the obvious, that a lot of previous posters are in this post talking about what Giz has said about the issue? Yeah, yeah, I'm here, so is she, so are you. Whoop-d-do. Brilliant insight.

And, yes, there is a lot going on in the world that deserves our attention, like starvation, rape, injustice. Again, your brilliant insight to the OBVIOUS is overwhelming. We need you to tell us that. Thanks.

We can take a few moments out of our lives to post our opinions about the TV prank. We can also take a few moments out of our lives to volunteer, give money to, and / or write about other issues in the world that are, of course, more important. And some of us do. Thanks for the list of web sites that need our attention more than this issue. I couldn't have found those on my own, and I'm glad I came here because that's EXACTLY what I was looking for while expressing my opinion on the TV Prank issue, which is what THIS POST IS ABOUT.

I don't need a link to anger management, nor do 99% of the posters here. What YOU need is ATTENTION management - attention to the topic at hand.

voicegy

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I do enjoy your "there's worse people out there, we were just playing" defense. In that same vein, I guess it's fine for me to hack Gizmodo and put annoying flash ads...or simply shut the site down for 5/10 min. What's the problem? All you have to do is show your editors and visitors that it was a Denial of Service attack and you'll be fine, right? Oh, you mean not everyone will be there when you make that announcement? That this type of action reflects badly on your site/business/way of life, despite it not being your fault? You guys were a little bit rock & roll, a little bit asshole, don't try and excuse yourself like this, at least own it.

Interstella5555

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Yeah, go ahead and blame the folks who set up the displays for NOT REMEMBERING TO PUT TAPE OVER THE IR PORTS!! I'm so SICK of seeing this stupid remark over and over and over again, the logic behind it is that of an expired FART. That's NOT an argument, so GIVE IT UP.

If you dorks can somehow justify running around a convention turning off TV's with a 20 dollar remote control as some kind of "...homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting...we won't ever stop being irreverent," and have a bunch of drooling 12 year old's agreeing to that and thinking that was the end-all-be-all of hysterical practical jokes and it really "stuck-it-to-the-man," well more power to ya.

YOU DORKS turn off TV's and then justify it with a "word wall" manifesto. Well, congratulations, you ARE the Second Coming of Christ, I should have realized that!

I, IN TURN, go to a convention and decide NOT to turn off TV's. So I'm a corporate sell-out with no sense of humor and should just wander over to the corn field and die since I don't know the meaning of irreverence anymore.

You should have just let the whole thing die, Giz. But you couldn't, could you?

voicegy

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Honestly, I completely agree with just about everything you said. Not to say that you shouldn't have been banned, I mean, come on, you disrupted a whole lot of shit. But seriously, it was in good fun. It's come to the point where anything anyone does to mess with the flow of information scares the shit out of everyone.

Just look at what happened here. People were freaking out because T.Vs were turned off. Are you serious? If a T.V turning off scares you, then I'd like to know how you actually watch the moving images on the T.V.

The amount of bribery today in the information industry is astounding. Honestly though, when a business has to give someone free stuff to say good things about they're product, they should have made a better product. Simple as that.

Xelda4lyfe

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Brian --

::smooch::

great post. as PT and I have discovered in the past couple years, even *bars* know to tape over their IR ports ;)

Violet Blue

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Seriously, what are you, like 12? Your defense for screwing with other people's business is your own self-righteousness? This was a stupid joke done for your own entertainment, and refraining from doing crap like that does not equal "selling out".

You proved you couldn't behave like an adult, that's why you got tossed. It has nothing to do with anything else. Take your lumps like a man - you earned them.

DWes

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Your response does not compute -- playing a prank does not demonstrate journalistic integrity.

Who were you trying to bring to bear? The companies and/or industry? Or journalist without integrity? If I understand your blog above, you take exception with the latter and, thus, I think the more appropriate prank would have been to shut off all the journalist's gadgets. Instead you shot the hand that feeds, like picketing a supermarket to spite the hungry -- it just doesn't make sense.

I would rather appreciate and respect your journalism by the example of your interview with Bill Gates. In depth and insightful interviewing is a valuable commodity and that, itself, garners my respect and allegiance.

Rationalizing this prank as you have shows a very distorted and immature (IMHO) sense of integrity. I think you'd be better off continuing to write good articles without accepting handouts to make your point.

bam0027

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @knappoleon: Why do you consider those who don't find this humorous to be "self righteous [sic] crybabies"? I once again find the stunt's supporters resorting to name-calling. It's unbecoming, and only serves to further underscore the immaturity of the act.

If Giz wants to make the argument that IR technology is insecure and in need of replacement, that's fine. There's certainly something to be said for that position. There are proper times, places, and methods to advocate it. CES was not the proper time or place, and interfering with trade show employees at work was not the proper method.

ParrotHeadFL

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I thought it was funny. I felt bad for people doing demos though. When you think of them as folks just trying to do their jobs in a stressful situation in front of an audience, it's actually kind of mean.

Wayde

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Let me get this straight - you were shutting down someone else's equipment, at someone else's event, after you had been invited (I'm assuming you didn't PAY for your ticket into CES?), and at that invited specifically to cover the presentations that you 'pranked' ... and you are now saying that not doing that is considered selling out?

You state "Our prank pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting." Be nice if someone payed some homage to the journalistic credos of decency, respect, and the concept of reporting the news and not being the news.

Agreed with ARIGATO on the first page of comments, you guys deserve to banned, and considering the amount of money involved by companies both large and small should consider yourselves fortunate you have not been sued or fined for your actions (*yet*).

These actions don't pay an 'homage' to independence, they merely show what a crock of 'fromage' your reporting is, and make it that much tougher for serious internet journalists to succeed and report respectably.

TechTalk WRLR 98.3FM

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I want to be the last comment in this thread of epic fail

bvicarious

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I loved this prank. All you self righteous crybabies just dont get it. If your product is that susecptible to interference or manipulation its a half assed product. Period. This only amplifies the fact that they need to keep up with the times and not rely on old technology i.e. the IR port.

