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Comment by kansface | Hacker News Reader

A NYT reporter posted an ostensibly private conversation of absolutely no newsworthy value for the sole purpose of ruining some peoples' lifes, got the facts completely wrong, posted a non-apology, and then played the victim. At best, this is bad tabloid journalism.

> And here he is calling the situation "Stasi-like".

He is calling it stasi like because people routinely get blacklisted when this happens to them - they lose their job, their friends, and become unemployable. In fact, blacklisting is the exact point of this behavior!

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Doesn't seem the conversation was private at all. Nor did the Stasi traffic in ruining reputations for perceived bad behavior. They arrested political dissenters by the thousands. Andreesen is a billionaire who would, at worst, have to apologize on twitter and continue his life of total freedom. Did anyone consider Donald Sterling to be a victim?

The "Stasi-like" remark was "Stasi-like citizen surveillance". The latter was conveniently omitted upthread. No one is arguing that this is Stasi-like in that the outcome was arrest.

> They arrested political dissenters by the thousands. Andreesen is a billionaire who would, at worst, have to apologize on twitter and continue his life of total freedom.

These kinds of arguments would crop up in the cancel culture debates, and the same rebuttal applies: that a billionaire is able to survive some particular injustice doesn't lessen the injustice. Notably, the overwhelming majority of people who are cancelled are not famous billionaires (and thus you don't hear about them and there is probably no outcry to right the wrong, although there are exceptions).

Come on. You don't use a loaded phrase like "Stasi-like" unless you're implying something nefarious. It seems monumentally hypocritical for a guy who's entire career is based on having access to other people's private communications. Lorenz's beat is heavily based on following social media trends including stuff like wallstreetbets which was the topic of the clubhouse chat. Greenwald is ascribing a lot of intent that he can't back up.

> You don't use a loaded phrase like "Stasi-like" unless you're implying something nefarious.

To be perfectly clear, he was using it to refer to citizen-surveillance which is patently nefarious.

> Greenwald is ascribing a lot of intent that he can't back up.

Those of us who suffered her social media account while it was public have the context to know that his characterization isn't far off. More importantly though, this isn't about her, but rather about the broader trend of policing ideological transgressions and passing it off as "journalism".

She had a Clubhouse invite and reported on what (she thought) she heard. That's not surveillance any more than watching TV is surveillance. Would Greenwald appreciate his methods being referred to as KGB-like espionage? Because working a source to reveal classified material is how they would do it.

And it's seriously rich of him to accuse another journalist of pursuing an agenda.

I think you misunderstand what citizen surveillance refers to. It’s not literal espionage.

Neither is listening in on Clubhouse. That convo was invite-only, but not private. And to my other point, what about Donald Sterling? He had a one-on-one private phone call leaked by his mistress that resulted in him being banned for life from the NBA for expressing his personal opinions. Consider that the apotheosis of "Cancel Culture". Now ask yourself if, knowing what we know about his true feelings, if we should respect his privacy and not complain about him owning an NBA franchise. Or if he is the true victim here. Or if it's just irrelevant that he's a billionaire and owned a fan-supported sports team.

Again, I think you're misunderstanding "citizen surveillance". It refers to peers policing each other for ideological transgressions, not the surveillance of citizens.

> And to my other point, what about Donald Sterling? He had a one-on-one private phone call leaked by his mistress that resulted in him being banned for life from the NBA for expressing his personal opinions. Consider that the apotheosis of "Cancel Culture".

Broken clocks are right twice a day, but that's hardly a reason to prefer them.

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