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Mandatory reference: the kids-for-cash scheme [0] where private prisons paid a judge to send them children, often for the tiniest offense. [0] https://en.wikip
by isolli 4y ago
Mandatory reference: the kids-for-cash scheme [0] where private prisons paid a judge to send them children, often for the tiniest offense.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
- lifeisstillgood 4y agoWhy have I never heard of this? How would a "important things in the world" algorithm work ? One that is not "maximise engagement" but "maximise understanding of important shit" Thank you for posting
- robertlagrant 4y agoIt wouldn't. You need journalists to do that, who are both real people and real journalists. I think many of our divisions come from news sources that are either not curated by real people, or from journalists who are not real journalists.
- hackyhacky 4y agoThis is a No True Scotsman fallacy. How do we define "real journalist" in a way other than "curates news in a way that I personally approve of"?
- HPsquared 4y agoThere is no other way.
- aikendrum 4y agoSeems like a relatively consistent, generally agreed on definition at least of 'investigative journalist' shouldn't be impossible. Something like... 'A news gatherer, who uses primary sources and triangulates investigative techniques to gather information, establish causation and contribute to understanding of emerging and ongoing news.'
- robertlagrant 4y ago> This is a No True Scotsman fallacy. Ironically, this is not a real no true Scotsman.
- chalst 4y agoOh, I don't know, perhaps if you look at any if the huge amount of material from journalism schools on what journalism is and how it should be done, or maybe at journalism's many professional bodies and their codes of ethics, that will give you some ideas? Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_ethics_and_standard...
- treeman79 4y agoIs the journalist advocating for something or simply reporting the facts.
- yucky 4y agoI would define a real journalist as someone who adds new important previously unknown facts to a story, or reports on a previously unreported story and who discloses if their sources have a vested interest in the information they've presented. So that eliminates cable news entirely and most of the work done by NYT, WAPO etc. who basically act as a mouthpiece for government and repeat the same stories ad infinitum.
- ModernMech 4y agoThere’s a whole sub field of journalism called “curatorial journalism” or “meta journalism” that reports aggregated news that has already been reported by other outlets. This means they don’t report any new facts per se, but sometimes the combination of facts over time can color a story differently than when the facts are reported in isolation. I find this form of journalism to be very compelling.
- moviewatcher333 4y agoThe story was huge news when it broke. There wasn’t a conspiracy by journalists to hide it. The problem was people as a whole didn’t care. I think it’s only very recently that more than a small minority of Americans became aware of the reality that the police and justice system aren’t always people out there doing good—they’re normal people, for better or worse. Up until we got daily police videos of cops killing innocent people, it was assumed that arrested=guilty, throw them away. Even in the face of video evidence lots of people won’t budge from the idea that the justice system had a good reason for doing heinous things.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoThese people believe that there is corruption in politics and politics in the workplace. But for some reason they think that corruption in the justice system is impossible. Usually they think the same about assosiated organisations like FBI That's during a conflict with Russia, a country where all power was seized by internal security services
- formerly_proven 4y agoThe motivation of holding these beliefs is very simple, if bad things are done by the justice system to innocent (or not particularly criminal people), then there's a chance that one day the justice system does the same to you through no fault of your own. That's an unsettling idea hence rejected.
- AlexandrB 4y agoI think this is another "just world fallacy"[1] adjacent idea running rampant in our society. You see this fallacy it pop up in a lot of "woo" self-help ideas like "manifesting" or "sending out positive vibrations" as well as things like faith or spiritual healing. The basic idea being that people get what they deserve so people who experience hardship - whether legal, medical, or social - deserve it. While people who do and think good things are safe from these forces. IMHO, this is a kind of pathological extension of "internal locus of control"[2]. Internal locus of control is good for mental health and achievement, but once you start to project it onto other people without sufficient consideration of their circumstances things quickly get problematic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control
- lucideer 4y agoYes and no. The gp isn't asking for automated journalism, just algorithmic promotion. You would still need real people to investigate and write; the proposed algorithm would simply sort. I actually think this type of thing is very conceivable, but the problem is that it's not a technical challenge - it's an incentivisation one. Current algorithm creation is profit-incentive, and trivial, consumer-oriented & generally useless/inaction-driving "news" are all significantly more profitable than what the gp describes as "important". In fact, currently many journalistic platforms & publications actively promote themselves on the basis that they already offer what the gp has asked for (which by-and-large they don't of course).
- Manu40 4y agoOh, they are real journalists alright. They are just short of certain morals and ethics.
- tcmart14 4y agoI don't think the issue is journalists are not real journalists. The issue is that media, especially in America, is a private enterprise and is largely owned by two people. And people like collecting paychecks, so you do what your told. How many of us on HN are for privacy, but yet work in Silicon Valley writing the code that violates that same privacy? I'd wager quiet a few. And it is because we all need an income stream. Being an indie dev works for some, but not most.
