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The craziest part of this story is the fact that the Nieman Foundation purpose is: “to promote and elevate the standards of journalism in the United States and

The craziest part of this story is the fact that the Nieman Foundation purpose is: “to promote and elevate the standards of journalism in the United States and educate persons deemed specially qualified for journalism." But basically they ignored the basics of journalism not verifying the sources. Nice.

colinmhayes 5y ago
she admitted to writing most of the comments.
- logronoide 5y ago
  It’s really scary how people assume anybody’s privacy can be exposed without consequences. No, it can’t. In a full democracy only a judge can ask for it. Even journalists have to be extremely cautious before exposing the identity of anybody, and this is a perfect example. They never contacted her to verify she was the person behind the email and the person that wrote comments in social media. They assumed it was her, but they did not verify it. Even a high school journalist knows this is the first rule to learn: if you assume = ass for you and me.
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    Couldn't disagree more. There is no right to anonymity, and for good reason. That's how you get people spouting about muslims being scum who all deserve to be deported. Francesca got exactly what she deserved.
    - logronoide 5y ago
      That is fascism. Everybody deserves the same rights, no matter what they think. If you think she is promoting a speech of hate, go to the court and try prove it.
      - colinmhayes 5y ago
        Everyone has the same rights. Francesca has the right to spout nonsense. Joshua has the right to tell everyone she's doing it. The government doesn't care about either.
        logronoide 5y ago
        Joshua has broken the ToS of Discuss because he has access to the tool and got an email address that belongs to Francesca. He used a privileged access to obtain her PII. Under the GDPR that is simply illegal. In Western Europe his behavior could take him to a court. This is a site where we discuss about privacy in technology, and this is an example of how people with privileged access to PII should follow the higher standards, no matter how disgusting are the opinions, like the ones from Francesca.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Breaking the TOS of Disqus is between Nieman Labs and Disqus; their likely response would be termination of services. Francesca has no standing to enforce someone else's contract she's not part of. The GDPR doesn't really apply here in the US. No part of this dispute happened in the EU or to EU citizens.
        threatofrain 5y ago
        The email address doesn't belong to Francesca, it belongs to her employer, Temple University. She used her work email to create a Disqus account. And the agreement between Disqus and a university lab isn't law.
- Natsu 5y ago
  She specifically denies the most-used example in this discussion (the anti-Muslim comment), though. I'm using that as a filter to see who didn't read the article.
  - ohashi 5y ago
    Someone hacked her disqus account to hate muslims? It's a pretty laughable defense. I wrote all the other bad things, but the worst, totally wasn't me. Someone jumped on your laptop and wrote it for you?
    - rhizome 5y ago
      The thing is, someone else using her account is both possible and plausible. Civil suits hinge on a preponderance of evidence ("who has more"), and if "same email" is all Benton had to go on, that might not be enough to surmount "anybody could have done it," regardless whether she did actually write it. Benton didn't know for sure, apparently didn't care that he didn't know for sure, then went ahead and stated something as fact that he didn't actually know. Heck, Viola might be able to find a route to actual-malice via the apparent recklessness of an actual trained journalist (and beyond...) making an assumption about someone else that could have life-altering consequences.
      - ohashi 5y ago
        It's going to be difficult to have more evidence that someone else wrote it when a logged in user account she admits to using wrote it. I didn't do it, but yes, that is my account. The message seems consistent with ideology she seems to have. Maybe don't write hate speech if you don't want to be held accountable for it. Seems simple enough. Or at least a trained journalism professor should know how to better anonymize their hate speech. I have no sympathy for her being held accountable for her writing.
        rhizome 5y ago
        That's not the way the law works. She doesn't have to have evidence that someone else wrote it, the defendants have to have evidence they know she did. Because they doxxed her for it...which would appear to be something you do have sympathy for.
danso 5y ago
People shouldn’t be downvoting you. I’m ambivalent about this whole situation (I’m a fan of NL so I’m biased either way). But the most strongly unequivocal point for me is that the defendant fell short of the journalistic standard of confirming the story and talking to the main people involved. Yes — exposing someone via tweet thread while on the job is still an act of journalism
- logronoide 5y ago
  I guess people think I’m ideologically close to her because I’m saying the foundation has poor journalistic standards… but quite the opposite. For the American standards I’m probably a leftist and for European standards a social-democrat, so I find her ideas really disgusting (I won’t write here stronger words). Journalism is really important in a full democracy, we should demand the highest standards. About the downvoting, this is HackerNews, I can live with that :-)

colinmhayes 5y ago

she admitted to writing most of the comments.

