Part of me says “at least they are being honest”. But regardless of views on rights and wrongs of mining, which I barely understand anyway, one thing strikes me...
...Until the arstechnica article, I had never heard of the website concerned. Now I have, and it is involuntarily lodged in my subconscious. I have no idea what the website is and no inclination at all to visit, but I will recognise the name. If the aim was to discredit that website then it has failed, they have merely given it free advertising (any publicity being good publicity).