4 ms·

I doubt it's a lie. The explanation is simply shit enough to cover all possible outcomes. Really internally it's now being pondered by the Corporate Apologetic

by hughrr 5y ago

I doubt it's a lie. The explanation is simply shit enough to cover all possible outcomes. Really internally it's now being pondered by the Corporate Apologetics team at Microsoft which will follow the standard 3 point plan: 1. Quick everyone, explain it away as "human error". 2. All we have to do now is stick our fingers in our ears and hope it stops trending on Twitter and then we're good. 3. Well fuck, that failed so we better make some large marketoid gesture about never doing it again which will consist of hiring someone in the position of "Senior Vice President of Never Getting Caught Doing This Particular Thing Again". Of course the last point will fail miserably in this case as they will of course immediately hire someone who posted something nasty on Twitter several years ago...

ALittleLight 5y ago
I think it's certainly a lie. Even if what they mean is "We accidentally censored in more locales than we wanted" they are lying by trying to conceal what happened rather than reveal it with misleading statements. Microsoft is censoring search results at either the explicit or implicit request of China. It's despicable.
- quietbritishjim 5y ago
  > "We accidentally censored in more locales than we wanted" If that actually did happen to be the reason, then "human error" would be completely accurate. Not even just technically correct, but a reasonable description.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    No, it wouldn't be either. It's an incomplete description that intentionally creates the misleading interpretation that this wasn't intentional censorship but a mistake. In reality, this was intentional censorship, possibly applied in an overly broad way. Saying things to intentionally cause your audience to come to incorrect conclusions is lying. A reasonable description does not omit relevant details. Similar, if I said "My car accident was caused but human error" that would not be a correct or reasonable description if it were actually caused by my driving while drunk. I could as easily say it was caused by physics. The problem is that these lies elide my wrongdoing.

by hughrr 5y ago

ALittleLight 5y ago

I think it's certainly a lie. Even if what they mean is "We accidentally censored in more locales than we wanted" they are lying by trying to conceal what happened rather than reveal it with misleading statements. Microsoft is censoring search results at either the explicit or implicit request of China. It's despicable.

quietbritishjim 5y ago
> "We accidentally censored in more locales than we wanted" If that actually did happen to be the reason, then "human error" would be completely accurate. Not even just technically correct, but a reasonable description.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  No, it wouldn't be either. It's an incomplete description that intentionally creates the misleading interpretation that this wasn't intentional censorship but a mistake. In reality, this was intentional censorship, possibly applied in an overly broad way. Saying things to intentionally cause your audience to come to incorrect conclusions is lying. A reasonable description does not omit relevant details. Similar, if I said "My car accident was caused but human error" that would not be a correct or reasonable description if it were actually caused by my driving while drunk. I could as easily say it was caused by physics. The problem is that these lies elide my wrongdoing.