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

Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 311 posts

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#31

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

bad_username wrote: post #24

I have a hard time to take seriously any disinformation talk from the political and media establishment after the lab leak theory twist, where it had been shameful disinformation, until it suddenly wasn't. I have to be doubting publications even from reputable sources, after "The Lancet" fiasco, where the organizer of the open letter that condemned the lab leak theory was discovered to have ties with the lab in quest…

It's a hard one. Trump was promoting it when there was not enough evidence and was acting as it it was obvious. As a scientist you need to be much more careful and precise in what you say. As far as I can tell, what we have now are some very strong cues, but still no definitive proof (that might be impossible to have without the cooperation of the Chinese government).

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#32

Post by [deleted] »

khawkins wrote: post #26

Instead of constantly hand-wringing about "disinformation" from the shadows, they should be desperately addressing their own plummeting credibility: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gallup-american-trus... People would be less susceptible to disinformation if they could actually trust mainstream sources like the NYT.

[deleted]

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#33

Post by chewmieser »

the-dude wrote: post #23
afpx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYT reporting seems pretty reliable to me. Could you give a few notable examples at least to support that claim?

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-new-york-times-wmd-cov...

Fair but that also stemmed from their own reporting that their own coverage was flawed...

It makes me trust them more since they're auditing themselves like that. Shows high journalistic integrity.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#34

Post by the-dude »

chewmieser wrote: post #33
the-dude wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-new-york-times-wmd-cov...

Fair but that also stemmed from their own reporting that their own coverage was flawed... It makes me trust them more since they're auditing themselves like that. Shows high journalistic integrity.

What do you mean? They did not uncover themselves that the WMDs did not exist.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#35

Post by helen___keller »

tester34 wrote: post #4

Ehh, I don't like current state of the Internet In last months I've started wondering why do I even pay my internet bills 60% of the reason I still do it is that I need internet for my job the rest is HN, two or three subreddits, music and some video games, wiki/google/maps and the fact that I still need to learn a lot in order to advance in career. It's insanely hard to avoid that main stream media content (celebrit…

> It's insanely hard to avoid that main stream media content (celebrities, dramas, dramas, dramas and $bad_stuff/propaganda) that affects the mood, even when I don't use "normal" social medias.

an annoying trend is that, over time, almost every webpage or program controlled by corporate interests will come to include a "feed" that tries to lure you back into the modern news/outrage cycle

e.g. opening a tab in microsoft edge, clicking the weather widget in windows 10, "pocket" in firefox, the "keep with the times" inlined video section on youtube, of course social media sites like facebook and twitter, the list goes on

it's not enough to have a wide-reach product, every company needs to put a feed in it

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#36

Post by eggsmediumrare »

Cybotron5000 wrote: post #7

This is so messed up. If you’re reading this and are in this ‘business’, or associated with it/supporting it, please, for the sake of yourself, your families, humanity and the planet we live on, get out if you have any choice! It’s been bad enough with state actors, lobbyists etc etc. for years anyhow - don’t make it worse for the sake of a quick buck!

There are a lot of industries like this and a lot of people on HN who need to reevaluate their career choices.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#37

Post by chewmieser »

ameminator wrote: post #2

Ironic that this is from the New York Times, which has (in)famously had several years of poor or biased reporting.

Bias is in every source (although I'd give Reuters an AP a general pass there). Being biased is not a "bad thing" just because it doesn't fit your world view, it expands horizons if you allow other views into your narrow view.

And poor? Laughable. NYTimes is a high quality source on-par with WSJ.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#38

Post by Cybotron5000 »

bad_username wrote: post #24

I have a hard time to take seriously any disinformation talk from the political and media establishment after the lab leak theory twist, where it had been shameful disinformation, until it suddenly wasn't. I have to be doubting publications even from reputable sources, after "The Lancet" fiasco, where the organizer of the open letter that condemned the lab leak theory was discovered to have ties with the lab in quest…

"When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir?" ― John Maynard Keynes

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#39

Post by gabereiser »

haswell wrote: post #22
MisterTea wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet is just a big IP network. I use it to talk to certain servers like email, my vps, or my personal home server. The other servers I talk to I dont own so I spend as little time sending them requests as possible. If you stop sending strange servers requests for unwanted data you'll feel much better :-)

What you’re saying absolutely makes sense. The difficult part is that it requires intentional habit changes and quite honestly, a grieving process at the same time. As someone who grew up while the Internet was just getting off the ground (mid 30s), I remember the absolute joy of exploring the net, and for the most part, it could feed me as much interesting content as I could stand. I felt this reverence for it, like…

Ahh the good old days of web rings and IRC chatrooms and such. Now it's a bazaar of monopolies, disinformation, vanity, and photo-sharing. The issue is we no longer rely on some server in some guys basement. A BBS out of a college dorm closet. Or a network of like-minded individuals for the sake of learning off each other. Everything is owned by a select few companies that add tracking cookies to advertise to you. It's become a giant mall for the minds of the world.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#40

Post by Cybotron5000 »

khawkins wrote: post #26

Instead of constantly hand-wringing about "disinformation" from the shadows, they should be desperately addressing their own plummeting credibility: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gallup-american-trus... People would be less susceptible to disinformation if they could actually trust mainstream sources like the NYT.

Why though? What is it that has changed their business model or people’s minds? Ask yourself that. What is it that is particularly biased? Opinion pieces and ‘advertorials’ etc. that they are forced to adopt because of falling revenues and fragmented attentions are bound to be biased.
Post reply on HN