We're launching a blogger amnesty program
In the wake of our devastating loss to Nick dePlume of Think Secret (photo) we are considering rolling out an amnesty program to other Apple bloggers in which they would accept a cash payment in return for a promise never to write another word about Apple for as long as they live.
Context & Ripple Effects
The joke lands because the template is real: Apple's settlement with Think Secret — confirmed on December 21, 2007, and ending a fight that began in January 2005 when the site pre-empted the Mac Mini unveiling — shut the site down outright, with publisher Nick Ciarelli talking publicly about the kill two days later. In the same-day follow-up, the anonymous author of the Fake Steve Jobs blog says he is weighing an offer from Apple, reportedly conditioned on ending the impersonation — unconfirmed, but the setup for this post.
So the 'amnesty program' — cash payments to Apple bloggers in exchange for never writing about Apple again — reads as satire aimed at a genuine pattern: Apple converting rumor-site litigation into silence-for-money settlements. The July 2007 coverage of who was behind the Fake Steve persona (CNET's interview, TUAW's sleuthing) makes the target legible: the most prominent Apple parodist proposing that Apple buy out its entire critic class.
First-order effects
- Nick dePlume has already taken the real version of this deal — Think Secret is shut down under a confirmed settlement — making him the proof-of-concept the post waves at every remaining Apple blogger.
- If read as more than a gag, the offer puts independent Apple bloggers in a bind: take the money and go quiet, or keep publishing under active legal threat from the company they cover.
Second-order effects
- Rival rumor sites must now price legal risk into their editorial model — either hardening sourcing practices to survive Apple's lawyers or negotiating their own exits, with Apple effectively setting the market rate for silence.
- Apple's aggressive posture lands awkwardly against its own hype cycle: insiders whisper of roughly five million iPhone sales expected at Macworld 2008, meaning the company is litigating its loudest fans while demand peaks.
Third-order effects
- If settlement-plus-shutdown becomes standard practice, enthusiast and rumor press structurally thins around the most litigious companies, shifting leak coverage toward outlets with corporate backing that can absorb the legal cost.
- The episode feeds a longer argument about whether companies can use private settlements to accomplish what prior restraint cannot — a question regulators and courts would have to settle if the pattern spreads beyond Apple.
The trend: Apple is managing its rumor ecosystem through cash-for-silence settlements rather than courtroom victories, turning litigation budgets into an editorial-suppression tool.