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That viral video of a 'deactivated' Tesla Cybertruck is a fake
- philipallstar 1y ago[flagged]
- JKCalhoun 1y ago[flagged]
- dkiebd 1y agoTired of car manufacturers doing politics, and this goes for all of them. Well, for all companies. Just make goods and shut up, dammit.
- andsoitis 1y agoBoth customers and employees put pressure on companies to take sides on particular issues. I can see the rationale behind it but it has very dysfunctional and unhealthy outcomes.
- XorNot 1y agoOther then Tesla which car companies are doing politics beyond the usual "donate to both sides" thing? Tesla, due to Musk, is an absolute outlier here.
- dkiebd 1y agoGaywashing and greenwashing for example, which almost all (all?) legacy car companies engage in in some capacity.
- ryandrake 1y agoFakes become believable when they are on-brand and match people's existing expectations, in this case about a company. I would totally expect petty, retaliatory behavior from a company run by a petty, retaliatory guy. So a forgery totally bypasses my usual "bullshit detector". This is a human weakness that a lot of people, admittedly including myself, are vulnerable to.
- aaron695 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- anonymars 1y agoPrecisely. If it had been a Honda or a Ford would folks have found it as plausible?
- potato3732842 1y agoYes, and the comments would have been nearly the same less the ones specifically referring to Musk. That said, if you'd hav picked Toyota or Volvo when writing your comment you'd be correct. Those OEMs could literally put coal rolling diesels backed by Nissan CVTs in Yugo chassis and the "everything I know about cars I learned from internet comments and car-mags in my dentist waiting room" crowd would defend them.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- aydyn 1y agoAmazing that people like you are still defending the story. Its telling about your bias, not Tesla or Musk.
- ryandrake 1y agoI don't see where I am defending the story. I'm even admitting that it was fake and that I fell for it! You're barking up the wrong tree.
- aydyn 1y agoYou fell for a hoax. End of. Or it should be. Instead you blame the victims of the hoax for your inability to discern something is a hoax (and a pretty obvious one).
- potato3732842 1y agoBelievable to who? Surely there were a bunch of automotive engineers on Reddit getting downvoted to oblivion for suggesting that this doesn't pass a sniff test because it arguably violates subsection 69 of FMVSS 420 or that they don't need to do that because industry standard is to just prevent the car from starting next time, or whatever.
- cm2012 1y agoYou are doing the thing from the comic! https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/aaaah https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/aaaah
- XorNot 1y agoThere's something of a difference between the abstract presentation there and the much more tangible brand problem Tesla has. If this was a Ford nobody would believe it. They might argue it broke down. If it was a Toyota nobody would believe that. But Elon Musk has made himself the face of Tesla, used that power in other contexts to go after critics, and the Cybertruck had a bizarre anti resale clause when released and Tesla have made a habit of features-as-a-service with remote software deactivations when other vehicles are resold. So in the specific case here, the reaction very much represents a big brand sentiment problem attributable to concrete issues.
- ameliaquining 1y agoThere's kind of a fine line between "that this went viral shows that Tesla has a brand problem" (a logically valid argument) and "that I found this believable shows that Tesla is bad" (what the comic is about). The top-level comment did not go super-far out of its way to distinguish between the two, which I think is generally worth doing if you're making an argument that sounds similar to a common fallacy.
- afthonos 1y agoWhat an interesting way of thinking. More seriously, the correct reaction to a fake is to adjust towards whatever the fake is moving your away from. If the fake wants you to believe Tesla is a company that will brick your car while driving — adjust towards it being more likely that they won’t, because if it were, there would be no need to fake it. Saying instead “huh, I guess my priors were right all along because of how many people believed it” is…yeah, an interesting way of thinking.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoTesla has a PR problem. I'm not sure that is what the comic is addressing.
- philipallstar 1y ago> Telling though, isn't it? I mean the degree to which this is so instantly believable. It's telling on the users in question and their relationship with reality.
- Swizec 1y ago> It's telling on the users in question and their relationship with reality. It’s telling to Tesla’s brand reputation. This will take decades and billions of dollars to repair, if it even can be fixed. Tesla may become synonymous with cars-as-internet-of-shit. Same as how Italian cars to this day are the butt of every reliability joke. This reputation has followed them since the 90’s. British cars are synonymous with cheap construction – a reputation they built in the 70’s. Stuff like this can be forever.
- jadamson 1y agoThe question is why certain people found believable in the first place. "May become synonymous" implies they're not already, in which case this instance wouldn't be believable. In reality, people who believed this probably think Elon is a petty tyrant and don't like his politics. I agree with them, especially on the first point. The difference is that they either allow this to overwhelm their critical thinking skills, or never had any to begin with.
- Swizec 1y ago> why certain people found believable in the first place Because Tesla’s brand perception is that of a shady company who would do something like this and nobody would be surprised. How they built that reputation I don’t know, lots of little things over the years.
