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Every day an industry lobbyist succeeds in delaying the release of inconvenient information is a quantifiable victory. It doesn't matter if "the truth will out
by leot 15y ago
Every day an industry lobbyist succeeds in delaying the release of inconvenient information is a quantifiable victory.
It doesn't matter if "the truth will out" eventually -- all industry cares about is the area under the profit curve.
- robertskmiles 15y agoStreisand Effect though. Now people know that attempts were made to suppress the information, they are likely to take a much greater interest than they otherwise would, and the information will get a lot more attention and potentially do a lot more damage.
- cs702 15y agoI hope you're right about these lobbyists being subjected to the Streisand Effect to a meaningful extent, but I doubt the broad public will ever take a much greater interest in this situation, because only a tiny, self-selected portion of the population ever comes across -- let alone reads -- articles in AAAS's Science magazine. (An even tinier, also self-selected group reads submissions and/or participates in discussions posted on HN.) Still, I hope you're right...
- robertskmiles 15y agoI expect the bigger HN-like sites could drive a substantial streisand effect here. I'm thinking of reddit in particular.
- cs702 15y agoI just looked and it turns out this link has already been submitted to Reddit, where it gathered fewer votes -- and generated fewer comments -- than on HN: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/pvctl/journals_warned_to_keep_a_tight_lid_on_diesel http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/pvctl/journals_warn... The general public just can't -- or doesn't want to -- invest the time & effort required to learn about and pass judgment on these kinds of situations. Arguably, this is what allows businesses, lobbyists, and others to get away with unethical behavior.