I love this prank, and hell I show people at work and now theyre giz fans too. If someone got in trouble for this prank, they need to grow a pair and point out the defective hardware and not the chump slinging it at a trade show.

Get a clue.

knappoleon

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Non-event-mass-zero aka: much ado about molehills. You're a scammer trying to get page views. You're not Abby Hoffman or a performance / politico artist making a statement. You're just a jerk pulling a stunt for your pageview bonuses. Rationalize your brains out, but you got your hitcounts, you got your money - you probably aren't going to be writing professionally much longer. Short term gain, long term fallout.

That's what seperates professionals from noobs falloutboy.

Montgomery Gabrys

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Great Move !!! The high and mighty can't protect themselves, and expect us to accept that they CAN protect their buyers from malicious "pranksters". Maybe they should get off the high horse they ride upon, and realize they need to exhibit more care in how they do business. If this was a gun show, these guys would probably be handing out loaded weapons, and wondering, "I don't know why he shot up the place, he should be banned."

It would be nice if they accepted some of the blame...If you leave yourself open for any type of abuse, please don't be suprised if somebody takes you up on your offer!!!

TheBigM

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @Out2gtcha: People who resort to cursing and ad hominem attacks would find such a sophomoric stunt to be funny. Only maturity and wisdom will teach them otherwise.

ParrotHeadFL

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Civil disobedience? I don't think that this was what Thoreau had in mind.

Stop hiding behind this these lofty claims of journalistic integrity. Just own up to the fact that you acted like a third grader while the adults were working.

Come off it, man. An homage to independent reporting this was not. Suck it up, eat a little crow, and move on.

brad77

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I still have yet to hear a legitimate reason for pulling this prank other than "for the lulz". No, this post does not provide a legitimate reason.

You know why you can't admit your writer did it just for laughs? Because it would imply that Gizmodo doesn't have journalistic credibility beyond that of a typical tech enthusiast with a juvenile sense of humor. But you do want to be taken seriously, and you want to "have your writers' backs", so to speak, so you have to spin this into something that jibes with your idea of what journalistic integrity is. The problem is it doesn't. The sad part is you have appeared to have convinced yourself that it does.

You keep citing the Gates interview, but the difference there is that you asked him pointed questions, not tipped his chair over or pushed his glasses off his face.

concrete_d

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> IMHO, this prank does not pay homage to anything. It was done to be funny, pure and simple. Some people found it funny, others did not.

Just admit that Gizmodo found it funny and that`s why they did it. Trying to justify as a message about corporations or something after others found it unfunny is lame. Fact-finding, untouchable integrity, reporting? How can waving an IR Blaster at a tradeshow be a part of those qualities?

Turning off a TV during someone poor guy`s presentation? You just wanted to see his reaction, you weren`t sending a message to `the man`. Get off your high horse, admit you made a joke that others didn`t like, and be done with it.

`Sorry, we thought it was funny, but aparently not everyone did`.

Ravlen

Ravlen

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I'm a little late to the party. Work and all, you understand.

Ummmm...I'm confused at what turning off tvs during a presentation by a company has to do with some sort of wild idea on vindication and liberation against corporate oppressors who seek to bed media such as yourself. Sorry. Bad juju guys, aint buying it.

Oneon1isto

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @wishfullthinkng: I would laugh my ass off if Steve Jobs was pranked. I love Apple gear too, but Steve-O totally needs a prank. Maybe hacking the frequency of his wireless mic and inserting some BOOM! sfx? Having a jailbroken iPhone appear on the screen instead of a unhacked one? These don't even require much man power.

johnnyabnormal

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Okay... just a theoretical question.
For those who keep telling all of the professionally minded people here that it was a joke and to lighten up, coupled with Blam's justification, would it make sense to just do it at MacWorld, since it's:

a) just a joke

b) warranted, as the journalists of such a blog are the unspoken saviors of these corporations?

c) it was done once, why not twice?

wishfullthinkng

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Your response is ridiculous and flawed. I love Gizmodo and I think Giz *does* stand for independent journalism; however the prank has nothing to do with journalism. It was sophomoric and juvenile and by defending it as a means of underscoring Gizmodo's independence is just lame. Nice try. Stick to doing what you do well, writing about shiny toys - and grow up.

fairandbalanced11

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Hogwash. You can audit the corporations without acting like a brat.

navvywavvy

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I agree with Arigato -

If it had been a funny prank, I'd have backed you all the way but turning off TVs. Wow, that's just not hilarious as well as being childish.

Now the guy with the water tank testing cameras - that was funny.

Nyle

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> This has got be one of the most pathetic defenses for a prank that I've ever read. Gizmodo has every right to be skeptical and irreverent in its coverage and commentary. But turning off random TV displays as a trade show is not journalism, editorial comment or even a simple matter of eyewitness coverage and blogging.

It's an act of vandalism that causes chaos for no other reasons than cheap laughs and self-glorification. Your readers didn't learn anything about CES or the companies there from your blogger's TV-zapping. Real journalists cover the story and not their proximity to it. They try NOT to participate in the story in order to be impartial. They DON'T make a story by making a scene or nuisance of themselves and then bragging about it.

You wrote

"You don't get more access by selling out for press credentials first chance you get, kowtowing to corporations and trade shows and playing nice; you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity, provocative coverage and gaining readers through your reputation for those things. Our prank pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting."

What FACTS did your TV zapper find and report by his committing a prank? How did he show integrity? Do you really think this was fair? You weren't exposing corporate malfeasance or a corporate attempt to buy your favor. Your guy was simply bored and thought he'd raise some hell. And if some of your critics have compromised themselves by snuggling up to companies, it doesn't make what you did any nobler. Lose the ad hominem counter-attack.

