11–20 of 45 posts
> I’m also a prolific screenshotter. The internet is an ephemeral place, so when I see something online for a story, I make sure to capture it immediately. Why are screenshots seen as the gold standard for documenting deleted content? They are easily faked.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're totally correct. But if you just want to document something for your own future review, screenshots work fine. The thing is, journalism sees itself as being above citations. Journalists are primarily relying on their reputations as journalists, not evidence; the word of a journalist is supposed to be evidence, valid as a citation elsewhere. Journalists don't even record all of their interviews, a lot of them j…
Journalism is also not peer-review. It should never be viewed as such. Anonymous sources, the tendency for people to shy away from being recorded and just the speed of the news preclude some of what you are talking about. That said, I agree that journalists should be held to account. One of the victims of the decline of print media are local news outlets who are checking each other. I've noticed a trend in my own loc…
I'm surprised that despite being able to concisely explain why Apple is preferable to Google due to the privacy implications of their respective business models, they're perfectly content with a Google Home in their kitchen! Maybe I'm paranoid, but isn't it obvious how the whole Home Speaker story ends? "We're not spying on you, we're learning your behaviors to offer a better experience!"
I'm surprised that despite being able to concisely explain why Apple is preferable to Google due to the privacy implications of their respective business models, they're perfectly content with a Google Home in their kitchen! Maybe I'm paranoid, but isn't it obvious how the whole Home Speaker story ends? "We're not spying on you, we're learning your behaviors to offer a better experience!"
I don't have any smart speakers in my house, but I can also see how a rational person might accept the trade-off. Aggregate data to support advertising isn't necessarily evil, nor is using that data to improve service. In fact, you could argue that's what a good business should be doing: evaluating customer needs and adjusting to meet them.
> I’m also a prolific screenshotter. The internet is an ephemeral place, so when I see something online for a story, I make sure to capture it immediately. Why are screenshots seen as the gold standard for documenting deleted content? They are easily faked.
You're totally correct. But if you just want to document something for your own future review, screenshots work fine. The thing is, journalism sees itself as being above citations. Journalists are primarily relying on their reputations as journalists, not evidence; the word of a journalist is supposed to be evidence, valid as a citation elsewhere. Journalists don't even record all of their interviews, a lot of them j…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have any smart speakers in my house, but I can also see how a rational person might accept the trade-off. Aggregate data to support advertising isn't necessarily evil, nor is using that data to improve service. In fact, you could argue that's what a good business should be doing: evaluating customer needs and adjusting to meet them.
Rational people are also emotional, and apathy is the default emotion. Recognizing that many products are privacy invasive becomes the same as realizing that they are produced in ways that harm the environment, or hurt workers. A fact acknowledged but accepted in exchange for the benefits they offer.
> I’m also a prolific screenshotter. The internet is an ephemeral place, so when I see something online for a story, I make sure to capture it immediately. Why are screenshots seen as the gold standard for documenting deleted content? They are easily faked.
I’ve searched for web archival services before, but never found anything outside of some expensive legal services. It would be great if there was a service like the waybackmachine but which could be use to archive on demand, and make those archives publicly available. The internet archive is great for this, but they also respect robots.txt and don’t guarantee that they’ll archive pages you request.
Then you don't need "secure" storage of the actual archives, you can have as many copies as possible with as many people as possible and not worry about someone tampering with the archives.
I'm surprised that despite being able to concisely explain why Apple is preferable to Google due to the privacy implications of their respective business models, they're perfectly content with a Google Home in their kitchen! Maybe I'm paranoid, but isn't it obvious how the whole Home Speaker story ends? "We're not spying on you, we're learning your behaviors to offer a better experience!"
I don't have any smart speakers in my house, but I can also see how a rational person might accept the trade-off. Aggregate data to support advertising isn't necessarily evil, nor is using that data to improve service. In fact, you could argue that's what a good business should be doing: evaluating customer needs and adjusting to meet them.
There is also some interesting circuitry around the mic itself- the keyword activation chip essentially has control over the mics- they buffer input until they hear the codeword ('alexa') and then activate the main circuitry and dump the buffer into it. The upside to this is that software can't turn the mic on by itself- the chip needs to help. This isn't completely perfect though as once the software has been given control it can keep that control forever (with the caveat that lights would be on).
It's possible to use technology to our advantage without having to sacrifice privacy, we just have to demand it (and, as we all should have learned from Therac-25, hardware limits are preferable over software).
> I’m also a prolific screenshotter. The internet is an ephemeral place, so when I see something online for a story, I make sure to capture it immediately. Why are screenshots seen as the gold standard for documenting deleted content? They are easily faked.
You're totally correct. But if you just want to document something for your own future review, screenshots work fine. The thing is, journalism sees itself as being above citations. Journalists are primarily relying on their reputations as journalists, not evidence; the word of a journalist is supposed to be evidence, valid as a citation elsewhere. Journalists don't even record all of their interviews, a lot of them j…
Each professions has the standard it deems optimal within the trade-offs of risks, costs, etc. Those obviously differ: holding journalism to the standards of a criminal trial would essentially make it impossible.
That's especially true if you require to personally inspect all the evidence. Because if you don't trust a journalist, why trust any other person?
Say the story is "Senator used campaign funds for vacation". The reporter sees bank statements to that effect.
Are (photos of) bank statements "evidence"? Because they aren't signed. And even if they were, the photo could easily be faked. You wouldn't even have a specimen to compare signatures. In a trial, they'd get someone from the bank as a witness. But you don't accept just the journalist's assurance that any quote is accurate. So... Should the guy from the bank stop by at your place?
In fact, I can't think of any evidence you can transmit over http that wouldn't just be attacked as "fake" by those motivated to believe that. Case in point: birth certificates.
Meanwhile, there is like no evidence of respected news organisations making up facts. The whole narrative of these supposed failures of "mainstream media" is essentially fiction[0].
Journalism also doesn't work like science publishing in that it relies less on synthesis of previously reported facts. Scientists also don't offer any "evidence" for the meat of their papers, i. e. the stuff that's new. Almost by definition, citations can only cover old information.
So there would be footnotes referencing election results to support the claim that "President Trump" is an accurate representation of the guy's name and title. Plus a lot of footnotes like "as told to me by XX". That wouldn't help anybody. In fact, the source is typically named in every article using interviews, and even for anonymous sources that fact is disclosed. Those references are just embedded in the text, not referenced via footnotes.
So, is this a debate about formatting?
0: The example you're thinking of happened 18 years ago. You should come up with a more recent one, or you're liable to just proof that these events are extremely rare.