7 ms·

An anatomy of a modern hit job

89 points by cocoflunchy 7y ago

AllegedAlec 7y ago
This reads like a pretty good summary of how these pile-ons work. Take a small bit of what someone said out of context and make it larger than life in a few steps until everyone talks about that person being the next Hitler.
rahuldottech 7y ago
This is scary, man. And it could happen to any of us. There was no public recording of the conversation. Just claims. And this was the result. This is frightening.
0815test 7y ago
Since it looks like so many of the claims about Scruton were simply fabricated, why haven't there been any consequences for Eaton? Heck, why doesn't Scruton sue in UK courts, given that Eaton has clearly admitted that his conduct was malicious in getting Scruton sacked. This would be regarded as libel even in the U.S., where First Amendment protections on the matter are quite strong.
- barrkel 7y ago
  The claims about Scruton were truncated quotes and dredging up historical statements. I don't think they significantly misrepresent his views; rather, they leave out the subtlety that lets a certain kind of racist think they have intellectually defensible views. There's a deeply nasty seam in Tory politics like this. Witness Zac Goldsmith's attacks on Khan during the London mayor election - it was racist baiting, and the chap has still gotten re-elected after a brief period out in the cold. Or Boris always going on about letter boxes and bank robbers. It's odious, but it's usually done in a way that can be superficially waved off by psychologically ignored qualifications.
- turc1656 7y ago
  In the U.S., it's nearly impossible for public figures to sue for things like slander, defamation, and libel. "Under the strict liability rules of common law, a public official would not have to prove that a reporter was aware that a particular statement about the official was false in order to recover from the reporter. This could have the effect of deterring members of the press from commenting on the activities of a public official. Under the rules set forth in Sullivan, a public official cannot recover from a person who publishes a communication about a public official’s conduct or fitness unless the defendant knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of the statements truth or falsity." The only hope here is proving 1) that they statements are in fact false and 2) that they were made recklessly and with "actual malice" (the legal standard). Proving they are false is damn hard since Eaton basically paraphrased and summarized his own opinion on the statements by claiming they were anti-semitic, racist, etc. How would they prove Eaton's opinion was false or at least wasn't what he claimed to believe? Also, proving actual malice will also be near impossible. EDIT - forgot source link - https://libelandslander.uslegal.com/fault/public-officials-and-public-figures/ https://libelandslander.uslegal.com/fault/public-officials-a...
osullivj 7y ago
Ted Honderich (UCL philosopher) on Scruton: "the unthinking man's thinking man"
- turc1656 7y ago
  I don't know anything about Honderich, but that sounds like a very cliche insult that is typical of when someone doesn't want to actually take the time to respond to someone else's viewpoint in detail so it's far easier to simply dismiss with this type of insult. Seems like the intellectuals' equivalent of "he's a racist/sexist/etc." - the implication being that since that label has been thrown out there we no longer need to discuss what was actually said by the person.
- Tomasz_Papka 7y ago
  John Martins (independent thinker) on osullivj: "role model for every racist"
FearNotDaniel 7y ago
For balance, bearing mind the Spectator is strongly partisan, I'm providing a left-wing newspaper's account of the same situation [0] and George Eaton's own unequivocal apology over the way he used social media ("a serious error of judgement which I profoundly regret") [1]. I don't think either side is fairly representing the situation, I think it's most probable that Scruton probably is a racist old homophobe and Eaton probably is a manipulative, cocky little twat. But at least he apologized, which is pretty rare in these tiresome mud-slinging situations. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/21/david-lammy-roger-scruton-rush-damn-our-opponents https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/21/david-... [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/04/my-interview-roger-scruton https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/04/my-interview-roger-scru...
- 0815test 7y ago
  That article from the Grauniad is saying very little that's directly relevant, except for a claim that Hungarians should not be concerned about people from Muslim cultures immigrating there, and potentially being less-than-loyal to their surrounding society. That would seem to be a matter of opinion, at the very least. Hardly something that we should "call out" Scruton on, much less use as a pretext to fabricate fake news about Scruton's quite nuanced views on this and other matters.
  - barrkel 7y ago
    Just s/Islamic/Jewish/ and repeat things back and see how they sound. We've been here before.
    - 0815test 7y ago
      So we should focus on "how things sound", to the exclusion of any judgment about the actual facts on the ground? That can't be right. Culture matters, even many left-wingers will agree about this. Muslim cultures, by and large (there are of course all sorts of exceptions, among which Malaysia is especially notable) have rather specific problems with the values and norms that are commonly enforced there, that aren't even related to the religion of Islam per se. And Scruton is clearly aware of this, so by disregarding these things you're essentially misrepresenting his actual views.
na85 7y ago
Sad to see such a lack of response from HN readers on this submission. I think it nicely illustrates how social media can be used for ill. Perhaps we think "yes, we know this already" but the discussions around ethics and what to do once you've created a monster aren't happening, and they need to be. Instead we'll upvote and fervently discuss pointless exercises like porting vim to wasm.
- AllegedAlec 7y ago
  > I think it nicely illustrates how social media can be used for ill. This could be done even without the social media (although this does ofcourse make the process much easier). I'd more so blame a mindset for this than any technological tool.
