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

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

#151
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't trust it, don't consume it. Eventually trust either wins, or you don't care about it very much. The government, fines and aggressive rules won't fix it. Media is a product, not some kind of right.

Try that logic with tap water in flint Michigan.

Are you saying that water service is a right as opposed to a product? Water being a right != water service.

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

#152
post #65
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The "freedom of speech" discussed here is a legal concept, known as the 1st amendment of the US constitution. The common definition isn't really relevant. And it's true that France doesn't actually have such a thing guaranteed by the law. The closest you have is "liberté d'expression" which isn't as broad as "freedom of speech" in the US sense, and doesn't guarantee the same level of freedom.

It's not clear to me why "actual freedom of speech" should be equal to what is guaranteed by the US constitution. That would be like me saying "The US doesn't have the 'Right to Life'" because I'm exclusively applying the European definition of that term.

Freedom of expression/freedom of speech is guaranteed in some way in all Western nations, the difference – as you correctly point out – is the degree to which other rights are also taken into account when applying the Right to freedom of speech. But that's an extremely important distinction and it cannot be said that France doesn't have Freedom of speech.

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the same when we ship beta software to users and then expect the first batch to essentially debug it — then comes the proverbial ".1" patch which fixes most glaring issues. (as if they weren't obvious in the first place) Now why do we do that in software? because "agile", cost, "let's ship and risk breaking some things and see what happens? We'll fix things later in some update, on a need-to basis" Well…

It immediately irks me that I'm defending agile here, but part of the point of agile is that the developer doesn't really know what the end user needs, so it's, in theory, better to get a minimum viable product out that meets the user's need, then refine on subsequent releases, rather than spend years working on releasing something perfect that it turns out doesn't fill the user's need. From a similar perspective for…

You make great points and I agree with your take on agile — I actually mentioned "cost" to indicate that reality was deviating from the 'ideal' agile approach, when it stops being "the right thing to do" — buggy, etc. — because you're trying to meet some arbitrary deadline or favor marketing, please mgmt, etc.

Likewise, I think it's fair to assume the economic competition between news outlets may push some to be too aggressive in shipping fast, too fast.

And you know what, deep down I think it's OK, as long as you don't falsely advertise what you're doing. "We want this (whether code, news) in the hands of our customers asap, so we're releasing it now; but be aware it's not 100% guaranteed until scrutinized by the crowd and corrected accordingly."

I'd love to have a choice between some "fast news shippers" and some "slow, vetted pieces". I think there's room for both and everything in between. Just don't be disingenuous about it, and if it takes regulation to enforce that, then so be it — every legitimately regulated activity pretty much brings it on themselves, give or take some political latency.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

I believe it. Maybe not for that exact story with the lack of proof, but considering how such an attack is within the realm of possibility it seems foolish to not assume the handful of the most powerful and well-funded groups on Earth are doing such a thing. I’m not going to leave my door unlocked at night, for example, until my neighbor gets robbed and proves to me that is possible.

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

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the same when we ship beta software to users and then expect the first batch to essentially debug it — then comes the proverbial ".1" patch which fixes most glaring issues. (as if they weren't obvious in the first place) Now why do we do that in software? because "agile", cost, "let's ship and risk breaking some things and see what happens? We'll fix things later in some update, on a need-to basis" Well…

It immediately irks me that I'm defending agile here, but part of the point of agile is that the developer doesn't really know what the end user needs, so it's, in theory, better to get a minimum viable product out that meets the user's need, then refine on subsequent releases, rather than spend years working on releasing something perfect that it turns out doesn't fill the user's need. From a similar perspective for…

> From a similar perspective for journalism, I think there's an argument that can be made that it's better to get most of the information out right away, even if some of it is inaccurate, and then correct the inaccuracies later, rather than wait until every piece is confirmed and edited perfectly to release the information. Argument to extremes, think of a hurricane or volcano explosion.

Following the argument to the same extreme, it's a bad idea to get out the information "there is a hurricane or volcano explosion due south of you" immediately, and to wait until the flight north begins to issue the correction "actually, it's due north of you."

