10 ms·

It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up t

by surge 5y ago

It's the same crap as the ad-pocalypse. Journalists with an agenda use a disingenuous tactic, if they have a problem with a person or entity, they'll call up their sponsors, business partners, vendors, etc, and say "we're writing an article on X's platform which has been found to have (controversial material framed in a negative context), are we to believe that you're supportive and would your company care to comment." This leads to the company panicking, going completely defensive, and killing all contracts, services, and pulling sponsors or place of employment from the person whose being targeted in what is often just a hit piece with unverified out of context accusations. So yes, journalists, especially those that work for outlets like the NYT's can have someone's sponsors, money streams, etc pulled out from them by asking so called "innocent" questions in a passive aggressive way. They've done this numerous times not even giving those accused to respond, sometimes the article never even comes out. It's one of the abuses of power you can see in journalism today, where agenda driven journalism is used as a weapon to get someone removed from society, bank accounts closed, etc. Some targets are too big for it to work, or can lose a few sponsors, but they do it all the time.

bostonalt 5y ago
Defending CP and revenge porn is such an odd hill to die on. Please tell me what was wrong about the NYT's opinion piece? That it painted a visceral picture of a literal child whose exploitations continued to be put on PornHub to profit off of? You give a lot of generic accusations without anything substantial. Are you upset that companies now have to answer for their actions? Why is that a bad thing? A private company isn't a government, if MasterCard or Visa doesn't want to do business with certain risk prone sectors why should they be forced to? Your reason for being upset is frankly odd and extremely dismissive of real issues, that companies are profiting off of CP, but decide to get upset that a news story can effect the public zeitgeist?
- Stevvo 5y ago
  Nobody is defending CP and revenge porn.
- dbspin 5y ago
  Commenter above isn't defending those things though... And in fact revenge porn, CP and other awful content appear across all social platforms. And just like Pornhub they remove them when notified. Thought experiment, what happened to piracy when Napster shut down? What would adding subscription options and regulating Napster have done. Would it have created spotify a decade earlier and disincenvtised the development of Gnutella, bitorrent etc? Right now we have a moral panic, fuelled by a microscopic proportion of content on a site, being used to fuel laws and economic exclusion to remove freedom of action from an entire industry. The consequences are, if not obvious, entirely predictable. Porn will balkanise, and what regulation exists (very strict in its production, relatively strict in its dissemination) will disappear. Sites like only fans being shut down - as with backpage, will force sex worker into enormously more dangerous street work, and ultimately lead to a vast amount of exploitation. And all this will happen, in practice not to protect the vanishingly smaller numbers of trafficked women, or children who appear on these platforms. But because an ungodly coalition of rabbidly anti-porn, anti-sexwork Christian fundamentalists, and anti-porn, anti-sexwork radical feminists have undue political influence.
  - scoopertrooper 5y ago
    > While Pornhub would not tell me how many moderators it employs, I interviewed one who said that there are about 80 worldwide who work on Mindgeek sites (by comparison, Facebook told me it has 15,000 moderators). With 1.36 million new hours of video uploaded a year to Pornhub, that means that each moderator would have to review hundreds of hours of content each week. So, this article alleges that MindGeek only hires 80 moderators to monitor million of videos being uploaded each year despite taking in 460 million dollars in revenue? That's pretty damning, if true. It's little wonder so much is getting through. You refer to the amount of problematic content as "microscopic" and "vanishingly small", but on what basis do you believe that? On one hand we have an article filled with some pretty horrific examples of abuse being broadcast on PornHub, on the other I guess we have your gut feeling about this whole thing? > Thought experiment, what happened to piracy when Napster shut down? What would adding subscription options and regulating Napster have done. Would it have created spotify a decade earlier and disincenvtised the development of Gnutella, bitorrent etc? I don't even know what you're trying to say here. Sites like PornHub already adopt a model that fairly closely resembles Spotify when you think about it. In any event, it sounds almost like you're making the argument that a little child abuse is just the price we need to pay for innovation. No thanks. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...
