4 ms·
Dear news publications - if you aren't willing to accept an independent record of what you published, I can't accept your news. It's a critical piece of the fra
by zmmmmm 8mo ago
Dear news publications - if you aren't willing to accept an independent record of what you published, I can't accept your news. It's a critical piece of the framework that keeps you honest. I don't care if you allow AI scraping either way, but you have to facilitate archival of your content - independently, not under your own control.
- germandiago 8mo agoFirst thing that came to my mind went along the same reasoning.
- zeta0134 8mo agoThe second thing that came to mind was paywall evasion. Any time a news article behind a paywall gets posted here, someone in the comments has the archive link ready to go, because of course they do. The incentives for online news are really wacky just to begin with. A coin at the convenience store for the whole dang paper used to be the simplest thing in the world.
- saint_fiasco 8mo agoI suppose that could be solved with a delay. Limit internet archive for articles that are less than a week old.
- MonkeyClub 8mo agoThat would diminish archival accuracy, an outlet could amend the text without third party proof.
- jasonfarnon 8mo agoI don't see the connection to adding the delay. I think the suggestion was to have a snapshot at time of publication but wait a week to make it public.
- saint_fiasco 8mo agoI actually didn't initially think of the parent's objection nor your rebuttal. This is why I like reading HN comments.
- hn_acker 8mo ago> Limit internet archive for articles that are less than a week old. I mean this as a side note rather than a counterargument (because people learn to take screenshots, and because what can you do about particularly bad faith news orgs?): Immediate archival can capture silent changes (and misleadingly announced changes). A headline might change to better fit the article body. An editor's note might admit a mistakenly attributed quote. Or a news org might pull a Fox News [1][2] by rewriting both the headline and article body to cover up a mistake that unravels the original article's reason for existing: The original headline was "SNAP beneficiaries threaten to ransack stores over government shutdown". The headline was changed to "AI videos of SNAP beneficiaries complaining about cuts go viral". An editor's note was added [3][4]: "This article previously reported on some videos that appear to have been generated by AI without noting that. This has been corrected." I think Fox News deleted the article. [1] https://xcancel.com/KFILE/status/1984673901872558291 https://xcancel.com/KFILE/status/1984673901872558291 [2] https://archive.ph/NL6oR https://archive.ph/NL6oR [3] https://xcancel.com/JusDayDa/status/1984693256417083798 https://xcancel.com/JusDayDa/status/1984693256417083798 [4] https://archive.ph/XEI9E https://archive.ph/XEI9E
- tchalla 8mo ago> Any time a news article behind a paywall gets posted here, someone in the comments has the archive link ready to go, because of course they do. I have no idea why this behavior is even acceptable.
- thayne 8mo agoIf the content was fully paywalled, it wouldn't be possible to archive it (unless the archiver paid for a subscription). The reason the archiving works is because they expose the content publicly so search engines can index it.
- sejje 8mo agoI don't know even one news source I "trust." I expect them to push an agenda. I also don't think they care even a bit. They're pushing agendas, and not hiding it; rather, flaunting it.
- undeveloper 8mo ago"everyone is stupid but me" is a bit too prevalent in the tech industry
- singpolyma3 8mo agoNot everyone surely. But some people
- awakeasleep 8mo agoYou are doing it to the parent comment right now. Why not interpret it to mean something like “no news organization has biases that are fully aligned with my best interests”
- undeveloper 8mo agoThere's no kind way to interpret "They're pushing agendas, and not hiding it; rather, flaunting it." that isn't deeply hateful of news orgs a whole. Additionally this talk is almost always followed by "I therefore just allow myself to passively hear news through others (which have no biases)" or "I only get my news from hitlers-strongest-soldiers.com" or similar "unbiased" news sources (or maybe just "youtube"/"tiktok"). Deeply conspiratorial thinking and anti-intellectual to think literally everyone is out to get you. I don't think I'm smarter than everyone (which is why I rely on other people to give me the news), but I am at least smarter than this person.
- bsder 8mo agoIs it more likely that no one is speaking the truth, or, more likely, to you, the truth looks like an agenda?
- scoofy 8mo agoThe records already exist. Check your local library. The entire point of this is the scrapers undermine the business model. If anything, we should simply me asking archive.org to limit their access to humans.
