7 ms·

The hypocrisy in these articles criticising social media for tracking people when the news sites are stuffed to the gills with trackers is starting to get annoy

The hypocrisy in these articles criticising social media for tracking people when the news sites are stuffed to the gills with trackers is starting to get annoying.

warent 7y ago
The journalists aren't the ones making that decision though, so I don't think that speaks to the quality of the article itself.
- mr_toad 7y ago
  I’m not sure which is worse, that journalists are unaware of what their own papers are doing, or that they’re keeping quiet about it.
  - save_ferris 7y ago
    You make it sound like some conspiracy that journalists rely on advertising tech while publishing negative stories about it. Journalists aren't the ones building the CMS features for their publishers. I used to be a developer at a newspaper in 2016, and most of my coworkers on the journalism side didn't understand the business side of the paper, it wasn't their job. But I'll emphasize my previous point again: newspapers would die without online advertising revenue. Even with online ads, publications around the country are being sold at record low prices and shut down or kneecapped by private equity groups. I highly encourage you to read up on the financial landscape of news in 2019, it's terribly grim. Massive contraction is occurring the industry, prompting major consolidation of media groups. Companies like Digital First Media acquire large collections of papers and immediately fire half of the newsroom, and this is happening nationwide.[0] I get that it's so easy to point fingers at news orgs for using online ads, but they didn't really have a choice. When companies like Google and Facebook took control of the distribution and access of content, newspapers became their customers in order to stay alive. 0: https://www.inquirer.com/business/reading-eagle-newspaper-digital-first-medianews-gannett-20190522.html https://www.inquirer.com/business/reading-eagle-newspaper-di...
    - wolco 7y ago
      Journalists publishing stories around ad tracking should be aware of that they are doing the same thing. The user would be better off privacy-wise by not reading the article. They could still have ads but why add tracking?
  - wwweston 7y ago
    In fact, maybe all journalists everywhere should just focus on investigating the organizations they write/work for, and stop talking about anything else until those places are paragons above criticism, right? Maybe next up: only debt-free people/orgs are allowed to talk about deficits? (Sure, journalism, like most other professions, can use introspection, including the topic of how tracking works, but if there's any case that something needs to be said every time the topic of tracking comes up -- and it's not clear that it is -- that should largely be an editorial call.)
- briandear 7y ago
  The “just following orders” argument? Journalists know good and well what their websites are doing if they themselves are supposedly experts on reporting on this sort of thing. They expect employees at Google et al to go against their masters yet they are hypocrites because they don’t go against theirs.
  - warent 7y ago
    No, that's something completely different. These writers aren't actively implementing the advertising software. They're not "following orders" in anything with respect to ad tracking simply by being a contributor on the platform. At worst, they're complicit by working for the company that utilizes it. Frankly though we all complicit in this stuff one way or another even if there's the illusion that we aren't by some degree of separation. (EDIT: Deleted irrelevant argument)
save_ferris 7y ago
I'm not sure that's an entirely fair comparison to make for a couple reasons: A) nobody pays to read the news anymore, and B) Facebook controls its ad network. If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves. You're essentially arguing that they should commit economic suicide if they truly care about ad tracking. Our culture isn't willing to spend as much on news content as we do Netflix, and that's just a sad reality. Facebook, Youtube, etc. OTOH have built very profitable advertising systems that form the foundation of their entire business. They fully control these ad networks and all their data. And in this case, it sounds like YouTube may have violated COPPA, which is a totally different level of moral failure than choosing to put up ads.
- camjohnson26 7y ago
  A lot of people pay for the Wall Street Journal. If the news sites would stop giving it away for free maybe people would be forced to start paying. You may think this would just drive people to fake news sources but people actually want something accurate. Fake news only works if it mixes with trustworthy content.
  - Macross8299 7y ago
    I think Wall Street Journal/FT are different though, people pay for those because it's a valuable curation of financial/economic news and presents political news through a financial/economics lens and not entirely through the traditional left/right political spectrum lens. Call me cynical, but what makes you think people subscribing to more politically-oriented publications are doing it because they want truly something accurate and not because that publication confirms their biases?
    - camjohnson26 7y ago
      Probably because there’s low cost alternatives if all you care about is confirming your biases.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
Gibbon1 7y ago
Commonality is both are driven by the highly sociopathic and craven advertising/sales industry. You can order corporations by their dependence on ad and dark marketing revenue.

