5 ms·
I don't quite get why people are mad at Schmidt and not the Guardian for shady reporting. So a woman interned at SLC Elections (which later became Cambridge An
by kjksf 7y ago
I don't quite get why people are mad at Schmidt and not the Guardian for shady reporting.
So a woman interned at SLC Elections (which later became Cambridge Analytica) and now works at Uber.
After reading the story I fail to see her significance to the story of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The author of that piece is trying to make a fact that she's the daughter of Eric Schmidt into some sinister "Silicon Valley elite" impugning that she's the mastermind behind Cambridge Analytica becoming the shady organization.
It's really shady, grasping at rhetorical straws journalism.
"A firm that belonged to someone she knew about through her father" is so much juicier and scandalous than "Palantir".
Strangely, I don't know Eric Schmidt and I do know about Palantir.
Yes, Schmidt can buy more justice than most of us, but in this case, the primary issue is the high cost of justice, not that some people are rich and can afford it.
The idea that rich can bully anyone with lawyers is seductive, but this is The Guardian, a newspaper with its own army of lawyers. Newspaper that published Snowden files and many other controversial things.
If there was no merit to the complaint, the Guardian would tell Schmidt to sod off.
After reading the article it seems to me that the "journalist" threw a completely innocent person under the bus, tried to implicate her into an international scandal only because she happened to be a daughter of a famous person.
It's appalling what Guardian did implicating her in this scandal. And sad because it was otherwise well researched.
- _sid 7y ago> If there was no merit to the complaint, the Guardian would tell Schmidt to sod off. Logical fallacy.
- bogle 7y agoThe last paragraph of the article would be worth re-reading. It clearly states that the way the issue with UK laws were mitigated was by publishing jointly with The New York Times. No one was thrown under a bus.
- baybal2 7y agoI can understand Schmidt as a father, but can not approve his lack of integrity. The Internet can clearly railroad anybody regardless of their social standing. Few US federal for example have to keep running away from kids from an Internet forum called 4chan, despite having 24/7 government bodyguards. The only thing they had to do was to post their home address and names of schools their children were attending, along negative coverage of their court decisions. Nevertheless, take a look at much more hated "power families." You don't see them ruining journalists, even under much more drivel charged coverage.
- GhettoMaestro 7y agoSchmidt, integrity? What crack are you smoking.
- k1m 7y ago> If there was no merit to the complaint, the Guardian would tell Schmidt to sod off. The Guardian published a viral (>25,000 shares on Facebook alone) fake news story about Assange meeting Manafort. Many complaints about it, and yet no action from the Guardian. Not convinced they act on merit of complaint at all. https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-guardians-viral-blockbuster-assangemanafort-scoop-no-evidence-has-emerged-just-stonewalling/ https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-gua...
- te_chris 7y agoWhat? She was part of it, the Schmidts just Hulk Hoganed the Guardian and they decided to cave, as the story was clearly about more than an heiress to a tech fortune.
- tomp 7y ago> the primary issue is the high cost of justice, not that some people are rich and can afford it. Justice is competitive. The richer you are, the more you can afford to pay to win, and the richer your opponent has to be to even get a chance.
- L_226 7y ago"The idea that rich can bully anyone with lawyers is seductive, but this is The Guardian, a newspaper with its own army of lawyers. Newspaper that published Snowden files and many other controversial things." Well, a pissed off Schmidt probably represents more of an existential threat to the Guardian (given Alphabet's current geopolitical power) compared to the US government.
- vezycash 7y ago>The idea that rich can bully anyone with lawyers is seductive, but this is The Guardian, a newspaper with its own army of lawyers. Don't forget how Billionaire Peter Thiel sued gawker to bankrupcy.
- fennecfoxen 7y agoIt's not strictly the rich. Ashton Kutcher helped run the Village Voice into ground for daring to run a piece questioning his (deranged) statistics about sex trafficking.
- dredmorbius 7y agoKutchner may only have small bills (~$200m), but he's not exactly poor.
- fennecfoxen 7y agoYeah, but he used his fame and influence here, more than his money.
- dredmorbius 7y agoBoth fame and wealth are fungible as power.
- whycombagator 7y agoSure, but directly though - unless there are other events I'm unaware of. I thought Thiel bankrolled Hulk Hogan in his sex tape lawsuit against Gawker (IIRC HH didn't have much money after his divorce)
- vezycash 7y agoAccording to what I remember, Thiel already had an axe to grind with gawker. Hogan's case simply presented the perfect opportunity to exact his revenge.