You should own up to your blogger's malicious act, admit that it had nothing to do with journalism or reporting with integrity and grow up. Or if you still disagree, let me know when you have a major personal event like a wedding. I'll come as a blogger, screw it up and then report my prank as news. Deal?

kcarnews27

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @kiwizz: downhill is one word, not two.

matt1978

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Your prank pays homage to the notion of independent reporting? What the heck does that mean? I respectfully submit that the job of independent reporting does not include creating news. Reporting is not a performance art or a prank show. You are confusing journalism with FM radio morning show entertainment.
Malice is malice - people working on your behalf chose to pick on specific businesses for destructive, malicious attacks. You have, though your blog page, indirectly encouraged others to follow in your destructive footprints. I think the officials at Macworld should look closely at your actions and make similar precautions as the CES folks have made against the possibility of you attacking again. I have forwarded this information to all the techs I know who are working the event and they will be taking precautions.

If you want to report - observe, question, investigate, and report. Do not become a part of the story.

hypnophone

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> So how did this prank show ANYTHING about journalists keeping their integrity?

You've come up with some shit ass justification of a childish prank you probably thought up on the spot. If you had justified this prank BEFORE you've done it, it would have been understandable. But making excuses like this far below professionalism, and downright disrepectful to all the people who worked on making a great presentation.

Just remember, it's the corporation you should be fighting, NOT the people who are working for it. They need jobs to eat and live too.

"Giz banned for life and making excuses trying to redeem whatever left of its dignity but failing at it, making us look shittier" should be the rightful title of this blog entry.

beramodk

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I think this is not a simple joke. You guys that allow this kind of conduct are not even journalists.
This was not funny, this was a very serious offense to the show visitors.

I understand if one of your guys decide to do a bad joke and then Gizmodo bann him, but you guys are just looking for excuses saying that it was just a joke. Then your not even journalist, you guys are acting like ignorant kids.

Journalist from A LOT of sites are not happy, neither smiling for the Gizmodo joke. You say it's because they are with the big companies. Well, it's because they just respect and know what is responsible journalism, NOT Like You Did.

I hope Gizmodo get banned for life from any other show.

EGY

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @ParrotHeadFL:

FFS F#@K off! And your wrong, it was funny. See? Its called OPINION. And not unlike assholes, everyones got one, and they usually stink. THEY TURNED OFF THE POWER ON A FEW TV'S you moron. Screwing with their gear?!?! FFS they had to walk all of about what, 10-20 feet and click a button or 2.
Im SURE clicking a power button or 2 really not only messed up their WHOLE show, but was......Oh never mind, your a moron and theres nothing that I can ramble on about that is going to change that. Go read Engadget.
@saa001:
Thank GOD. Please, you and the rest of you who cannot get over the basic light hearted nature of this prank, L E A V E. Go away and dont come back. I read Gizmodo FOR this kind of coverage. If I didnt want fart jokes, idiotic pointless non-sensical video, NSFW pics, and Jason practically juggling dildos at a porn convension, Id go somewhere else; So should you- GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. The true Giz readers will be glad to see you go. Dont let the blog door hit you in your uptight ass on the way out.




Out2gtcha

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Nice stunt. Too bad corps can't roll with it. The press this gets is going to help, not hurt the corps.

As for the next stunt...bring a wireless mic transmitter to the press conference and "step" on the mic in use....

uprope

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @xenedar:
You do know that Gizmodo had FULL press credentials for CES. Do you still think that they aren't journalists?

If Gizmodo had just shown up as attendees and pulled this prank, it would be a non-issue.

ikarl67

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Now that I've had 2 hours to read all these comments, here's another point. There are several references to people being "banned" for making posts you don't like.

Why is there even such a concept as banning from gizmodo? Aren't you all being a bit hypocritical for whining about people banning you from a trade show while you ban people from writing simple words on your little blog?

I mean, if the posts are "disruptive", aren't these posters just following in the footsteps of greats like the Woz? Instead of banning them, they should be getting their own columns, right? ;-)

Sounds again like you can't handle a taste of your own medicine. Like the 9 year olds people are accusing you of being.

ari14850

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I think it would be better if the folks at CES played a little joke on Gizmodo.

Should they crash your servers? Delete your userlist? Send you fake press passes and then deny you entrance once you flew across the country to get in?

Now THAT would be funny! And I'm sure you would all take it really well, right?

ari14850

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I just love those who complain about the complainers in here :D (insert smilie that nearly dies of laughter here)

So...what excactly is *YOUR* useful contribution then?

Man - you guys are SO pathetic! ;)

JoOngle

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Jesus, what a lame response to a community that, weather you like it or not, pays your bills too. How holier than thou will you feel when your company starts to suffer next year and the joke has been forgotten by everyone but the big bastard at the CES door? At least except that it was funny till you started altering peoples heart rates during the presentation that their paycheck depended on... please just aplogize for the absolute fact that you took it too far... its like you took lessons from my wife on the art of blame shifting. Grow up boys, your in the grown up world now.

luvmyumpc

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> The prank wasn't funny, Giz. It was rude and immature. Try treating other people the way you'd like to be treated.

How would you feel if you had invested a ton of time and money in a trade show and someone started screwing with your gear?

You can speak all you want of "the corporations", as though they're faceless entities. But the people doing the grunt work at CES are just ordinary folks paid a modest salary to do a tough job. Anyone who has done trade shows knows they involve jet lag, hard work, long hours, and so much time away from home that you sometimes can't even remember where you are.

If you want to cast this incident as an "us vs. them" thing, you'd better think long and hard who "they" are.

ParrotHeadFL

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Doesn't giz know money = god in the good ol USA? so this is blasphemy.

Wwhat

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> They reserve the right to ban them, definitely, but they are the ones at fault for not spending the pennies to cover their IR ports, when they spend millions of dollars pimping their stuff when a piece of tape was the difference between life and death. They are so ridiculous, and I'm glad them and their egos were knocked down a notch.

These guys at Giz are not sell-outs, and have been consistently awesome with their reporting of CES. If you for a minute believe that they are out to destroy the world and prank the shit out of everyone, you're probably just retarded.

