Hacker News Reader

Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

I have no idea why people don't call BS on news orgs that run 'exposes' on Facebook's ad targeting, when they target, track and follow their readers in exactly the same way.

Three reasons:

1. In most responsible news organizations, there is a significant firewall between advertising and news. In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even allowed to go into the newsroom.

2. News organizations are not IT departments. A reporter is not involved in how a web site is built, or what goes on behind the scenes. There are different people in different departments for that.

3. Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad. SV needs to get over the whole "But Bobby jumped off the bridge, too!" mentality.

View on HN

1. No one implied that this advertising was impacting their reporting.

2. They're reporters... if they don't know what's going on in their own backyard, there's a serious issue.

3. Maybe, but there's something ironic about the fact that this very reporting only exists because of these ad practices. This person most likely wouldn't have a job if the very practice they are reporting on didn't exist.

Back before the age of digital photography, there was a common issue with animal rights activists and photography. On one hand, photography required gelatin, an animal product, but on the other side, photographs of animal cruelty played an incredibly important role in spreading their message.

It is an interesting line of thought to consider these compromises and when they may cross the line. Which means are justified by the ends? Which means are not?

>2. They're reporters... if they don't know what's going on in their own backyard, there's a serious issue.

The point is that it's not really their back yard. It's a different office on a different floor, possibly even a different subcontracted company than where the journalists are working. They don't have any more scope to be aware of the ad tech than they do understanding how a CDN works.

By analogy, this is kind of like expecting a journalists in the old days to be especially aware of conditions in paper mills because their papers are printed on paper.

I don't see how the "location" matters. I'm arguing that it's a similar subject. If you're investigating advertising practices, I'd hope that you know quite a lot about that subject in general, which includes how it's done at other companies.

How can you talk extensively about the way Facebook does advertising without knowing how its done everywhere else? Doesn't that make you a bad journalist?

By analogy, it'd be like if someone was reporting on how a burger at McDonalds tastes, without having eaten a burger anywhere else.

> The point is that it's not really their back yard.

If you're going to research a topic and some of that research turns up as "Lots of websites run these ad networks" it is a necessary step to ask "do we do that too?".

So there's two options here:

1) The reporter knew the parent company does this.

2) The reporter doesn't know.

In case 1, they either don't talk about it because they are blocked or they don't think it is necessary (which I'd argue is at best misleading and at worst malicious). For case 2, well that just doesn't seem like good reporting.

So I think your analogy doesn't work. It isn't because "people don't know tech" but rather "are journalists asking the right questions and doing good research." If the latter is poor because "they don't know tech" then we have a major problem and as the tech class we need to call them out on it (create a feedback loop to solve the problem).

Taken further, it's like writing articles about pollution from paper mills.

#3 Just argumentatively, it seems a bit like an ad hominem. Yes buzzfeed does tracking and everything but that doesn't make their argument against Google/Facebook any less valid.

> This person most likely wouldn't have a job if the very practice they are reporting on didn't exist.

Buzzfeed has picked up $496 million in VC funding [1] since its inception. It's a catch-22 where they could absolutely have done this reporting without ad-based monetization, but the potential for- ad-based monetization is why the VCs parted with money in the first place.

[1]https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/buzzfeed#section-fun...

> Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad.

Absolutely it does. The prevailing narrative is that SV tech companies are innovators in this space, invading your privacy in ways that normal companies would never dream of. "Facebook engages in industry standard data collection" is a very different story, even if the industry standard is still bad.

I think this is an example of Tu Quoque[1] logical fallacy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

If the parent had made the claim that it wasn't wrong at all because BF does it, then this would be relevant.

However the parent's claim is subtly different: it states that the industry practice of data collection is not unusual, not that it's not wrong.

Are you just making an observation or do you think that disqualifies the parent's point somehow? If so, your comment is probably an example of the argument from fallacy fallacy. [0]

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

> Absolutely it does.

How do you figure? It seems to me that even if the news organization does everything Facebook/Google/etc. does, that doesn't make Facebook/Google/etc. less bad. It only makes the news organization equally bad.

One of the concerns people raise is that Facebook, Google, etc. are lowering the bar. That they're uniquely bad at privacy, or uniquely brazen about violating it, and user privacy is becoming harder to achieve because of their actions.

If everyone else also violates privacy in the same ways, this aspect of the narrative isn't true.

