Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anatomy of a Moral Panic

idlewords.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 180 posts

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#151

Post by notahacker »

Iv wrote: post #111
brianjoseff wrote: post #13

Who is making strides in fixing the underlying business model problems that are driving the increasing virulence and frequency of these moral panics, and undermining the integrity and function of journalism? Or at least providing alternatives that are equally profitable yet less pernicious. Because barring the entrance of one of these as-yet-unimagined alternatives, it seems we'll need to lean on regulation...but the…

> Because barring the entrance of one of these as-yet-unimagined alternatives, it seems we'll need to lean on regulation...but then we get into messiness of regulating free speech. OK. I'm on break, I'll make it a big longer to translate and sum up what I think has been the most underrated video of the 2016 french presidential election discussing how to «fix» political press. (reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

It's possible this is covered in the talk (as I don't speak French), but how exactly is "information" defined other than being non-commercial?

I mean, on the one hand it's certain that there are people who will happily spend their days writing conspiracy theories or lies about certain minority groups without any financial incentive to do so, and I'd rather this didn't get money from my taxes and a government stamp of approval that such garbage is actually "information". On the other hand, I don't really want a situation where it's really easy for "independent" journalists to get distribution and an income stream, but only if they write stuff the government approves of.

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#152

Post by notzorbo3 »

vonnik wrote: post #127

Ironically, the premise of this critique of journalism is as false as the Amazon story it cites. Algorithms and the Internet didn't ruin journalism, and this is not the end of the world. Journalism was corrupted by sensationalism as soon as it moved from subscriptions to ads, which in the US was in the 19th century. Remember when we discovered a colony of aliens on the moon? Yeah, that was the New York Sun way before…

Your entire comment is a straw man. The article doesn't claim the internet ruined journalism, and I don't even know where your "end of the world" comment is coming from. You're also comparing papers like the New York Sun and other tabloids, while this article is talking about respectable papers such as the New York Times.

I'll quote the relevant part of the article:

> The real story in this mess is not the threat that algorithms pose to Amazon shoppers, but the threat that algorithms pose to journalism. By forcing reporters to optimize every story for clicks, not giving them time to check or contextualize their reporting, and requiring them to race to publish follow-on articles on every topic, the clickbait economics of online media encourage carelessness and drama. This is particularly true for technical topics outside the reporter’s area of expertise.

> And reporters have no choice but to chase clicks. Because Google and Facebook have a duopoly on online advertising, the only measure of success in publishing is whether a story goes viral on social media. Authors are evaluated by how individual stories perform online, and face constant pressure to make them more arresting.

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#153

Post by ryanmarsh »

kermittd wrote: post #63
ryanmarsh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay for good journalism Where? He that is without sin among them, let him cash the first check. I’ve checked out too. The S/N ratio is way past what my filters can handle. I either need algorithmic filtering or noise attenuation. The fact is we’re all part of an intersubjective reality. It’s impossible for me to determine what is fake news and anyone who claims they can is fooling themselves or has primary sources.

Off topic but have you read Homo Deus?

Yes

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#154

Post by rmc »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #145
groby_b wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context on "far-left" - it's nothing like the far left in the US. France has an extremely well-developed set of leftists. It's the only country I ever visited where people had deep discussions about the difference between Trotskyism and Leninism when debating actual political events. The US far left would maybe, possibly, pass as moderate left in France. Obama would be considered... center right? OK, centrist. Th…

Obama is not close to the center according to https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2012 Clinton and trump are on https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016 I find the site reasonably unbiased.

I think that site is tweaked for US politics, so yes according to US politics, Obama is not centre-right. The questions include things that are political issue in the USA, but are settled (one way or another) in other countries, like "should there be public broadcasting?".

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#155

Post by rmc »

groby_b wrote: post #130
Iv wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the context, this proposal was made by this journal director to JL Mélenchon, the far-left candidate in the election (who got 19% of votes, i.e. not a marginal) hoping it would be included in his political program. It is a well-thought proposal by someone who knows the press industry well. It of course has leftist bias but I suspect that while there can be political criticism, it is probably pretty solid. I don't…

For context on "far-left" - it's nothing like the far left in the US. France has an extremely well-developed set of leftists. It's the only country I ever visited where people had deep discussions about the difference between Trotskyism and Leninism when debating actual political events. The US far left would maybe, possibly, pass as moderate left in France. Obama would be considered... center right? OK, centrist. Th…

I remember reading about Uber opening in France. Obviously the french taxi drivers weren't happy with it, and Uber were putting out press releases about how they "want to work together and blah blah corporate waffle".

