3 ms·

That's a clever media hack. Using provocative headlines and misleading lead to get clicks and shares, but using a separate medium (Twitter) to get away with it.

That's a clever media hack. Using provocative headlines and misleading lead to get clicks and shares, but using a separate medium (Twitter) to get away with it. Clever, but it's disappointing that even NYT is turning into this madness.

stingraycharles 10y ago
They've also updated the article text now: "To halt the activity, Uber engineers assigned a persistent identity to iPhones with a small piece of code, a practice called “fingerprinting.” Uber could then identify an iPhone and prevent itself from being fooled even after the device was erased of its contents." Note that this was at least 4 hours after the outrage on Twitter started. Seems like a very intentional, well-calculated strategy indeed.
- jgalt212 10y ago
  > Note that this was at least 4 hours after the outrage on Twitter started. Seems like a very intentional, well-calculated strategy indeed. That comment seems a bit disingenuous. i.e. it's entirely possible it takes a journo 20 seconds to post a correct to a twitter account he/she controls and 4 hours/days/weeks to get his/her editors to sign off on the same correct and the change pushed to the news website.
- memmcgee 10y ago
  Large news sites like the NYT have editing procedures and internal hoops to go through. This isn't just joe shmo's blog that is updated at a whim. I've written freelance articles with editing periods of months, you can imagine that it's a lot harder when it's news.
hsod 10y ago
Kind of reminds me of the "motte and bailey"[0]. The misleading but technically accurate claim gets all the play and all the reaction. The author goes on Twitter and says "golly gee I didn't mean for you take it like that, all I really meant was [much weaker claim that wouldn't have gotten all this attention in the first place]." The correction bounces around but never takes hold the way the initial claim does and people quietly go on believing their initial interpretation. Sad. [0] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey
eli 10y ago
It's wrong to assume malice.

stingraycharles 10y ago

They've also updated the article text now: "To halt the activity, Uber engineers assigned a persistent identity to iPhones with a small piece of code, a practice called “fingerprinting.” Uber could then identify an iPhone and prevent itself from being fooled even after the device was erased of its contents." Note that this was at least 4 hours after the outrage on Twitter started. Seems like a very intentional, well-calculated strategy indeed.

jgalt212 10y ago
> Note that this was at least 4 hours after the outrage on Twitter started. Seems like a very intentional, well-calculated strategy indeed. That comment seems a bit disingenuous. i.e. it's entirely possible it takes a journo 20 seconds to post a correct to a twitter account he/she controls and 4 hours/days/weeks to get his/her editors to sign off on the same correct and the change pushed to the news website.
memmcgee 10y ago
Large news sites like the NYT have editing procedures and internal hoops to go through. This isn't just joe shmo's blog that is updated at a whim. I've written freelance articles with editing periods of months, you can imagine that it's a lot harder when it's news.

hsod 10y ago

Kind of reminds me of the "motte and bailey"[0]. The misleading but technically accurate claim gets all the play and all the reaction. The author goes on Twitter and says "golly gee I didn't mean for you take it like that, all I really meant was [much weaker claim that wouldn't have gotten all this attention in the first place]." The correction bounces around but never takes hold the way the initial claim does and people quietly go on believing their initial interpretation. Sad. [0] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

eli 10y ago

It's wrong to assume malice.