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

Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

buzzfeednews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 417 posts

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#211

Post by pembrook »

lilyball wrote: post #180
pembrook wrote: post #144

All modern media companies today have been built by using these kinds of shady "growth hacks." Doesn't anybody see the irony of Buzzfeed calling out a fellow media company for using such tactics? Buzzfeed's entire growth strategy for years was copy-pasting content from trending reddit threads and turning them into "listicles" with clickbait headlines, then feeding them into Facebook. Was that not also plagiarism?

Buzzfeed cites its sources for its listicles. That’s the exact opposite of plagiarism.

The exact opposite of plagiarism is original authorship.

Citing where you took the words from doesn't make you the author of those words.

I wouldn't even have a problem if Buzzfeed had just slightly rewrote the content from reddit. Because that would involve some effort. I wouldn't even care about attribution in that case.

But doing a full copy-paste, hitting publish and then collecting money for it is just disgusting.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#212

Post by pram »

encoderer wrote: post #132
rootusrootus wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your solution? Every single source of news, every last one, will have perhaps 1/3 or more of the population calling it fake news.

Worth remembering that the term “fake news” did not exist in the mainstream until 6 years ago. It used to be called “liberal bias in the media” but fake news is a political slogan like Death Tax or Cancel Culture and like political slogans of previous generations I am optimistic we will not be stuck here forever.

“Fake news” emerged literally minutes after Trump won the election, in a seemingly coordinated way on most cable news. They were saying it in their most serious journalist voice, to imply that Trump voters were duped into voting for him. Then shortly after it was appropriated by Trump himself, and everyone wanted to disavow the phrase, which was deeply hilarious.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#213

Post by ryantgtg »

colechristensen wrote: post #202
ramraj07 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m still struggling to understand why they’d want to block that. Edit: on re-reading I realize it’s so that they don’t get caught for this plagiarism since their modus operandi was plagiarize first rewrite slowly.

>plagiarize first rewrite slowly Obviously publishing work that isn't your own is wrong, but "plagiarize then rewrite" is a very effective method of developing a creative skill. There is a question about when the transformation really becomes "yours". An example: Radiohead - "Creep" was a tranformation for The Hollies "The Air that I Breathe", Radiohead later went to sue Lana Del Rey for "Get Free" which seemingly wa…

I’ve heard from authors that typing someone else’s entire novel helped them to understand the craft (and then they went on to write their own books, not based on the novels they typed).

And of course musicians learn other songs before they write their own.

But, copy/pasting an article, and then tweaking a few words to make it more unique, doesn’t seem like a great process for learning the journalism craft. At least not on the same level as the two examples I brought up.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#214

Post by jcrawfordor »

jjcon wrote: post #15

Can someone explain what the difference between this and pulling stuff off the AP machine is? I see almost identical news articles all the time across major news outlets. My partner used to work at a company and would write all their news, spotlights and press releases. They commonly would see paragraphs taken by major news outlets without attribution. She tells me that’s just how it was. I’m not in the industry but…

News organizations that use wire services have contracts with those services that dictate how they use their articles. Often they contract the wire agencies for only certain type of content, and the price depends on how many categories and how in depth of content they want (e.g. full articles cost more than ticker lines). The details can vary, but usually articles ran verbatim are attributed to the agency, while articles that are merely based on articles from the agency are not attributed to the agency (in part to protect the agency in case the article turns out to be incorrect or etc.) but instead include a note at the end that they use content from the agency.

For articles run directly, it's part of the nature of those agencies and their contracts with their writers that the byline goes to the agency rather than the original writer (which is often multiple people anyway). This attribution is so common that back when newspapers were set in lead, and still sometimes today, a special ligature was used for AP, and sometimes for UPI and AFP as well.

Newspapers also sometimes run content directly from other newspapers, in which case the byline will list the author and original paper---and this is done under a contract with the other paper, either money changes hands or sometimes it's a mutual sharing agreement.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#215

Post by danso »

pembrook wrote: post #188
danso wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example of what you're talking about: The original r/AskReddit thread ("What feels illegal, but isn't?"): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aszfh3/what_feel... The Buzzfeed repurposing of that thread ("19 Things That FEEL Illegal Even Though They Definitely Aren't"): https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/if-you-have-a-guilty... And a r/mildlyinfuriating thread about Buzzfeed's repurposing ("Buzz…

So using your logic, I'm totally free to copy-paste the entirety of a New York Times article onto my website and sell ads on that content...as long as I credit the author? I think the lawyers of the NYT may have a different opinion about that. The fact is, Buzzfeed was able to get away with stealing content from reddit and selling ads on it because no reddit user was ever going to hire a lawyer to sue them over it. A…

I believe the New York Times would threaten to sue you — if they noticed you and cared enough (which I assume they would if you were operating a large enough site).