But you can't just ignore the law like that like you can in USA, the French taxi drivers started attacking and burning Uber cars.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/25/french-anti-uber-protest-t...

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#156

Post by pjc50 »

mikestew wrote: post #64

As one who has not reloaded ammunition in a number of years, I’m going to guess that the only reason Amazon won’t sell you black powder (or gun powder) outright is due to shipping restrictions. Which means instead of buying the ingredients with a highly-trackable transaction from Amazon, your low-budget terrorist will have to resort to buying the powder pre-made, and anonymously in a cash transaction from the local g…

.. in the US, or the UK? I'm fairly sure you'd need an explosives license for more than the 100g ""personal experimentation"" limit, although I'm still trying to find a good canonical rules summary.

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#157

Post by TeMPOraL »

rmc wrote: post #155
groby_b wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context on "far-left" - it's nothing like the far left in the US. France has an extremely well-developed set of leftists. It's the only country I ever visited where people had deep discussions about the difference between Trotskyism and Leninism when debating actual political events. The US far left would maybe, possibly, pass as moderate left in France. Obama would be considered... center right? OK, centrist. Th…

I remember reading about Uber opening in France. Obviously the french taxi drivers weren't happy with it, and Uber were putting out press releases about how they "want to work together and blah blah corporate waffle". But you can't just ignore the law like that like you can in USA, the French taxi drivers started attacking and burning Uber cars. https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/25/french-anti-uber-protest-t...

Judging by the media coverage I've seen over the years, burning cars seems to simply be the standard way of protesting in France...

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#158

Post by pjc50 »

I don't really agree with the author's stance here. Especially since it was posted a couple of days after the inept bomb attempt on a tube train: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/20/parsons-green-two...

Yes, it's a bit sensationalist, it's the news. Have you seen the UK news scene? This won't even be in the top 5 most misleading things said or printed in the news that day.

Please also bear in mind the law on explosives precursors: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supplying-explosi...

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#159

Post by freshhawk »

wolf550e wrote: post #81

Wasn't the "baseball test" an accepted norm in journalism? "A reporter should not be assigned to cover subject X unless he has as good an understanding of X as a baseball writer is expected to have of baseball."[1] Shouldn't media outlets be embarrassed into retracting stories written by people who know nothing about the subject? Shouldn't the reputation of the media outlet suffer? 1 - https://www.theatlantic.com/per…

Their reputations probably would suffer if anyone cared or if it wasn't ubiquitous.

There are 5 PR hacks for every reporter in America. And that counts people who are functionally equivalent to PR hacks as reporters because of their job title.

The market has spoken, and actual journalism has been deemed unnecessary. The short era of actual journalism, with journalistic ethics classes and investigative journalism and the "baseball test" was a short term market inefficiency that has been solved (the idea of this era was also always very overblown).

Re: Anatomy of a Moral Panic

#160

Post by freshhawk »

brianjoseff wrote: post #107
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no business-model problem. Mass hysteria has existed long before Western-style free press. In late 19th century Russia, the government would spread rumors that Jews drink the blood of Christian babies and instigate pogroms. In medieval Europe, people used to burn witches. In modern Egypt, people think 9/11 was a US-government conspiracy. All of these phenomena have taken place without a capitalist free press…

Interesting point. So capitalist free press is actually a net positive here given the transparency it presumably enables (and promotes to the degree that consumers desire truthful/etc journalism) I think part of what makes our modern situation different is that mass hysteria has a denser network on which to propagate (yes also means remedial measures also propagate faster) and is propelled via a more ruthlessly effic…

If journalism has to be market driven in a capitalist system then all there is is a culture that values education, intellectualism, distrusts all large institutions and values journalism itself.

Which, of course, is harmful to literally everyone in power and most of the people with the power to steer culture. Any system remotely like we have now is systemically opposed to good journalism.

Post reply on HN