Monday, March 25

Kenneth Frazier: Control of Narrative Extends to the Internet


By
Jeffrey Simons

“The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.”
-- Tom Clancy

According to the current version of Ken Frazier’s Wikipedia page:

“On March 14, 2013, at a sub-committee meeting of the Penn State Board of Trustees, Frazier uttered what was considered to be a racially-insensitive remark at a candidate running for the Board of Trustees who criticized the Freeh narrative.  Frazier apologized for his remarks several days later.”

The exchange was caught on tape by CDT reporter Mike Dawson and posted to youtube:


Frazier’s apology came in the form of a Centre Daily Times letter on 3/17/13, and once again we were all asked to put this behind us and move on. 

However, the story behind Ken Frazier’s Wikipedia page is a little more revealing, one that undermines the sincerity of his apology and shows how he is still trying to control the narrative, even when it comes to public information about himself.

Wikipedia is a web based encyclopedic resource, created and maintained entirely by a community of registered volunteer users.  Pages can be created, edited, re-edited, or updated by any number of public users at any time.  There is a group of moderators who can lock pages to prevent further updates and temporarily ban users if the edits violate the rules governing the users.

(For a full account of the following actions, please see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kenneth_Frazier&offset=&limit=500&action=history)

On the morning of March 17, 2013 – before Frazier’s apology had run in the CDT – a user with the screen name “BroadSt Bully” restored a paragraph that had been deleted 2 days before describing Frazier’s role in hiring Louis Freeh and firing Joe Paterno.  BroadSt Bully also added a paragraph about the racially insensitive comment made by Frazier 3 days earlier:

On March 14, 2013, at a sub-committee meeting of the Penn State Board of Trustees, Frazier uttered a racist and bigoted remark at a candidate running for the Board of Trustees who criticized the Freeh narrative.

BroadSt Bully also removed the qualifier “blue ribbon” which described the Special Investigative Task Force (“commission”).

12 hours later, a user identified only by his IP address 67.165.19.29 removed both of those paragraphs.  This IP address traces back to a Comcast user in Doylestown, PA.

3 hours later, a user in the Netherlands (possibly an administrator) restored the paragraphs with the qualifying edit note: 

“The previous edit deleted balancing material that provides criticism of the figure in question. Wikipedia articles are not "fluff pieces" that say only positive things” 

Approximately 14 hours later (11:54 18 March 2013), the previous user once again deleted these 2 paragraphs.  40 minutes later, they were restored by an admin in Connecticut.


Merck Corporate Works on the Cover-up


An hour later a user identified by the IP address 155.91.28.231 once again removed those paragraphs.  However, this IP address traced back to a corporate ISP:  Merck.

General IP Information
Top of Form
IP:
155.91.28.231
Decimal:
2606439655
Hostname:
155.91.28.231
ISP:
Merck and Co.
Organization:
Merck and Co.
Services:
Type:
Assignment:
Blacklist:
Bottom of Form
Geolocation Information
Country:
United States us flag
State/Region:
New Jersey
City:
Old Bridge
Latitude:
40.3958  (40° 23′ 44.88″ N)
Longitude:
-74.3255  (74° 19′ 31.80″ W)
Area Code:
732
Postal Code:
08857

And then the internet sparks began to fly.  Over the next 3 hours, users would attempt to restore those 2 paragraphs, only to be deleted within minutes by the Merck user.

At 14:03 user “Cornmd” restores the 2 paragraphs.  14:15 the Merck IP address deletes them.

At 14:16 user “Ubiquity” restores the 2 paragraphs.  14:21 the Merck IP address deletes them. 

At 14:22 user “BroadSt Bully” restores the 2 paragraphs.  14:22 the Merck IP address deletes them. 

User “Arctic Kangaroo” tries to restore the paragraphs and within minutes, the Merck IP address deletes them.  Arctic Kangaroo restores the content at 14:25, at which point the content is temporarily removed for discussion by “Edgar181” at 14:31.

