(If you want the backstory, check out my previous articles on Sys-Con and Ulitzer.)

I know I'm getting tired of it, but here's a short post to document their latest attack, titled Social Media Marketing Turkish Style. If their MO is any indication, it'll be taken down soon, so here's a snapshot of the page (.PNG, 2.2MB).

Update July 31st, 2009: Sys-Con has removed the above article and, apparently, all others about me from their site. You can read the originals in the high-resolution screenshots linked to from my posts.

And I quote:

A couple of months ago SYS-CON Media was attacked by a Turkish blogger by the name of Aral Balkan from within Adobe's Flex / Flash user community who declared "cihad" [sic] against SYS-CON. SYS-CON's CEO explained his views on that particular subject in his "Social Media Terrorists" blog, which is an appropriate blog title especially since this man's religious, ethnic, cultural, and national background fits into FBI's profile definition of the modern day terrorist.

Not that I feel the need to rehash the whole, tired, ridiculous story, but suffice to say that if I had declared anything of the sort, I would at least have had the proficiency to spell it correctly.

(Alongside that quote is an image of Mehmet Ali Ağca, the terrorist who shot the Pope.)

On the same page are ads by IBM, Sun, Citrix, Unisys, Dell, and Windows. All of whom support the business practices of Sys-Con Media with their ad money.

So, basically, I've been defamed yet again by Sys-Con Media.

The rest of the article appears to attack Turkish people in general with gems like:

I could not help but think about the cultural issues surrounding the Turkish way of thinking to exploit any social system.

Turks will never learn to make a straight line and wait their turn like civilized people at a bank, airport or a bus stop. They do pile up on each other like players in a football game. They don't stop at a red light. I guess now they are playing the social media game, in their own Turkish style.

What I don't understand is how companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Sun can keep supporting Sys-Con Media with their ad dollars. Do they not realize how bad it makes them look when their ads appear on "articles" such as these?

It does appear, however, that Sys-Con can write whatever it likes about anyone – truth, journalistic integrity, etc., be damned – and get away with it. Sad.

Update: They have a second article up titled Adobe's User Community, Turkish Spammers and Internet Terrorists (screenshot here; PNG, 1.7MB) in which they repeat the same libel against me (the same two paragraphs as quoted above). It also contains a new masterpiece of literary prowess in the form of the following quote:

I personally think the entire country of Turkey should be isolated from the International community of Internet users until they learn to police themselves and educate their mountain animal spammers.

Update: And their articles are now being disseminated on Google News, where they come up first when you search for my name. If this isn't libel, what is? (Screenshot of Google News, 140KB)

So if there's anyone out there who wants to take on this case on a no-win-no-fee basis, please feel free to leave me a comment here as I've had about enough of this.

Update: And, of course, their "author" "Yeshim Deniz" is also a stock photo (as discovered by Sir Pete "Sherlock" Aylward). And, no doubt, this goes against iStockPhoto's terms (see point 4 in that article).