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Really? The takeaway I got from the NSA revelations was that it's now completely reasonable to assume that Google/FB/Twitter/etc are working directly with the g

Really? The takeaway I got from the NSA revelations was that it's now completely reasonable to assume that Google/FB/Twitter/etc are working directly with the government or politicians. Twitter removed #DNCLeaks right while it was the top trending topic today. Reddit paid staff has been suspending people who talk about Correct The Record or the DNC leaks. Facebook admitted to filtering certain topics due to political bias. Google just took down Wikileaks links. And while all of this is happening, there's not a single mention of the DNC leaks on CNN, MSNBC, Politico, etc. You're right, this probably was just a mistake... but is it wrong to question it? Everything I've learned from the NSA leaks and the DNC leaks shows that the media, politicians, the intelligence community, banks, large tech companies, etc are all working together against the public.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nl 10y ago
The alternative interpretation is that the #DNCLeaks don't seem very interesting. I don't know why Twitter removed it (assuming that did happen), but to me it looks like most of the same people tweeting about are also tweeting about #Munich and or Tim Kaine, both of which are trending. If I was building a trends algorithm I'd try to aim for diversity of sources of trends. I have no idea about Reddit. The first search result I got for "Correct the Record Reddit" was a Reddit post about some paid social media campaign by a Clinton Super PAC. The explanation for Wikileaks is pretty clearly correct, and Google no longer is marking it as dangerous. Not saying that's happening here Well then what on earth are you saying? Vaguely insinuating bad behaviour is pretty easy, especially if you then say that isn't what you are doing. Like I said - it is easy to accept conspiracy theories. They are easy explanations, but usually the truth is complex and involves multiple subtle explanations which are much harder to think about.
- gkoberger 10y ago
  I'm not saying this particular theory is true. It's probably a mistake. I'm just saying that it's completely reasonable to be suspicious and ask questions, however, given that we have definitive proof that Google is known to work with the government.
  - nl 10y ago
    "Work with government" means lots of things. The NSA leaks proved that the NSA hacked Google's network infrastructure. That isn't exactly "working with the government". There are other things where Google does work with the US and other governments. I believe they pass Flu Trends data to the CDC for example.... And which government branch do you think that Google is working with here? The #DNCLeaks thing is a anti-Hillary story, promoted mostly by bitter Bernie Sanders promoters. There are some Trump supporters jumping on too, but they seem a minority. It's inside-baseball for DNC wonks. I could see an argument that someone at Google is a Hillary Clinton supporter and therefore took it on themselves to take it down. That would be a dumb thing to do, but at least would make sense. But which government branch would try to get Google to do it? The White House wouldn't be so stupid - it would leak in an instant. Some secret three-letter agency? Why would they care? Some other department?
    - gkoberger 10y ago
      You can't call something an "anti-Hillary story" if it's an uneditorialized dump of emails. Of course it's mostly Bernie supporters pushing it: the leaks show the DNC worked against Bernie while colluding with Hillary's camp. Hillary and her supporters won't talk about it because it favors them, the DNC won't because they violated bylaws requiring impartiality, and the media won't report because the leak shows they've been taking orders from the DNC.
      - nl 10y ago
        You can't call something an "anti-Hillary story" if it's an uneditorialized dump of emails. Of course it's mostly Bernie supporters pushing it: the leaks show the DNC worked against Bernie while colluding with Hillary's camp. I think we mostly agree here? By the "#DNCLeak story" I mean the analysis of the emails as well as the leak itself - that's what is happening under that hashtag. the media won't report because the leak shows they've been taking orders from the DNC. The only thing I've seen on this is the "Chuck, this must stop" email. It's pretty clear that was a wish, not an order (otherwise why the follow up call). Anyone who's watched any political drama on TV has seen how often politicians offices call journalists to complain - I don't see much different here? Also, the media is reporting the leaks, pretty heavily. The NY Times[1] and CNN[2] amongst plenty of others both have major stories. I think I agree with everything else you say. (If it matters, I don't think Hillary is a great candidate, and wouldn't class myself as a supporter. I would have liked to see a much broader set of candidates in the Democratic race.) [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-san... [2] http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-ema...
- colordrops 10y ago
  DNC Leaked emails are not interesting, but a plagiarized paragraph by Trump's wife is interesting? Are you saying that politicians and political parties do not wield power and influence and do nothing to influence the media? The main purpose of politics is to wield power and influence, and the media is core to this. Are you saying that media is unbiased despite the fact that they are on record contributing to particular candidates' campaigns, e.g. Time Warner (CNN) being one of Clinton's top contributors? You are either burying your head in the sand, or you are part of the misinformation campaign yourself.
  - nl 10y ago
    Edit: I'm being downvoted pretty heavily on this, but I'm not entirely sure why. I didn't even mention Trump's wife. DNC Leaked emails are not interesting, but a plagiarized paragraph by Trump's wife is interesting? Hu? The DNC email leaks are much more interesting than the plagiarized paragraph in Melania Trump. Neither are particularly interesting in the scheme of things though. The plagiarized paragraph shows that the Trump campaign isn't very well organized. I think most knew that. The DNC emails show that the DNC favored Hillary as a candidate. We knew that too - they did in 2008 when Obama beat her. Are you saying that politicians and political parties do not wield power and influence and do nothing to influence the media? The main purpose of politics is to wield power and influence, and the media is core to this. Are you saying that media is unbiased despite the fact that they are on record contributing to particular candidates' campaigns, e.g. Time Warner (CNN) being one of Clinton's top contributors? No I'm not(!!) I'm saying that reading the malware listing of Wikileaks by Google as some kind of Democratic party conspiracy is wrong. I'm saying I don't know much about Reddit. I'm saying that in my professional opinion (I work in area) there are multiple possible explanations for the Twitter hashtag thing. I'm also (now) saying that the three things are unrelated. It is extremely temping to conflate multiple independent things and see things that aren't there.
