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Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

nytimes.com

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Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#31

Post by azernik »

throwaway080383 wrote: post #10

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!"

If you read carefully, he didn't actually say iPhones were preferable: "Apple’s less data-focused approach has allowed it to take the high road on privacy. That strategy has potentially insulated the company from regulations and public scorn, but it also could leave Apple with dumber products than its rivals."

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#32

Post by azernik »

simonsaidit wrote: post #16
blotter_paper wrote: post #6

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…

A usecase for blockchain.

How exactly does blockchain help here? It would allow you to enter a read-only entry that you interviewed a subject and they said XXX, but how would it verify that this is a truthful entry?

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#33

Post by lj3 »

thirtyseven wrote: post #3

> 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.

Everything can be easily faked. So what? Screenshots have the benefit of being easy to capture, store and share.

Websites are very unreliable in this regard. They can be edited on the fly, are hard to store and are even easier to fake. Any archive or caching site can be purged of captured content. It's much harder to suppress an image once it's been passed around.

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#34

Post by hi5eyes »

vokep wrote: post #23
throwaway080383 wrote: post #10

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!"

Something like... >We're not spying on you, we're learning your behaviors to offer a better experience! Okay I guess that makes sense, I like when stuff is designed well around what I actually want from it, this will help in that, cool! >We're not spying on you, we're just going to report you to the police if our ML algorithm detects a child screaming for their life Wow okay, that kinda seems like crossing a line, bu…

@Amazon will soon give Alexa a 'rudimentary form of emotional awareness,' making her able to hear your whispers & frustrations. She will also be capable of listening for trouble such as breaking glass or a smoke alarm when you’re not home: “We’re going beyond recognizing words." https://twitter.com/PopCrave/status/1042885315575332870

also reminds me of a parent tweeting about how her child thinks of Alexa as another person in the house, kids are growing up with every aspect of their life fully integrated with spyware-as-a-service

"We have the brightest minds of today trying to figure out how to get people to click ads on the Internet" https://gizmodo.com/senators-urge-ftc-to-investigate-manipul...

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#35

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

shaki-dora wrote: post #29
sometimesage wrote: post #15

Does anybody else think this article is at least 90% native advertising?

Hey, a conspiracy theory. Great start for a new account! What you are misunderstanding: Companies and products are part of what's often called "the real world". As such, journalists are allowed to mention them in articles, because nothing in the real world cannot be the subject of journalism. And in the same way that they sometimes offer positive opinions on politicians, or 200 year old books, or tomorrow's weather,…

> What you are misunderstanding: Companies and products are part of what's often called "the real world".

What you are misunderstanding: being patronizing does not make you convincing.

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#36

Post by skybrian »

blotter_paper wrote: post #6
thirtyseven wrote: post #3

> 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…

Journalists rely on phone calls and interviews, and on their reputation that they didn't fake the phone calls and interviews. This isn't all that different for academics. If they interview someone themselves then they'll cite it as "personal communication".

On Wikipedia, you can't do that, but that's because everything we do is as anonymous editors with no reputation.

The whole thing runs on trust. It has to bottom out on people making observations in the real world, so betrayal is always possible. Trustless knowledge gathering is a fantasy for crypto-enthusiasts.

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#37

Post by isoskeles »

I find it funny that the article opens with how pen and paper are some of his most reliable tools.

Then it goes on to talk about several apps and taking screenshots on an iPhone.

I want to know how the pen and paper were so notable. What is being done with the trusty pen and paper?! Please! Tell me! I did ctrl-f and found no further mention of pen and paper. I feel duped. I feel like the pen and paper were only mentioned in an effort to define this journalist's personal brand as cool and analog. Let's talk about that pen and paper. Why did you waste my time by mentioning those words for me to read and then dropping the subject entirely?

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#38

Post by isoskeles »

shaki-dora wrote: post #29
sometimesage wrote: post #15

Does anybody else think this article is at least 90% native advertising?

Hey, a conspiracy theory. Great start for a new account! What you are misunderstanding: Companies and products are part of what's often called "the real world". As such, journalists are allowed to mention them in articles, because nothing in the real world cannot be the subject of journalism. And in the same way that they sometimes offer positive opinions on politicians, or 200 year old books, or tomorrow's weather,…

If the NYT is being honest, why did they mention the pen and paper and drop the subject? I think something fishy is going on here. I don't think that journalist owns a pen or paper. I mean, I think he owns neither of those two objects, not even a single sheet, and not even one of those crummy pens you get for free that has some other business's name on it.

Edit: Hold on, I stand corrected. This man has a notepad he keeps in his back pocket. I don't know how I missed that photo, but this reporter is legit. He has a notepad. He probably also has a pen because I see notes written on the notepad.

All is right in the world.

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#39

Post by woolvalley »

shaki-dora wrote: post #20
blotter_paper wrote: post #6

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…

What level of "evidence" would you accept? You reference science publishing as the gold standard, but why not require the standards of the criminal justice system? Indeed, why does science get away with a lesser standard? 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…

Journalists are noticeably sensitive whenever you are critical of them, even when the stories seem flimsy, arrogant or more emotional than rational.

Obviously some stories would hard to 'cite your sources' due to the stakes or secrecy, but there are many categories of stories where journos can put a partial or full source dump. Interview stories could attach full and unedited interview recordings for example.

Here's a list of how journalism can do better as a profession:

- Not acting defensive about criticism of journalistic practice

- Attaching your raw sources

- Adding an edit log to all published stories. 'Attaching the git history' would be fairly interesting to see sometimes!

- Disclosing advertiser / sponsorship links and the political / religious opinions of writers as a 'writer profile'. Maybe a public journo friend list too so we could identify if certain cliques tend to have certain opinions. Also add their CV if possible to see what publications journos have written for.

- Attaching to stories everyone involved in it, such as other journalists, editors, managers, politicians, executives, external pr firms, and so on. Will let you see the influence of specific people in stories.

- Putting major retractions / corrections up front and center (above the fold) If you retract a story for example or have a major correction, put that retraction in the same spot where the story was most viewed. So if the story was in the bottom item in the culture section, then put the correction there. But if it was front page news, then put that correction right on the front page too.

Re: Reporting on tech companies means finding people who don’t want to be found

#40

Post by masonic »

shaki-dora wrote: post #20
blotter_paper wrote: post #6

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…

What level of "evidence" would you accept? You reference science publishing as the gold standard, but why not require the standards of the criminal justice system? Indeed, why does science get away with a lesser standard? 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…

  Are (photos of) bank statements "evidence"?
It's hard to imagine a scenario where they could be legally obtained, so... no.
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