- salawat 8mo agoTo hell with contempt of business model. Business models aren't sacred. Besides which, with business models owners capture the newsroom anyway.
- nazcan 8mo agoEvery business (even news) needs a business model.
- wizzwizz4 8mo agoNews has a business model: do actual journalism. I don't see much reason to fund the people who are giving me the same story as everyone else who received the same press release, with no additional details: I might as well subscribe to the press releases.
- ang_cire 8mo agoYes, but not every business works, and not every business model works, and not every business model works with every business, etc etc. It's on the business to find a model that works within the environment of the free market and within the social framework. If a business model only works by limiting competition, it's a bad model. If it only works by limiting the rights of consumers, it's a bad model. If it only works by blocking a legal activity (website crawling and scraping of publicly-facing data, for instance), it's a bad model. And if their business can't operate otherwise, it's a bad business. No business has an intrinsic right to exist.
- nazcan 8mo agoI think the question of is a business allowed to have something free only for humans (presumably with advertising) does not have a clear best answer - politicians can decide.
- p-e-w 8mo agoI have seen zero evidence that independent archives “keep news media honest”. In fact, I have on several occasions noticed news media directly contradicting their own stance from just a few years prior, with no mention of the previously published account at all. This is true even for highly respected newspapers of record. I can indeed find clear records of that in the archives. But what do I do with them? How do I use that evidence to hold news media to account? This is meaningless moral posturing.
- wizzwizz4 8mo ago> But what do I do with them? How do I use that evidence to hold news media to account? Contact their rivals with the story, have them write a hit piece. "Other newspaper is telling porkies: here's the proof!" is an excellent story: not one I'd expect a journalist to have time to discover, but certainly one I'd expect them to be able to follow up on, once they've received a tip.
- p-e-w 8mo agoThat’s not how publishing works. News outlets (especially those of roughly similar political leaning) very rarely call out each other’s misconduct. In fact, they often seem to operate as a quasi-conglomerate rather than competitors.
- wizzwizz4 8mo agoIf they're not doing real journalism, why are you paying any attention to them? There are hundreds of small journalism groups who will call each other out just as easily as collaborate, who care primarily for truth and secondarily for putting food on the table (and therefore rarely have anything to call out). Many of their journalists have quit (or been fired from) the big news organisations, or would have been snapped up 50 years ago but are presently unhireable. For the record, I'm talking about actual journalism groups, not Substack blogs. Here's one (largely US-centric) list, a ≈dozen links long: https://hcommons.social/@zeblarson/115488066909889058 https://hcommons.social/@zeblarson/115488066909889058. You almost certainly have local journalists who need your support, which obviously I cannot list here.
- zaphirplane 8mo agoHow is the publisher supposed to fund their operations let along make a profit. How about a 1 year lock on the archive pages. There are many ways of keeping that record but not taking views undermining the business model
- dakolli 8mo agoMaybe it would be better if these news operations had to find better ways to sustain themselves than the current paradigms. Also, the internet archive is not the only archive, and there will be more. This ins't something they can really stop.
- terminalshort 8mo agoIt's a great question, but they didn't seem to have a problem with this before AI, so I have to assume that the presence of a free available copy wasn't really impacting their revenue.
- Joker_vD 8mo ago> How is the publisher supposed to fund their operations let along make a profit. There used to be plenty newspapers sponsored by wealthy industrialists; the latter would cover the former's gaps between the costs and the sales, the former would regularly push the latter's political agenda. The "objective journalism" is really quite a late invention IIRC, about the times of WW2.
- belter 8mo agoObjectivity was already a principle in the 1890s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_objectivity "To give the news impartially, without fear or favor." — Adolph Ochs, 1858-1935 Objectivity is the default state of honest storytelling. If I ask what happened ? and somebody only tells the parts that suit an agenda, they have not informed me. The partisan press exists, because someone has a motive to deviate from the natural expectation of fair story telling and story recounting.
- 8mo ago
- throw10920 8mo agoIt's pretty easy to hold publications accountable without forcing them to publish content - just make them publish hashes of their content. They won't, of course, because they don't want accountability.