At 14:39 BroadSt Bully restores the content with the edit note:  “Re-added sourced material. User's IP address traces to Merck, who is Frazier's employer”

At 14:57 BroadSt Bully adds titles to the 2 paragraphs “Jerry Sandusky sex scandal” and “Racially insensitive outburst."  

At 15:30 the Merck user deletes them.  Over the next 2 hours, the Merck user makes 5 more attempts to delete content, and add flattering career highlights for Ken Frazier, until an admin warns him that he is violating 4 different Wikipedia terms of service.  

Five minutes later, the Wikipedia admins lock down edits of the Wikipedia page.  

Two hours later, the Merck user is blocked for one month from editing ANY web pages. 

This was not the first time this user was blocked by Wikipedia.  Here is the discipline history of 155.91.28.231 which warranted the one month penalty for “disruptive editing”:

21:53, 18 March 2013 Ronhjones (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 month (Disruptive editing)
  22:21, 10 July 2012 Materialscientist (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (Copyright violations)
  20:11, 7 November 2008 RoySmith (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon. only) with an expiry time of 24 hours (Repeated reversion of text to Yak shaving contrary to prior AFD decision)
  22:13, 25 January 2006 Hall Monitor (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) with an expiry time of 48 hours (massive content removal)
  21:00, 1 December 2005 Brian0918 (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalisms) 


Previous edit on Freeh Report entry on Frazier's wiki page


Interesting to note Ken Frazier’s Wikipedia page had a previous edit disputed.  

On October 21, 2012, a user named “Callancc” described the Freeh report as being accepted “without review, but was reported to be riddled with conjecture, research with gaping holes, and unsubstantiated conclusions.”  It was revised on November 5, 2012 by an IP address from Boston University to say the Freeh report was accepted “and used as the basis for the NCAA sanctions against Penn State.” With the edit note:

“The last sentence was ridiculously partisan, clearly there only to attempt to discredit the Freeh report which was widely seen as fair and thoroughly done.”)

The Merck user created an account on Wikipedia on October 10, 2005 and spent most of his early time updating the Wikipedia pages of Ann Coulter and Ron Dellums (a long time member of the House of Representatives from California, who became the Mayor of Oakland in 2007).


Controlling the PSU Narrative

Ken Frazier’s comments to Bill Cluck had been widely circulated among the Penn State community the day he made them, but they never reached a global audience until they were posted in Wikipedia.  

There is a dogged determination from this Merck user to remove this content from Wikipedia.  In addition, the Merck IT team has been hard at work over the weekend to bury any negative articles circulating about Frazier on the internet and pumping up his bio and other positive articles as they appear in google searches.

Once again, it appears that Frazier is trying to control the narrative by controlling the information available to the public.  

Which begs the question, what audience is he really trying to control?

28 comments:

  1. WRITE TO MERCK BOARD OF DIRECTORS!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. THis is unacceptable behavior by anyone let alone a representative of Penn State. If he does not resign on his own he should be asked to resign. This just puts another black mark on the way the BoT have handled this mess. Also, his comments about the Freeh Report are without a doubt the worst I have read, if he even read it. The Board at Merck should waste little if any time in putting an end to his relationsship with them unless he saved their a-- years ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Current PSU students are collecting signatures towards this goal (well, at least resignation from Penn State Board of Trustees). Please see Ray's post "Kenneth Frazier: Update and Petition" for link, if you would like to help us. Thanks!!

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  3. Replies
    1. All credit goes to Jeffrey Simons for the work on this article.

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  4. It certainly proves his apology was insincere and hollow. There was an additional section to this report that I decided to cut out because I was having a hard time proving it (mostly because it is a difficult thing to "prove")

    However, our recent efforts to "bump" the blog posts about Frazier to the top of Google's search results were largely successful for a few days, then suddenly the posts from the blog dropped to the 2nd and 3rd pages. Flattering articles about Frazier were now closer to the top of the search results.

