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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

Zero explanation of what the actual contaminant was.

This is a garbage clickbait article and Buzzfeed should be ashamed.

Nah dude, there's no way to deduce that the contaminant isn't serious based on a Buzzfeed report.

If the contaminant was serious, there's a media strategy where you suppress what it is for now to maximize the favorability of your settlement. After all you go to court, you'll publish what that contaminant is, it's as good as winning against Juul without actually winning.

The thing I'm more confused about is why you're being so generous to a nicotine manufacturer.

Why is this clickbait? The story is not what the contaminant was but that a senior executive at the company was alarmed enough with whatever defect there was to raise the issue, fully aware that recalling the product would have huge financial implications given his role in the finance org. That is newsworthy despite not yet knowing what the issue is yet.

The Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect comes up so many times on HN that I'm surprised you don't already know the answer. Third-hand stories about what some executive said, from a news source famous for aggressive editorializing for clicks?

I have no bone in this fight, but I wouldn't get my blood pressure up over a story like this.

It's an article about allegations from a court filing, not a story based on something overheard in a diner. What exactly is editorialized about the article? It basically just summarizes the details of the case. They even reached out to the parties for comment so they could offer their side of the story.

Just because something is an allegation in a court filing doesn't mean much. The first time Trump tried his entry ban, I saw a court filing. It alleged that the state of Washington had defrauded the filer of, if I remember correctly, about $70 billion and the court should immediately dismiss the Washington v. Trump to focus on this more important matter.

It's probably worth knowing that Buzzfeed News is a different arm than the Buzzfeed "listicle" notorious for crappy clickbait.

https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-buzzfeed-news

A contaminant is just something that doesn't belong in the product, but this doesn't tell us if it's harmful or not. There's a big difference between the contaminant being trace amounts of a different flavor, or the the contaminant being lead. It's really weird to write a whole scary article and not mention what the actual contaminant was.

Because the story is based off a recently filed lawsuit. The lawsuit does not say what the contaminate is, which is clearly stated in the article.

I can't find any of the court filings publicly online - I'd probably have to spend money on PACER or something - but it seems possible to me that Buzzfeed had no access to the exact details of what contaminated the pods. Is it necessary to know precisely what it was if Juul employees are on record voicing concerns about product quality and being dismissed? Are some kinds of contaminants not bad enough to matter?

The article has plenty of detail. The person filing is a former employee making easily disproved accusations, what would be the point of suing and then having it immediately tossed out because he can't prove anything was contaminated? He even cites the supplier it came from.

PACER is free if you don't go over $15 in a quarter (occasionally interested nonlawyers won't) and cases in the news are often on RECAP (you can assist them by downloading their browser extension)

These kinds of comments are driving me crazy. I rarely see articles on HN anymore, good or bad, where people in the comments aren't fussing about "clickbait". Call it substanceless, call it sensational, call it fluff, but at this point clickbait is virtually an empty term, a thought-terminating cliche. Much like "fake news", it metastasized beyond the useful meaning it used to have to a cliche used to dismiss things people don't like.

More to your point, if I'm going to take the accusation of "clickbait" seriously, the article elaborates on what the headline says, and substantiates it. It doesn't mention the contaminant, but that doesn't make it "clickbait".

One piece[1] on the meaning of "clickbait" described it as follows:

>When we talk about clickbait internally, we tend to focus on the idea of under-delivering on a misleading headline. The risk that a reader will feel she has been duped into clicking.

To your point, it also says:

>Others often seem to be using "clickbait" as a free-floating term of derision. There are many reasons one might dislike an article but calling it clickbait has become an all-purpose way of expressing that disapproval.

So which of those best describes this BuzzFeed article?

I don't think the headline is misleading, but BuzzFeed definitely under-delivered by not mentioning the contaminant. They showed their hand by not even acknowledging that they are missing that important detail.

Honestly, it's shameful. It's like they have so little respect for their readers that they think their readers won't notice that the most important detail in this story -- mentioned in the headline, no less -- is missing.

[1]: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/13/8033937/clickbait-explained

I read the whole article hoping to get more detail...NOT ONE DETAIL! Reads like a rumor report.

News Guidelines:

Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Interesting coincidence that this FUD article comes out 3 days before Altria's quarterly earnings report. Time to buy some call options?

The article seems to stick to what it can state on the basis of fact, making it clear which claims came from whom. Your comment, on the other hand, begins with “interesting coincidence” and ends in an accusatory rhetorical question. Who is using FUD here?

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