- atty 5y ago
  Because MasterCard and Visa are essentially a global duopoly - they most certainly should not be allowed to discriminate against any legal industry, even if it is extremely high risk. Because that leads to very serious harm for people who legitimately work in those industries. It should be as hard for MasterCard or Visa to not serve a company as it is for a utility to turn off the water to a home.
- Gimpei 5y ago
  To play the devil's advocate. Let's say a columnist in the WSJ wrote a piece with a bunch of first hand stories of people who were murdered by ex-cons who had been released early. And as a result the decarceration movement was stalled. Would you be okay with that? Anecdote focused reporting is very manipulative. Aggregate statistics matter. Context matters. Knock on effects matter.
  - MichaelGroves 5y ago
    > Would you be okay with that? What does it even mean to be "okay with that" in this context? I certainly think it should be legal for newspapers to publish opeds arguing for harsher sentencing, just as it should be legal for newspapers to publish opeds calling for more lenient sentencing. I am okay with both. If I said it was only okay when I happened to agree with it, that would make me an authoritarian. All the people hand-wringing about newspapers advocating against causes they believe in should spend less time wishing their opponents didn't exist, or weren't permitted to speak, and spend more time writing advocacy articles of their own. If you think anecdotes are more effective than statistics, then go dig up some anecdotes of your own. You're never going to stop your opponents from using anecdotes.
yarcob 5y ago
No. If a journalist asking uncomfortable questions about your business endangers your business, then the problem is not the journalist, the problem is your business. If a journalist blows a story out of proportion, then usually nothing happens and the story is forgotten after a few months. But in the porn hub story, the uncomfortable truth is that there was a lot of involuntary porn on the platform. The NYT story just made it a bit harder to ignore that uncomfortable fact. And it's not like mastercard just changed their policy on a whim based on a single NYT story; credit card networks have always been known to kick all kinds of sex related services off the platform. Sex related businesses have been complaining about that for ever.
- antattack 5y ago
  "If a journalist blows a story out of proportion, then usually nothing happens and the story is forgotten after a few months." This heavily depends on the audience. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus
  - pc86 5y ago
    What exactly is the dog whistle here?
- crdrost 5y ago
  Thank you. Hearing these stories I always feel like commenters treat the companies involved as having no real agency. “Of course the New York Times article came out, so even if the information was sensationalized or whatever, MasterCard had to cut them off... It was out of MasterCard’s hands...” No, they made a political-humanitarian choice to use their gatekeeping to influence the world. Same with Apple choosing to go to war with CSAM, we can talk about worries about their methods or whatever but these big companies are making their own choices and they could choose to just ignore the problems with marketing spend, do like Amazon does and purchase ads about how green they are and how they improve local communities and whatever. They chose to instead take their own moral stances and act accordingly, they weren't forced to by some article. And as far as I can tell it's not a purely calculated profit move either. For that better OnlyFans and PornHub also have agency. So yes MasterCard is making a decision to put financial pressure on a sleazy industry overall, but then PornHub is making their own choices to screw over indie creators and bank on their bigger porn producers. They could instead say, “hey, the indie porn market is about to face this stressor, we could lean into it and become their main ally and then we will basically corner the market on the indie/amateur stuff as others flee.” The business case is not at all open-and-shut you-must-screw-over-the-indie-producers. The story link above acts like this decision was forced; that decision is not forced upon them either. OnlyFans doesn't have to stop doing adult content. They are choosing to pivot away, we'll see if their choice is successful.
