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

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 270 posts

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

#71

Post by bovermyer »

jacquesm wrote: post #66
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…

I'd love to see this for politicians. Lie and you're automatically removed from office and fined/jailed. Also, I never understood why a vote is a one way street, why can't I recall my vote if the politicians that gained my vote with their programs and promises then end up breaking those promises and not implementing their programs.

What distinguishes involuntary falsehoods (e.g., misquoting someone unintentionally, or basing an argument on data later proved to be false) from lies in this case? How would you go about enacting this? I think this is a pipe dream, and not something that can (or should) be implemented.

And as for "one way street" voting... that's because voting is an ephemeral act, not a sustained one. Your vote happened in the past and had an effect. You can't change your vote later and suddenly someone else is elected.

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

#72

Post by jacquesm »

dmos62 wrote: post #68
jacquesm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see this for politicians. Lie and you're automatically removed from office and fined/jailed. Also, I never understood why a vote is a one way street, why can't I recall my vote if the politicians that gained my vote with their programs and promises then end up breaking those promises and not implementing their programs.

I sympathize, but the ability to recall your vote, i.e. unelect, at any time would make your attitude towards your initial vote less serious and elections/unelections would cycle too fast to govern. Sometimes a bad government can be better than no government. Burden of citizenship.

> the ability to recall your vote, i.e. unelect, at any time would make your attitude towards your initial vote less serious

How do you know that about me?

> elections/unelections would cycle too fast to govern

Ok, that may be so, but without trying it we'll never know. You could implement this at the municipal level first, see how it works, iron out the kinks if any are found and then scale it up bit by bit. The whole idea that a politician can say anything and only be held accountable many years later is a pretty big flaw, possibly bigger than the flaw of having multiple election cycles until we find people that do keep their word.

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

#73

Post by iagovar »

skinkestek wrote: post #61
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…

You are onto something. I very much respect journalists and some of them are really brave, on par with ambulance crews, firefighters and police officers who put their lives on the line to rescue others. Sadly, like how a very few police officers abuse their positions to punish random teenagers etc certain journalists are extremely harmful. I've seen cases were journalists have done untold damage to individuals and co…

I'm not sure. While it's true that some reporters/journalists do a respectable job, I feel that the the field is overall lacking in respect for their job, care, etc. The amount of directly false or misleading information that piles up every day is staggering, and by very well known newspapers an TV channels.

If your job, or something you have direct experience of have been affected by the news cycle then you know how much BS reach eyeballs.

But not only that. Try to read the twitter profile of the journalist you found writing a poor piece. This exercise didn't help me appreciate the field, quite the contrary.

Such experience made me laugh when spanish media panicked about fake news and social media a while ago. They are the primary source. And I guess such behavior can be translated to other languages. I can see the pattern in the US newscycle for example.

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

#74

Post by smt88 »

the_duke wrote: post #32
smt88 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Especially the online versions of those "well respected publications" publish unverified things all the time. Often they get taken down or completely rewritten within half an hour, and of course are worded in a very speculative way from the start. There are also countless of "articles" in those (like the NYT, WaPo, WSJ) that are nothing more than a press release with some shallow context sprinkled in, without any ind…

Since NYT, WaPo, and WSJ publish unverified info "all the time", perhaps you could prove your point by pulling examples of false info they've published in the last month without a correction?

Since it happens so frequently, it should be easy to find one or two, maybe even for each publication.

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

#75

Post by zentiggr »

jacquesm wrote: post #66
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…

I'd love to see this for politicians. Lie and you're automatically removed from office and fined/jailed. Also, I never understood why a vote is a one way street, why can't I recall my vote if the politicians that gained my vote with their programs and promises then end up breaking those promises and not implementing their programs.

Term limits. Or vote them out next time. Part of the reason the Constitution writers made 2 and 6 year terms, to try to force the House to be responsive to public opinion and the Senate resistant to GIGO cycling of proposed bills.

Of course that's all moot with the current 'ideology above sanity', but that's the game today.

Term limits.