    - wwwdonohue 10y ago
      The DNC emails show that the DNC actively nurtured relationships with reporters that went against the basics of journalistic ethics. They show that the DNC coordinated with the Hillary campaign to come up with good anti-Bernie stunts (planting an audience member to, i.e., ask if he believed in God). They show a consistent and far-reaching effort not just to "favor" Hillary, as you say, but to ensure that she would win -- whether by bullying the press, planning "counter" events, or propagating narratives about the Sanders campaign being weak and disorganized. This is in direct violation of the DNC charter: In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process. This is far more interesting than Munich or Tim Kaine.
- jfoutz 10y ago
  The dnc creating fake ads for employment @ jobs@trump.com was funny and disturbing. The satirical take was funny, but it also has a swatting kind of vibe to it. IMHO, some of the emails were disturbing. learning how the sausage is made is eye opening.
- vectorpush 10y ago
  > The alternative interpretation is that the #DNCLeaks don't seem very interesting. The e-mails contain details of strategic political planning on the part of the DNC, and although there doesn't seem to be much in the way of nefarious behavior described within, there is frank discussion of political strategy in dry terms that will damage the DNC's (and thus Hillary's) image even though this is how all political organizations operate. Unfortunately for Hillary, there is no RNC e-mail leak, so "this is how all political organizations work" won't be a sufficient defense in the wake of this leak and you can be assured that the conservative media is going to frame the content within these e-mails as cynically as possible. There is also the possibility that there is something legitimately damning yet to be uncovered.
  - nl 10y ago
    I agree with this, and I think it's a pretty fair assessment. I'm not sure if that means that it should or shouldn't be a trending hashtag on Twitter. I do know that I'm a somewhat wonkish follower of politics and didn't really find them that interesting. I would imagine that "interesting" should be something that trending hashtags should optimize for? I complete concede this is a personal opinion though.
Natsu 10y ago
And on HN, the stories about it that were on the front page vanished pretty quickly. Of course, I think that might be due to political-story related 'gravity' at work. I didn't see dang or anyone else comment, though, and they normally do if they've done any sort of moderation.
- ihsw 10y ago
  HN mods will remove anything that isn't tangentially related to tech. In this case, since it's Google, it can stay.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    That's absolutely untrue. HN mods (dang especially) frequently talk about how HN is not just for tech. HN users flag political posts.
  - headShrinker 10y ago
    From what I see on a daily basis, mods do a really good job of curating articles focused on so many different topics with an even slight tie-in to the tech industry. This is one of the more interesting link aggragate sites or even original content sites. As a vehement bernier I'm thankful that HN didn't turn in a Bernie or Clinton voice box. During some really heated but frivolous political debates, HN was my sanctuary.
- dang 10y ago
  It's nice to see an HN user commenting about moderation transparency (also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12148846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12148846), but I feel obliged to let you know that the way it works is more complicated than this. We don't post comments about every sort of moderation—it would lead to too many comments and many more meta-style arguments, which would make HN worse. If you want more information you're welcome to ask us at hn@ycombinator.com.
SixSigma 10y ago
Google is a $0.5-$1m donator to the Clinton Foundation http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundation-donors-include-dozens-of-media-organizations-individuals-207228 http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundati...
- peteretep 10y ago
  So a tiny one, by either organisation's standard
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    Yep, outdonating those under the desk arms deals is hard work
jug 10y ago
I don't think Google are using this as part of a conspiracy. IIRC they have even labelled their own sites, and at some point they blocked The Pirate Bay but cleared it once bad ads were removed.
ihsw 10y ago
> Reddit paid staff has been suspending people who talk about Correct The Record or the DNC leaks. Only on default subs (which is essentially "the front page" of Reddit, a site which touts itself as "the front page of the internet") is this occurring. There is heated and lengthy discussion on Reddit but limited to pro-Trump and pro-Sanders areas.
Canada 10y ago
Any raw dump of email that includes publicly available mailboxes will contain malware. Lots of it. If you download the whole archive on a system running anti-virus it will be detected. The virus scanner would complain just the same if fed the GOP's emails. Why would any virus scanner not raise the alarm? How would it determine that this time the malware should get a pass because of the political nature of nearby data? The mailbox could contain the cure for cancer, the AV will still behave the same. The virus scanner isn't making a mistake. Wikileaks made the mistake by not scrubbing the irrelevant malware from the archive before posting it.
cokernel 10y ago
Here's a single mention of the DNC leaks on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/ Here's a single mention of the DNC leaks on Politico: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/debbie-wasserman-schultz-jeff-weaver-226032 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/debbie-wasserman-schul... I couldn't in a brief search find a single mention of the DNC leaks on MSNBC specifically, but there's this from NBC: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/hacked-documents-allege-dnc-attack-plan-donald-trump-n593301 http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/hacked-documen...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