- bheadmaster 4y agoSuch an algorithm would need to have a deep understanding of the human condition and how the world works in order to provide such output. I think it would basically require a full-fledged AGI (artificial general intelligence).
- ClumsyPilot 4y agodeep understanding of human condition - prodive example of the thing that is not human and understands it the least? You couldn't make it up How about, you know, philosophers and other learned people who's life job is to study it?
- bheadmaster 4y agoI don't quite understand what exactly are you saying. I have mistakenly written "argument" instead of "algorithm" in my original post (edited now), which may have lead to a misunderstanding. Otherwise, could you please elaborate?
- lyu07282 4y agoYou might just need a large amount of click stream data from wikipedia, there is probably a cluster of people who trend to have such an awareness of the human condition. So it wouldn't require AGI to figure out a list of topics you should probably be aware of based on some sample topics. Although afaik such data is not stored by Wikimedia for privacy reasons, only less useful referrer data[1]. Another signal source might be based on the assumption that the important bits would be subject of suppression efforts, like topics that disappeared from school curriculum, internet censorship filter rules (for example [2]), takedown notices, banned books, topics journalists wrote about that were fired/defenestrated, wikipedia articles that were removed/renamed or heavily edited, unusual court cases with abnormal patterns might be recoverable from public records (like the Steven Donziger case [3]), websites on the internet archive that were taken down by infrastructure companies, there might be topics that are ignored by modern historians etc. [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_clickstream https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_clickstre... [2] https://lumendatabase.org/faceted_search?sender_name=European+Commission https://lumendatabase.org/faceted_search?sender_name=Europea... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Donziger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Donziger
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoI'm pretty sure this is the kind of thing maximized by current increase GRAAARGGH feeling in readers algorithms, there's just so much, you were probably getting your GRAAARGGH maximized by something else. anyway look at it this way - if the algorithms were working at giving you this important stuff in a way you were aware of it, you might have chosen a different username. on edit: sometimes we are unaware of things just by happenstance and no algorithm tweaking will fix it, consider it a version of the XKCD 10000, I was aware of this as it passed in my feed at some point, but really if I was unaware of it I would assume it as a likely consequence of for profit prisons anyway - if asked to consider the possibility that is.
- specialist 4y ago> Why have I never heard of this? My hunch is because of some combo of a) The attention economy. We're all overwhelmed. Filtering signal from noise is exhausting. b) Manufacturing Consent's five filters of mass media. The economics of daily "news" determines what is covered. Yet another attention economy; and it's not clear to me that any other arrangement would be better. c) Professional courtesy. Billionaire media moguls generally aren't going to narc on their billionaire hedge fund buddies. -- Don't feel too bad about missing this outrage, or any other particular story. There's no shortage of outrageous stories. It's unending. As a news junkie, from long before doom scrolling, I binge on this stuff. It's unhealthy. Talking about it makes you sound like a lunatic to most people. Even worse, this stuff distracts you from living your best life and doing your own awesome thing. The more effective policy people I know manage to somehow compartmentalize. Fighting the good fight is their day job, left at work. Off the clock, they do normal people stuff. The activists I know that don't do the work / life balance burn out. (Like I did.) -- FWIW, outlets like Democracy Now!, Thom Hartmann, and Project Censored try to day light these memory hole stories. Justice for Sale – Part 3: Greed Breeds Corruption [2015] https://www.projectcensored.org/justice-for-sale-part-3-greed-breeds-corruption/ https://www.projectcensored.org/justice-for-sale-part-3-gree... Project Censored's Yearly Top 25 Most Censored Stories is a treasure. Allows me to binge less and periodically catch up on stuff I've missed. https://www.projectcensored.org/top-25-censored-stories-of-all-time/ https://www.projectcensored.org/top-25-censored-stories-of-a...
- totetsu 4y agoRussell Mokhiber’s corporate crime reporter is a good source also. https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/ https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/
- greenhearth 4y agoThanks for the work and for the fighting. It is not intuitively realized, but justice is warfare, conducted with money and information. I am borderline misanthropic and people like you make me happy.
- jabroni_salad 4y agoyou look at 10,000 ads a day, how the heck are you supposed to remember anything of value?
- phracker9012 4y ago
- goosedragons 4y agoLiterally the first citation in the Wikipedia article: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/us/28judges.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/us/28judges.html
- differentView 4y agoThat's behind a paywall for me.
- goosedragons 4y agoJust turn off Javascript or use Noscript to get around it.
- x86_64Ubuntu 4y agoWhat are you alluding to? The "Kids for Cash"[1] incident is from 2008, and isn't not being covered because of the things you mentioned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
- aendruk 4y agoI’ve often thought I’d like to subscribe to the changelog of what’s taught in school, as the snapshot I received is increasingly dated by advances in science, refinements to social onboarding, and the continuation of human history. Maybe historians would be better stewards of meaningful “news”.
