SeekingAlpha.com: Multi-Level Marketing Brands Are Taking A Terrible Beating
So score one for the good guys. :De_Bunk:Robert FitzPatrick wrote:I can attest to this tectonic shift in perception, having myself sought to debunk MLMs with facts, analysis, court testimony, data and logic for more than two decades, to little effect. During those years, MLM was largely absent from the news media, unmentioned in films and TV series, ignored by journalists or even consumer protection groups. Though tens of millions of Americans were enrolled and invested and lost money, the publishing industry did not issue a single book examining the phenomenon. The business media took no interest. During the G.W. Bush administration there was virtually no mention of MLM at the FTC, led by Timothy Muris, a future MLM lobbyist. MLM was everywhere on Main Street, yet seemingly invisible – like the lives and values of people in “fly-over” states – to pop culture producers, mainstream news outlets, publishers and academia.
Not anymore. Today, among other blogs and websites the anti-MLM Reddit has unleashed a deluge of outrage, mockery, YouTube channels, real-life stories of loss and lying, bold truth telling and savvy analysis. Many of the bloggers are fearless. They are calling MLM "cults". They are saying it is engaged in "brainwashing." They are facing down the MLM “bots” and “hons” that inhabit social media in search of recruits and who disguise solicitations to join MLM pyramids as innocent social invitations. They defy MLM’s history of SLAPP suits and “non-disparagement” contract clauses. They are not lost in the labyrinth of "good" and "bad" MLMs, but attack the model entirely. They are not afraid to call MLMs "cults" and they use terms such as predator, lie, abuse, and theft. Anyone invested in a MLM stock who has not recently perused the "anti-MLM" cyberspace, does so at their own peril.