"Less bad" and "equally bad" are incompatible statements, you're claiming both are true

‘Less bad’ here compares one valuation of Facebook's actions to a previous one, whereas ‘equally bad’ compares Facebook's actions to those of Buzzfeed. So they can be both true (regardless of whether they actually are).

By "less bad", I thought the comment was saying that Google/etc. actions are less objectionable. That's what I don't think is true. If I have misunderstood, then I apologize.

Indeed. The minimum they can do is properly disclose their own position in this, because it makes them appear very hypocritical.

The even sadder part about this article... Buzzfeed does this worse. So it's not only the "pot calling the kettle black", it's someone calling someone out on things they do better than themselves.

Reality is, that both Google and Facebook have cleaned up the AD industry ( but not enough, of course ).

Data brokers continue to be the worst actors in the Ad industry.

You can't have it both ways. The buzzfeed platform is tracking/collecting. Either the reporter knows this and is ignoring it or is unaware which makes the article seem less creditable.

Or they know about it and were unable to enact change before publishing.

Publishing articles with the same poison still raises awareness of the issue, though it would be best for them to disable ads on these articles, or to at least be upfront.

yes it does. you don't get to criticize someone for an action while performing the exact same action and expect your argument to have a shred of credibility

No it doesn't. The argument speaks for itself. If I murder someone in cold blood, then get up the next morning and call a press conference saying "Murder is wrong! We need to put a stop to murder!" no one would chime in and say "No way, murder is perfectly fine, you just did it last night!"

Call the news orgs out for doing the same reprehensible activity, yes. But let's judge the arguments about which activities are reprehensible on their own merits.

Hypocrisy comes from the Greek word for pretending or acting. You don't usually listen to hypocrites on an issue, because they lack the character to have a valid stance on the issue. If a murderer kills someone and then says murder is bad, we know they're full of crap and don't actually believe murder is bad, they're simply saying that to appear remorseful and less guilty..

In this situation Buzzfeed is pretending that this tracking is bad to generate more clicks so that their ads can invade more privacy to generate more income, exactly like Facebook. If they actually thought it was bad, their business model wouldn't rely upon it.

Only suckers believe Buzzfeed actually thinks this is bad.

I think it's important to acclaim arguments against bad behavior, even when made by people who are doing that same bad behavior.

(1) Having good arguments out in the world is a good thing.

(2) Positive feedback tends to reinforce behavior - and we want to reinforce news orgs making good arguments against bad behavior.

(3) After you have acclaimed their argument, it's much more effective when you use it against them.

If you just constantly snipe at people and organizations, I think it becomes much harder to effect change.

In "Phaedo," Plato has Socrates give a lesson about misology - that is, hating all reasoning and arguments, and assuming they are bad because you can always find flaws and it's so difficult to reach certainty. It's the intellectual version of misanthropy. Socrates cautions strongly against misology. Just because there are problems with an argument, doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to try to improve and take the good parts from every argument we can find, no matter how flawed the other parts (or the speaker) are. I think this is an important lesson in these times. I think we should stop fighting over whether a person or organization is allowed to say certain things, and concentrate on what parts of what they say should change our behavior.

I agree with most of what you say. But Socrates not only spoke of Logos he spoke of Ethos and Kairos. Bad people making good statements can often weaken an argument because no one wants to associated with lying aholes. I’m sure Hitler said something good about something, but I’m sure as hell not using his arguments.

> I’m sure Hitler said something good about something, but I’m sure as hell not using his arguments.

That's ridiculous. If Hitler once made a good argument about something, that doesn't invalidate usage of that same argument by other people.

I mean really. I can't even think of a hypothetical example where that would make sense.

And Hitler fucking sucked, fuck that guy.

>we know they're full of crap and don't actually believe murder is bad, they're simply saying that to appear remorseful and less guilty.

Actually, no. The world is full of people who do bad things while believing they are bad.

For example, I engage in a lot of practices that I think are harmful for the environment. I buy food that I suspect/believe is causing the environment harm. I buy products made with packaging that I believe causes harm. But I'm still openly against those practices. And if a ballot measure comes up to ban products involving those practices in my city/state/country, I'll vote for it.

There's no inconsistency here. The notion that one is required to practice what they preach is a flawed one. Knowledge and practice are orthogonal. People do bad things because they get value out of them. Knowing it is wrong doesn't suddenly reduce the value one gets from them. My food tastes the same regardless of my knowledge on the harm it does to the environment.