scoopertrooper 5y ago
It's easy to criticise the article in general terms, but what specifically did you find problematic with the article itself? Go ahead and have a read, I'll wait. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...
- arp242 5y ago
  There is nothing wrong with the article (from memory, I read it some time ago), the problem is going from "there is a small minority of users who abuse user-generated content platforms" to "zomg, this platform is a horrible and encouraging all sorts of illegal things!" One does not follow from the other. The problem with the article isn't that it exposed a problem, that part was excellent journalism, the problem is also that it advocated for all sorts of companies to boycot PornHub, as well as being laced with a kind of accusatory attitude towards PornHub I don't much care for, almost as if PornHub themselves uploaded the videos. The same problem exists on YouTube, Twitter, reddit, and even Hacker News to some degree. Of course, being a text-only platform makes the scope a lot less dramatic, but I've seen some people advocate for violence against certain groups and the like. I'm sure dang can tell you about some of the horrible things he's had to ban people for. This is a difficult problem to solve, I don't really have a good solution for this, I'm not sure if anyone does. I do know that private companies acting solely in their own interest acting as custodians of what is and isn't allowed based on what does and doesn't generate "negative publicity" is most definitely not a good solution. How often do we see "{YouTube,Apple,Google,...} blocked my account and is threatening by business and I don't have a good recourse"-stories on HN? Too often, and those are just the ones that manage to get publicity. There is often no good recourse to address mistakes or really get a good impartial judgement on things that might be on the border. You might say "these are private companies and can reject the customers they want, you don't have a right to do business with them", well, fundamentally I don't really disagree with that, but a lot of these companies are monopolies or duopolies they can really have a big impact and even make basic participation incredibly hard or even impossible. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, but again, it doesn't seem to me that we really want to leave it up to private companies acting in their own interest to make these kind of decisions.
unethical_ban 5y ago
Before you wrote this manifesto, did you read the entire article by Kristof? I didn't think it came off as anti-sex, and I disagree with some of the points made by the OP. I think that the MC and Visa duopoly that effectively governs what kinds of goods and services are permitted in society is immoral and concerning. I think the Kristof article and the Visa/MC issues need to be talked about separately.
justinator 5y ago
That’s quite the axe to grind against journalists. Especially since their job is to ask questions. To think they’re a part of this mass conspiracy to take powerful entities down is laughable. My partner, a journalist, has gotten death threats just by being at peaceful protests against certain groups that have wealth and pull in the community - just because members of that org were certain the journalist was the main provocateur. It’s just absolute paranoia. But it is a tell isn’t it? Maybe the rich and powerful should be worried about the common people learning about some truth that they invest a lot of resources to keep secret? Also I think you may have to look and see how much journalists make. To be so entrenched in a mass conspiracy that takes down whole networks of industry, I’d negotiate a better salary then the equivalent of $20/hour.