nl 10y ago

The alternative interpretation is that the #DNCLeaks don't seem very interesting. I don't know why Twitter removed it (assuming that did happen), but to me it looks like most of the same people tweeting about are also tweeting about #Munich and or Tim Kaine, both of which are trending. If I was building a trends algorithm I'd try to aim for diversity of sources of trends. I have no idea about Reddit. The first search result I got for "Correct the Record Reddit" was a Reddit post about some paid social media campaign by a Clinton Super PAC. The explanation for Wikileaks is pretty clearly correct, and Google no longer is marking it as dangerous. Not saying that's happening here Well then what on earth are you saying? Vaguely insinuating bad behaviour is pretty easy, especially if you then say that isn't what you are doing. Like I said - it is easy to accept conspiracy theories. They are easy explanations, but usually the truth is complex and involves multiple subtle explanations which are much harder to think about.

gkoberger 10y ago
I'm not saying this particular theory is true. It's probably a mistake. I'm just saying that it's completely reasonable to be suspicious and ask questions, however, given that we have definitive proof that Google is known to work with the government.
- nl 10y ago
  "Work with government" means lots of things. The NSA leaks proved that the NSA hacked Google's network infrastructure. That isn't exactly "working with the government". There are other things where Google does work with the US and other governments. I believe they pass Flu Trends data to the CDC for example.... And which government branch do you think that Google is working with here? The #DNCLeaks thing is a anti-Hillary story, promoted mostly by bitter Bernie Sanders promoters. There are some Trump supporters jumping on too, but they seem a minority. It's inside-baseball for DNC wonks. I could see an argument that someone at Google is a Hillary Clinton supporter and therefore took it on themselves to take it down. That would be a dumb thing to do, but at least would make sense. But which government branch would try to get Google to do it? The White House wouldn't be so stupid - it would leak in an instant. Some secret three-letter agency? Why would they care? Some other department?
  - gkoberger 10y ago
    You can't call something an "anti-Hillary story" if it's an uneditorialized dump of emails. Of course it's mostly Bernie supporters pushing it: the leaks show the DNC worked against Bernie while colluding with Hillary's camp. Hillary and her supporters won't talk about it because it favors them, the DNC won't because they violated bylaws requiring impartiality, and the media won't report because the leak shows they've been taking orders from the DNC.
    - nl 10y ago
      You can't call something an "anti-Hillary story" if it's an uneditorialized dump of emails. Of course it's mostly Bernie supporters pushing it: the leaks show the DNC worked against Bernie while colluding with Hillary's camp. I think we mostly agree here? By the "#DNCLeak story" I mean the analysis of the emails as well as the leak itself - that's what is happening under that hashtag. the media won't report because the leak shows they've been taking orders from the DNC. The only thing I've seen on this is the "Chuck, this must stop" email. It's pretty clear that was a wish, not an order (otherwise why the follow up call). Anyone who's watched any political drama on TV has seen how often politicians offices call journalists to complain - I don't see much different here? Also, the media is reporting the leaks, pretty heavily. The NY Times[1] and CNN[2] amongst plenty of others both have major stories. I think I agree with everything else you say. (If it matters, I don't think Hillary is a great candidate, and wouldn't class myself as a supporter. I would have liked to see a much broader set of candidates in the Democratic race.) [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-san... [2] http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-ema...
colordrops 10y ago
