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Comment by bogomipz | Hacker News Reader

>"Now we see the propaganda machine at work."

No, it's called public interest journalism. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal it's quite logical that the public has an interest in knowing more about the inner working of of an opaque and powerful entity.

>"the news media must turn each cycle into a full on character assassination."

A "character assassination " by its very definition is an attack on a singular individual. You can not have a character assassination on a corporation.

>"Regardless of how I feel about FB, I'm more disturbed by the media pattern."

I'm more disturbed by your labeling something as "propaganda" simply because you yourself didn't feel it merited reporting on.

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> I'm more disturbed by your labeling something as "propaganda" simply because you yourself didn't feel it merited reporting on.

There is a world of difference between objective reporting and biased propaganda.

I hate facebook. I never signed up for facebook. But when news organizations are actively attacking facebook, it isn't reporting, it is propaganda. When news organizations are pushing #deleteFacebook, it isn't reporting, it isn't journalism, it is propaganda.

If you want, use the waybackmachine and check HN's frontpage. For the last year, there has been anti-FB propaganda on it every single day. Today, there are 6 anti-FB stories. Yesterday, I counted 4.

Just because you don't like facebook doesn't mean you have to like propaganda/anti-FB spam.

I wish HN would allow us to opt out of topics. I already know FB is rubbish. I don't need constant spam from the news media and their social media team to tell me what I already know.

Talk about polluting the internet. The likes of bloomberg and their social media team are just as guilty of it as facebook.

>"There is a world of difference between objective reporting and biased propaganda."

So lets examine the "propagandist" here - Bloomberg News. Selecting just a single Bloomberg tech reporter's(Sarah Frier) coverage of FB in the last year.[1]

We see stories such as:

"Sheryl Sandberg Calls for U.S. Policy Changes to Aid Working Mothers"

"Facebook Is Determined to Build Ties With Automakers"

"Facebook Hires Apple Veteran to Run Oculus VR Hardware"

"Facebook's Strategy for Augmented Reality Starts With Phones"

None of these stories contain any negative portrayal of FB. So clearly Bloomberg is not an anti-FB propagandist.

So a news organization can be a part-time propagandist then? In other words they are only producing propaganda when the story contain unflattering details about a subject?

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/authors/AP-41JG4_zk/sarah-frier

> So a news organization can be a part-time propagandist then?

Of course.

> In other words they are only producing propaganda when the story contain unflattering details about a subject?

No. They can be producing propaganda when they are pushing a flattering narrative as well. Like what foxnews does with trump.

And it isn't just bloomberg. It's much of the media. As I said, there hasn't been a day without some propaganda about FB the past year. If you doubt it, do as I suggested. Go spend some time on the waybackmachine.

Actual propaganda is used to propel an agenda, ideology or belief system. None of those things are part-time considerations.

> Actual propaganda is used to propel an agenda, ideology or belief system.

Yes. What do you think #deleteFacebook is? We don't really have news anymore. We have agenda. Foxnews has an agenda. CNN has an agenda. The entire media has an agenda. The days of objective journalism is long gone. I think that's obvious to anyone paying attention. I'm not holding my breath on it returning anytime soon.

> None of those things are part-time considerations.

Sure they are. Bloomberg doesn't have to spend 24/7 on facebook. But they along with the rest of the media can.

Anyways, this is pointless. The evidence is right there for you to see. You can choose not to accept it if you want. Maybe it makes sense to you that we get 24/7 propaganda about facebook. Doesn't make sense to me.

>"What do you think #deleteFacebook is?"

And nowhere in the article is "#deleteFacebook" used. You seemed to have lost site of the context - i.e this article and the OP's assertion that it is propaganda.

With respect, this and pieces like it are not propaganda purely because they point out unflattering details of FB's behavior and that of their affiliates.

Im a techie working in finance and the reaction from most of the non-tech folks here is along the lines of "jesus, the amount of data they have on people is scary! Why do they have all of it? And what's this about android phones being used to send my call history to FB??".

Most folks outside tech use FB for the convenience and have absolutely zero idea of the scale of telemetry being gathered on them. Articles like this are written for the non technical people in our midst and the volume of them reflects the scale of education required for the general public on this issue.

On a personal note I'd say that on the whole people developing a healthy skepticism of just arbitrarily sharing personal details on social media or the internet in general is a positive thing for every society and journalists shedding light on that fact are not doing anyone a disservice.

> No, it called public interest journalism.

There is little to no "public interest journalism" anymore, only click interest journalism.

> You can not have a character assassination on a corporation.

This is metaphor for the pattern of behavior. They are taking the same methods they use for the news cycle's "horrible person of the week" and turning it on Facebook.

> I'm more disturbed by your labeling something as "propaganda"

Considering the media's hyper focus on how the RNC used FB with the CA story, and an almost complete omission of how the DNC did the same thing, and more, with CTR, I'm comfortable sticking with "propaganda".

>"There is little to no "public interest journalism" anymore, only click interest journalism."

What an incredibly uninformed and naive statement to make. Just because inferior sources of something are abundant does not mean that quality alternatives don't exist. This is as absurd as drawing the conclusion that fine dining doesn't exist any more and pointing to the prevalence of fast food restaurants as evidence of this.

There is no shortage of quality public interest journalism or entities committed to it. Here are some examples - The Marshall Project, First Look Media and ProPublica.

>"Considering the media's hyper focus on how the RNC used FB with the CA story, ..."

There was no mention of the RNC in the news piece being discussed here.

if the article had done minimal research, they would have included taboola, which is the affiliate scam of news publishers. the fact that they didn't hint that this thread assumptions are correct, and you are being slightly naive

So a 3,500 word piece that written over a 6 month period is suspect because a single vendor was omitted from the piece during? Right. It sounds like you definitely naive about both how the editorial process and how journalism works.

6mo and missed something under their nose that plays a huge part on the topic... but I now know the scammer latest diet at least :(

So anything which doesn't fit your prescribed narrative is bad journalism? That seems like you have a disagreement with external realities. I heard they make pills for that now.

You don't get a free pass on hosting deceptive ads because your platform is automated. Just like you don't get a free pass on any other crime by automating it. Further, when it's clear your staff is very aware of the illegal practice and is encouraging it by taking meetings with the people committing the crime, that removes any defense that the behavior is incidental to legal behavior.

But yes, clearly this is all just a character assassination planned by the lizard people. Definitely the only reason at play here.

> There is little to no "public interest journalism" anymore, only click interest journalism.

What was wrong with this piece? I thought it was well-researched and, speaking as someone with little knowledge of digital advertising, pretty fascinating.

The author was pretty clear that this isn't Facebook's problem entirely; he was just as hard (if not harder) on the affiliate-side guys who are running the scam. He just noted that FB didn't mind the fraudulent ads as much about 5 years ago, which seems like a fair point to include.

>"What was wrong with this piece? I thought it was well-researched and, speaking as someone with little knowledge of digital advertising, pretty fascinating."

Indeed it was just under 3,500 words, the journalist also conducted two separate interviews with the main subject Mr Gryn. And those interview took place in both Berlin and Santa Monica, CA. That would be considerable effort to put forth for both journalist and publisher for "click bait."

RE: "character assassination" and corporations; if closely held corporations have the same rights as individuals now, could you character assassinate a closely held corporation?

The doctrine of “corporate personhood” is the the claim that corporations should enjoy the same legal status and protections as citizens. Even if you subscribe to that doctrine it does not produce a single person whose reputation can be harmed.

I'd only accept that type of equivalency when a corporation can be sent to a physical prison - like a real person.

Or a corporate death penalty

"Corporations are people too, my friend" -- a very pious individual

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