  - 5trokerac3 7y ago
    I find your analysis to be wholly naive. Social media is a technology model purposely built to be addictive, and built to reward balkanization. The human proclivity for tribalism, resulting in witch hunts, is wholly exacerbated and magnified by Facebook and Twitter, and the companies seem to want to do little to curb it, because so much of their traffic is built upon it. It's my opinion that social media does to the mind what cigarettes do to the lungs.
- john-radio 7y ago
  The site is called Hacker News.
  - na85 7y ago
    Yes it is, and the community here likes to pretend this is a gathering of great thinkers and intellectuals where the big issues are discussed.
    - dang 7y ago
      The community isn't human, so it can't pretend anything, and if you're interpreting individuals that way, that seems error-prone. I think HN would be worse if "the big issues" were excluded, and also if the clever and possibly pointless were excluded (e.g. porting vim to Wasm). Fortunately we can have both. As for pompous-sounding comments...this is the internet. Let's not raise our standards too high.
pwinnski 7y ago
One of these things is not like the others... Many times the issue with pile-ons seems to be that the consequences are out of line with the initial offense. In this case, however, the offense itself appears to be a fabrication, a politically-motivated hit job that takes advantage of the current trend of pile-ons without actually being an example of them.
sverige 7y ago
I once spoke to a reporter 25 years ago when I was involved in politics. The reporter was friendly to my point of view. After reading what I allegedly said, I resolved to never again agree to an interview with any journalist. These days, I can't understand why anyone would. They feed on controversy and there's no real check on their willingness to make up shit for clicks.
- newswriter99 7y ago
  In the 1990's? You'd have thought that'd be far enough removed from the current journalism climate to still have some level of ethics and professionalism. I got into journalism in 2009, three years after Craigslist began killing print ad revenue and right before clickbait conflagrated from Gawker and its four (five?) horsemen of the apocalypse. Journalism is in a sorry state these days. Newspapers of record in towns are thin as a toothpick and the only people who can survive at the national/international level tend to be bored upper-middle class rich people with an agenda (conservative or liberal, doesn't matter). If you don't have an agenda that aligns with the publisher/editor (and the readership) they don't want you. I tried to be a neutral, professional reporter and all it did was leave a bad taste in my mouth.
  - duxup 7y ago
    I feel like there is a real distinction as far as the state of "journalism". I think there are a lot of people doing real good work ethically and professionally. I think there are a lot of people who don't do a good job. The thing is I think most people decided the two dependent on if it fits their point of view... so the whole situation is muddied.
  - jdougan 7y ago
    Nah, it's been terrible for a long time. It was just harder to notice then, unless you were the target du jour, because there wan't much in the way of easily available alternate sources to compare to. In the late 80s in Canada I got exposed to the same problems when a story I was involved in got distorted to hell.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
duxup 7y ago
It's scary stuff, but I think we're also seeing more orginzations wary not just of "the contraversy" but of reacting too quickly to it and ending up on the wrong side. Twitter I think plays no small part in some of this. The medium is the message and Twitter only has room for trite statements, outage, and insults, and no room for discussion, nuance ... and maybe no room for understanding.
turc1656 7y ago
I see that while Scruton was sacked, Eaton was only forced to apologize for his misrepresentation and had to take down a photo from Twitter. Sounds fair, right?
tj-teej 7y ago
Shameful to see a Douglas Murray article posted on Hacker News... This guy's whole MO is saying racist/xenophobic things and then complaining about PC "mob mentality" when people say he's a racist or a xenophobe.
- adammichaelc 7y ago
  This is why it's flagged; b/c Gen Z thinks speaking your mind is racist/xenophobic. Sad state for free speech.
  - dariusj18 7y ago
    What if one's mind is racist/xenophobic?
    - sawmurai 7y ago
      Speaking your mind must always be allowed, even if it is evil in the eye of the majority.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - dariusj18 7y ago
        This is a silly thing to say on a forum dedicated to prevent stupid things from infecting what would be otherwise good conversations.
- blub 7y ago
  Why is he a racist and/or xenophobe? If you mean because he's criticising Islam, then I believe you are wrong. I read his book "The strange death of Europe: immigration, identity, Islam" and found it to be balanced, copiously referenced and frankly very scary. There is currently no other group of people on this planet that I know of that is hunting down the people they dislike and executes them. Maybe the Mexican cartels.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
MockObject 7y ago
Why is a Spectator article flagged?
- DanBC 7y ago
  Because it's a dishonest article. This is better: https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2019/04/25/scruton-is-part-of-an-intellectual-culture-giving-respectabi https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2019/04/25/scrut...
  - 0815test 7y ago
    So the fact that Scruton is part of an "intellectual culture" we don't like and that might somehow be adjacent to views that are actually religiously intolerant, supremacist etc. (of which "it is literally, logically impossible for any follower of Religion X to assimilate into an open culture featuring broadly liberal values" is one, of course - that I find genuinely scary and that we should hope does not become the fashionable, contrarian position to hold!), should give us license to outright misrepresent what he thinks and remove every nuance in his position? That makes no sense. If anything, it makes very problematic views look more salient and supported than they actually are!

