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I do not see that there is any relevance to this case in the NYT being sensitive to national security issues - that is clearly not an issue here. And if issues

I do not see that there is any relevance to this case in the NYT being sensitive to national security issues - that is clearly not an issue here. And if issues of importance have routinely been "starved because of discouragement/apathy by editors" (as opposed to possibly flawed judgements of importance), then it would be helpful to your argument if you could enumerate them. No-one is suggesting that Sandberg had the editorial power of reviewing all Facebook-related articles before they were published, so the question of why she did not suppress this article before it first appeared does not arise. NYTs failure to seek permission beforehand can adequately be explained by a) it didn't expect the response it got and b) if it were in the habit of seeking such approval, it would destroy its brand, and its reason for existence. The issue is that the NYT caved in to a demand without even following its normal policy of explaining a correction, and this is a serious matter regardless of whether Sandberg or Facebook were ill-advised to follow this course of action. The article's author's responses look to me like an attempt at damage control, in that they talk around the central issue with heavy use of weasel words. If the original was deleted because it was superseded by a clearer follow-up, why is the follow-up notably unclear on this very issue?

danso 9y ago
> The issue is that the NYT caved in to a demand without even following its normal policy of explaining a correction, If you start with this premise then you are already begging the question. That is, it's not a given that this revision benefits Sandberg, nevermind that she pulled the strings to make it happen. The reporters' responses have been that the story has been revised to add additional detail (which includes doubling the mentions of Sandberg by name). If you think Sandberg doesn't have such a cozy relationship as to have prior-review power -- or more likely, the suppressive power of reporters being told not to pursue such embarrassing scoops in the first place -- then her asking for this change is going to rankle feathers. So she made this demand, but was OK with the reporters adding this completely unnecessary mention of how reputation-paranoid Sandberg and Zuckerberg are? > The public reaction caused some at Facebook to recoil at revealing more, said the current and former employees. Since the 2016 election, Facebook has paid unusual attention to the reputations of Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg, conducting polls to track how they are viewed by the public, said Tavis McGinn, who was recruited to the company last April and headed the executive reputation efforts through September 2017. And how is it that Sandberg successfully intimidated the NYT to change their story, and then less than 24 hours later, the same NYT reporters publish an a followup that centers completely on the disgruntled executive (CSO Stamos) and is even more explicit about Sandberg and Stamos fighting over Russian interference -- including implying a direct cause and effect between their deteriorating relationship and Stamos's punishment? > By October, the relationship between Mr. Stamos and Ms. Sandberg had deteriorated over how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how best to reorganize Facebook’s security team before the midterm elections, according to more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at the company. Mr. Stamos proposed that instead of reporting to Facebook’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, he report directly to Facebook’s higher-ups. > Instead, executives released Mr. Stamos from much of his day-to-day responsibility, employees said. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-fa...
- mannykannot 9y ago
  It is rather interesting how you use the techniques of the conspiracy theorist to deny that anything is going on - the techniques, specifically, of asking a bunch of questions that depend heavily on motives (and with the tacit implication that the answers all fall the way that works for you), and of replying to objections with more questions that do not directly address those objections. It is indeed possible that this statement is a falsehood: "Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook’s public relations team reached out to the New York Times–some time after the story was published", but I am disinclined to believe it is simply on the basis of questionable questions about motives, when the facts behind those questions could equally be explained by both parties trying to back off, in their own ways, from their initial mistakes. And the issue of whether it was Sandberg, specifically, who initiated the initial retraction request, is a red herring.
  - danso 9y ago
    I'm the one who provides proof and rationale, but that's all just "techniques of the conspiracy theorist"? Whereas you are accepting at face value a blog post that itself produces no proof, other than to point out that Facebook PR contacted NYT and NYT made an edit to their story? OK, I'll make my argument by assuming that I'm wrong and you are right: - NYT defers to FB and Sandberg - Yesterday, an NYT article was edited and a phrase particularly damning and specific to Sandberg was removed without notice. - It's reasonable to assume Sandberg pressured NYT to make that change. OK, I propose these facts: This change was made at 9:21PM EST on Monday, 2+ hours after the story originally published at 7PM: http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex-stamos.html http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytim... At 8:33PM Tuesday, the two reporters for the first story published this story: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-fa... http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook-security.html http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co... The End for Facebook’s Security Evangelist https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-fa... I bring up the time stamps to argue that this story would've had to been partially reported and on deck for it to have been ready to publish less than 24 hours later. It's reasonable to assume they had some fo this reporting done at the time Sandberg is alleged to have coerced them into changing their story. This follow up story is entirely focused on CSO Stamos, i.e. the Facebook exec who was forced out of a job and is the exec that advocated the most against Sandberg when it came to detecting Russian interference. The NYT reporters published this story sympathetic to Stamos despite agreeing to soften their coverage just 24-hours before to please Sandberg. This follow story ends with a damning claim, that Stamos and Sandberg had a "deteriorating" relationship specifically on the issue of "how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how to best reorganize Facebook's security team before the midterm elections." Even worse, the story alleges that when Stamos asked for a restructure to avoid reporting to general counsel, Stamos's work and department was dissolved. To put these two events (Sandberg disagreement, Stamos losing his job) in consecutive paragraphs strongly implies that Sandberg fired Stamos because of the Russia thing. Even worse, this story sources this claim to "more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at the company." ----- Assuming those facts above, here's the argument from contradiction: the NYT reporters are accused of erasing the following sentence regarding Sheryl Sandberg: > Mr. Stamos had been a strong advocate inside the company for investigating and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook, often to the consternation of other top executives, including Sheryl Sandberg, the social network’s chief operating officer, according to the current and former employees, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters The allegation is that the above sentence is damaging to Sandberg, and she went out of her way to threaten/pressure the NYT to change/remove it. But as the facts stand, the NYT has published a separate story that states this: > By October, the relationship between Mr. Stamos and Ms. Sandberg had deteriorated over how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how best to reorganize Facebook’s security team before the midterm elections, according to more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at the company. Mr. Stamos proposed that instead of reporting to Facebook’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, he report directly to Facebook’s higher-ups. Instead, executives released Mr. Stamos from much of his day-to-day responsibility, employees said. - The "consternation" sentence was so offensive to Sandberg that she used influence to get NYT to revise/remove it from a story yesterday. - Today, those same editors published a story even more damning regarding Sandberg and Stamos and Russian interference. - That this followup story was allowed to be published (and 4+ hours later, has had no revisions), contradicts the assumption that NYT is subservient to Sandberg/Facebook.