If a murderer kills someone and then says murder is bad, we know they're full of crap

Only if we already know they've murdered someone before they advocate against murder. Until we do find out, the murderer appears the same as anybody else, despite being a hypocrite.

Your analogy only makes sense if Buzzfeed stopped using the same practices. If you continue to murder people while shouting "murder is bad" then you might be correct but you're still a hypocrite.

Yes, but the more important thing is that murder is wrong, not that someone's a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is the most minor of malfeasances.

A smoker who writes a column that smoking is bad is still doing good writing.

This argument is very common against people with fringe political beliefs. "If you don't believe in property rights, why do you have a car?"

That's different. If you don't believe in property rights, you think that the law is fundamentally broken, not that any individual who owns property is evil. This article is basically doing the latter, which is why it's difficult to take seriously.

It's common against everyone. "You believe in climate change? Yet you sometimes use a car? Checkmate!"

...which doesn't invalidate the argument.

A charge of hypocrisy is a straight-up ad hominem. It might make you mistrust the person making the argument, but it doesn't say anything about the facts.

This post is completely correct: yes, you're correct and you're a hypocrite.

But: so what?

When I read the news, the last thing I care about is the mores of the news organisation. Reporting on a politician pilfering taxes? Couldn't care less if the reporter panama papered his way through life. Writing about a politician illegally snooping on citizens? Don't give a damn if you got that info by illegally snooping on the politician. Is the news true? That's all I want to know.

I read the news for the news. Are the facts solid? Good. Are you crooked? Don't care.

> then you might be correct

The comment I was replying to seemed to indicate that the Buzzfeed author's stance was incorrect. This is a fine point, but really important, and I think it gets lost in public discourse a lot these days: hypocricy does not invalidate an argument.

Whether or not you are a hypocrite has no bearing on whether or not what you are saying is correct.

If you were obviously a murderer, and then publicly railed against murder, it would make it seem suspiciously like you were up to something, which would tend to make people doubt what you're saying.

It doesn't make what they're saying automatically invalid, but knowledge that the person saying something is obviously a hypocrite is a form of evidence about how likely what they're saying is true.

No one is attacking the actual argument. We're attacking Buzzfeed's belief in their own argument. We're saying they're like the murderer, who once caught, says murder is bad in the hopes of leniency. Only Buzzfeed is saying privacy violations are bad in the explicit hope they'll get to violate more privacy. Worse than hypocrites, this makes them scoundrels.

I couldn't care less whether "Buzzfeed" believes their own argument or not.

I'm putting the quotes there because Buzzfeed is not a singular entity with a set of beliefs it identifies with. It's also not like a cult where everyone has to believe the same ideas. Which is why it is nonsensical to ascribe hypocrisy to a non-person entity ...

And that is exactly how you can get an article against adtech written for and published on a platform that is using said adtech similar to what the article speaks out against.

The worst part of it all is IMHO that the entire top of this discussion is dominated by arguing about whether Buzzfeed is hypocritical or not, instead of discussing the actual topic at hand.

I think you missed the point. The reason the top of the discussion is dominated, as you say, is that the argument is obviously true to them. The more interesting story is Buzzfeed arguing that it is true, with the takeaway being: are they ran by horrible people, or just don't really believe it is true.

|no one would chime in and say "No way, murder is perfectly fine, you just did it last night!"

No, but they might say: "Why should we listen to you!? MURDERER!" Then proceed to stone you to death, and see who dares get up on the podium to make an announcement about stoning.

No, we wouldn't believe that you think its bad since you did it. We still know its bad.

A counter example: If I was a pack-a-day smoker and tell you smoking is bad for you, and that you shouldn't do it as it's bad for your health based off XYZ studies, that doesn't mean my statement is poor.

Why not, may I ask? Just means both sides are wrong.

You’re arguing about credibility like it’s interchangeable with something being factually correct.

There are different constructs.

Its not exactly the same, If I'm doing it, It might be benefiting me. If other do it might harm me.

> 1. In most responsible news organizations, there is a significant firewall between advertising and news. In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even allowed to go into the newsroom.

Do reporters not get any access to their analytics?

It doesn't make it any less bad, but it does make me question the motivations of the reporter.