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  > Especially since their job is to ask questions. That's a stretch. What else will you have us believe? That the New York Times intends to be a politically neutral voice of reason? No, sir. Maybe in the 1950s, maybe before the Internet, in those halcyon days when newspapers had a good slice of the nation's ad money and lots of competitors and earned money by attracting from a broad swath of readers to earn money from ads — instead of reliably enticing specific kinds of readers to pay for their content. [2] The job description of contemporary journalists, and especially journalists at the New York Times, is to build narratives™ and use them to influence the world. That's what you'll learn about pursuing a modern journalism degree, and that's what will get you career success at the Grey Lady — doubly so since the Trump election. This is not a conspiracy theory against "the media" or even a secret; the Times has overtly published opinion articles to this effect [1], declaring this approach to journalism righteous and good, the appropriate approach for our times. Maybe they're even right, and even if they're not, at least they're not Fox! But we're a long way from just "ask[ing] questions." [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/business/balance-fairness-and-a-proudly-provocative-presidential-candidate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/business/balance-fairness... to start with; one can find others, see also general coverage of the trends in pieces like https://www.city-journal.org/journalism-advocacy-over-reporting https://www.city-journal.org/journalism-advocacy-over-report... [2] From the City Journal piece above: "The intent of post-journalism was never to represent reality or inform the public but to arouse enough political fervor in readers that they wished to enter the paywall in support of the cause. This was ideology by the numbers—and the numbers were striking. Digital subscriptions to the New York Times, which had been stagnant, nearly doubled in the first year of Trump’s presidency."
afavour 5y ago
Let's look at this from the reverse angle: Did PornHub have revenge porn, child trafficking, etc. on the site? Yes. The twitter thread concedes this point. So this isn't "just a hit piece with unverified out of context accusations". Is that fair game to report on? I'd certainly say it is. If you're going to publish a potentially explosive article about something, is it better or worse to reach out to sponsors, partners etc proactively to get their reaction in the published piece, or should you surprise them with it? IMO the former makes sense. To suggest that these sponsors would somehow not be at all affected if a reporter didn't call them up doesn't match with reality at all. We've seen too many viral boycotts to count at this point. > They've done this numerous times not even giving those accused to respond Well, how long is long enough? If you were required to wait for someone to respond before publishing it would be a fantastic stalling tactic, wouldn't it? You could just keep putting it off and off. The problem here, IMO, is twofold: there is a payment processing duopoly, and societal mores are still very puritanical. These are the cause of the problem, not the article. Yes, Kristof wrote an article that resonated with those two factors but what's the alternative, not publish controversial stories that might have a negative effect?
- rkk3 5y ago
  > Did PornHub have revenge porn, child trafficking, etc. on the site? Yes. Does Facebook have revenge porn, child trafficking, etc. on the site? Yes.
  - afavour 5y ago
    I don’t understand the point… journalists shouldn’t report on child trafficking content unless they catalogue every instance of child trafficking content on the internet?
    - rkk3 5y ago
      Every instance? FB and the other social companies are the worst offenders.
chiefalchemist 5y ago
Pardon the editorial / rant but we need to all mitigate our promotion of newspeak (read: language abuse). Point here being, anyone doing this is not a journalist; the scenerio described is not journalism. In using the word it belittles and compromises the trust in legit journalism. And it gives the violators the privilege of the label without actually doing anything to live up to the definition of the word. If your pet barks, do you call it a cat? It's not fair nor honest to call this type of schlock journalism. While not bulletproof, this filter is handy. https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1 https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1
- chiefalchemist 5y ago
  How is it HN can be relentless about accuracy and completeness but constantly allows newspeak to be normalized? Yes. It does matter. Words matter. We can't giving a free pass to deceptive language and then expect change.
gamblor956 5y ago
Nick Kristof is an opinion writer, not a journalist. His job is literally to write his opinions and "The Children of Pornhub" piece was published in the opinion section of a once-weekly non-news supplemental publication.

