France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax • Hacker News Board

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#21

Post by the_duke » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:42 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #12

the_duke wrote: post #3

In today's world of race to the finish (/ bottom) journalism, I think it should be mandatory for all publications to have an addendum to each article, which contains: * list of sources of information and original research conducted ( including names of interviewees, only anonymized with a justification, links, etc ) * a sign-off by a journalist (note: not supposed to imply responsibility or liability for accuracy of…

> list of sources of information and original research conducted This is something that is ostensibly already in a typical article. Or are you suggesting that the reporter list everything that was researched, and every one who was talked to, regardless if it made it into the published version of the article?

> This is something that is ostensibly already in a typical article.

It really isn't though. Most sources are not mentioned in a typical article. Prominent interviewees are mentioned by name, but more often then not information comes from a quick Google search, someone not established enough to be mentioned (eg you would mention a professor, but not a young research assistant/secretary), or even Reddit.

Not to mention that a large amount of articles contains no original research at all. Often it's a press release, a rewrite of a press agency release, or just a copy/paste and rewrite of some other website.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#22

Post by IanDrake » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:43 PM UTC

singularity2001 wrote: post #17

Doesn't this violate the freedom of speech?

I think you mean freedom of the press? Libel is still illegal.

Frankly, the problem with the press in the US is that it's lost all credibility and is mostly filled with activist instead of journalists.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#23

Post by chki » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:44 PM UTC

zmzrr wrote: post #20

singularity2001 wrote: post #17

Doesn't this violate the freedom of speech?

I am not saying it necessarily applies to this case, but France, like all countries in the EU, does not have actual freedom of speech.

That's not true. At least not for the common definitions of "freedom of speech".

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#24

Post by aguyfromnb » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:45 PM UTC

fbn79 wrote: post #11

Do you remember the Bloomberg article about Big China Chip Hack? About Apple was been refuted, debunked, and ridiculed. See https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/04/editorial-a-year-...

This story is so odd to me.

On the one hand, if true, all Bloomberg had to do was produce evidence; a single compromised server. They didn't. On the other hand, if the journalists fabricated the entire story, saying that all these big companies were hacked, why didn't anybody sue them? It was a major accusation! It just kinda...disappeared.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#25

Post by zmzrr » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:46 PM UTC

chki wrote: post #23

zmzrr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not saying it necessarily applies to this case, but France, like all countries in the EU, does not have actual freedom of speech.

That's not true. At least not for the common definitions of "freedom of speech".

There are blasphemy laws for instance. Right to be forgotten. Etc.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#26

Post by chki » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:50 PM UTC

zmzrr wrote: post #25

chki wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. At least not for the common definitions of "freedom of speech".

There are blasphemy laws for instance. Right to be forgotten. Etc.

Which means that freedom of speech is (in some cases) limited because of the religious freedom of others. It doesn't mean that freedom of speech doesn't exist, it means that the "balancing exercise" between certain Rights is performed differently.

Edit: There is no state in the world where there exists some sort of "absolute freedom of speech".

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#27

Post by VBprogrammer » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #13

the_duke wrote: post #3

In today's world of race to the finish (/ bottom) journalism, I think it should be mandatory for all publications to have an addendum to each article, which contains: * list of sources of information and original research conducted ( including names of interviewees, only anonymized with a justification, links, etc ) * a sign-off by a journalist (note: not supposed to imply responsibility or liability for accuracy of…

Well-respected publications have internal checks and balances that do all these things for investigative stories already. You seem not to know enough about how the journalism industry has solved these issues to make a proposal. The system does work fairly well. Screw-ups of investigations and scoops are big news because they're rare among serious journalistic outfits. No individual journalist wants to be known for ge…

> No individual journalist wants to be known for getting a story wrong, so incentives are pretty strong to begin with.

I think in a lot of places this isn't nearly as true as maybe it once was. The top selling newspapers in the UK pretty much habitually print anything that drives sales / their agenda and when they get a slap on the wrist they just print a minimal viable retraction.

When that occasionally lands them in court they treat it basically as a cost of doing business.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#28

Post by cs702 » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

Why are mass purveyors of anti-news and propaganda on the Internet not fined like this?

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#29

Post by _eLRIC » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #16

So Bloomberg got caught out by a fake press release and got fined - what happened to the originator of the fake press release? France has a problem /history with anonymous poison pen letters. Sounds to me like some one was settling scores and Bloomberg got caught I doubt that a French equivalent of Bloomberg would have been fined.

French press can be fined, don't worry, i.e C8 3M€ in 2017, Amaury press group 3.5 M€ un 2015

On that very case, no one can tell.

Re: France's AMF watchdog fines Bloomberg €5M over Vinci hoax

#30

Post by austhrow743 » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

aguyfromnb wrote: post #24

fbn79 wrote: post #11

Do you remember the Bloomberg article about Big China Chip Hack? About Apple was been refuted, debunked, and ridiculed. See https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/04/editorial-a-year-...

This story is so odd to me. On the one hand, if true, all Bloomberg had to do was produce evidence; a single compromised server. They didn't. On the other hand, if the journalists fabricated the entire story, saying that all these big companies were hacked, why didn't anybody sue them? It was a major accusation! It just kinda...disappeared.

>It just kinda...disappeared.

This might be the answer to you second question. No one seems to have taken the Bloomberg story to be true. Just went "that's dumb" and dropped it. In fact the only times I've ever seen it resurface is in a context to point out something negative about Bloomberg (like now), not the companies named in the article.

Sort of like the Elon Musk defamation case that just ended. Plaintiff didn't get anything because people didn't turn on him due to the accusation, they turned on Elon.

If it's not believed then you couldn't have suffered harm.