4 ms·

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 bun

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.
- mannykannot 9y ago
  This is just the same set of motives claims as before, expanded in tedious detail, and with some confusion about what are facts and what are speculation. If, as TFA states, "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", then it is all beside the point.
  - danso 9y ago
    > Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook’s public relations team reached out to the New York Times OK, so your argument is basically "correlation is causation", i.e. - Facebook PR contacted Perlroth at some point - After talking to FB PR, Perlroth and colleagues edited their story. - Therefore, we assume the edit was made because of Facebook's wishes. Note how the OP doesn't explain what this "edit" that Perlroth admits to and confirms. She responds to him on Twitter [0] when he asks her about the story being "wiped"; he characterizes her response as "downplay[ing] the change". Uh OK, I guess that's a matter of opinion. But the OP fails to mention that the edit/update in question involves changing a first-edition story from 300 words to 1,300 words. Here's actual data: 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... But if your reasoning is "correlation is causation" and "no such thing as coincidences", it's good to know where you stand, I don't think there's much more need to quibble. [0] https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976157486188081152 https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976157486188081152
    - nkurz 9y ago
      Your logical argument makes sense to me, but I think your summary is a little off in the details of mannykannot's argument. In particular, I don't think he requires that Facebook PR had direct contact with the authors of the piece. I would suggest this timeline instead: 1. Perlroth et al publish a story in the NYT that arguably reflects poorly on Sandberg. 2. Facebook's PR firm contacts the NYT post-publication requesting that changes be made to the story. 3. Within a few hours the story is edited in a way that arguably is less negative toward Sandberg. Given just this information, is it fair to claim that 2 caused 3? You (with your "conspiracy theory" level of attention to detail and logic) say "no"; mannykannot says "yes". While logically you would seem to be right, let's see how strong we can make the argument that this series of events actually does show causation. How about this: 1) Facebook is willing to pay an expensive PR firm to reach out to the NYT with the goal of changing the coverage. At the least, I think we can say that Facebook (and probably their expensive PR firm) believe that such edit requests produce results. Do you think they are wasting their money? If so, why should we trust an idealistic academic on this rather than a self-interested profit-driven firm willing? 2) If the authors know that there is pushback from Facebook on the story, they will edit the story differently than if there was no pushback. The only question is how big the difference is. Maybe it only prevents them from adding further negativity, or maybe it makes them choose slightly more defensible word choices. They might eventually redirect their efforts in a different piece, but do you really believe that knowledge of pushback will have truly zero effect on their editorial choices? And we've established that it's a non-zero influence, aren't we (like Churchill) just haggling about the price? 3) In addition to having journalistic ideals, the NYT is also a business who needs to be concerned about their reputation as a trustworthy news source. Facebook is one of very few companies influential enough to make or break the NYT's reputation. Thus when Facebook reaches out to the business side of the NYT suggesting that greater consideration be given to their side of the story, it would be prudent for the NYT to do so, or at least to give Facebook the impression that they are doing so. While this doesn't directly explain any individual edit, it might explain a general trajectory whereby edits are generally made in a direction favorable to Facebook. Do you deny that these forces exist?

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.

mannykannot 9y ago
This is just the same set of motives claims as before, expanded in tedious detail, and with some confusion about what are facts and what are speculation. If, as TFA states, "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", then it is all beside the point.
- danso 9y ago
  > Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook’s public relations team reached out to the New York Times OK, so your argument is basically "correlation is causation", i.e. - Facebook PR contacted Perlroth at some point - After talking to FB PR, Perlroth and colleagues edited their story. - Therefore, we assume the edit was made because of Facebook's wishes. Note how the OP doesn't explain what this "edit" that Perlroth admits to and confirms. She responds to him on Twitter [0] when he asks her about the story being "wiped"; he characterizes her response as "downplay[ing] the change". Uh OK, I guess that's a matter of opinion. But the OP fails to mention that the edit/update in question involves changing a first-edition story from 300 words to 1,300 words. Here's actual data: 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... But if your reasoning is "correlation is causation" and "no such thing as coincidences", it's good to know where you stand, I don't think there's much more need to quibble. [0] https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976157486188081152 https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976157486188081152
  - nkurz 9y ago
    Your logical argument makes sense to me, but I think your summary is a little off in the details of mannykannot's argument. In particular, I don't think he requires that Facebook PR had direct contact with the authors of the piece. I would suggest this timeline instead: 1. Perlroth et al publish a story in the NYT that arguably reflects poorly on Sandberg. 2. Facebook's PR firm contacts the NYT post-publication requesting that changes be made to the story. 3. Within a few hours the story is edited in a way that arguably is less negative toward Sandberg. Given just this information, is it fair to claim that 2 caused 3? You (with your "conspiracy theory" level of attention to detail and logic) say "no"; mannykannot says "yes". While logically you would seem to be right, let's see how strong we can make the argument that this series of events actually does show causation. How about this: 1) Facebook is willing to pay an expensive PR firm to reach out to the NYT with the goal of changing the coverage. At the least, I think we can say that Facebook (and probably their expensive PR firm) believe that such edit requests produce results. Do you think they are wasting their money? If so, why should we trust an idealistic academic on this rather than a self-interested profit-driven firm willing? 2) If the authors know that there is pushback from Facebook on the story, they will edit the story differently than if there was no pushback. The only question is how big the difference is. Maybe it only prevents them from adding further negativity, or maybe it makes them choose slightly more defensible word choices. They might eventually redirect their efforts in a different piece, but do you really believe that knowledge of pushback will have truly zero effect on their editorial choices? And we've established that it's a non-zero influence, aren't we (like Churchill) just haggling about the price? 3) In addition to having journalistic ideals, the NYT is also a business who needs to be concerned about their reputation as a trustworthy news source. Facebook is one of very few companies influential enough to make or break the NYT's reputation. Thus when Facebook reaches out to the business side of the NYT suggesting that greater consideration be given to their side of the story, it would be prudent for the NYT to do so, or at least to give Facebook the impression that they are doing so. While this doesn't directly explain any individual edit, it might explain a general trajectory whereby edits are generally made in a direction favorable to Facebook. Do you deny that these forces exist?