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An upcoming story about Coinbase

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#61

Post by jolux »

ve55 wrote: post #35
goldenManatee wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to judge without the story published, but it also sounds like the company is frustrated it didn’t get line-editing power. This is in contrast to even showing gratefulness for being alerted about the story’s imminent publishing and probably being contacted for sources from all views. The company has invited more scrutiny; like a kid running up to parents saying, “Whatever my brother says, it’s not true.”

I don't think any service was done as far as alerting them something would be published because it's generally obvious: anyone even slightly-relevant to the story is contacted by a journalist and asked to share information beforehand, and of course some fraction will share this occurrence with others. But it's also true that they'd like to do as you claim, I think it's only fair skepticism is applied equally to both…

Most of the time, it's considered unethical in journalism not to alert your subjects that you're going to be publishing about them.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#62

Post by asveikau »

drewbug01 wrote: post #27

Well, the whole press release / internal email smells of a company desperately trying to spin what they expect to be a very, very bad article. But this line jumped out at me twice: > To be specific: Although the story will likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company, only three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase.…

> Although the story will likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company, only three of these people filed complaints

This is funny in a literal sense because three is most certainly "a number".

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#64

Post by underseacables »

drewbug01 wrote: post #27

Well, the whole press release / internal email smells of a company desperately trying to spin what they expect to be a very, very bad article. But this line jumped out at me twice: > To be specific: Although the story will likely allege that a number of Black employees and contractors referenced in the story filed complaints with the company, only three of these people filed complaints during their time at Coinbase.…

I think you’re being unfair at best, and personally vindictive at worst. As I read, the NYT called them up with threat of a story about discrimination, and gave them 48 hours to investigate the allegations. If someone did that to you, and you had done nothing wrong, it would seem you might say something about this journalist drive-by. If not then perhaps the public might believe the stories, not realizing you were put under the knife of the NYT with 48 hours to respond.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#65

Post by Damorian »

refulgentis wrote: post #42
Damorian wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't waste my time trying to appease people who are satisfied with nothing. The mob is more concerned with being outraged then the truth. Best to ignore it, which is where Coinbase made its mistake, imo.

To be fair, you're using a corporate blog post sharing an internal email responding to a story that hasn't been published yet, to jump to a series of unrelated conclusions. Namely, extrapolating that unobserved reactions to a story no one has read are a 'mob', and the 'mob' is 'outraged' instead of being concerned about 'the truth', and it'd be better for Coinbase to ignore it. It's also striking that this reaction c…

I've played this game before. Why should I expect it to be any different from the usual political social media cancel culture nonsense it always is? I'd love for my assumptions to be wrong though.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#66

Post by csense »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #10

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.

And they still might not forgive you. After all, you're racist scum, the lowest of the low.

It's an incredibly toxic and destructive way of handling the issue of racism.

I know I'm not a racist -- I interact with people of all races. I don't let race enter into my interactions. I sleep well at night, because I know I'm not a racist.

Defending myself against ridiculous allegations of racism is a game I refuse to play. For the good and simple reason that if you play the game, you can only lose.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#67

Post by hnracer »

throwlastone wrote: post #43
hnracer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume that CB is really the entirely innocent and maligned party here. In such a world, how would their response have differed?

You respond with specific facts and supporting evidence, not nebulous dismissals, which is how guilty companies respond.

Good point. Let's see if CB follows up with evidence and details after the specificities of the NYT story come to light, but I agree that the lack of detail here is a bit suspect

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#68

Post by bmarquez »

markdown wrote: post #23

I thought I was on Coinbase... and then I wondered why there were some completely ridiculous ads at the bottom of the page. Is this company so cheap they can't even build themselves a website?

That's one of the downsides of using Medium to host a blog.

Looking at the footer links: "9 Fantastic Signs That Your Partner Is Madly In Love With You" and "The Elites Are Preparing a New Currency to Replace the U.S. Dollar"

...really detracts from the message.

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#69

Post by roenxi »

peteretep wrote: post #32
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #10

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?

> when you get accused of racism, what can you even do? Make sure nobody has any examples of you being racist

That is unlikely to work. You may have heard of implicit bias [0]? A case can be made that you were born a racist and you have to prove that you have shaken yourself free from your racist beginnings.

I personally think it is a silly case, but 'well, just don't be racist' is a silly defense - so maybe they'll work well together.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_stereotype

Re: An upcoming story about Coinbase

#70

Post by jolux »

ve55 wrote: post #19
lrae wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only problem is that they don't offer that complete information or context either?

Sure, I cannot claim to defend Coinbase when I know nothing of the matter. But since news is inherently cherry-picked (after all, one cannot report on literally everything ), there will generally be an inherent slant to the information provided, and such an inherent slant will likely tend more towards an optimization of metrics (clicks, engagement, ad revenue, subscriptions, etc) rather than perfect statistical repre…

This is enormously unfair to the journalistic profession. There are quite a lot of leaps from "it's not possible to report every fact" to "all journalism is slanted for metrics." Journalists like getting a big scoop but the good ones do their due diligence and go to great pains to report fairly and accurately.
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