12 ms·

In the article it says that the airline accused him of asking for a free flight but the airline has posted no evidence whatsoever that he has asked for this. In

In the article it says that the airline accused him of asking for a free flight but the airline has posted no evidence whatsoever that he has asked for this. In all likelihood the airline is lying. Furthermore the rest of your comment is oddly deferential to these airline companies. One should be able to post a negative review of any corporation’s product or service. You shouldn’t have to worry about retaliation for doing this. A negative review could be in the form of a written review or a YouTube review. Also the article talks about how this same person was banned by Qatar Airways after he posted a negative review of them. I’m shocked you say “fuck around and find out” in response to all this in your comment. How the heck is posting a negative review of a corporation’s service considered “fuck around”? How is retaliation by the corporations part of “find out”? Absurd

lupusreal 3y ago
> the airline accused him of asking for a free flight but the airline has posted no evidence whatsoever that he has asked for this. In all likelihood the airline is lying. What's your basis for that "in all likelihood"? My gut says P('influencer' asking for free shit) is near 100%. Isn't getting free shit from corps the whole point of being an 'influencer'? They're like mercenary-shills.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
addicted 3y ago
I don’t know if the airline is lying or not, but the evidence for the airline lying is that the airline claimed Cahill demanded $50k which is “too rich” for an airline so he would never have asked for that much. I just want to point out the ridiculousness of saying $50k is too rich for a company flying planes which require 10s of millions of dollars as an upfront investment followed by 8-$10k per plane in fuel costs alone. So basically $50k isn’t even the fuel cost for flying a single plane from NY to LA. Of course, it’s ridiculous that the airline posted a copy of the passport and not the messages, which is the strongest evidence that they’re lying, not that the $50k demand is too ridiculous.
- nkurz 3y ago
  Assuming he did ask for $50K (and I have no idea if he did) it seems likely this would have been done over the phone or in person, rather than in an easy to copy email or text. If you are going to make questionable demands, doing it in a deniable hard to prove way seems strictly better. If the "strongest evidence that they're lying" has the easy explanation that there is no hard evidence, I don't think that exonerates him in any way.
- strken 3y ago
  Aero Dili has two planes in its fleet: a Cessna 207T and a 14 year old secondhand Airbus A320. They started leasing the A320 last year with help from DAE Capital. They operate out of Timor-Leste, so neither they nor their passengers are exactly rolling in cash. They run one 55 minute flight a day to Indonesia and a couple of times a week they extend it to Singapore. It is not ridiculous to say that they might not be able to afford $50k for some random YouTuber. They certainly don't have tens of millions of dollars invested in planes. They have one plane, singular, capable of international flight. Probably they could scrape together the cash if they had to, but from a back-of-the-napkin estimate it'd be more than a week of fuel costs for their regular route-and-a-half.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    And even if they could afford it, they probably don't think it is good value for money. How many extra seats will it help sell them?
neilv 3y ago
I agree that it's bad for a company (or other powerful entity) to have a chilling effect on criticism. But devil's advocate on this bit: > but the airline has posted no evidence whatsoever that he has asked for this. In all likelihood the airline is lying. Phone call? Not speaking when a nod will do? Intermediary and ambiguity around that? Why lack of paper trail is plausible: Influencers live and die by their brand, and presumably know that a solid bit of unflattering evidence (e.g., that they're selling good reviews, or running an extortion racket) can go viral, and hurt their brand badly. Or maybe the company has evidence, but, culturally (I don't know about Qatar, but do know there are places where commerce evolved to be built upon reputations more than law&government), maybe doxxing a person in accusation is an accepted response, with the accusation implicitly backed by one's own reputation. Or the culture respects power, and this is a flex in response to being threatened. Contrast with a culture brought up in judicial process thinking, or with company structures that are designed to defend against the many legal liabilities, which might tend to think more about evidence. Or maybe it's a mix of everyone being wrong: questionable behavior by influencer, marketing person drops the ball in handling them, negative review, internal butt-covering, communications up the chain get mangled at each step, someone receives bad information and doesn't confirm it, acts out in a way that's not internationally advisable. I don't know what I could say about likelihoods of this particular situation, based on the info in the article and what we know about the world (even prejudices).
nixgeek 3y ago
One should be able to post a negative review of any corporation’s product or service. I think it is important to recognize that's a predominantly Western take, and that free speech with consequences for reactions like this isn't close to a universal right today in the world. In a lot of places, posting criticism and negative takes of things can have pretty serious ramifications, ranging from being doxxed (in this case) by a business, to at the very extreme end, your critical speech can lead to a trial, conviction, a penal colony and your death (Navalny in Russia). What I meant with "Fsck around; find out" is the threshold for that absolutely varies by the geography. In the US (to pick an example country), as you say, this would be outrageous behavior by the airline with potentially serious consequences in either a civil or even criminal liability sense. Overseas? Potentially not so much, and I think your risk calculus as an influencer on these things (i.e. thinking about flying a small/local airline like this) needs to factor in the local atmosphere?
yongjik 3y ago
You say "corporation," I see an airline employee in one of the poorest countries in the world, being forced to deal with an obnoxious rich asshole. He might as well have said "Fuck it, I'm not paid enough to deal with this," and that would've been literally true. Was the employee wrong? Yeah, maybe. The asshole Youtuber is free to sue them for damages. In East Timor.

