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Comment by reaperducer | Hacker News Reader

As usual the times is great at telling a story, but in this case one built entirely on a cropped screenshot

The article makes it clear, this is not based on a single cropped screenshot. It's based on many screenshots, a Discord discussion, a discussion in a moderators-only group, and interviews with six confirmed moderators.

I got that much, and I only read half of the article.

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> many screenshots, a Discord discussion, a discussion in a moderators-only group

These all refer to exactly the same thing.

How do you suppose the article's tone would change had they mentioned in the second paragraph plans to donate any earnings to charity?

They did mention it. Did you read the article? From the article:

> When reached on their new Twitter account, the top moderators said they wanted to strike a movie deal, but were planning to give any proceeds to charity.

“Them trying to make it look like we are cash grabbing is so dishonest,” the moderators wrote.

In paragraph 27, after spending paragraphs 3-26 documenting the public reaction to a dramatic half-truth revealed in paragraph 2. This is called storytelling. You're likely aware article order is deeply important, but if not, consider reading https://slate.com/technology/2013/06/how-people-read-online-... . The bottom line is most visitors likely only read the half-truth.

Having worked with writers in these very fields, I can assure you they write with the intention that you read the entire article and anything but reading the entire article is an unintended incomplete communication. A protocol broken, if you will. Not a conspiracy to hide the truth. Them potentially maybe donating to charity is not the lede.

That's perhaps unsurprising.. it certainly would be far from the first industry to suffer from institutional blindness to any inconvenient metric that might challenge a self-stated purpose

You could say that about anyone or anything at any time and to any end including wild, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. I don't think it's very constructive.

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