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

#76

Post by pc86 »

jacquesm wrote: post #72
dmos62 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sympathize, but the ability to recall your vote, i.e. unelect, at any time would make your attitude towards your initial vote less serious and elections/unelections would cycle too fast to govern. Sometimes a bad government can be better than no government. Burden of citizenship.

> the ability to recall your vote, i.e. unelect, at any time would make your attitude towards your initial vote less serious How do you know that about me? > elections/unelections would cycle too fast to govern Ok, that may be so, but without trying it we'll never know. You could implement this at the municipal level first, see how it works, iron out the kinks if any are found and then scale it up bit by bit. The who…

> Ok, that may be so, but without trying it we'll never know

Of course we can. Take the US dominant two-party system, and look at the approval rating for politicians. Look at how many times it crosses the 50% line. Some would only be in office for a few weeks before being replaced, but then who would replace them? What if the previous candidate has a better job already? Does The Party now get to pick someone? How about when approval ratings move back and forth between 48% and 52% over the course of just a few weeks, multiple times?

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

#77

Post by jacquesm »

bovermyer wrote: post #71
jacquesm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see this for politicians. Lie and you're automatically removed from office and fined/jailed. Also, I never understood why a vote is a one way street, why can't I recall my vote if the politicians that gained my vote with their programs and promises then end up breaking those promises and not implementing their programs.

What distinguishes involuntary falsehoods (e.g., misquoting someone unintentionally, or basing an argument on data later proved to be false) from lies in this case? How would you go about enacting this? I think this is a pipe dream, and not something that can (or should) be implemented. And as for "one way street" voting... that's because voting is an ephemeral act, not a sustained one. Your vote happened in the past…

> What distinguishes involuntary falsehoods (e.g., misquoting someone unintentionally, or basing an argument on data later proved to be false) from lies in this case?

Nothing, so therefore you would have to do some homework. The news cycle might slow down a bit and I'm not sure that would be a bad thing.

> How would you go about enacting this?

A law would be a good start, possibly one with a bunch of criteria that would make 'false positives' a rarity so that at least initially the stick would be reserved for the most offending cases. If that works well then you can adjust to taste.

> I think this is a pipe dream, and not something that can (or should) be implemented.

That's ok, it is perfectly ok for different people to have different attitudes towards such ideas. But it's novel in the sense that it would create a strong incentive for the press to be cautious rather than jumping on every hype wagon that rolled along.

> And as for "one way street" voting... that's because voting is an ephemeral act, not a sustained one.

Yes, and I propose to change that.

> Your vote happened in the past and had an effect. You can't change your vote later and suddenly someone else is elected.

Not right now, but that too is not set in stone and in theory could be changed. A lot of the things we do and find normal are only that because they are how things are done today. That does not mean they can't be changed.

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

#78

Post by londons_explore »

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…

I wonder why journalists don't voluntarily to this? It seems obvious to me that high quality journalism should cite sources and methods, if only to protect themselves from future criticism if their news reporting turns out to be wrong. At least then they can point at the fault publicly, explain how it happened, and what they are changing to make sure it doesn't happen again.

In some cases, they might deliberately not want to give certain sources, but in that case I'd like them to explain their reasons as a footnote of each article.

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

#79

Post by pc86 »

bovermyer wrote: post #71
jacquesm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see this for politicians. Lie and you're automatically removed from office and fined/jailed. Also, I never understood why a vote is a one way street, why can't I recall my vote if the politicians that gained my vote with their programs and promises then end up breaking those promises and not implementing their programs.

What distinguishes involuntary falsehoods (e.g., misquoting someone unintentionally, or basing an argument on data later proved to be false) from lies in this case? How would you go about enacting this? I think this is a pipe dream, and not something that can (or should) be implemented. And as for "one way street" voting... that's because voting is an ephemeral act, not a sustained one. Your vote happened in the past…

> What distinguishes involuntary falsehoods (e.g., misquoting someone unintentionally, or basing an argument on data later proved to be false) from lies in this case?

For the vast majority of people (even those who consider themselves apolitical), it will be how much they like the politician in question. My side? Definitely just being misquoted, or taken out of context, or an honest mistake. The other side? A crazed partisan intentionally manipulating the system, a terrible excuse for a human being, and should be jailed before being summarily executed.

Post reply on HN