by surge 5y ago

bostonalt 5y ago

Defending CP and revenge porn is such an odd hill to die on. Please tell me what was wrong about the NYT's opinion piece? That it painted a visceral picture of a literal child whose exploitations continued to be put on PornHub to profit off of? You give a lot of generic accusations without anything substantial. Are you upset that companies now have to answer for their actions? Why is that a bad thing? A private company isn't a government, if MasterCard or Visa doesn't want to do business with certain risk prone sectors why should they be forced to? Your reason for being upset is frankly odd and extremely dismissive of real issues, that companies are profiting off of CP, but decide to get upset that a news story can effect the public zeitgeist?

Stevvo 5y ago
Nobody is defending CP and revenge porn.
dbspin 5y ago
Commenter above isn't defending those things though... And in fact revenge porn, CP and other awful content appear across all social platforms. And just like Pornhub they remove them when notified. Thought experiment, what happened to piracy when Napster shut down? What would adding subscription options and regulating Napster have done. Would it have created spotify a decade earlier and disincenvtised the development of Gnutella, bitorrent etc? Right now we have a moral panic, fuelled by a microscopic proportion of content on a site, being used to fuel laws and economic exclusion to remove freedom of action from an entire industry. The consequences are, if not obvious, entirely predictable. Porn will balkanise, and what regulation exists (very strict in its production, relatively strict in its dissemination) will disappear. Sites like only fans being shut down - as with backpage, will force sex worker into enormously more dangerous street work, and ultimately lead to a vast amount of exploitation. And all this will happen, in practice not to protect the vanishingly smaller numbers of trafficked women, or children who appear on these platforms. But because an ungodly coalition of rabbidly anti-porn, anti-sexwork Christian fundamentalists, and anti-porn, anti-sexwork radical feminists have undue political influence.
- scoopertrooper 5y ago
  > While Pornhub would not tell me how many moderators it employs, I interviewed one who said that there are about 80 worldwide who work on Mindgeek sites (by comparison, Facebook told me it has 15,000 moderators). With 1.36 million new hours of video uploaded a year to Pornhub, that means that each moderator would have to review hundreds of hours of content each week. So, this article alleges that MindGeek only hires 80 moderators to monitor million of videos being uploaded each year despite taking in 460 million dollars in revenue? That's pretty damning, if true. It's little wonder so much is getting through. You refer to the amount of problematic content as "microscopic" and "vanishingly small", but on what basis do you believe that? On one hand we have an article filled with some pretty horrific examples of abuse being broadcast on PornHub, on the other I guess we have your gut feeling about this whole thing? > Thought experiment, what happened to piracy when Napster shut down? What would adding subscription options and regulating Napster have done. Would it have created spotify a decade earlier and disincenvtised the development of Gnutella, bitorrent etc? I don't even know what you're trying to say here. Sites like PornHub already adopt a model that fairly closely resembles Spotify when you think about it. In any event, it sounds almost like you're making the argument that a little child abuse is just the price we need to pay for innovation. No thanks. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...
atty 5y ago
Because MasterCard and Visa are essentially a global duopoly - they most certainly should not be allowed to discriminate against any legal industry, even if it is extremely high risk. Because that leads to very serious harm for people who legitimately work in those industries. It should be as hard for MasterCard or Visa to not serve a company as it is for a utility to turn off the water to a home.
Gimpei 5y ago
To play the devil's advocate. Let's say a columnist in the WSJ wrote a piece with a bunch of first hand stories of people who were murdered by ex-cons who had been released early. And as a result the decarceration movement was stalled. Would you be okay with that? Anecdote focused reporting is very manipulative. Aggregate statistics matter. Context matters. Knock on effects matter.
- MichaelGroves 5y ago
  > Would you be okay with that? What does it even mean to be "okay with that" in this context? I certainly think it should be legal for newspapers to publish opeds arguing for harsher sentencing, just as it should be legal for newspapers to publish opeds calling for more lenient sentencing. I am okay with both. If I said it was only okay when I happened to agree with it, that would make me an authoritarian. All the people hand-wringing about newspapers advocating against causes they believe in should spend less time wishing their opponents didn't exist, or weren't permitted to speak, and spend more time writing advocacy articles of their own. If you think anecdotes are more effective than statistics, then go dig up some anecdotes of your own. You're never going to stop your opponents from using anecdotes.

yarcob 5y ago

No. If a journalist asking uncomfortable questions about your business endangers your business, then the problem is not the journalist, the problem is your business. If a journalist blows a story out of proportion, then usually nothing happens and the story is forgotten after a few months. But in the porn hub story, the uncomfortable truth is that there was a lot of involuntary porn on the platform. The NYT story just made it a bit harder to ignore that uncomfortable fact. And it's not like mastercard just changed their policy on a whim based on a single NYT story; credit card networks have always been known to kick all kinds of sex related services off the platform. Sex related businesses have been complaining about that for ever.