And yes, so many people suck these companies' teats, and they never have the balls to criticize them. I can think of all these Photoshop online professionals who will probably never respond to the fact that Adobe is using that fucked 192.168.112.2O7.net (note the letter 'o') domain name to send info to a 3rd party company.

derreksmart

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I don't understand why a bunch of you are making such a fuss. If you don't like the way Gizmodo runs things, then just stop reading it! There's some guys here that just lurk around moaning on every news item that gets posted... Don't like it? Take it elsewhere!
As for the clicker thing, I'm not for, nor against, frankly, I don't care and it's not my place to tell Giz how to run things!

kronik

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> get over yourself giz

you're not aussie battlers - definition [en.wikipedia.org]

"you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity, provocative coverage and gaining readers through your reputation for those things."

yeah.. integrity.. remember when that 16 year old had you up on those mac rumors way back when...?

who was that again?

:P

tomoliveri

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I am sure that either Brian or the guy that did the deed would call themselves "reporters". But what is a reporter? The definition is in the name, they OBSERVE and then REPORT what is happening, REPORT on what is being said, REPORT what the corporations are putting out at an event and then if they want to call it "commentary" as well as reporting, give their spin on it.

Reporters do NOT create or affect in any way, shape, or form, the event they are reporting on. Reporters do not make the news; they observe and tell what happened, having had no effect on what they observed whatsoever.

ggore

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Yes, CES does have every right to ban the Giz for life, and they also have every right to suck it. From what I saw of CES this year a lot of it is BS. Products that aren't going to be around for 5 years shouldn't be there. CES is about getting people hyped up for all your innovations in the coming year. It's not a who can get the most press coverage contest. To be honest I kind of hope they do ban the Giz next year and then eat shit. I know if Gizmodo is banned next year I pretty much won't be reading any CES coverage.

BombrMan

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> 800 comments....Here we come!! Full of whiners and complainers, all vacillating about something that really doesn't matter. All haters MUST justify being angry about something so tiny as your own....er...I won't even say.

Try being angry or passionate about something that REALLY matters. Like world events or your own lack of humor. Grow up? Piss off. Get some perspective. Like any of you have a excuse to waste so much time getting pissed about this while so much true injustice happens on a daily basis the world over. I can see the line of thought now:

"Uh, turning off corporate convention TV wrong!!...duh....rape and killing in Somalia?...doesn't interrupt my pr0n downloads...tiz ok!"

Bottom line? Stop being lame beeyaches and go away if you don't like this web site. If you say you won't read the Giz ever again, then REALLY go away. Rest assured, you will not be missed!

johnnyabnormal

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> mental note to self:

Just reading this incredibly long blog reminds me I´ve got too much time on my hands, thats not good..

JoOngle

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> As a person who has voted gizmodo the best gadget blog in every poll i should say that. Yeah i enjoyed the prank and it was funny , infact if i was u i would have done the same. But if i was CES organizers i would have done the same as they did like banning the person. Because they may fear these things can grow into something else and want to discourage it. And as far as other blogs singing the same tune i guess just ignore them that would be the best. Not to argue they are wrong because at the end u would come out looking bad.

Numbnutz

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> this isn't even anything worth getting proud over.

not even surprised this happened, it seems like giz (brian lam) is just overcompensating for something and thrives on this "rebellion" of sorts

rob himself

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> You guys are jerks. You make a living off of those companies.
Not every company there was a massive corporation. Some struggle just to exist and that means jobs and families are at stake. You think ruining their presentation and humiliating their low paid staff is sticking it to the man? Grow the hell up.
When your site is hacked and is down for a day or so will you said it was a good prank too? I don't think so .



Poita

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Hey! While you're touting your many examples of journalistic integrity, why don't you mention when you put TUB GIRL on Kotaku's front page! Nice way to almost get me fired, you fucking assholes...

Plus, I'll just note that some people actually LIKE CE companies. We LIKE gagdgets and the companies who make them, and don't feel compelled to fuck with them for no reason.

omnibot2000XL

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Oh, CES was a disaster and lost millions of dollars because of a prank.

Please, people, lighten up! :P

Yilia

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> EAT A BALANCED BREAKFAST.

bvicarious

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> What? are you guys four years old or something? While I can see why some may find this funny, its just plain rude. Especially during a presentation or demonstration. If I were in charge you would probably be banned, not for life but maybe one or two CES's. I would defiantly expect an apology.

Just plain disrespectful. Giz is heading down hill, I used to thoroughly enjoy this blog years ago but its just been getting worse. Best of luck to you though.

kiwizz

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Did the staffer do it on a "Ban Monday"?

dcartist

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Should be required reading for Giz staff (actually for every thinking American):
Death of The Grown Up
And please, If one more person says "Why didn't they just tape the IR ports?"....oh sweet Jesus...I need a drink.

Speaking of drinking… I was arrested for DUI a few nights ago. I will likely to go to jail for ten days. This is not fair, because I am a dentist. I know many dentists who have done much worse things than drinking and driving. Why should I be punished when there are so many evil dentists out there? Why do they send me to jail while George Bush sends young men to slaughter? My choosing to drink and drive pays homage to the notion of independent dentistry. Most colleagues feel I deserve my jail time, but I ask you this question; When did dentists become the protectors of our highways? Fight the man!