- arp242 1y agoYou're ignoring the "X" and "Reddit" and focusing purely on Bluesky. Your post here is a good example of confirmation bias in itself, and it's sad that you're not realising it.
- IncreasePosts 1y agoExcept it wasn't instantly believable. Which is why there were a large number of comments on the previous thread (including my own) saying this was almost certainly fake.
- andrewflnr 1y agoWe didn't need a fake incident to "tell" us about Tesla's reputation. We already knew that. It's "telling" us zero bits of new information.
- angrysaki 1y ago[flagged]
- enslavedrobot 1y agoOr maybe it's not. Maybe you only think that's true and see everything through that lense.
- Levitz 1y agoIt's hilarious how that's pretty much true, only you have to define "bad" as "ideologically different" and you're set. Anyone disagreeing with the userbase in any contentious topic, well, they are just evil, that's all.,
- bitwize 1y ago[flagged]
- Levitz 1y agoSurely there are more than two stances that can be had on issues? Plus I still remember that time a certain journalist entered the platform and people completely lost their shit, making up pedophilia allegations, demanding him to be banned, publishing the location of his residence and instigating violence against him. Was this a "struggle against evil"?
- avgDev 1y agoWhen you step away from the internet things are much better. Internet is a toxic place.
- philipallstar 1y ago[flagged]
- bigstrat2003 1y agoThat is very much not the current situation in the USA. You need to take a long break from politics; this is just another administration. In 2028 we will have an election, there will be a new president, and things will be just fine.
- ameliaquining 1y agoHN also fell for the video at first, so let's not throw stones here.
- nailer 1y agoLet's criticise HN too. It was fake, it was a fairly obvious fake, and HN should have known better.
- snickerdoodle12 1y ago[flagged]
- jadamson 1y agoIt is possible to dislike (or even hate) someone, without allowing yourself to be exploited. Apart from anything else, you are giving ammunition to the other side by doing so.
- josteink 1y ago[flagged]
- SketchySeaBeast 1y agoIs this how people are going to water down and re-brand "dog-whistle"? Get it to stop meaning "coded political messaging" and have it mean "indicator"? Regardless of whether you agree with GP or not, there was nothing coded about what they were saying.
- josteink 1y ago> Regardless of whether you agree with GP or not, there was nothing coded about what they were saying. I honestly weren’t aware of that particular distinction. Thanks for the clarification.
- philipallstar 1y agoA dog whistle is something a dog can hear. If you can hear the dog-whistle, then you're one of the dogs in question.
- snickerdoodle12 1y ago[flagged]
- josteink 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- AlotOfReading 1y agoA number of people predicted this in the thread the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44859807 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44859807 It'll be interesting to see if the situation evolves further.
- perihelions 1y agoAnd at least 222 people believed it to be true (or else those are some illogical upvotes).
- mlok 1y agoAn upvote does not mean the user believes the story is true.
- perihelions 1y agoThen they are illogically boosting a hoax on purpose, or at least with reckless disregard for truth.
- vpribish 1y agoOr not engaging enough to come to any conclusion - just chuckle - upvote. Useful, but not idiots nor villains
- zahlman 1y agoJust because you don't consciously believe something to be true, doesn't mean you don't care about its veracity. The null hypothesis is that people are willing to treat things as true based on their priors — which could be informed by things as simple as "this was posted on a website not known as a den of misinformation, and shared on HN" — while not actually devoting thought to an investigation of the truth.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- BSOhealth 1y agoIt’s easy to be cynical specifically in this case, when Elon has in the past very gleefully amplified AI fakes to drum up social sentiment
- gruez 1y agoI don't get it. Is the implication that Elon/Tesla/X specifically promoted/amplified the post?
- apercu 1y agoI infer that the implication is "that's rich coming from Elon/Tesla" because Elon is not honest and amplifies misinformation often? (not singling Elon out, he's one of many)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- babypuncher 1y agoThe implication is that Elon is a massive hypocrite for complaining when these dishonest tactics are used against him because he uses them all the time.
- anonymars 1y ago"couldn't have happened to a nicer guy"
- breadwinner 1y agoDuring election, Musk promoted a lot of deep fakes about Kamala Harris, including fake images generated using Grok. He's a total asshole. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/kamala-harris-deepfake-shared-musk-sparks-free-speech-debate-rcna164119 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/misinformation/kamala-harris-de...
- 1y ago
- vlucas 1y agoGiven all the fake Tesla news and seemingly inexhaustible supply of Tesla haters, this was my first thought as well.
- testing22321 1y agoOne of the richest people in the world has a billion dollar short position on Tesla. You can bet there is enormous might trying everything to rank the stock
- cactusplant7374 1y agoTesla's autonomous driving solution is 10 years overdue and the stock's PE ratio is almost 200. If Gates still has a short position, I am sure he is waiting silently.