danso 9y ago

> The issue is that the NYT caved in to a demand without even following its normal policy of explaining a correction, If you start with this premise then you are already begging the question. That is, it's not a given that this revision benefits Sandberg, nevermind that she pulled the strings to make it happen. The reporters' responses have been that the story has been revised to add additional detail (which includes doubling the mentions of Sandberg by name). If you think Sandberg doesn't have such a cozy relationship as to have prior-review power -- or more likely, the suppressive power of reporters being told not to pursue such embarrassing scoops in the first place -- then her asking for this change is going to rankle feathers. So she made this demand, but was OK with the reporters adding this completely unnecessary mention of how reputation-paranoid Sandberg and Zuckerberg are? > The public reaction caused some at Facebook to recoil at revealing more, said the current and former employees. Since the 2016 election, Facebook has paid unusual attention to the reputations of Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg, conducting polls to track how they are viewed by the public, said Tavis McGinn, who was recruited to the company last April and headed the executive reputation efforts through September 2017. And how is it that Sandberg successfully intimidated the NYT to change their story, and then less than 24 hours later, the same NYT reporters publish an a followup that centers completely on the disgruntled executive (CSO Stamos) and is even more explicit about Sandberg and Stamos fighting over Russian interference -- including implying a direct cause and effect between their deteriorating relationship and Stamos's punishment? > By October, the relationship between Mr. Stamos and Ms. Sandberg had deteriorated over how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how best to reorganize Facebook’s security team before the midterm elections, according to more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at the company. Mr. Stamos proposed that instead of reporting to Facebook’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, he report directly to Facebook’s higher-ups. > Instead, executives released Mr. Stamos from much of his day-to-day responsibility, employees said. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-fa...

