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You're really suggesting these stories were being suppressed by the media until now when they started to sell news? The media who hate Facebook and Google as us

by harry8 5y ago

You're really suggesting these stories were being suppressed by the media until now when they started to sell news? The media who hate Facebook and Google as usurpers of their ad revenue and talk about their own industry as being in collapse as a result? Maybe there's more of these stories because more is getting out? Or maybe Facebook Google are actually getting worse over time in the manner of most companies and industries where ethical & legal corruption is unchecked? I'm struggling to see a valid argument for this is a trend based on changes to what works as clickbait, however ironic that would be.

Tenoke 5y ago
>You're really suggesting these stories were being suppressed by the media until now when they started to sell news No, I'm suggesting it incentivizes journalists to work more on them, whistleblowers to whistleblow more, editors to prioritize them etc.
- harry8 5y ago
  Where has any incentive changed meaningfully at all for the past decade? The clickbait incentives have existed for more than 15 years at least. The "bash the competition" ones, well WSJ, NYT, MSNBC, CNN they all lost a bazillion dollars from internet advertsing and have tried to demonize their competitors in that space since forever, usually to comically silly effect. (And the fact that google were falsely demonized does not mean that there wasn't also a separate very strong case to make that their surveillance was evil and that wasn't being made so often). I can't see the incentives being any different now, the stories do have a bit more substance to them. Maybe you can make the argument that the next generation of journalists understand what the damn on switch is and are slightly less inclined to have their brain fall out of their ear as soon as they see a verb followed by "with a computer" to explain it? Is it the current administration and their tame media brandishing a big stick to get facebook and youtube to censor their opponents more? [1] Possible although I'd like more evidence myself. [1] In the manner of the suppression of the story of Hunter Biden's laptop and emails - removed from facebook feeds, tweets with links to the story not posted, did youtube do stuff here too? The reason given is that it was disinformation (ie false), but we now know it was factual reporting with emails verified with counter-parties etc. Reporting that you can then interpret as to its meaning and gravity? So they will go there just before an election which is quite worrying and should be equally so for those of us who were happier with the outcome than the alternative.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Hacker News loves to fling stones from glass houses. It's nothing new to see the frontpage dominated by opinionated topics and designated thought-guards surgically filtering through comments.

by harry8 5y ago

Tenoke 5y ago

>You're really suggesting these stories were being suppressed by the media until now when they started to sell news No, I'm suggesting it incentivizes journalists to work more on them, whistleblowers to whistleblow more, editors to prioritize them etc.

harry8 5y ago
Where has any incentive changed meaningfully at all for the past decade? The clickbait incentives have existed for more than 15 years at least. The "bash the competition" ones, well WSJ, NYT, MSNBC, CNN they all lost a bazillion dollars from internet advertsing and have tried to demonize their competitors in that space since forever, usually to comically silly effect. (And the fact that google were falsely demonized does not mean that there wasn't also a separate very strong case to make that their surveillance was evil and that wasn't being made so often). I can't see the incentives being any different now, the stories do have a bit more substance to them. Maybe you can make the argument that the next generation of journalists understand what the damn on switch is and are slightly less inclined to have their brain fall out of their ear as soon as they see a verb followed by "with a computer" to explain it? Is it the current administration and their tame media brandishing a big stick to get facebook and youtube to censor their opponents more? [1] Possible although I'd like more evidence myself. [1] In the manner of the suppression of the story of Hunter Biden's laptop and emails - removed from facebook feeds, tweets with links to the story not posted, did youtube do stuff here too? The reason given is that it was disinformation (ie false), but we now know it was factual reporting with emails verified with counter-parties etc. Reporting that you can then interpret as to its meaning and gravity? So they will go there just before an election which is quite worrying and should be equally so for those of us who were happier with the outcome than the alternative.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Hacker News loves to fling stones from glass houses. It's nothing new to see the frontpage dominated by opinionated topics and designated thought-guards surgically filtering through comments.