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

#156
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try that logic with tap water in flint Michigan.

Are you saying that water service is a right as opposed to a product? Water being a right != water service.

Thanks for the clarifying question. I’m not saying anything about rights at all - I think that’s a false dichotomy.

My comment is focussed on the rest of the logic.

People who trust the product end up with children with brain damage.

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

#157
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-...

And yet not a single one of those massive companies has attempted to sue Bloomberg into the ground. Bloomberg never even retracted or apologized.

The silence following that whole debacle is deafening and probably very telling...

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's the same when we ship beta software to users and then expect the first batch to essentially debug it — then comes the proverbial ".1" patch which fixes most glaring issues. (as if they weren't obvious in the first place) Now why do we do that in software? because "agile", cost, "let's ship and risk breaking some things and see what happens? We'll fix things later in some update, on a need-to basis" Well…

It immediately irks me that I'm defending agile here, but part of the point of agile is that the developer doesn't really know what the end user needs, so it's, in theory, better to get a minimum viable product out that meets the user's need, then refine on subsequent releases, rather than spend years working on releasing something perfect that it turns out doesn't fill the user's need. From a similar perspective for…

No, Journalism and Software are not the same. Would you make the same argument that software on the 737 Max should be shipped and then fixed later? Absolutely not. Journalists need to understand that what they write has real-world impact and can actually lead to lot of unnecessary anguish if they publish things that are not true. Truth should always be paramount to speed in journalism. You can't always correct your mistakes as a journalist because most people only see 1 version of your draft and don't wait around for later corrections before jumping to conclusions.

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

#159
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.

> On the one hand, if true, all Bloomberg had to do was produce evidence; a single compromised server. They didn't.

If the story were true, under what circumstances could Bloomberg reports have come into possession of a compromised sever to satisfy this requirement?

> On the other hand, if the journalists fabricated the entire story

Journalists evaluate and report what they're told by sources. For instance: they don't do scientific experiments themselves, but rather interview scientists about their results and report their statements. Their quality control is to get multiple sources to corroborate each other.

Saying Bloomberg journalists "fabricated" the story is going too far. If it's false, what's likely is that either their sources were either mistaken or dishonest.

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

#160
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be happy just if they were forbidden to change articles after publishing, and not say that. Because currently, they post some bullshit news and create some random outrage. Then someone points at some bullshit claim in their article, and they just quietly change the article (remove the claim, add "allegedly", etc.), and act as nothing was wrong. Or in worst case scenario, they quietly remove the whole article.

I've seen this accusation thrown out there on social media a few times now. When I've asked for examples, no one been able to provide a list showing that this is actually a systemic problem. With resources like the Internet Archive it should be trivial to prove that this really a problem. Can you back up your claims? Journalists are people and make mistakes. But overall, respected institutions like NYT, WSJ, WaPo, an…

You mentioned WaPo. Here is an article[0] about WaPo publishing a story about "Russian hackers infiltrating a US electrical grid." In addition to the article being inaccurate, WaPo edited the copy several times to correct major errors of fact without adding an editorial note and refused to explain what led them to their incorrect conclusions.

The article is a bit too long to accurately summarise, but essentially WaPo published a story under the following headline: “Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont, U.S. officials say.”

>The lead sentence offered “A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials” and continued “While the Russians did not actively use the code to disrupt operations of the utility, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a security matter, the penetration of the nation’s electrical grid is significant because it represents a potentially serious vulnerability.”

This is at best a deeply misleading intro. The malware was found on a laptop not connected to the grid. The allegation that "Russian hackers penetrated the electrical grid" because they found tools which once may have been developed by Russians is about as accurate as me concluding that a hypothetical murderer was American because the murder weapon was an American-made AR-15.

There are several more concerning parts to the story but alas, I'm on mobile and have slacked off long enough.

I don't buy into the "MSM are knowing purveyors of fake news because profit!" but humans make mistakes and the desire of mainstream newspapers to beat bloggers in timeliness and pageviews can ultimately lead to standards slipping even among writers who would never knowingly publish a false story.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2017/01/01/fake-ne...

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