mannykannot 9y ago
It is rather interesting how you use the techniques of the conspiracy theorist to deny that anything is going on - the techniques, specifically, of asking a bunch of questions that depend heavily on motives (and with the tacit implication that the answers all fall the way that works for you), and of replying to objections with more questions that do not directly address those objections. It is indeed possible that this statement is a falsehood: "Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook’s public relations team reached out to the New York Times–some time after the story was published", but I am disinclined to believe it is simply on the basis of questionable questions about motives, when the facts behind those questions could equally be explained by both parties trying to back off, in their own ways, from their initial mistakes. And the issue of whether it was Sandberg, specifically, who initiated the initial retraction request, is a red herring.
- danso 9y ago
  I'm the one who provides proof and rationale, but that's all just "techniques of the conspiracy theorist"? Whereas you are accepting at face value a blog post that itself produces no proof, other than to point out that Facebook PR contacted NYT and NYT made an edit to their story? OK, I'll make my argument by assuming that I'm wrong and you are right: - NYT defers to FB and Sandberg - Yesterday, an NYT article was edited and a phrase particularly damning and specific to Sandberg was removed without notice. - It's reasonable to assume Sandberg pressured NYT to make that change. OK, I propose these facts: This change was made at 9:21PM EST on Monday, 2+ hours after the story originally published at 7PM: http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex-stamos.html http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytim... At 8:33PM Tuesday, the two reporters for the first story published this story: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-fa... http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook-security.html http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co... The End for Facebook’s Security Evangelist https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook-security.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-fa... I bring up the time stamps to argue that this story would've had to been partially reported and on deck for it to have been ready to publish less than 24 hours later. It's reasonable to assume they had some fo this reporting done at the time Sandberg is alleged to have coerced them into changing their story. This follow up story is entirely focused on CSO Stamos, i.e. the Facebook exec who was forced out of a job and is the exec that advocated the most against Sandberg when it came to detecting Russian interference. The NYT reporters published this story sympathetic to Stamos despite agreeing to soften their coverage just 24-hours before to please Sandberg. This follow story ends with a damning claim, that Stamos and Sandberg had a "deteriorating" relationship specifically on the issue of "how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how to best reorganize Facebook's security team before the midterm elections." Even worse, the story alleges that when Stamos asked for a restructure to avoid reporting to general counsel, Stamos's work and department was dissolved. To put these two events (Sandberg disagreement, Stamos losing his job) in consecutive paragraphs strongly implies that Sandberg fired Stamos because of the Russia thing. Even worse, this story sources this claim to "more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at the company." ----- Assuming those facts above, here's the argument from contradiction: the NYT reporters are accused of erasing the following sentence regarding Sheryl Sandberg: > Mr. Stamos had been a strong advocate inside the company for investigating and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook, often to the consternation of other top executives, including Sheryl Sandberg, the social network’s chief operating officer, according to the current and former employees, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters The allegation is that the above sentence is damaging to Sandberg, and she went out of her way to threaten/pressure the NYT to change/remove it. But as the facts stand, the NYT has published a separate story that states this: > By October, the relationship between Mr. Stamos and Ms. Sandberg had deteriorated over how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how best to reorganize Facebook’s security team before the midterm elections, according to more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at the company. Mr. Stamos proposed that instead of reporting to Facebook’s general counsel, Colin Stretch, he report directly to Facebook’s higher-ups. Instead, executives released Mr. Stamos from much of his day-to-day responsibility, employees said. - The "consternation" sentence was so offensive to Sandberg that she used influence to get NYT to revise/remove it from a story yesterday. - Today, those same editors published a story even more damning regarding Sandberg and Stamos and Russian interference. - That this followup story was allowed to be published (and 4+ hours later, has had no revisions), contradicts the assumption that NYT is subservient to Sandberg/Facebook.