logronoide 5y ago
It’s really scary how people assume anybody’s privacy can be exposed without consequences. No, it can’t. In a full democracy only a judge can ask for it. Even journalists have to be extremely cautious before exposing the identity of anybody, and this is a perfect example. They never contacted her to verify she was the person behind the email and the person that wrote comments in social media. They assumed it was her, but they did not verify it. Even a high school journalist knows this is the first rule to learn: if you assume = ass for you and me.
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  Couldn't disagree more. There is no right to anonymity, and for good reason. That's how you get people spouting about muslims being scum who all deserve to be deported. Francesca got exactly what she deserved.
  - logronoide 5y ago
    That is fascism. Everybody deserves the same rights, no matter what they think. If you think she is promoting a speech of hate, go to the court and try prove it.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      Everyone has the same rights. Francesca has the right to spout nonsense. Joshua has the right to tell everyone she's doing it. The government doesn't care about either.
      - logronoide 5y ago
        Joshua has broken the ToS of Discuss because he has access to the tool and got an email address that belongs to Francesca. He used a privileged access to obtain her PII. Under the GDPR that is simply illegal. In Western Europe his behavior could take him to a court. This is a site where we discuss about privacy in technology, and this is an example of how people with privileged access to PII should follow the higher standards, no matter how disgusting are the opinions, like the ones from Francesca.
        ceejayoz 5y ago
        Breaking the TOS of Disqus is between Nieman Labs and Disqus; their likely response would be termination of services. Francesca has no standing to enforce someone else's contract she's not part of. The GDPR doesn't really apply here in the US. No part of this dispute happened in the EU or to EU citizens.
        threatofrain 5y ago
        The email address doesn't belong to Francesca, it belongs to her employer, Temple University. She used her work email to create a Disqus account. And the agreement between Disqus and a university lab isn't law.
Natsu 5y ago
She specifically denies the most-used example in this discussion (the anti-Muslim comment), though. I'm using that as a filter to see who didn't read the article.
- ohashi 5y ago
  Someone hacked her disqus account to hate muslims? It's a pretty laughable defense. I wrote all the other bad things, but the worst, totally wasn't me. Someone jumped on your laptop and wrote it for you?
  - rhizome 5y ago
    The thing is, someone else using her account is both possible and plausible. Civil suits hinge on a preponderance of evidence ("who has more"), and if "same email" is all Benton had to go on, that might not be enough to surmount "anybody could have done it," regardless whether she did actually write it. Benton didn't know for sure, apparently didn't care that he didn't know for sure, then went ahead and stated something as fact that he didn't actually know. Heck, Viola might be able to find a route to actual-malice via the apparent recklessness of an actual trained journalist (and beyond...) making an assumption about someone else that could have life-altering consequences.
    - ohashi 5y ago
      It's going to be difficult to have more evidence that someone else wrote it when a logged in user account she admits to using wrote it. I didn't do it, but yes, that is my account. The message seems consistent with ideology she seems to have. Maybe don't write hate speech if you don't want to be held accountable for it. Seems simple enough. Or at least a trained journalism professor should know how to better anonymize their hate speech. I have no sympathy for her being held accountable for her writing.
      - rhizome 5y ago
        That's not the way the law works. She doesn't have to have evidence that someone else wrote it, the defendants have to have evidence they know she did. Because they doxxed her for it...which would appear to be something you do have sympathy for.

danso 5y ago

People shouldn’t be downvoting you. I’m ambivalent about this whole situation (I’m a fan of NL so I’m biased either way). But the most strongly unequivocal point for me is that the defendant fell short of the journalistic standard of confirming the story and talking to the main people involved. Yes — exposing someone via tweet thread while on the job is still an act of journalism

logronoide 5y ago
I guess people think I’m ideologically close to her because I’m saying the foundation has poor journalistic standards… but quite the opposite. For the American standards I’m probably a leftist and for European standards a social-democrat, so I find her ideas really disgusting (I won’t write here stronger words). Journalism is really important in a full democracy, we should demand the highest standards. About the downvoting, this is HackerNews, I can live with that :-)