89 points by cocoflunchy 7y ago

This reads like a pretty good summary of how these pile-ons work. Take a small bit of what someone said out of context and make it larger than life in a few steps until everyone talks about that person being the next Hitler.

rahuldottech 7y ago

This is scary, man. And it could happen to any of us. There was no public recording of the conversation. Just claims. And this was the result. This is frightening.

0815test 7y ago

Since it looks like so many of the claims about Scruton were simply fabricated, why haven't there been any consequences for Eaton? Heck, why doesn't Scruton sue in UK courts, given that Eaton has clearly admitted that his conduct was malicious in getting Scruton sacked. This would be regarded as libel even in the U.S., where First Amendment protections on the matter are quite strong.

barrkel 7y ago
The claims about Scruton were truncated quotes and dredging up historical statements. I don't think they significantly misrepresent his views; rather, they leave out the subtlety that lets a certain kind of racist think they have intellectually defensible views. There's a deeply nasty seam in Tory politics like this. Witness Zac Goldsmith's attacks on Khan during the London mayor election - it was racist baiting, and the chap has still gotten re-elected after a brief period out in the cold. Or Boris always going on about letter boxes and bank robbers. It's odious, but it's usually done in a way that can be superficially waved off by psychologically ignored qualifications.
turc1656 7y ago
In the U.S., it's nearly impossible for public figures to sue for things like slander, defamation, and libel. "Under the strict liability rules of common law, a public official would not have to prove that a reporter was aware that a particular statement about the official was false in order to recover from the reporter. This could have the effect of deterring members of the press from commenting on the activities of a public official. Under the rules set forth in Sullivan, a public official cannot recover from a person who publishes a communication about a public official’s conduct or fitness unless the defendant knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of the statements truth or falsity." The only hope here is proving 1) that they statements are in fact false and 2) that they were made recklessly and with "actual malice" (the legal standard). Proving they are false is damn hard since Eaton basically paraphrased and summarized his own opinion on the statements by claiming they were anti-semitic, racist, etc. How would they prove Eaton's opinion was false or at least wasn't what he claimed to believe? Also, proving actual malice will also be near impossible. EDIT - forgot source link - https://libelandslander.uslegal.com/fault/public-officials-and-public-figures/ https://libelandslander.uslegal.com/fault/public-officials-a...

