I’m not sure what’s going on with this blog, and my verified Facebook page, but over the last few months, I’ve been getting lots of requests — more than usual — to add paid links in my old articles as well as being offered “thousands of dollars” to post advertising on my Facebook page.

Now, I know all of this is a scam and a play. It’s a scam in that in order to “get paid” on Facebook, I’d have add the advertising person as an admin on my page, they would then lock me out of my account, take over my page, and add all kinds of junk to force a quick buck from their advertising legion before my page would get shut down. They might pay me a nominal fee to get admin privileges, but after that, I’d see no ongoing profit flow.

It’s a play in that this blog is quite old — perhaps “authentic” and “established” are better descriptors than “old” — with thousands of articles stretching back 20 years. To “open up” and go back and actively edit, and then republish an old blog article, with its original publication date, and place a strategic “do follow” link to some other website enterprise I guess helps the advertiser build link reputation and “established authenticity by age” by exploiting the history of this publication.

If any of those folks sending me inquiries and pitches had bothered to read any of my work, or publication notices, they’d know we have not, and never will, accept any advertising. Selling you stuff isn’t our thing. How can you trust us if our intention is only to deceive you with a secondary factoid posing as a tertiary branded truth and never the original hot coal intention?

We have other projects that make us money, but we’re clear about that from the start of the landing pages. To start taking on advertising in a space we have always reserved as a “no Ads zone” would not only be immoral, it would be duplicitous in execution.

Oh, and there are “writers” who click on our “Write” link, and then offer their exclusive “original content” that includes “only a link or two” back to some other for-profit entity. It’s just a sad process to wade through these disingenuous offers, because there used to be a time when writers wrote for us because they loved the process, and execution, of publication — and not because they were seeking to get paid by outside advertisers for successfully placing their PR with us as an article in sheep’s stitching.

I don’t even engage with these requests. I did not seek them out, and so I feel no responsibility to reply to what amounts to a bunch of Spam clogging my Inbox. Now, if someone approached me with an interesting offer that fell within the guidelines, and purposes, of these publications, then an extended conversation may be in order; but I can’t imagine there ever being an interesting enough offer to make the response to the inquiry worthwhile for either side.

I understand the connected world has changed since I started publishing on the internet in the early 1990s; and if that makes me an Olde Skool Fogey to not be interested in the change dynamic for the almighty dollar, where only profit is king, and content is merely the facilitator for the payout, then please continue to count me out as I faithfully believe the truth is intended to be free, and always accessible, without a paywall, or an advertising distraction.