antattack 5y ago
"If a journalist blows a story out of proportion, then usually nothing happens and the story is forgotten after a few months." This heavily depends on the audience. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_on_Campus
- pc86 5y ago
  What exactly is the dog whistle here?
crdrost 5y ago
Thank you. Hearing these stories I always feel like commenters treat the companies involved as having no real agency. “Of course the New York Times article came out, so even if the information was sensationalized or whatever, MasterCard had to cut them off... It was out of MasterCard’s hands...” No, they made a political-humanitarian choice to use their gatekeeping to influence the world. Same with Apple choosing to go to war with CSAM, we can talk about worries about their methods or whatever but these big companies are making their own choices and they could choose to just ignore the problems with marketing spend, do like Amazon does and purchase ads about how green they are and how they improve local communities and whatever. They chose to instead take their own moral stances and act accordingly, they weren't forced to by some article. And as far as I can tell it's not a purely calculated profit move either. For that better OnlyFans and PornHub also have agency. So yes MasterCard is making a decision to put financial pressure on a sleazy industry overall, but then PornHub is making their own choices to screw over indie creators and bank on their bigger porn producers. They could instead say, “hey, the indie porn market is about to face this stressor, we could lean into it and become their main ally and then we will basically corner the market on the indie/amateur stuff as others flee.” The business case is not at all open-and-shut you-must-screw-over-the-indie-producers. The story link above acts like this decision was forced; that decision is not forced upon them either. OnlyFans doesn't have to stop doing adult content. They are choosing to pivot away, we'll see if their choice is successful.

scoopertrooper 5y ago

It's easy to criticise the article in general terms, but what specifically did you find problematic with the article itself? Go ahead and have a read, I'll wait. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-ra...

arp242 5y ago
There is nothing wrong with the article (from memory, I read it some time ago), the problem is going from "there is a small minority of users who abuse user-generated content platforms" to "zomg, this platform is a horrible and encouraging all sorts of illegal things!" One does not follow from the other. The problem with the article isn't that it exposed a problem, that part was excellent journalism, the problem is also that it advocated for all sorts of companies to boycot PornHub, as well as being laced with a kind of accusatory attitude towards PornHub I don't much care for, almost as if PornHub themselves uploaded the videos. The same problem exists on YouTube, Twitter, reddit, and even Hacker News to some degree. Of course, being a text-only platform makes the scope a lot less dramatic, but I've seen some people advocate for violence against certain groups and the like. I'm sure dang can tell you about some of the horrible things he's had to ban people for. This is a difficult problem to solve, I don't really have a good solution for this, I'm not sure if anyone does. I do know that private companies acting solely in their own interest acting as custodians of what is and isn't allowed based on what does and doesn't generate "negative publicity" is most definitely not a good solution. How often do we see "{YouTube,Apple,Google,...} blocked my account and is threatening by business and I don't have a good recourse"-stories on HN? Too often, and those are just the ones that manage to get publicity. There is often no good recourse to address mistakes or really get a good impartial judgement on things that might be on the border. You might say "these are private companies and can reject the customers they want, you don't have a right to do business with them", well, fundamentally I don't really disagree with that, but a lot of these companies are monopolies or duopolies they can really have a big impact and even make basic participation incredibly hard or even impossible. Sometimes that's not a bad thing, but again, it doesn't seem to me that we really want to leave it up to private companies acting in their own interest to make these kind of decisions.

unethical_ban 5y ago

Before you wrote this manifesto, did you read the entire article by Kristof? I didn't think it came off as anti-sex, and I disagree with some of the points made by the OP. I think that the MC and Visa duopoly that effectively governs what kinds of goods and services are permitted in society is immoral and concerning. I think the Kristof article and the Visa/MC issues need to be talked about separately.