deathtotyrants

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> "The Waffle Manifesto"
Statement 1
"you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity, provocative coverage and gaining readers through your reputation for those things"
- I could not agree more.
Statement 2
"Our prank pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting"
-...and you lost me.
Statement 3
"And no matter how much access the companies give us, we won't ever stop being irreverent"
Irreverent or disrespectful - again, you're losing me. Did you throw a pie at Bill Gates during the interview and I missed it?
Statement 4
"That's what this prank was about and what the press should understand"
- Maybe the press is trying to reflect on Statement 1? After all, we can't all be streaking in public.
Statement 5
"Motorola said "no harm, no foul" and enjoyed the joke. (Although they will be checking every body cavity I have for IR blasters next press conference.) "
- Why do you think that is - didn't they enjoy the joke?
Statement 6
"Were there AV techs who got in trouble? They need only show their bosses the video to be blame-free."
- If someone opens up an email virus at work, doesn't the email admin get in trouble for not having secure protection? If someone is skimming money off the books for years, would the auditor checking those books for said years, not be trouble for not catching it? Do you guys still have corporate jobs?
Statement 7
"Many of our harshest critics have done far worse than clicking off a few TVs."
- See corporate ethics file. File not found? No shit! Is this surprising?
Statement 8
"In this job, integrity and independence is far more important than civil or corporate obedience."
-...and you lost me (again). Is someone questioning your integrity? I'm also not sure you really understand 'independence' vs civil disobedience? Maybe it's me.
Statement 9
"Gizmodo was given access to film and interview Bill Gates again this year. Some pubs might have softened up on questioning him, but we didn't"
- I couldn't agree more, yet you still found it funny to do a joke that is meant for bars when you're hammered, not corporate meetings. Inconsistent much?
Statement 10
"Will our critics find it as easy to turn their integrity back on"
- It's no secret how the industry works (google Gamespot editor fired), but you're still comparing a juvenile prank to serious reporting and it's not working.

This is why I've named my reply "The Waffle Manifesto" - are you serious or juvenile? I like to think you're both, but the message is getting lost here. I do agree that Giz is irreverent, but in it's reporting, not in how it acts and interacts with industry leaders. So, please - keep the irreverence on the page and in your pants.
P.S. These posts reflecting upon yourself bug me to no end (see Adam's whine about the community's whine about iPhone coverage last year). Yeesh.
































agrajag42

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I like funny pranks and, hell, I've done my fair share of them when I was younger. Certainly, humorous escapades make a blog and the people who author it more personable. However, when pranks like this are done by not only a blogger, but one at a large industry-wide show where their journalistic reputation and the reputation of the blog they are representing are on the line, they should be a bit more careful about what pranks they pull.

I'll admit that this stunt was pretty funny, but it it comes at the cost of the respect of all quality blogs out there, then I would rather you guys would not have done it. It's a similar issue to when you guys posted one of the Unholy Trinity on Kotaku after stealing the login info of one of their editors... only on a larger scale. Also, this lame ideological explanation/excuse isn't cutting it for the people you screwed over and the respect you lost.

Blah8

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> "you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity, provocative coverage and gaining readers through your reputation for those things."
"Essentially a universal remote that cycles through every possible code, the TV-B-Gone has a single purpose: to power off televisions whenever the user feels like being a dick....Altman can invent a gadget that transports self-important cocks who think they're waging a subversive culture war to a log cabin coffee shop where they can reassure each other how awesome they are for hating television."
Soruce: Gizmodo and [gizmodo.com]

"When did this industry, defined by pranksters like Woz, get so serious and in-the-pocket of big business?"
At least Woz was creative in his prakns, they were unique and not repeats of the overly performed "I have a casio remote watch that I can use to turn of the TVs at school"...excessive use of a prank makes it simply not funny.

"In closing, I will fill you in on our little secret: TVs turn back on when you press the power button a second time."

Hmmm I wonder if switching your site off tomorrow during your live coverage of Jobs keynote for a couple of minutes would make you reconsider the whole theory behind prakns. After all, you won't get fired and no people and/or animals will be hurt.

Regardless if the prank was funny or not, I haven't found someone so stubborn and unwilling to just say, "you know what, I f!ckd up" neither someone as hypocritical as you sir.

When a kid is considering a prank, he weighs in the risks or performig it, namely the severity of the punishment. If hee gets caught, he at least is mature enough to take responsibility for his actions and accept the punishment. You can't even do that.




doncerdo

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Haha.. I agree, im curious what the penalty would be for sneaking back in? Im guessing it would just get you thrown back out. Giz, lol.. you could make this fun : )

tdeckard2000

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @JimK: Suck it, and leave. Nobody likes you, and this includes your mom. Go away and die. Stop reading this blog this very instant. There must be a stick-in-the-mud themed blog somewhere in the internets. Go read it.

matt1978

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> And a tear drops... You got spanked for playing a stupid prank, or as you may call it "civil disobedience". You are like the immature high school student who gets upset when he/she realizes there are real-world consequences for their actions. Did you not think that the companies and their reps would get just a wii bit upset when you interfered with the presentations or shut down a wall of TV's? Your journalistic integrity and independence have nothing to do with your nobbish behavior and ill advised actions. You could can be critical of corporations, their actions and their products without pulling pranks.

Get over yourselves and get back to overhyping Apple products. Hope they let you into MacWorld tomorrow. If they don't, don't blame Apple, blame yourselves.

koiboy83

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Just add a 2nd "Z" into your name and tell them you are a different company_

Gizzmodo ≠ Gizmodo

We're different - so give us a pass_

uberfu

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Sorry guys that was an asshat thing to do. What were you thinking? I'm surprised they didn't just ban Giz all together. This is really disappointing to hear a defense for being a jerkwad.

Ultraorange

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Blogging isn't journalism, otherwise Mrs Weisman down the street who blogs about her bridge club is a journalist. Did we really learn nothing from the Engadget Apple stock thing?

Bloggers should be treated as they are - private citizens under no journalistic fact or ethics obligations.

If, as a private citizen, you were to be as idiotic as this loser, you get ejected and banned. If you happened to be representing McDonalds, or Sears, or Coca-Cola, or whatever at the time, the event organizers would be entitled to consider banning your organization as well.

Frankly, I think Gizmodo could probably stand to be banned, if not permanently then for a while. They are not entitled to anything; they operate under goodwill and when they destroy that, it will come back to bite them. Maybe it will send a message to them and similar blog sites and put them in their place.

xenedar

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Here is the thing, in the end, it doesn't matter.