DNC Leaked emails are not interesting, but a plagiarized paragraph by Trump's wife is interesting? Are you saying that politicians and political parties do not wield power and influence and do nothing to influence the media? The main purpose of politics is to wield power and influence, and the media is core to this. Are you saying that media is unbiased despite the fact that they are on record contributing to particular candidates' campaigns, e.g. Time Warner (CNN) being one of Clinton's top contributors? You are either burying your head in the sand, or you are part of the misinformation campaign yourself.
- nl 10y ago
  Edit: I'm being downvoted pretty heavily on this, but I'm not entirely sure why. I didn't even mention Trump's wife. DNC Leaked emails are not interesting, but a plagiarized paragraph by Trump's wife is interesting? Hu? The DNC email leaks are much more interesting than the plagiarized paragraph in Melania Trump. Neither are particularly interesting in the scheme of things though. The plagiarized paragraph shows that the Trump campaign isn't very well organized. I think most knew that. The DNC emails show that the DNC favored Hillary as a candidate. We knew that too - they did in 2008 when Obama beat her. Are you saying that politicians and political parties do not wield power and influence and do nothing to influence the media? The main purpose of politics is to wield power and influence, and the media is core to this. Are you saying that media is unbiased despite the fact that they are on record contributing to particular candidates' campaigns, e.g. Time Warner (CNN) being one of Clinton's top contributors? No I'm not(!!) I'm saying that reading the malware listing of Wikileaks by Google as some kind of Democratic party conspiracy is wrong. I'm saying I don't know much about Reddit. I'm saying that in my professional opinion (I work in area) there are multiple possible explanations for the Twitter hashtag thing. I'm also (now) saying that the three things are unrelated. It is extremely temping to conflate multiple independent things and see things that aren't there.
  - wwwdonohue 10y ago
    The DNC emails show that the DNC actively nurtured relationships with reporters that went against the basics of journalistic ethics. They show that the DNC coordinated with the Hillary campaign to come up with good anti-Bernie stunts (planting an audience member to, i.e., ask if he believed in God). They show a consistent and far-reaching effort not just to "favor" Hillary, as you say, but to ensure that she would win -- whether by bullying the press, planning "counter" events, or propagating narratives about the Sanders campaign being weak and disorganized. This is in direct violation of the DNC charter: In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chairperson shall be responsible for ensuring that the national officers and staff of the Democratic National Committee maintain impartiality and evenhandedness during the Democratic Party Presidential nominating process. This is far more interesting than Munich or Tim Kaine.
jfoutz 10y ago
The dnc creating fake ads for employment @ jobs@trump.com was funny and disturbing. The satirical take was funny, but it also has a swatting kind of vibe to it. IMHO, some of the emails were disturbing. learning how the sausage is made is eye opening.
vectorpush 10y ago
> The alternative interpretation is that the #DNCLeaks don't seem very interesting. The e-mails contain details of strategic political planning on the part of the DNC, and although there doesn't seem to be much in the way of nefarious behavior described within, there is frank discussion of political strategy in dry terms that will damage the DNC's (and thus Hillary's) image even though this is how all political organizations operate. Unfortunately for Hillary, there is no RNC e-mail leak, so "this is how all political organizations work" won't be a sufficient defense in the wake of this leak and you can be assured that the conservative media is going to frame the content within these e-mails as cynically as possible. There is also the possibility that there is something legitimately damning yet to be uncovered.
- nl 10y ago
  I agree with this, and I think it's a pretty fair assessment. I'm not sure if that means that it should or shouldn't be a trending hashtag on Twitter. I do know that I'm a somewhat wonkish follower of politics and didn't really find them that interesting. I would imagine that "interesting" should be something that trending hashtags should optimize for? I complete concede this is a personal opinion though.