    Really, the only logical explanation, based on my knowledge of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is that Frazier/Merck launched a "counter offensive" to increase web traffic/hyperlinking on those websites to boost their profiles for Google's search algorithm.

    This is war, LOL.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Jeffrey for your hard work and thank you Ray for following up in this. Y'know, you could always post the additional section with the disclaimer that it's unsubtantiated. Just sayin'.

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    2. Kind of like a mini-Freeh Report on Merck? LOL!!

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    3. It is reasonable to conclude the Merck IT department was working overtime this past weekend. :-)

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  5. Jeffery
    Outstanding work! It does not matter who is trying to hide Frazier, to me his goose should be cooked. If they (Bot) can make something out of nothing (JoePa) they should be able to do something with this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, sir. Once again, they tout the fact that they "lead" a world class institute of higher learning, then they treat the alumni like we are idiots.

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  6. Frazier is a slime ball and DESERVES EVERYTHING he's gonna get...It's coming...Bet on THAT Frazier!!!!...YOU CANT REWRITE HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  7. Below is a link to a Dec. 2011 article from the Newark Star-Ledger about how Frazier was selected to lead the "Special Investigate

    http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/merck_ceo_decided_to_head_penn.html

    While the article mostly heaps praise on Frazier, there are a couple interesting points that show it was already determined that Frazier would be in charge of the investigation and that it was already planned for the Freeh report to come out shortly after the conclusion of the Sandusky trial, when the media would still be paying full attetion.

    "At a meeting of the board of trustees, someone asked a seemingly open-ended question: Did anyone in the room have experience managing a crisis?
    No response, Frazier recalled Tuesday.
    Then came the second question: "Has anyone handled Vioxx before?"

    Any chance the person asking those questions is Surma since he was the de facto head of the BOT at the time? This is an obvious attempt to convince the rest of the BOT to allow Frazier to head the SITF.

    Frazier also makes another revealing comment about the Freeh report:

    "But while he said Freeh will have as much time as he wants to investigate, Frazier also said he hopes the probe will be concluded by the summer."

    If you truly wanted a full complete independent investigation, why say you would like it done by the summer? And given that this comment was made in December 2011, isn't it just a little suspicious, that not only was the report done by the summer, but also just 2 weeks after Sandusky was found guilty?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Original plan was to complete it in the fall. The PH/Freeh merger moved up the completion date. That's why, IMO, Freeh provided his "draft" report in July. Missing exhibits, mis-numbered footnotes, and wrong verdicts all point to a rushed job at the end.

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    2. Frazier said in Dec 2011 he would like the report done by the end of the academic year, which I believe is after summer commencement in August. The PH merger at the end of August, the pending release of the FIFA verdict on July 19, the conclusion of the Sandusky trial on June 22, as well as the ability to maximize media exposure on Thursday July 12 all factored into the decision to rush the report out in mid-July. Plus, many reporters would be at the Olympics (July 27-Aug 12), which would also reduce his media exposure.

      Delete
  8. Mention the name Raykovitz and you will probably get a lot of blank stares. Go to google News and search "raykovitz" and see what happens....

    From what I understand, the Penn State administration reported what they knew in 2001 to Raykovitz and the Second Mile???? If the PSU administers (and Joe) conspired to cover things up, doesn't make sense that Raykovitz would be a significant person of interest (in my opinion the most important piece of the puzzle)???

    Go to google.com, click on news, type in Raykovitz, and search....

    Now repeat the above instructions for Paterno

    It makes you wonder what is really important in this tragedy. Is it finding the truth, or is it meaningless propaganda?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wouldn't be overly concerned about today's google search results. They change daily ;-)

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  9. Its seems like Google News will search back about 1 month for any relevant news to a seach query. In this case there is one link to the search querey "Raykovitz". In my opinion, this sums up the entire case in a nutshell. Search "Paterno" and the links are endless.