I guess I'm the type of guy that really liked bill clinton, despite the fact that he jumped on the good foot and dig the bad thing with an intern. I also prefer your articles, reviews, etc. In general I don't come here because you are the most mature, or the most professional, etc, I come here because I find myself feeling similar to the way you feel about thigns, and I enjoy reading your posts.

shoelessone

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> That's right, it's everyone elses's fault.

GeoffreyM

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I was one of the few bloggers who defended you last week...but you do not need to be defiant. An apology and letting topic die is probably best...

blogging is a young profession...the less attention we bring to ourselves the better. There are plenty of products, vendors, trends to cover...my 2c

vmirchan

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> 1. You were there as a journalist.

2. You made somebody's job difficult because you decided turning off monitors is somehow cool. Most of us grew past that kind of juvenile behaviour in 3rd grade.

3. Did I mention you were there as a journalist? Moving past the juvenility (sic) of the whole thing, it was completely unethical. More so as a journalist, you were there to cover the event - not to become the news.

Certainly, it was nothing to blog and brag about afterwards.

4. If you don't respect yourself, you at least need to care about the reputation of Gizmodo - it's well respected and definitely has some respect amongst us readers.

5. We readers/geeks know the difference between cool and immature.
-What you did was immature.
-Turning off displays is not geek-worthy, technically accomplished or inspiring , and I can't think for the life of me what deep statement it makes. It's definitely not cool.

6. Don't compare yourself with Woz. Period. Not (not!) the same league, not the same context, and definitely not the same 'cool-geek' quotient.

7. Stop looking for legitimacy on this issue. Not going to happen. Accept it was stupid and move on.

galtroarc

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @johnnyabnormal: @
good, cause i poisoned the cookies...

sorry santa :(

reality.check

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]>

you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity, provocative coverage and gaining readers through your reputation for those things.

Funny how not any of those amount to "pulling a prank" to "demonstrate journalistic integrity".

First of all, that is true and let me be the first to applaud you on your attitude towards gadget reviewing. In fact, your columns are amongst the most respected to date... But, and it's a big one, what you did was wrong.

It might really turn out that you are some kind of police of the big corps, but you do not do any good by pulling this kind of pranks. Confront them, by all means, to their bitter exhaustion if you like. But don't you go telling the world that it was O.K. to mess with somebody below exec levels. Admit that you didn't knew it was "no harm done, no jobs lost" and that they are showing you who is the adult of this "relation". (You are after all in love with what they make, right?).

Integrity untouched? I really don't think so.

whiskey

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I'll be perfectly honest here, if someone did this to me during one of my presentations... I'd probably laugh and buy him a beer later. If you haven't been sitting at home while one of your friends jacks up your tv with one of those keychain remotes - then you must not have any friends ya uptight jackass. If anyone lost a sale because of this crap, then their product must not have been that impressive to begin with.

wolfsingleton

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Thats the equivalent of saying that you shouldn't be punished for doing something wrong because other people do wrong too. In that case let all the murders go because other people are murdering too.

Your people failed to act professionally at a professional gathering. You would be upset if someone at a hacker conference decided to take down your website "just as a prank."

I would have had some respect for your company if you had owned up and said it was a mistake and apologized to every one. Instead you use the old tired "they did bad things too" to try to focus peoples attention away from you.

As of right now, I will no longer visit Gizmodo.com. I can visit other web pages that report much of the same things you do but do it professionally.

saa001

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Perhaps you should formalize your activities vis-a-vis Frank Herbert's Ministry of Sabotage. That way everyone in the mix -- the companies, the executives, and the journos -- would know the ground rules and have to get their acts together lest they be humiliated and replaced by the saboteur. At the very least it'd liven things up a bit.

TokyoDevil

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> In other news 3M (NYSE: MMM) gained today after Samsung, Toshiba, Sharp, Olevia, Phillips, Hitachi, Vizio, Sony, LG, and Westinghouse contracted the company to supply copious amounts of electrical tape.

DomZ

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I kept hoping for a real reply, something that showed depth and insight, maybe an appolgy to those whose day you ruined for a moment of fun.

But instead you are officially endorsing it and standing up for it. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses, call a spade a spade, and move on. Or you can defend the act as if it were some Fight Club type rebellion against the system.

Tyler Durden was an ass. You were too.

At least now, with an official response, you made my gadget blog reading time simpler and more straight forward. I know not to count on you for anything of substance, maturity or responsibility. Its a shame too, because I enjoy your sister pubications, and at this point, I even wonder about the whole Gawker media group. I guess every group needs their rebel who is just another bully with some pretend cause to rally behind.

Good bye gizmodo, it was fun while it lasted.

tolldog

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> What a stupid thing to do. ANYONE who has made presentations like this can understand the pressure you are under at times like that and that it was cruel, not funny. What you did to that presenter was mean, vacuous and a form of vandalism. Bottom line Brian (and defenders of his actions), if you don't think you've crossed the line with this pathetic stunt, then it's time to rethink some morals. It's idiot stunts like this that make for more rules, regulations, inconveniences and all the other things that make life less fun and more work. Stupid, stupid, stupid. If you feel that you must sabotage something, please limit it to your own career.

Oldbrass

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> F***in win.

th4tkid

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> "You don't get more access by selling out for press credentials first chance you get, kowtowing to corporations and tradeshows and playing nice; you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity,..."

I think you meant immaturity not integrity. Althought funny, there are 10 more bloggers lined up to take you spot next year to get the story.

ryancmor17

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Good job retards!! You set back your lame blogger geeks about 10 years!! I hope your proud, by the way I like Engadget better anyways!!

socalpimp

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Stop winning! You just got caught being a dick, so take responsibility for your stupid prank and, (now wait for it)

STFU...

coutch

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Pardon me a moment for a sarcasm free remark.

YOU ROCK.

Okay, got that out of my system, now back to the usual asinine comments.