The hypocrisy in these articles criticising social media for tracking people when the news sites are stuffed to the gills with trackers is starting to get annoying.

warent 7y ago

The journalists aren't the ones making that decision though, so I don't think that speaks to the quality of the article itself.

mr_toad 7y ago
I’m not sure which is worse, that journalists are unaware of what their own papers are doing, or that they’re keeping quiet about it.
- save_ferris 7y ago
  You make it sound like some conspiracy that journalists rely on advertising tech while publishing negative stories about it. Journalists aren't the ones building the CMS features for their publishers. I used to be a developer at a newspaper in 2016, and most of my coworkers on the journalism side didn't understand the business side of the paper, it wasn't their job. But I'll emphasize my previous point again: newspapers would die without online advertising revenue. Even with online ads, publications around the country are being sold at record low prices and shut down or kneecapped by private equity groups. I highly encourage you to read up on the financial landscape of news in 2019, it's terribly grim. Massive contraction is occurring the industry, prompting major consolidation of media groups. Companies like Digital First Media acquire large collections of papers and immediately fire half of the newsroom, and this is happening nationwide.[0] I get that it's so easy to point fingers at news orgs for using online ads, but they didn't really have a choice. When companies like Google and Facebook took control of the distribution and access of content, newspapers became their customers in order to stay alive. 0: https://www.inquirer.com/business/reading-eagle-newspaper-digital-first-medianews-gannett-20190522.html https://www.inquirer.com/business/reading-eagle-newspaper-di...
  - wolco 7y ago
    Journalists publishing stories around ad tracking should be aware of that they are doing the same thing. The user would be better off privacy-wise by not reading the article. They could still have ads but why add tracking?
- wwweston 7y ago
  In fact, maybe all journalists everywhere should just focus on investigating the organizations they write/work for, and stop talking about anything else until those places are paragons above criticism, right? Maybe next up: only debt-free people/orgs are allowed to talk about deficits? (Sure, journalism, like most other professions, can use introspection, including the topic of how tracking works, but if there's any case that something needs to be said every time the topic of tracking comes up -- and it's not clear that it is -- that should largely be an editorial call.)
briandear 7y ago
The “just following orders” argument? Journalists know good and well what their websites are doing if they themselves are supposedly experts on reporting on this sort of thing. They expect employees at Google et al to go against their masters yet they are hypocrites because they don’t go against theirs.
- warent 7y ago
  No, that's something completely different. These writers aren't actively implementing the advertising software. They're not "following orders" in anything with respect to ad tracking simply by being a contributor on the platform. At worst, they're complicit by working for the company that utilizes it. Frankly though we all complicit in this stuff one way or another even if there's the illusion that we aren't by some degree of separation. (EDIT: Deleted irrelevant argument)

save_ferris 7y ago

I'm not sure that's an entirely fair comparison to make for a couple reasons: A) nobody pays to read the news anymore, and B) Facebook controls its ad network. If WaPo or any other news publication decided to turn off ads out of moral obligation to prove a point, they'd be digging their own graves. You're essentially arguing that they should commit economic suicide if they truly care about ad tracking. Our culture isn't willing to spend as much on news content as we do Netflix, and that's just a sad reality. Facebook, Youtube, etc. OTOH have built very profitable advertising systems that form the foundation of their entire business. They fully control these ad networks and all their data. And in this case, it sounds like YouTube may have violated COPPA, which is a totally different level of moral failure than choosing to put up ads.

camjohnson26 7y ago
A lot of people pay for the Wall Street Journal. If the news sites would stop giving it away for free maybe people would be forced to start paying. You may think this would just drive people to fake news sources but people actually want something accurate. Fake news only works if it mixes with trustworthy content.
- Macross8299 7y ago
  I think Wall Street Journal/FT are different though, people pay for those because it's a valuable curation of financial/economic news and presents political news through a financial/economics lens and not entirely through the traditional left/right political spectrum lens. Call me cynical, but what makes you think people subscribing to more politically-oriented publications are doing it because they want truly something accurate and not because that publication confirms their biases?
  - camjohnson26 7y ago
    Probably because there’s low cost alternatives if all you care about is confirming your biases.
CamperBob2 7y ago

Gibbon1 7y ago

Commonality is both are driven by the highly sociopathic and craven advertising/sales industry. You can order corporations by their dependence on ad and dark marketing revenue.