osullivj 7y ago

Ted Honderich (UCL philosopher) on Scruton: "the unthinking man's thinking man"

turc1656 7y ago
I don't know anything about Honderich, but that sounds like a very cliche insult that is typical of when someone doesn't want to actually take the time to respond to someone else's viewpoint in detail so it's far easier to simply dismiss with this type of insult. Seems like the intellectuals' equivalent of "he's a racist/sexist/etc." - the implication being that since that label has been thrown out there we no longer need to discuss what was actually said by the person.
Tomasz_Papka 7y ago
John Martins (independent thinker) on osullivj: "role model for every racist"

FearNotDaniel 7y ago

For balance, bearing mind the Spectator is strongly partisan, I'm providing a left-wing newspaper's account of the same situation [0] and George Eaton's own unequivocal apology over the way he used social media ("a serious error of judgement which I profoundly regret") [1]. I don't think either side is fairly representing the situation, I think it's most probable that Scruton probably is a racist old homophobe and Eaton probably is a manipulative, cocky little twat. But at least he apologized, which is pretty rare in these tiresome mud-slinging situations. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/21/david-lammy-roger-scruton-rush-damn-our-opponents https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/21/david-... [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/04/my-interview-roger-scruton https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/04/my-interview-roger-scru...

0815test 7y ago
That article from the Grauniad is saying very little that's directly relevant, except for a claim that Hungarians should not be concerned about people from Muslim cultures immigrating there, and potentially being less-than-loyal to their surrounding society. That would seem to be a matter of opinion, at the very least. Hardly something that we should "call out" Scruton on, much less use as a pretext to fabricate fake news about Scruton's quite nuanced views on this and other matters.
- barrkel 7y ago
  Just s/Islamic/Jewish/ and repeat things back and see how they sound. We've been here before.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    So we should focus on "how things sound", to the exclusion of any judgment about the actual facts on the ground? That can't be right. Culture matters, even many left-wingers will agree about this. Muslim cultures, by and large (there are of course all sorts of exceptions, among which Malaysia is especially notable) have rather specific problems with the values and norms that are commonly enforced there, that aren't even related to the religion of Islam per se. And Scruton is clearly aware of this, so by disregarding these things you're essentially misrepresenting his actual views.

na85 7y ago

Sad to see such a lack of response from HN readers on this submission. I think it nicely illustrates how social media can be used for ill. Perhaps we think "yes, we know this already" but the discussions around ethics and what to do once you've created a monster aren't happening, and they need to be. Instead we'll upvote and fervently discuss pointless exercises like porting vim to wasm.

AllegedAlec 7y ago
> I think it nicely illustrates how social media can be used for ill. This could be done even without the social media (although this does ofcourse make the process much easier). I'd more so blame a mindset for this than any technological tool.
- 5trokerac3 7y ago
  I find your analysis to be wholly naive. Social media is a technology model purposely built to be addictive, and built to reward balkanization. The human proclivity for tribalism, resulting in witch hunts, is wholly exacerbated and magnified by Facebook and Twitter, and the companies seem to want to do little to curb it, because so much of their traffic is built upon it. It's my opinion that social media does to the mind what cigarettes do to the lungs.
john-radio 7y ago
The site is called Hacker News.
- na85 7y ago
  Yes it is, and the community here likes to pretend this is a gathering of great thinkers and intellectuals where the big issues are discussed.
  - dang 7y ago
    The community isn't human, so it can't pretend anything, and if you're interpreting individuals that way, that seems error-prone. I think HN would be worse if "the big issues" were excluded, and also if the clever and possibly pointless were excluded (e.g. porting vim to Wasm). Fortunately we can have both. As for pompous-sounding comments...this is the internet. Let's not raise our standards too high.