    Who is more culpable? A football coach, or the CEO of a charity who dealt with underprivaledged children (and the the employer of Sandusky during the 2001 incident)? In fact, all of Sandusky's children were traced back to the charity known as The Second Mile. From what I understand the case was reported to Raykovitz and the investigation was completed. Where is the evidence to connect Paterno to Raykovitz? Wasn't Raykovitz aware of the allegation in 98'? Where is Raykovitz??? One thing is for sure, he's not in the news.

    If anyone cared about the victims they would be asking the same questions! Unfortunately in my opinion, and it's been my opinion since the Freeh Report has been released, there are very few people who sincerely care about the vicitms.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The Second Mile recently petitioned to transfer RECORDS and some funds to TX-based Arrow so that TSM programs could be conducted this summer. If you can't find this story, send me your email address. I have a PDF of the petition.

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  11. Thank you rdk for further illustrating my point. There are numerous links on the search "The Second Mile". However, only one link when you search for "Raykovitz". None of the "The Second Mile" links contain the phrase "Raykovitz". Somehow Raykovitz has remained unquestioned and unpublicized admist one of the largest pedophile sex scandals our country has ever witnessed. How does Raykovitz remain unquestioned while the football coach has been publicly found guilty of a conspiracy of cover-up????

    As far as I know Raykovitz knew at least what Paterno knew (most likely a whole lot more)? At the very least, if we cared about protecting children, Raykovitz should be under the same scrutiny as Paterno. Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't Raykovitz Sanduskys boss in 2001? I've heard the agrument over and over and over....Joe was in charge (even though he wasn't) and therefore must be held accountable. What about Raykovitz?

    Here is what I know to be the facts concerning Raykovitz:

    1. Raykovitz was the CEO of The Second Mile and Jerry Sandusky was on his payroll during the 2001 incident
    2. Raykovitz was made aware of McQuery's observation in the locker room in 2001
    3. When you GOOGLE NEWS search "Raykovtz" there is one link to a news report that was written over a year ago?

    Feel freeh to connect the dots because I surely cannot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jon, thanks for the post. There is also evidence Raykovitz was aware of 1998 as well. Ray Blehar did an excellent job detailing how Raykovitz and his wife Kitty both made handsome salaries from TSM, especially after the 2001 incident. Ironically enough, Raykovitz DID get named in one article on ESPN from December 2011, which got largely overlooked:

      http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7368256/ex-second-mile-board-members-level-blame-jerry-sandusky-scandal

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    2. Jeffrey's link to ESPN here contains several leads that, if revisited now, may help get the focus onto Raykovitz. And REALLY, I hope someone is looking closely at this recent effort by TSM to transfer RECORDS of the programs most "used" by Sandusky to a TX group.

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  12. I believe Jon S has thrown down a gauntlet! So who knows anything about questioning of Raykovitz or other TSM-related folks since July 2012?

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    Replies
    1. Sources say the Feds have been investigating Second Mile for some time and they have found some irregularities.

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  13. Merck's efforts to "disappear" Frazier's racist tirade shows that somebody there is very upset about it, and very much afraid. That means we need to make sure the racist tirade never goes away, and is brought up as frequently as possible.

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  14. Ken Frazier's new name is Ken "People who look like you" Frazier.

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  15. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Abuse reporting information

      TraceRoute from Network-Tools.com to 198.154.243.100 [jobzcorner.com]
      Hop (ms) (ms) (ms) IP Address Host name
      1 8 0 0 206.123.64.42 -
      2 0 0 0 64.124.196.225 xe-4-2-0.er2.dfw2.us.above.net
      3 3 3 3 77.67.71.165 ae2-109.dal33.ip4.tinet.net
      4 42 42 42 89.149.185.218 ge-3-0-0.lax22.ip4.tinet.net
      5 62 64 63 173.241.129.46 ace-data-centers-gw.ip4.tinet.net
      6 80 77 75 199.58.196.37 tg1-1.ar01.prov.acedc.net
      7 152 57 57 199.58.199.114 -
      8 77 76 77 69.195.64.41 mlx01.prov.unifiedlayer.com
      9 56 56 55 198.154.243.100 new.newsprofession.com

      Delete