Yeah, you've really jumped the shark this time jackass.

oh, wait, wrong Gawker blog... anyhoo.

fishneversleep

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I can't believe that you are defending your actions claiming that it only proves you have "untouchable integrity." You know, you can choose to not fall into the pockets of corporations while at the same time not actively pissing them off. Giz should report the story and not try to BE the story.
If you have no interest in returning to CES, fine don't. But don't be childish punks claiming you did on behalf of me and give bloggers a bad reputation and call it "integrity". When you limit bloggers access, you limit our ability to read impartial and honest coverage of corporations products. If you are truly at the forefront of honest impartial coverage, then why would you choose to limit your access to the sources. I'm disappointed at how immature and illogical this defense is.

telliott

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @Rener: BORING
if i wanted to just read about tech i'd read one of the million other boring tech blogs out there. Giz is more than that, it's my lunchtime entertainment and, more often than not, is also highly amusing.

cybergrunt

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @johnnyabnormal: You forgot EmoCorner. Thats a good place for everyone to cry about it. Its over and no amount of "I'm never reading this site again" comments will really follow through. You know why? Most of us read Giz over Engadget because Engadget is the equivalent of Ben Stein reading gadget news, and not in the funny Ben Stein way either. I enjoy color commentary, I enjoy simultaneous unpantsings, and I love the occasional Halo 3 swag story.

DomZ

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Sorry guys. This is an interesting editorial on the state of media and what-not, but it has nothing at all to do with you acting like children and not being mature enough to own up to it. Way to try and deflect to a different issue.

As a reader of tech blogs (including yours off and on), I would love to have your level of coverage, but more mature (ie: sans boob jokes and meaningless pranks, for instance). I guess it's too much to ask for good, hard-hitting news presented in a professional manner. Oh wait, it's not.

MasterCKO

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> <3 Giz

I'm glad only Blakely got banned, it would have sucked if you guys lost all your access (I'm fairly sure you'll get "blogger" creds next year, though). I guess it really wasn't a big deal if Motorola can step up and laugh about it. Oh, and all those idiots who stomped their feet via comments like like "OMG I'm never reading you guys ever again...LEAVE CES ALONE"? Yea, they're just trying to stroke their e-dick - they're reading this comment right now but they'll never admit it.

DomZ

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I'm just a swamper from New England, but where I come from- that doesn't really even come close to civil disobedience. Not. Even. Close.

And don't even pretend this was some sort of gonzo tribute- as I am 99% sure there was no peyote involved. But dude- you should have gone with a peyote defense instead of that civics essay...

Wondering what Nick has to say?

nat lyon

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> You lost your integrity, Giz, and this attitude guarantees you will never get it back. It also proves the immaturity of the staff here. You're not sticking it to the man, you're just being dicks.

JimK

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> What a load of crap.

I don't understand the justification because you're an independant blogger, which your positioning yourself as anti-establishment, that's it's okay to cross the line and disrupt an event.

It was simply an immature action, coming from a blog which has lost some credibility in my eyes.

Starcade

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @Scaramanga: Word. It was a childish prank that wasn't even funny and the consequence fit the crime. Having said that though, next time: think funnier and anonymous and then report on it.

Ben

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> f em giz. loved the post on how CES sucked bawls. give em hell.

hiimcliff

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> what @hardcore1 said

what's kind of mind-blowing is that the prankster didn't see this coming.

or maybe he did and this is just a genius PR/Traffic stunt. :)

i agree with @hardcore1 that "this" specific post supposedly defending the prank is a truly pathetic rationalization. there is NO possible way to compare this prank to muckraking, independent journalism. journalism has nothing to do with pranks.

What's done is done. Now deal with the consequences of the prank without some pathetic, half-assed justifications.

pffft

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @savager: You've commented a lot on this (in the previous post) and didn't mention the fact that the people who disagreed with the prank were "corporate schmucks"... Amazing how all people who a few days ago just got a kick out of watching some TVs being switched off have suddenly realised they're actually fighting the good fight against the corporate machine. Lucky Brian told you what to think here...

scuba_steve

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> You engaged in terrorism. Plain and simple. That should be language you Americans understand.

You assaulted innocent business people by attacking them with fear.

TERRORISTS.

buzzbishop

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Great argument. Pointing out that someone did something "worse" then you does not make your wrongs okay.

Put simply? It was unprofessional of you as a reporter. That's all.

Sean

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> It was an unoriginal joke that was not funny. It was irritating to people who went there to see the monitors in use. The companies paid to show off the monitors, people paid to see them shown off, and you turned them off. Sure, it's not a big deal... but it's not very funny either. It's just annoying, like two adults were trying to have a conversation and you stood next to them shouting "PENIS" and thinking you were witty. You then thought you were witty and bragged about it. People are not mad at you because they want to defend big companies, they are irritated by who you acted like a 10 year old.

Either grow up or come up with pranks that are actually funny.

And STFU about how you joke was some sort of political statement fighting against the Big Brother.... that just makes you sound like a bigger idiot.

job1729

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> So Richard Blakeley gets punished while Gizmodo itself gets nothing. Nice bogus punishment. How long before Denton cuts Blakeley loose and replaces him with a cheaper, younger blogger?

God made the pretty girls pretty because he likes them more

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> If there's one thing I've learned from this prank...opinions are live hard drives. Everyone's got one (or more): [www.break.com]

johnnyabnormal

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Wow, talk about being an a$$. It's only funny until someone does it to you and you look like an idiot.

This was not funny. These people spent a great deal of time and MONEY on their presentations and Giz's jerk effectively cost them money. I wouldn't be surprised if one of those vendors sues the guy/giz.

Giz should have quickly fired this guy and at least posted that this childish behavior is not condoned.

I think of it this way. Giz thinks it's totally OK for someone to cut off their presentations aimed at making more money for their company. They've said so.

