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The constant derision of journalists in tech circles (especially on HN) is kind of shocking to see. Did you read the article or did you miss that the journalist

by typon 6y ago

The constant derision of journalists in tech circles (especially on HN) is kind of shocking to see. Did you read the article or did you miss that the journalist is relaying fellow researchers' apprehensiveness about Facebook being allowed to conduct an unethical study. This article [1] is linked in the second paragraph. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebook-emotion-study-breached-ethical-guidelines-researchers-say https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebook-...

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
It's nothing personal against journalists, but the economics of the business mean that they have huge incentives to make things seem more outrageous or nefarious than they actually are. I did read the whole article, and that doesn't excuse the BS clickbait title of "Facebook deliberately made people sad." I find the fact that the article is complaining about emotional manipulation by Facebook, while using a deliberately manipulative title, to be more than a tad ironic.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  Do journalists even write the titles to their own articles? I'm sure every newsroom has their own distinct culture, but this sounds like an editor's job.
rendall 6y ago
Questioning whether someone read the article is against the guidelines: > "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
antiterra 6y ago
The commentary is more on the clickbait title, which very likely could have been written by someone other than the article’s author. (NB: journalists do A/B testing to pick the title that incites the most clicks from outrage[1].) Further, the article you link appears to have commentary by a single researcher. Here’s a writeup by researcher who thinks it wasn’t unethical at all and that it would have passed IRB as performed. It, of course, does not end the discussion, but it does demonstrate that the issue is more complex than a company deliberately making people sad: https://hbr.org/2014/07/were-okcupids-and-facebooks-experiments-unethical https://hbr.org/2014/07/were-okcupids-and-facebooks-experime... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/media-values-trust-study-api/2021/04/13/caa25edc-9bab-11eb-8005-bffc3a39f6d3_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/media-values-...
smsm42 6y ago
I don't know why it's shocking. The quality of the work in press has been going downhill for years, and journalists routinely misunderstand and misinterpret things they report about - sometimes innocently through ignorance and incuriosity, sometimes maliciously to push an agenda. It is, of course, not limited to tech - but tech is also not excluded from this global trend. Is it reasonable to expect from tech circles to ignore it? And "the journalist is relaying" is a poor excuse - the journalist has a choice of what to relay and how to frame it, and this choice is routinely used to frame things in a specific way. There's no "just reporting" anymore, if there ever was. There's always a reason why something is reported (or not reported, as it happens) and there's always a reason why something is reported in a specific way. The choice and control is always on the press's side.

by typon 6y ago

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

It's nothing personal against journalists, but the economics of the business mean that they have huge incentives to make things seem more outrageous or nefarious than they actually are. I did read the whole article, and that doesn't excuse the BS clickbait title of "Facebook deliberately made people sad." I find the fact that the article is complaining about emotional manipulation by Facebook, while using a deliberately manipulative title, to be more than a tad ironic.

threatofrain 6y ago
Do journalists even write the titles to their own articles? I'm sure every newsroom has their own distinct culture, but this sounds like an editor's job.

rendall 6y ago

Questioning whether someone read the article is against the guidelines: > "Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."" https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

antiterra 6y ago

The commentary is more on the clickbait title, which very likely could have been written by someone other than the article’s author. (NB: journalists do A/B testing to pick the title that incites the most clicks from outrage[1].) Further, the article you link appears to have commentary by a single researcher. Here’s a writeup by researcher who thinks it wasn’t unethical at all and that it would have passed IRB as performed. It, of course, does not end the discussion, but it does demonstrate that the issue is more complex than a company deliberately making people sad: https://hbr.org/2014/07/were-okcupids-and-facebooks-experiments-unethical https://hbr.org/2014/07/were-okcupids-and-facebooks-experime... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/media-values-trust-study-api/2021/04/13/caa25edc-9bab-11eb-8005-bffc3a39f6d3_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/media-values-...

smsm42 6y ago

I don't know why it's shocking. The quality of the work in press has been going downhill for years, and journalists routinely misunderstand and misinterpret things they report about - sometimes innocently through ignorance and incuriosity, sometimes maliciously to push an agenda. It is, of course, not limited to tech - but tech is also not excluded from this global trend. Is it reasonable to expect from tech circles to ignore it? And "the journalist is relaying" is a poor excuse - the journalist has a choice of what to relay and how to frame it, and this choice is routinely used to frame things in a specific way. There's no "just reporting" anymore, if there ever was. There's always a reason why something is reported (or not reported, as it happens) and there's always a reason why something is reported in a specific way. The choice and control is always on the press's side.