justinator 5y ago

That’s quite the axe to grind against journalists. Especially since their job is to ask questions. To think they’re a part of this mass conspiracy to take powerful entities down is laughable. My partner, a journalist, has gotten death threats just by being at peaceful protests against certain groups that have wealth and pull in the community - just because members of that org were certain the journalist was the main provocateur. It’s just absolute paranoia. But it is a tell isn’t it? Maybe the rich and powerful should be worried about the common people learning about some truth that they invest a lot of resources to keep secret? Also I think you may have to look and see how much journalists make. To be so entrenched in a mass conspiracy that takes down whole networks of industry, I’d negotiate a better salary then the equivalent of $20/hour.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fennecfoxen 5y ago
> Especially since their job is to ask questions. That's a stretch. What else will you have us believe? That the New York Times intends to be a politically neutral voice of reason? No, sir. Maybe in the 1950s, maybe before the Internet, in those halcyon days when newspapers had a good slice of the nation's ad money and lots of competitors and earned money by attracting from a broad swath of readers to earn money from ads — instead of reliably enticing specific kinds of readers to pay for their content. [2] The job description of contemporary journalists, and especially journalists at the New York Times, is to build narratives™ and use them to influence the world. That's what you'll learn about pursuing a modern journalism degree, and that's what will get you career success at the Grey Lady — doubly so since the Trump election. This is not a conspiracy theory against "the media" or even a secret; the Times has overtly published opinion articles to this effect [1], declaring this approach to journalism righteous and good, the appropriate approach for our times. Maybe they're even right, and even if they're not, at least they're not Fox! But we're a long way from just "ask[ing] questions." [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/business/balance-fairness-and-a-proudly-provocative-presidential-candidate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/business/balance-fairness... to start with; one can find others, see also general coverage of the trends in pieces like https://www.city-journal.org/journalism-advocacy-over-reporting https://www.city-journal.org/journalism-advocacy-over-report... [2] From the City Journal piece above: "The intent of post-journalism was never to represent reality or inform the public but to arouse enough political fervor in readers that they wished to enter the paywall in support of the cause. This was ideology by the numbers—and the numbers were striking. Digital subscriptions to the New York Times, which had been stagnant, nearly doubled in the first year of Trump’s presidency."

afavour 5y ago

Let's look at this from the reverse angle: Did PornHub have revenge porn, child trafficking, etc. on the site? Yes. The twitter thread concedes this point. So this isn't "just a hit piece with unverified out of context accusations". Is that fair game to report on? I'd certainly say it is. If you're going to publish a potentially explosive article about something, is it better or worse to reach out to sponsors, partners etc proactively to get their reaction in the published piece, or should you surprise them with it? IMO the former makes sense. To suggest that these sponsors would somehow not be at all affected if a reporter didn't call them up doesn't match with reality at all. We've seen too many viral boycotts to count at this point. > They've done this numerous times not even giving those accused to respond Well, how long is long enough? If you were required to wait for someone to respond before publishing it would be a fantastic stalling tactic, wouldn't it? You could just keep putting it off and off. The problem here, IMO, is twofold: there is a payment processing duopoly, and societal mores are still very puritanical. These are the cause of the problem, not the article. Yes, Kristof wrote an article that resonated with those two factors but what's the alternative, not publish controversial stories that might have a negative effect?

rkk3 5y ago
> Did PornHub have revenge porn, child trafficking, etc. on the site? Yes. Does Facebook have revenge porn, child trafficking, etc. on the site? Yes.
- afavour 5y ago
  I don’t understand the point… journalists shouldn’t report on child trafficking content unless they catalogue every instance of child trafficking content on the internet?
  - rkk3 5y ago
    Every instance? FB and the other social companies are the worst offenders.

chiefalchemist 5y ago

Pardon the editorial / rant but we need to all mitigate our promotion of newspeak (read: language abuse). Point here being, anyone doing this is not a journalist; the scenerio described is not journalism. In using the word it belittles and compromises the trust in legit journalism. And it gives the violators the privilege of the label without actually doing anything to live up to the definition of the word. If your pet barks, do you call it a cat? It's not fair nor honest to call this type of schlock journalism. While not bulletproof, this filter is handy. https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1 https://kottke.org/20/01/jim-lehrers-rules-of-journalism-1

chiefalchemist 5y ago
How is it HN can be relentless about accuracy and completeness but constantly allows newspeak to be normalized? Yes. It does matter. Words matter. We can't giving a free pass to deceptive language and then expect change.

gamblor956 5y ago

Nick Kristof is an opinion writer, not a journalist. His job is literally to write his opinions and "The Children of Pornhub" piece was published in the opinion section of a once-weekly non-news supplemental publication.