Natsu 10y ago

And on HN, the stories about it that were on the front page vanished pretty quickly. Of course, I think that might be due to political-story related 'gravity' at work. I didn't see dang or anyone else comment, though, and they normally do if they've done any sort of moderation.

ihsw 10y ago
HN mods will remove anything that isn't tangentially related to tech. In this case, since it's Google, it can stay.
- DanBC 10y ago
  That's absolutely untrue. HN mods (dang especially) frequently talk about how HN is not just for tech. HN users flag political posts.
- headShrinker 10y ago
  From what I see on a daily basis, mods do a really good job of curating articles focused on so many different topics with an even slight tie-in to the tech industry. This is one of the more interesting link aggragate sites or even original content sites. As a vehement bernier I'm thankful that HN didn't turn in a Bernie or Clinton voice box. During some really heated but frivolous political debates, HN was my sanctuary.
dang 10y ago
It's nice to see an HN user commenting about moderation transparency (also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12148846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12148846), but I feel obliged to let you know that the way it works is more complicated than this. We don't post comments about every sort of moderation—it would lead to too many comments and many more meta-style arguments, which would make HN worse. If you want more information you're welcome to ask us at hn@ycombinator.com.

SixSigma 10y ago

Google is a $0.5-$1m donator to the Clinton Foundation http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundation-donors-include-dozens-of-media-organizations-individuals-207228 http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/05/clinton-foundati...

peteretep 10y ago
So a tiny one, by either organisation's standard
- SixSigma 10y ago
  Yep, outdonating those under the desk arms deals is hard work

jug 10y ago

I don't think Google are using this as part of a conspiracy. IIRC they have even labelled their own sites, and at some point they blocked The Pirate Bay but cleared it once bad ads were removed.

ihsw 10y ago

> Reddit paid staff has been suspending people who talk about Correct The Record or the DNC leaks. Only on default subs (which is essentially "the front page" of Reddit, a site which touts itself as "the front page of the internet") is this occurring. There is heated and lengthy discussion on Reddit but limited to pro-Trump and pro-Sanders areas.

Canada 10y ago

Any raw dump of email that includes publicly available mailboxes will contain malware. Lots of it. If you download the whole archive on a system running anti-virus it will be detected. The virus scanner would complain just the same if fed the GOP's emails. Why would any virus scanner not raise the alarm? How would it determine that this time the malware should get a pass because of the political nature of nearby data? The mailbox could contain the cure for cancer, the AV will still behave the same. The virus scanner isn't making a mistake. Wikileaks made the mistake by not scrubbing the irrelevant malware from the archive before posting it.

cokernel 10y ago

Here's a single mention of the DNC leaks on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/ http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/ Here's a single mention of the DNC leaks on Politico: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/debbie-wasserman-schultz-jeff-weaver-226032 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/debbie-wasserman-schul... I couldn't in a brief search find a single mention of the DNC leaks on MSNBC specifically, but there's this from NBC: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/hacked-documents-allege-dnc-attack-plan-donald-trump-n593301 http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/hacked-documen...