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An upcoming story about Coinbase

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect part of the motivation is to scoop the reporter's own story as a passive aggressive reprisal. It also serves to reduce the chance of future reporters on negative topics to talk directly to Coinbase since they've already showed they're willing to break stories before they publish.

Yes isn't this a rather common strategy, "Be pro-active, not reactive". When the actual story comes out it is not such a big news any more, because it is not news any more. First impressions often last, so now the first impressions is that the story is fake. So even if their response does amplify the story, it might amplify a good story rather than a bad one. So go even so far as to say "all publicity is good publici…

I get that this strategy can work, but are there really that many people who will be swayed by a pr statement from coinbase? I'm primed to assume their version is filled with lies and spin, and I'm waiting for the piece in the NYT to cut through the corporate pr bullshit.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#262
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not an expert debater, but if you’re going to accuse an organisation of being race-baiting, it’s always good to at least provide an example or two. Since the commenter didn’t, I sort of zeroed in on that.

In order to provide examples of "race-baiting propaganda" as I called it, we would have to first agree on what constitutes race-baiting and propaganda. I assume we can agree that propaganda is material designed to sway an opinion, yet labels itself implicitly or explicitly as something other than "opinion". As for race-baiting, my definition is anything that brings race into the conversation when it is materially irr…

I’m white, and I read those same articles (I read pretty much everything in the 1619 project and the recent story on that poor girl’s death).

I did not see any race-baiting in either. I did not see the introduction of “further division between two races”. I saw articles that covered some uncomfortable facts. If you’d rather ignore that reality you’re free to not read the Times.

Edit: just looked at your comment history. I'm sorry your experiences with nonwhite people caused you such animus.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#263

> We are committed to maintaining an environment that is safe, supportive and welcoming to employees of all backgrounds. These are inexpensive words said by every company. I feel that most companies, after uttering them, don't actually do anything to follow through.

The article explicitly mentions Coinbase has already followed through.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#264
post #14

Wonder how they think / thought that this will play out? That internal email is nothing but "NYT bad" and what seems like pretty cheap promises... if you have to send those to your employees in the first place. Then I don't think it will help Coinbase itself much with the potential backlash of a NYT story with what seems like multiple employees coming out including receipts that will get published. And it doesn't see…

> if you have to send those to your employees in the first place.

And if they didn't, they'd be criticised for not doing do.

> Then I don't think it will help Coinbase itself much with the potential backlash of a NYT story

It depends. Backlash should be against provable actions of discrimination. From the article, it sounds like the issue was someone disagreeing with BLM.

Being called 'Black Lives Matter' doesn't make criticism of BLM racist any more than the DPRK being called the 'Democratic People's Republic of Korea' makes criticism of North Korea anti-democratic.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#265
post #66

It's really really hard to prove your not racist. If anyone has any clue as how to do so, please share. They could have waited until the story was published I guess to share this statement, but publishing it preemptively makes sense too I believe (it's an always open entity that is incredibly easy to switch away from). But truly, when you get accused of racism, what can you even do?

That's the beauty of it. Denying the charge or defending yourself simply digs you deeper into the hole. What you're supposed to do is admit you're a racist, fall down on your knees, abjectly beg forgiveness of your accusers, and list all the new things you'll be doing to stop being racist. Then your accusers have the power to forgive you. But you really, truly have to go all the way in submitting to their demands. An…

Honestly, I think the only real solution is to sue these accusers for defamation. If there's actual evidence that you are racist, then you can just take your lumps and don't respond to them.

However, if you want to accuse someone of racism, you better have evidence of you're going to pay.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#266

> We are committed to maintaining an environment that is safe, supportive and welcoming to employees of all backgrounds. These are inexpensive words said by every company. I feel that most companies, after uttering them, don't actually do anything to follow through.

It's cheap talk. It's not intended to be followed through. It intends to fool the neurotic, which, it usually succeeds in doing.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, The Times is notorious for crafty implication. For the casual reader, these implications can ring far louder than the actual facts, without the piece being false, per se.

Can you expand on that? Reading through the comment threads on this piece, I’ve noticed this idea of the NYT being intentionally misleading in various forms (“they lie,” “they mislead,” “they make implications,” etc). That isn’t my perception of the NYT at all - but I’d like to hear more of what you’re saying. Has any research been done on the overall veracity of the claims the NYT makes in their articles, or on the…

It's important to clarify what qualities are attributable specifically to NYT vs. the news media generally. For instance I consider The Times notorious for deceptive implication but only insofar as the news is guilty of this in general. For what it's worth I consider The Times to be top-tier. Yet, this is all the more disappointing that even the best engage in such deception.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#268

> We are committed to maintaining an environment that is safe, supportive and welcoming to employees of all backgrounds. These are inexpensive words said by every company. I feel that most companies, after uttering them, don't actually do anything to follow through.

It's cheap talk. It's not intended to be followed through. It intends to fool the neurotic, which, it usually succeeds in doing.

> It intends to fool the neurotic, which, it usually succeeds in doing.

Disagree - neurotic people who believe in equality are not so easily fooled. It's meant to sway MLKs "white moderate" before they read a mean article in the NYT.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#269

This is an odd thing to see widely published. I'm at a company that had a rather detailed negative article written about us, and we were warned about it internally shortly before it was published, after the reporter had contacted us with details and questions. However, we didn't go public with a reaction until after it was out, since it seemed rather pointless to respond to something that hadn't been published yet, e…

Anti-Streisand effect? This article "spoils" the surprise of NYT's article. I don't think it's odd, and it's probably the best they could've done if all the people responsible really no longer work there.
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