So I guess it's OK with them if someone crashes their website. If not, then they've proven themselves hypocritical and should be sued for what happened at CES.

strommsarnac

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> IMHO this was the best thing to come out of CES. Come we all know MOTOROLA would be much cooler if they laughed it off like it was the harmless fun that it was, and used it as a way to gain publicity for their products, and by the way why are all of the douche bags that commented in the entirely way to long thread that "i'm going to read engadget from now on" commenting here.....couldn't get what you needed there??

mywileyways

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @reality.check: Listen, little man...you need to GROW UP! *smacks you on the wrist* Next time it'll be no milk and cookies for you. Now go to your room! :)

johnnyabnormal

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> all this whole debacle proved to me is that I can't listen to about half of the people that read giz because they're all corporate schmucks.

savager

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @Rener: @cliffbig: @Keebler: @jdr: @aydiosmio: @MonkeySeeMonkeyDo: @TheDismalScience: @Scaramanga: @siorai: @disgustepated: @highfloydelity: @jwdawso: @dreamc: @goodscotch: @diku:

Sorry to pick on you guys, because believe me there are plenty others who commented with the same blah blah, shake your finger, whiney crap you all did. I just got sick of clicking on all of your names...

Isn't it funny to find out how old and gray this audience is when they get their panties in a ruffle over a prank. maybe gizmodo should start giving out ad space to ED companies to assuage the anger of these cottontops.

The real issue here is that these companies are putting morons at their stands who talk about technology and don't know how to turn an f'ing tv on. And we are supposed to give a sh!+ what these people say?! I'm sorry Gizomodo proved that a bunch of companies are posers.

And to you idiots who compare turning off tv's to hacking and destroying a website... they didn't place explosives in Panasonic's HQ you blabbering vaginas. Who cares about presentations for new flat screen tv's. BFD - for you old-heads that means Big-F'ing-Deal. No one really needs to explain that their new-line of tv's has two more HDMI inputs.

So to all you big mature readers, Please stop reading and commenting if you want to try to be Gizmodo's grandma, tisk tisk, and run a guilt trip on them. It's just really annoying to sift through your lectures to get to real comments.

reality.check

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @Sean O: I'm 28, and I have a real job. You need to remove the stick from your rectun.

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Seems you missed the most important distinction about the press: It's the line between reporting the news and making the news.

You can't do both and consider yourself an objective reporter.

gridman

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> you should just all skip out on that crap because frankly, there's like 3 interesting products and the rest are complete crap. blam, you're my hero

AqueousBeef

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I have no problem with the prank as it was funny, but this high horse statement is so full of bullshit its even funnier than the prank. Fighting the man? Journalistic integrity? Cut the crap, you were just dicking around and now you're trying to come up with any excuse to cover your shit. Memo: YOUR SHIT STILL SMELLS!

Hardcore1

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> LOL at every serious moron here getting so uppity about this crap. Who cares? WAHH WAHH JOURNALISM.

It was funny. The End. Stop trying to be their dads, and spank them, albeit verbally. So pathetic.

HassenMaschine

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Who got banned?

freakshow1

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> All you guys complaining about the prank... pull the stick out your butts already... If there's something I love about Giz it's that they don't take life to seriously. If we can get the corporate machine to laugh at itself I say go for it.

sonburn

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Good job guys. Great response! Now if only there was some way we could help out by boycotting these companies ;0)

sonburn

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Did you really think anything else would happen? Deal with it, you deserve it.

forrestcook

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> i think the people bitching about what the giz editors did need to calm down. above all, yes, giz is a news blog and shouldn't let its editors play around too much, but they also try to have a sense of humor when they report. and although the TV-B-Gone is a little bit immature in the middle of a presentation, it definitely got laughs out of the crowd, the presentations could have easily resumed by pressing the power button on the TVs again, and if all the guys in the industry thought the way motorola's execs said it, no jobs were threatened or lost by some good ol' pranks.

and @yeediddy: giz is owned by gawker media. so really it's a news site AND a comedy site all rolled up into one, its called news with humor, and it brings joy to me when i read it.

lam, you are my hero. and still-unnamed editor who has been banned from CES, your harshly-punished act was not in vain, those of us who appreciate news with humor thank you for your sacrifice...although make a god damn appeal to get back in next year. CES without gizmodo would mean me sitting in front of engadget for 2 hours reading about the new stuff, not being allowed to curse in a comment, and only getting some humor out of the articles.

rimplestultskin

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Just some food for thought: what if someone "pranked" Gizmodo by denying them "floor space" they payed for? Would you guys be upset?

bluesquareapple

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Blah blah not going to read all that...I stopped with all the "Paid trips from X company was way worse!"

Stop trying to justify, it's not working.

What if someone hacks this site just for shiggles and fucks up all your content? "It's just fun and games, Blam! You have backups, right? Right?"

ry_ry

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Good luck with the increased readership.

...and now back to our sponsors

tomoleary

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @lovethegiz: Worse than farting in a crowded elevator.

Bos'un's Mate

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Look, if you want tech news without tits, dick and fart jokes (i.e. bland) then go read Engadget. Yeah, the "prank" was childish and sophomoric, but when you get right down to it, aren't all pranks childish and sophomoric? Could the Giz have gone on without having done it? Sure. But a propensity for twitting the "man" is just a part of the Gizmodian nature. That's an attitude that unfortunately seems to be dying out because some people are all too willing to roll over and give up whatever their corporate overlords ask for.

frndlybnny

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> Worse then using a laser pointer in a cinema.

lovethegiz

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> @EVERYONE:

[www.angermgmt.com]

johnnyabnormal

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]> I thought it would be sooooo funny and also make an important statement that I could couch as kind of expression of journalistic integrity...

So, I called your phone company, pre-texted to be someone from your company, and then had your phones scheduled for disconnection! Since no one gets hurt, I'm sure you won't mind, and you'll laugh right along with all of us.

-username

]]> <![CDATA[Giz Banned For Life and Loving It: On Pranks and Civil Disobedience at CES]]>