pwinnski 7y ago

One of these things is not like the others... Many times the issue with pile-ons seems to be that the consequences are out of line with the initial offense. In this case, however, the offense itself appears to be a fabrication, a politically-motivated hit job that takes advantage of the current trend of pile-ons without actually being an example of them.

sverige 7y ago

I once spoke to a reporter 25 years ago when I was involved in politics. The reporter was friendly to my point of view. After reading what I allegedly said, I resolved to never again agree to an interview with any journalist. These days, I can't understand why anyone would. They feed on controversy and there's no real check on their willingness to make up shit for clicks.

newswriter99 7y ago
In the 1990's? You'd have thought that'd be far enough removed from the current journalism climate to still have some level of ethics and professionalism. I got into journalism in 2009, three years after Craigslist began killing print ad revenue and right before clickbait conflagrated from Gawker and its four (five?) horsemen of the apocalypse. Journalism is in a sorry state these days. Newspapers of record in towns are thin as a toothpick and the only people who can survive at the national/international level tend to be bored upper-middle class rich people with an agenda (conservative or liberal, doesn't matter). If you don't have an agenda that aligns with the publisher/editor (and the readership) they don't want you. I tried to be a neutral, professional reporter and all it did was leave a bad taste in my mouth.
- duxup 7y ago
  I feel like there is a real distinction as far as the state of "journalism". I think there are a lot of people doing real good work ethically and professionally. I think there are a lot of people who don't do a good job. The thing is I think most people decided the two dependent on if it fits their point of view... so the whole situation is muddied.
- jdougan 7y ago
  Nah, it's been terrible for a long time. It was just harder to notice then, unless you were the target du jour, because there wan't much in the way of easily available alternate sources to compare to. In the late 80s in Canada I got exposed to the same problems when a story I was involved in got distorted to hell.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

duxup 7y ago

It's scary stuff, but I think we're also seeing more orginzations wary not just of "the contraversy" but of reacting too quickly to it and ending up on the wrong side. Twitter I think plays no small part in some of this. The medium is the message and Twitter only has room for trite statements, outage, and insults, and no room for discussion, nuance ... and maybe no room for understanding.

turc1656 7y ago

I see that while Scruton was sacked, Eaton was only forced to apologize for his misrepresentation and had to take down a photo from Twitter. Sounds fair, right?

tj-teej 7y ago

Shameful to see a Douglas Murray article posted on Hacker News... This guy's whole MO is saying racist/xenophobic things and then complaining about PC "mob mentality" when people say he's a racist or a xenophobe.

adammichaelc 7y ago
This is why it's flagged; b/c Gen Z thinks speaking your mind is racist/xenophobic. Sad state for free speech.
- dariusj18 7y ago
  What if one's mind is racist/xenophobic?
  - sawmurai 7y ago
    Speaking your mind must always be allowed, even if it is evil in the eye of the majority.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - dariusj18 7y ago
      This is a silly thing to say on a forum dedicated to prevent stupid things from infecting what would be otherwise good conversations.
blub 7y ago
Why is he a racist and/or xenophobe? If you mean because he's criticising Islam, then I believe you are wrong. I read his book "The strange death of Europe: immigration, identity, Islam" and found it to be balanced, copiously referenced and frankly very scary. There is currently no other group of people on this planet that I know of that is hunting down the people they dislike and executes them. Maybe the Mexican cartels.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

MockObject 7y ago

Why is a Spectator article flagged?

DanBC 7y ago
Because it's a dishonest article. This is better: https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2019/04/25/scruton-is-part-of-an-intellectual-culture-giving-respectabi https://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2019/04/25/scrut...
- 0815test 7y ago
  So the fact that Scruton is part of an "intellectual culture" we don't like and that might somehow be adjacent to views that are actually religiously intolerant, supremacist etc. (of which "it is literally, logically impossible for any follower of Religion X to assimilate into an open culture featuring broadly liberal values" is one, of course - that I find genuinely scary and that we should hope does not become the fashionable, contrarian position to hold!), should give us license to outright misrepresent what he thinks and remove every nuance in his position? That makes no sense. If anything, it makes very problematic views look more salient and supported than they actually are!