Fuck you, Heatstreet, you chickenshits

I finally had it, today. Yet again. This is the final, final straw. My friend Sam Biddle pointed out this post at “Heatstreet,” which uses my name to spread malice and falsehoods to unsuspecting netizens. My name! And I’ve had enough. Again.

The piece appears to be a response to my thought-leadership op-ed at Esquire/Gawker, Why I’m Joining the Innovation Party, yet it uses my name without clarification that it is not me. For shame! How could readers be expected to understand these subtle differences, without the aid of a team of forensic analysts?

I ask you, netizens: whither decency? At the very bottom of the piece, in tiny italics, is a disclaimer that it is not @ProfJeffJarvis. But in this snackable world of Journalism 3.0 microcontent, does anybody read past the first paragraph? It would be naive to think they do.

Of course, I was enraged and devastated. I contacted the editor — who, incidentally, is not a human editor, but a bot — and demanded that the Heatstreet site be taken down in its entirety. No joy. Only a very unsatisfactory and repeated refusal to make changes that, in my view, may not even pass a Turing test.

The overwhelming majority of netizens sided with me, and jumped to my support:

[find a few tweets here that support me]

The writing in this so-called article is twee and pompous — the polar opposite of my style — which added further insult to injury. Whither my hard-earned professional reputation, if readers see my byline, read 15 seconds of terrible prose, then bounce from the page? And worse still, the points in this post were so asinine, it beggared belief.

Fortunately, I have some high-level contacts at Heatstreet management — people who understand how my First Amendment right to control my personal brand should not — nay, must not! — be ceded to anonymous small-thinkers.

After a few well-placed DMs dictated to my assistant Tim Herrera, I was able to convince management to make changes, and to replace my signature beer helmet and year-round Santa hat with stock photography of a random madly gesticulating older gentleman.

But this does not mean justice was done. My professional reputation has been harmed, and I demand that this be made right. I have consulted my doctor, engaged an attorney via Yelp, and also spoken with a pastor. It is a grave threat to Net freedom, if ordinary thought leaders can be abused without consequences. This insult shall not pass.