Evil Koch Industries Will Crush Well-Meaning Pranksters

[meegbear]

Last month, pranksters set up a spoof website for petroleum/paper cup/carpet conglomerate Koch Industries. Then they sent out a fake press release that claimed Koch was remaking itself into a paragon of corporate responsibility. FOR THIS THEY WILL BE DESTROYED.

The pranksters' fake press release said that Koch Industries were going to stop funding conservative think tanks because of their dubious positions on global warming. This was not true, of course. You don't earn the moniker ""a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition" from Greenpeace for nothing.

Now, Koch Industries is suing two Utah-based web hosting companies to uncover the names of the people who set up the fake site and maliciously made people think Koch Industries actually cared about the environment. In a statement, Koch claims the prank was a "willful act of identity theft, theft of intellectual property and impersonation that extends beyond the boundaries of free speech." In other words: You pretend to be us? Get ready to be piled upon by 1,000 identically-clad corporate lawyers.

You do not want to mess with Koch Industries. (Well, you really, really do but would probably be well-advised not to.) The company's billionaire sibling co-owners, Charles and David Koch, are basically single-handedly funding and organizing a massive anti-Obama network, complete with secret evil meetings of conservatives! When New Yorker writer Jane Mayer wrote a long expose of the brothers' political dealings she became the target of a (probable) smear campaign.

Godspeed, you anonymous* environmentalists.

*Actually, it's probably the work of the notorious anti-corporate pranksters The Yes Men, who recently pulled a very similar prank targeting Chevron. Sorry, guys.

http://gawker.com/5726067/evil-koch-industries-will-crush-well+meaning-pranksters

[Lint Head]

1. How dare some set up a website to maliciously make people

think Koch Industries actually cares about the environment. Of course they don't and they will sue to prove it.

[Javaman]

2. koch won't have a leg to stand on. This will fall under satire. nt