But also, when you post content to Reddit, you've granted them a (non-exclusive) license to reproduce it as they please. If Reddit's okay with Buzzfeed's reprinting, then I don't think it would legally been seen as stealing either.

In any case, your objection seems to be that plagiarism and repurposing of content (legal or not) fulfills the same evil end: profit from the labor of others. Sure, I'm not necessarily arguing against that. But I'm pointing out there's an additional element to plagiarism, which is the implication of independent, original reporting. To use a screenshot from the investigative article, which shows the Reuters and the Snopes version of a Supreme Court ruling:

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2021-08/13/0...

By restating Reuters' assertions without attribution, Snopes implicitly implies that it has done the independent reporting and research (e.g. calling up the attorneys, downloading and reading the court docket). And the apparent "fact" that this Kentucky court clerk is denying licenses based on her religious beliefs becomes significantly more established "fact" when two different journalism outlets have independently confirmed it.

Snopes ostensible speciality is gathering and summarizing established facts, which includes filtering through the noise of fakery and also, redundant information. Committing plagiarism is not just immoral, but a direct attack on Snopes' reason for existence, and that what makes this situation especially notable beyond "Doesn't everyone do growth hacks?"

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#216

Post by dukeofdoom »

smnrchrds wrote: post #86
dfee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this not a better established position? I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias. Honestly, I see all those fact checking websites the same way. Which is fine, though humorously this pairs nicely with another thread on HN this morning about HS critical thinking courses around journalism, quite well.

> I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias Could you please elaborate? I have never seen them described like this.

Here's an example Snopes article questioning the authenticity of the photos on Hunter's Biden Laptop.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-hunter-biden-porn/

They have not updated the fact check.

Here's a story with a video in which Hunter Biden himself claims Russian drug dealers stole another one of his laptops for blackmail. And 'The Russians have videos of me doing crazy f**ing sex!

Source with the Video: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9881213/Unearthed-v...

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#217

Post by unanswered »

qkqk wrote: post #154
unanswered wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was not the original lab leak article. The original article called it definitely false and racist.

Right, you can tell by the publication date (it's in the URL), why I say "they reference a medical journal article from 1.5 years ago as evidence." What you said is not true, and their position hasn't shifted (they're critical of those that did). https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/16/lab-leak-evidence/

You're still linking the retconned article. In the original it is as I said.

This new article is also extremely disingenuous. It argues "there's no evidence Wuhan isolated RaTG13". Well no shit, since the best evidence is that RaTG13 is completely made up, never existed in reality, and never existed on paper until early 2020. For snopes to take that evidence and turn it around and say it's evidence for the Wuhan Institute being totally reliable and trustworthy is perverse.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#218

Post by betwixthewires »

lozaning wrote: post #175
betwixthewires wrote: post #171

I'd ask for a fact check on that, but I don't need one because buzzfeed is a reputable, trustworthy publication. Kidding aside, this was widely known as far back as 2016 and discussed heavily online, but called a conspiracy theory and criticized by all the reputable rags that rely on fact checking to lie to you and convince you that you can't trust your own judgment. The fact that this is being reported now probably…

Buzzfeed News != Buzzfeed. One has a pulitzer and the other tells you what Hogwarts house you're in.

Walter Duranty has a Pulitzer as well, the New York Times that he worked for when he wrote what he is known for writing has many.

A brand is a brand and an organization is an organization. If they're truly that separate they wouldn't rely on the same brand. And besides, Buzzfeed is more reputable than Buzzfeed News, because the former is obvious nonsense and the latter pretends to be serious and honest.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#219

Post by rglover »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #131
rglover wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people believe what they want to believe. I'm being downvoted because what I said is hurting people's feelings and sensibilities, but it's the truth. The people who run it are, well... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fa... .

Downvoting you for complaining about downvoting And also for linking the daily mail

I'm not complaining, just pointing it out. Enjoy your passive aggression.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#220

Post by colpabar »

kstrauser wrote: post #210

I really want to like Snopes, but I'm not convinced that they weigh evidence correctly. For example, they debunked the myth that Marilyn Monroe had 6 toes. First, I don't believe that she did . Or even care, for that matter. But at the time, one of their "facts" was that if she'd had a toe removed, she'd basically have to learn to walk all over again because it would throw her balance completely off. (Note: the artic…

Had you checked the article after this encounter? I guess they eventually realized you were right and made the change, but I wonder when that happened. Other comments here discuss how it's odd that they don't allow their site to be archived, and it's interesting to see a real example that illustrates why they may not want that.
Post reply on HN