- shayway 1y agoI'm not sure which is more concerning: how easy it was to fall for it in the first place, or the mental gymnastics some are going through to place the blame outside themselves. A lie is a lie, it does not matter how plausible it is. "No smoke without fire" is complete bullshit that leaves room only for cascading hatred. In this case, there's definitive proof of it being a hoax, and news of it seems to be spreading. But how many more subtle falsehoods are being spread, ones that aren't as easily disproven? And how many perfectly plausible lies does it take for a narrative to become self-sustaining? There is no shortage of real and verifiable things to be outraged about (Tesla-related or otherwise). Don't waste your headspace on anything less.
- freetime2 1y agoIt really is concerning. I have a friend who went off the rails in the past couple years and is constantly sharing twitter rage bait. When things are proven to be fake news, it doesn't even phase him. It's like reality doesn't even matter, and maximizing outrage is the end goal.
- LightBug1 1y ago[flagged]
- wes-k 1y agoThe fact that this deactivation feels possible is still a telling sign of where we’ve been heading. Update fail. Subscription lapsed payment. All sorts of new failure modes.
- slg 1y ago"The lie has value because it feels true" is one of the more disturbing trends I have seen gain traction on the internet in recent years. People are now unironically turning themselves in the Stephen Colbert character from The Colbert Report[1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness
- jljljl 1y agoI think it is troubling to say “the lie has value”, but it is worth thinking why certain stories and hoaxes resonate. It’s similar to how sci-fi and horror can reflect the anxieties of their contemporary society
- SirChud 1y ago[flagged]
- wand3r 1y agoYeah. I have noticed a disturbing amount of people believe fake stories, tweets, videos, propaganda etc. because it confirms their worldview or is otherwise fun. For example, the amount of people who thought dumb Republicans were dying from eating horse dewormer was way overblown. Or that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs. I have adopted an extremely skeptical view of almost all content on the internet now. Fun videos that are staged aren't particularly harmful. Something like "a crazy coincidence or wild prank" made to look real and genuine is not particularly sinister. I personally have briefly put way to much stock in a screenshot of a Tweet from an unattributed anonymous poster alleging X happened. Simply because "it feels true" and confirms my bias. Be careful out there kids!
- anonymars 1y ago
- mensetmanusman 1y agoI see trending interviews that seem fake now. Really curious to see what the Internet looks like in five years.
- standardUser 1y agoThis is significantly less interesting than any of the dozens of nonsense conspiracy theories Musk repeatedly posts about. Why so much attention?
- msgodel 1y agoI frankly have very little sympathy for Tesla here. If you're going to "sell" people a computer and not give them root it's impossible for everyone else to tell if you're screwing around with it like that. You want to be the admin for everyone else? Well you get the responsibility and emotional demands from everyone else too.
- fruitworks 1y agoDamn that would be funny as hell if it was real
- taraindara 1y ago> Tesla tweeted about the video, saying, “This is fake – that’s not our screen. Tesla does NOT disable vehicles remotely.” I think the “does not” stands out to me more than “can not”. I’d rather keep my dumb car knowing it can’t be disabled remotely at all without something like an emp.
- nailer 1y agoRamzan Kadyrov got his hands on a Cybertruck, and it was disabled remotely. Asides from the trade embargo with Russia, Kadyrov also trolled Elon by thanking him personally, Telsa found it and turned it off: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/business/chechnya-kadyrov-musk-tesla-cybertruck-disabled https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/business/chechnya-kadyrov-mus...
- aydyn 1y agoDumb cars are like dumb TVs; you arent going to find any on the consumer market. All modern connected cars can be controlled remotely. Ford has even filed patents for remote shutoff for reposession purposes. Its just how it is.
- thegrim33 1y agoThe original post made front page of HN for a good while, whereas this correction post was dropped almost immediately to page 3, and now on page 4. This post is/was more recent, with more upvotes, than almost everything currently on the front page, yet it's hidden all the way down on page 4.
- porphyra 1y agoLengthy comment sections full of flame wars, which controversial topics like fake news against Tesla often result in, tend to make the threads less visible on HN.
- pfannkuchen 1y agoWouldn’t that apply to the original post too?
- _mlbt 1y agoThis is why fake news is such an effective propaganda tool. There are to this day many people who honestly believe untruths because the media repeated lies and half truths loudly, followed by quiet retractions when they got caught.
- physicles 1y ago“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it” - Jonathan Swift
- pfannkuchen 1y agoThis sort of thing has to be illegal, right? Not sure what it’s called, but it’s basically libel against a corporation. Can you just do that and it’s fine? If so I would expect it to happen all the time via competitors hiring agencies to lie in this sort of way, and AFAIK that doesn’t happen broadly, so it seems like something is preventing it, such as it being illegal.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y agoDarn. I really wanted it to be true