lupusreal 3y ago

> the airline accused him of asking for a free flight but the airline has posted no evidence whatsoever that he has asked for this. In all likelihood the airline is lying. What's your basis for that "in all likelihood"? My gut says P('influencer' asking for free shit) is near 100%. Isn't getting free shit from corps the whole point of being an 'influencer'? They're like mercenary-shills.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

addicted 3y ago

I don’t know if the airline is lying or not, but the evidence for the airline lying is that the airline claimed Cahill demanded $50k which is “too rich” for an airline so he would never have asked for that much. I just want to point out the ridiculousness of saying $50k is too rich for a company flying planes which require 10s of millions of dollars as an upfront investment followed by 8-$10k per plane in fuel costs alone. So basically $50k isn’t even the fuel cost for flying a single plane from NY to LA. Of course, it’s ridiculous that the airline posted a copy of the passport and not the messages, which is the strongest evidence that they’re lying, not that the $50k demand is too ridiculous.

nkurz 3y ago
Assuming he did ask for $50K (and I have no idea if he did) it seems likely this would have been done over the phone or in person, rather than in an easy to copy email or text. If you are going to make questionable demands, doing it in a deniable hard to prove way seems strictly better. If the "strongest evidence that they're lying" has the easy explanation that there is no hard evidence, I don't think that exonerates him in any way.
strken 3y ago
Aero Dili has two planes in its fleet: a Cessna 207T and a 14 year old secondhand Airbus A320. They started leasing the A320 last year with help from DAE Capital. They operate out of Timor-Leste, so neither they nor their passengers are exactly rolling in cash. They run one 55 minute flight a day to Indonesia and a couple of times a week they extend it to Singapore. It is not ridiculous to say that they might not be able to afford $50k for some random YouTuber. They certainly don't have tens of millions of dollars invested in planes. They have one plane, singular, capable of international flight. Probably they could scrape together the cash if they had to, but from a back-of-the-napkin estimate it'd be more than a week of fuel costs for their regular route-and-a-half.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  And even if they could afford it, they probably don't think it is good value for money. How many extra seats will it help sell them?

neilv 3y ago

I agree that it's bad for a company (or other powerful entity) to have a chilling effect on criticism. But devil's advocate on this bit: > but the airline has posted no evidence whatsoever that he has asked for this. In all likelihood the airline is lying. Phone call? Not speaking when a nod will do? Intermediary and ambiguity around that? Why lack of paper trail is plausible: Influencers live and die by their brand, and presumably know that a solid bit of unflattering evidence (e.g., that they're selling good reviews, or running an extortion racket) can go viral, and hurt their brand badly. Or maybe the company has evidence, but, culturally (I don't know about Qatar, but do know there are places where commerce evolved to be built upon reputations more than law&government), maybe doxxing a person in accusation is an accepted response, with the accusation implicitly backed by one's own reputation. Or the culture respects power, and this is a flex in response to being threatened. Contrast with a culture brought up in judicial process thinking, or with company structures that are designed to defend against the many legal liabilities, which might tend to think more about evidence. Or maybe it's a mix of everyone being wrong: questionable behavior by influencer, marketing person drops the ball in handling them, negative review, internal butt-covering, communications up the chain get mangled at each step, someone receives bad information and doesn't confirm it, acts out in a way that's not internationally advisable. I don't know what I could say about likelihoods of this particular situation, based on the info in the article and what we know about the world (even prejudices).

nixgeek 3y ago

One should be able to post a negative review of any corporation’s product or service. I think it is important to recognize that's a predominantly Western take, and that free speech with consequences for reactions like this isn't close to a universal right today in the world. In a lot of places, posting criticism and negative takes of things can have pretty serious ramifications, ranging from being doxxed (in this case) by a business, to at the very extreme end, your critical speech can lead to a trial, conviction, a penal colony and your death (Navalny in Russia). What I meant with "Fsck around; find out" is the threshold for that absolutely varies by the geography. In the US (to pick an example country), as you say, this would be outrageous behavior by the airline with potentially serious consequences in either a civil or even criminal liability sense. Overseas? Potentially not so much, and I think your risk calculus as an influencer on these things (i.e. thinking about flying a small/local airline like this) needs to factor in the local atmosphere?

yongjik 3y ago

You say "corporation," I see an airline employee in one of the poorest countries in the world, being forced to deal with an obnoxious rich asshole. He might as well have said "Fuck it, I'm not paid enough to deal with this," and that would've been literally true. Was the employee wrong? Yeah, maybe. The asshole Youtuber is free to sue them for damages. In East Timor.