- webnrrd2k 4y agoIt's not an algorithm, but I like Project Censored [0]. It's worth reading about their top 25 most censored/underreported stories [1] [0] https://www.projectcensored.org/ https://www.projectcensored.org/ [1] https://www.projectcensored.org/category/the-top-25-most-censored-stories-of-2021/ https://www.projectcensored.org/category/the-top-25-most-cen...
- mbubb 4y agothose are good articles (the top 25) but the site has a left liberal bias which shows only censorship from the right. I have followed https://ground.news/ https://ground.news/ for a while which shows stories missed in what are classified as right, left and center media...
- SQueeeeeL 4y agoDang, I guess trying to tell the world about kids getting thrown in jail for kickbacks is somehow "left liberal bias". US Conservatives have fallen so far from the Teddy Roosevelt push for small government, maintaince of our national parks, and justice for the oppressed it's actually insane
- elliekelly 4y agoAre we really saying that a story about a world record sized pumpkin is being “censored”? Come on. At a certain point people just have to accept that “nobody cares” != “censorship”.
- yieldcrv 4y agoJust follow what the proverbial social justice people care about, a lot of it has merit before going off the rails. You'll get familiar with a lot of broken aspects of society, much of which could take a lot of time and adjustment to understand why its not as productive as seemed. And some might seem like farfetched things to change, but you'll be familiar, especially after its old news and has been changed.
- gibspaulding 4y ago> How would a "important things in the world" algorithm work ? I've tried to figure that out myself. The best I've come up with is Wikipedia's current events page. It's not ideal, but as a bone dry, non-sensationalized summary of things going on worldwide, it's pretty impressive. Sometimes it would be nice to have more context, but the linked articles usually help with that. It's biggest problem for me is it's a bit overwhelming realizing how often ferries sink and buses crash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
- haswell 4y agoI did not know this existed. I've been struggling to find ways to stay somewhat aware of world events without wading through the toxicity of social media or the sentimentalization of mainstream media. PBS NewsHour is the other source I've used because it tends to be less rage-baiting, but this fact-based presentation is great.
- haswell 4y agoCan’t edit the comment now but meant to say sensationalization.
- rib3ye 4y agoWhen this happened, the nation went through a significant financial crisis consuming almost all media headlines. Injustice sucks, but potentially losing your home and retirement is probably a higher priority to most.
- mikrl 4y agoMaximizing engagement is tangible and pays well. You’re wanting to optimize for something intangible, philosophical and something most people would just prefer to ignore. Technology can still help though… look, you learned about it from HN! However, you cannot automate this process entirely because caring, compassion and looking into the dark corners of our socioeconomic system require human judgement at every step. This human decision making, consensus forming and problem solving process is also known as ‘politics’
- moistly 4y agoI suggest that the reason you didn’t hear about it is that you didn’t care to be informed. I live in a backwaters Canadian town and I knew about this story years and years ago. And it’s not like I do anything special to be informed: I simply scan headlines on a daily basis. The news media didn’t repress the story, you just didn’t look.
- cuteboy19 4y agoI thought this was just a 'The Good Wife' episode. Didn't think people were this villainous in real life
- revolutukr 4y ago
- auggierose 4y agoOnly if they are Russians?
- tobylane 4y agoFor a few years we’ve had ripped from the headlines stories with bits cut out to make it believable. The tv writers say they can’t write realistic bad people who do all of the things real world bad people do. I think The Good Wife writers were one of the first to point this out.
- uoaei 4y agoPeople really are this villainous in real life, and a lot of them actively seek positions of power such as this to enact their moral crusades.
- tedunangst 4y agoPretty much every case on the good wife had real life basis.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lucideer 4y agoExtra context (from Wikipedia but somewhat buried): The two judges receiving bribes were sentenced to 17.5 & 28 years in prison respectively. The bribing company is still in operation today. One of the co-owners was sentenced to 18 months in prison for "failing to report a felony". The other co-owner at the time is now the sole owner and was not charged. His brother was and still is the District Attorney.
- mcv 4y agoThe fact that the bribing company is still operating and the owners or executives haven't been locked up for a long time, is plain disgusting. Executives should get locked up for the crimes they and their companies commit. Same with HSBC that only got a fine for massive money laundering.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago[dead]
- ericlnu 4y agoLike HBC and Canada who continues to contribute to the genocide of Indigenous Peoples. Canada is not a country, it's a corporation, and should be held accountable as both. It has 0 claim to the land and they know it. They launder money too
- ericlnu 4y agoWhy am i getting downvoted for speaking the truth? Fk off racist pigs
- nine_zeros 4y agoIn America, corporations are people but only when it comes to tax breaks. When it comes to criminal law, corporations are instruments of funding for lawmakers.
- mcv 4y ago