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Why is the moderator censoring "Israel" out of the title of the original article? "WhatsApp sues Israel's NSO for allegedly helping spies hack phones around th
by anon007 7y ago
Why is the moderator censoring "Israel" out of the title of the original article?
"WhatsApp sues Israel's NSO for allegedly helping spies hack phones around the world"
- dfcagency 7y agoThe original title should be reinstated.
- jjridkffn 7y agoFunnily enough HN has no problem naming “Russian” or “Chinese” in analogous headlines.
- enjoyyourlife 7y agoBecause it's a company, not a country. It's like referring to Google as "America's Google." Also, the article has nothing to do with Israel besides the company being located there. Don't try to politicize everything.
- tyingq 7y agoIt does take a lot of context out. I know what Google is. No idea what "NSO" is.
- Buge 7y agoOn the other hand, "Israel's" makes it sound like it's a governmental intelligence agency rather than a company. Misleading context could be worse than no context.
- tyingq 7y agoSure... I'm no expert. But "NSO" is CLEARLY not enough context for readers...full stop.
- dang 7y agoOn HN, there's no need for every title to explain itself fully, especially when it's trivial to find out the missing information. It's good for readers here to have to work a little: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22work%20a%20little%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Also, many readers have followed this story and know what NSO is. There's no title that fits the bill for everyone.
- tyingq 7y agoI respectfully disagree. A three letter acronym implies shared understanding. NSA, CIA, GHQ, MI6, KGB, IBM, AMZ, USA, etc, are globally recongized. NSO is ambiguous and confusing in a headline and demands explanation. Google tells me that "NSO" is "Nurse Malpractice" for the entire first page fold. I assume it's similarly unhelpful in other regions for other people. 'Cmon, it's not a big, recognized, entity. Wait a year and the problem will be even more apperent.
- Buge 7y agoThere have been a number of posts about NSO on HN, and most of them do not say Israel in the title. But most of them do say "NSO Group" instead of "NSO", so maybe this title should have said that too. Although you might blame that on Reuters as well for not having "Group" in their title when that is actually in the name of the company. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=true&query=NSO&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=true&query=NSO&...
- jlgaddis 7y agoThe first sentence of the article states "surveillance firm NSO Group".
- markdown 7y agoTypical double standards. See any post on HN (or anywhere else in the western media) about any chinese company.
- tyingq 7y agoI disagree. I know who Huawei is and don't need the "China" context. No idea what "NSO" is, and I don't think I'm unique in this regard.
- tedunangst 7y agoIf you haven't heard of NSO, does "Isreael's NSO" actually clarify anything? Maybe now you know where they are, but you're still no more informed as to what they are.
- tyingq 7y agoYes, it tells me a lot about intent, where people's opinions might lie, and so on. We can pretend like global politics doesn't set context, but it just...does. "Israelie Security Firm NSO" would totally clarify it for me.
- srtjstjsj 7y agoNSO is a hacking and government-sponsored-terrorism firm, not a security firm.
- tyingq 7y agoGood context I could use.
- tedunangst 7y agoBit wordy for a title limited to 80 characters though.
- Barrin92 7y agoGiven how strongly the Israelian security sector is tied to its national government, including directly recruiting from the military and often acting on its behalf the distinction is quite ridiculous. Would HN have censored "China's Huawei?" Obviously not, it's the typical bias concerning western governments and allies that seems to be getting more blunt as time goes on the website.
- pron 7y agoTech companies in Israel, security-related or otherwise, are tied to the government just as much as, if not less than, in the US, the UK, or France. There's nothing even remotely resembling the situation in China. "Recruiting from the military" is true for virtually every company in Israel, including sewage treatment companies, because military service is mandatory, and that's where people usually are before they get a job.
- cthaeh 7y agoWhat about the 2 spies who interviewed citizen lab researchers looking for dirt on them? Clearly it's the Israeli government.
- fortran77 7y agoIt's owned by European private equity fund Novalpina Capital. Not really an Israeli company.
- bmarquez 7y agoWithout clarification it's unclear exactly what NSO stands for. If Google was relatively unknown, it probably would be referred to "America's Google." Also, NSO's founders were members of the Israeli Intelligence Corp (source: Wikipedia). Given the military links it would be reasonable to include its origin. News outlets would likely do the same for a Chinese company.
- pron 7y agoThat they served in the intelligence corp does not imply "military links" in Israel (I'm not familiar with the company, and there could, indeed, be military links, but that fact is not any evidence in support of that). Probably 80% of people with technical background in Israel have done their mandatory military service in the Intelligence Corp or the air force. Among startup founders the ratio is probably higher. In other words, virtually much everyone with a higher education served in the military, and those in STEM fields are likelier than not to have done it in the intelligence corp.
- drharby 7y agoI interpreted NSO as National Surveillance Office, a tech agency that has DoD ties...3 letter acronyms can benefit from clarification
- yak0 7y agodouble standards. obviously it is an Israeli-led company
- onetimemanytime 7y agoUmmmm...Israel Govt allows them to export these tools. So yeah. The Israeli probably gets something in return from countries, in addition to NSO getting paid.
- irkekb 7y agoI wonder if the same censoring would happen if it’s a Russian or Chinese company?
- dang 7y agoWell, let's see: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=kaspersky&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=huawei&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=alibaba&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... I don't see any reason to have a policy about this one way or the other, but in most cases there's no need to say which country a well-known company is from. There are a couple instances of "China's Huawei" from over a year ago, but that's negligible compared to the number of headlines about Huawei overall.
- cbluth 7y agoBecause it's not hard to find out that the NSO Group is from Israel, eg googling.
- lucasmullens 7y agoTo give the benefit of the doubt, this is the longest title on the HN homepage, even without "Israel". Perhaps it was just to shorten it?
- dang 7y agoThe article title is "WhatsApp sues Israel's NSO for allegedly helping spies hack phones around the world", which exceeds HN's 80 char limit, so it had to be shortened somehow. The submitted title was "WhatsApp sues Israel's NSO for allegedly helping hack phones around the world". I changed that to "WhatsApp sues NSO for allegedly helping spies hack phones around the world" because it seemed to me that the "spies" bit adds more information than the "Israel's" bit. There's a difference between "helping hack" and "helping spies hack". For completeness, I do think the commenters pointing out a slightly nonstandard weirdness in the phrase "Israel's NSO"—like the one comparing to "America's Google"—have a fair point. (Exercise for the curious: have there ever been many titles like that?) But it was not the determining factor.
- quickthrower2 7y agoUntil I read the article, I assumed "NSO" would be a US government three letter agency. But hard to convey it is a company too in 80 chars I guess.
- catalogia 7y agoThe way the name "NSO" sounds like a government intelligence agency reminds me of the way "United States Chamber of Commerce" also confuses people: https://0x0.st/zYWr.png https://0x0.st/zYWr.png
- pnako 7y ago>Exercise for the curious: have there ever been many titles like that? I found a few "China's Huawei", "China's Tencent" and "China's Baidu".
- rimliu 7y agoSo it could as well be "WhatsApp sues Israel's NSO for allegedly helping spies hack phones".
- notacoward 7y agoNSO founders' ties to the Israeli government are a bit more essential to their business than the Google example. See also the China examples from another commenter. I'll bet there are examples of "Russian company XYZ" as well. In cases like these, the nationality of the company and especially of its former-unit-8200 founders does seem rather germane.
- kylecazar 7y agoOnce I clicked through to see "Israel's", it immediately clarified who they were, at least to me -- in fact I recently watched an entire 60 Minutes segment about them. Just NSO sounds like some government agency I had forgotten about.