Either A) They know what their own website is doing and think it's OK, in which case there may be a conflict of interest. If that's the case, we should take any suggestions they have about how to resolve the problem with a gain of salt.

or B) They don't know what their own website is doing, in which case they've done a pretty poor job researching their own article. I don't expect a reporter to be a tech expert, but I do expect them to be inquisitive enough to think, "when people say that advertising pays for reporting, might they conceivably mean the same thing as when they say that advertising pays for Facebook?"

Facebook's privacy violations are bad. The hypocrisy of journalists calling them out doesn't change that. But in the privacy community, it should make us suspicious of their articles for the same reason we should be suspicious of a scientific study of sugar paid for by the meat industry. It should push us to double check their claims and question what their motivations are.

These are people who's interests either happen to align with ours temporarily and that might change in the future, or they're allies who haven't done enough research to be able to make strong claims about what our responses and policy changes should be.

It's not that Buzzfeed is wrong about Facebook. It's that they're not currently in a responsible or knowledgeable enough position to lead the conversation about Facebook.

This is true: hypocrisy is not a proof of incorrectness. Smoking does not become healthy simply because a smoker told you it wasn't.

On the other hand, if adtech practices are bad (and they are), then it is not only Facebook that needs to change.

If only journalists were trained to investigate and learn information from organizations outside their own...

> In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even allowed to go into the newsroom.

And the journalists in turn aren't allowed to look at their own websites when researching a story?

> A reporter is not involved in how a web site is built, or what goes on behind the scenes.

But they do talk to IT people when they write stories about IT things, don't they?

I'm all with you that it doesn't change the story's correctness one bit, but it does question the self-awareness of journalists as part of companies. Unless it's a secret move to get people to focus on the stuff their organisation does which they can't publicly comment on for fear of being sacked (by the ads people, presumably), that would be quite different.

edit: I'd love to reply, but somebody in their limitless wisdom has decided to time me out for whatever reason.

But they do talk to IT people when they write stories about IT things, don't they?

Generally, no. They talk to people on the outside.

Unless it's a secret move

It's always amusing to me the conspiracy theories people have about journalism. These are people who boost their egos, their living, their careers by telling people things. The changes of hundreds of thousands of journalists keeping a secret about anything are pretty close to zero.

fear of being sacked (by the ads people, presumably)

This only very rarely happens (It happened to me once, and then the company contested by unemployment claim!), but only at very small organizations. Like where the entire newsroom is fewer than ten people.

> 1. In most responsible news organizations, there is a significant firewall between advertising and news. In two places I worked, the sales people weren't even allowed to go into the newsroom.

Editor: "So your last screed about Facebook got a ton of clicks and shares, can you do another?"

Tell me more about that firewall. In modern news orgs, you're selling the words next to the content, not the readership.

> 2. News organizations are not IT departments. A reporter is not involved in how a web site is built, or what goes on behind the scenes. There are different people in different departments for that.

Journalists are inquisitive, intellectually curious types. You have to call into question the ethics of someone prepared to write about something they have a good idea that their own company engages in.

> 3. Just because a newspaper does something bad with its web site does not make what happens at Facebook/Google/etc... any less bad. SV needs to get over the whole "But Bobby jumped off the bridge, too!" mentality.

This is just tu quoque. It's not exonerating Facebook at all (though Facebook typically have a deterministic data set to work with, which reduces the kind of shady practices they need to engage in with third party data sets), it's merely saying that you don't get a free pass on calling this kind of stuff out if you're engaging in the same kind of data gathering yourself.

> Journalists are inquisitive, intellectually curious types. You have to call into question the ethics of someone prepared to write about something they have a good idea that their own company engages in.

So what is the ethical thing to do? Quit your job? Choose not to report on the unethical behavior? Escalate internally instead of externally? Write the story about the company you work for, knowing full well that you won't ever be published and it will end up being pointless?

I don't think anybody wants to give buzzfeed a free pass, but I just don't see how buzzfeed's data practices reflect on the ethics of their individual journalists.

The cost of an action does not change its ethical merit, or lack thereof. People are responsible for doing unethical things, even if someone ordered them to.

But this guy isn't even being ordered to do anything unethical. He just wrote an article.

The same people that ordered him to write this article have also ordered other people to do unethical things. But that's a different scenario than you just mentioned. So if you think this is immoral, than I imagine that your actual argument is more of a guilt by association thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com