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Comment by celeritascelery | Hacker News Reader

> “Project Veritas has engaged in disgraceful deceptions, and reasonable observers might not consider their activities to be journalism at all. Nevertheless, the precedent set in this case could have serious consequences for press freedom.

It’s good to see the ACLU stand up for groups that are not “popular”. More and more it seems people only want civil liberties for those they agree with. But since we are all equal under the law (or at least should be), if it can happen to “then” then it can happen to “you”.

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I hate that they have to preface it with "we hate these guys but..."

There are very good reasons to find what Project Veritas has been credibly accused of quite distasteful. Institutions do no exist in a perfect vacuum, they consist of people, and people live in civil society.

What they're saying here is analogous to “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

I hate the phrase "credibly accused of". What were they accused of and why is it credible? Have they done worse than other journalists at major news corporations? Do accusations somehow revoke a person's rights?

How on earth are these accusations relevant for the ACLU to weigh in on while commenting about this attack on the press? "She did wear revealing clothing and some observers thought she was leading the man on. Nevertheless, we condemn the sexual assault..."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/03/08/james-okee...

CNN and the Washington Post were forced to pay millions of dollars for smearing Nick Sandmann.

The difference is that the CNN and the Washington Post don't intentionally lie:

> The AG’s report highlighted how Mr. O’Keefe edited his videos to appear as if he was engaging in his ACORN hi-jinks wearing “stereotypical 1970’s pimp garb”, the intent being to suggest that ACORN employees would willingly do business with someone dressed in this manner. However, it turns out that O'Keefe was actually wearing a coat and tie when he entered the ACORN offices. The report also stated that ACORN employees "may be able to bring a private suit against O'Keefe and Giles for recording a confidential conversation.”

The Washington Post and CNN might be reckless and get things wrong, but that doesn't really compare to the intentional dishonesty from Project Veritas.

Yes they absolutely did intentionally lie.

EDIT: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/washington-po...

In July 2019, a federal judge in Kentucky dismissed the Sandmanns’ suit against The Post, ruling that all of the challenged statements were either opinion, not defamatory or not about Sandmann specifically. But in October, the judge, William O. Bertelsman, reinstated part of the lawsuit, based on a motion to reconsider an amended complaint filed by Sandmann’s lawyers, allowing the case to proceed on three statements in Post articles stating that Sandmann had “blocked” Phillips and “would not allow him to retreat.”

I.e., bald faced lies.

How did the Washington Post intentionally lie? They were certainly reckless and reported Phillips’s account without doing due diligence but that is a very different thing from the intentional dishonesty shown by Project Veritas.

Lying requires intent. And intent is very important.

I added an edit. Footage was immediately available showing he was being accosted and advanced upon by the other people, and the idea that they had blocked and trapped the demonstrators was a complete fabrication.

A reporter making mistakes and not reviewing every piece of theoretically available footage is not the same as a reporter intentionally doctoring footage.

One is incompetence, the other is malice. Do you not understand the difference between the two?

It wasn't a mistake, they used photos and footage in their reporting of it. It was lies. Malicious lies.

Even if you want to use the weak excuse that they didn't know what they were doing, the fact it was not corrected or retracted after they did view this "hypothetical footage" (which apparently everyone else on the internet was able to find immediately), proves the malicious and intentional nature of it.

> It wasn't a mistake, they used photos and footage in their reporting of it.

They covered the most popular footage at the time, which was not the footage that exonerated Sandmann.

> Even if you want to use the weak excuse that they didn't know what they were doing, the fact it was not corrected or retracted after they did view this "hypothetical footage" (which apparently everyone else on the internet was able to find immediately), proves the malicious and intentional nature of it.

They published their correction to the original article on January 22nd (3 days after their first article, 4 days after the incident in question). Pretty quick fix if you ask me for this sort of stuff. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/picture-o...

> They covered the most popular footage at the time, which was not the footage that exonerated Sandmann.

Of course it was. There was not one video or angle that showed the protestors were trying to escape and being blocked

> They published their correction to the original article on January 22nd (3 days after their first article, 4 days after the incident in question). Pretty quick fix if you ask me for this sort of stuff. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/picture-o...

3 days! 3 days of ruining a kid's life, riling up a hateful mob of violent angry lunatics calling for him to be killed, calling him racist and white supremacist. Meanwhile all the footage was out! It was malicious lies. I don't know how you can excuse such disgusting lies.

> There are very good reasons to find what Project Veritas has been credibly accused of quite distasteful.

The only accusations against Project Veritas is that they doctored their videos, but it seems to me that they usually publish the full length videos.

Plenty to read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas

On an unrelated note, WikiMedia foundation actually pays progressive groups to write/edit Wikipedia articles.

Well it's a good thing that article is well-sourced, then.

They quote opinion pieces as fact.

Well it's a good thing that article is well-sourced, then.

Conveniently, you can evaluate their cited sources for yourself.

That's what I did, their "sources" are opinions. That's not what "well-sourced" means.

Scrolling around to a random place in the article:

> Following the Boudreau incident, Project Veritas paid Izzy Santa a five-figure settlement after she threatened to sue, which included a nondisclosure agreement.[185]

That links to https://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68628_Page3.html, which seems like a factual account to me.

You should consider that facts that you don't like aren't "opinions", they're just facts that you don't like.

> Project Veritas paid Izzy Santa a five-figure settlement

Settlements doesn't prove anything

So you agree that the article had a factual statement backed by a factual source then. Thanks.

Settlements prove nothing about the truth of the litigious question. It's factual to say they settled, it's not to say it proves anything.

Also the Wikipedia article begins by labeling PV as being "far-right", which is in and of itself an opinion and they proceed to quote opinion pieces.

Why do I have to explain this tho? I feel like a high school teacher explaining yet another time to his students why they can't cite Wikipedia.

> It's factual to say they settled, it's not to say it proves anything.

So you agree that the article had a factual statement backed by a factual source then. Thanks.

Your previous statements are demonstrably incorrect and you've resorted to goalpost-shifting. "oh sure that was a factual statement backed by a factual citation, but that fact doesn't mean anything!!"

Please consider that facts you don't like aren't "opinion", they're just facts you don't like.

For real though, I know I'm repeating myself, but I honestly don't know how to make this any clearer for you to understand.

Your whole argument is assuming that since some citations are factual and relevant than the others are and that makes the article Okay to cite as a source. Which just on its face is ridiculous.

> oh sure that was a factual statement backed by a factual citation

Don't you think considering "X thinks Y" as a fact is a bit disingenuous?

> you've resorted to goalpost-shifting

You started quoting Wikipedia as a source, and then shifted the debate about how not problematic it is. I "resorted" to nothing outside of common sense.

Quoting Wikipedia is a meme at this point.

Sorry but Wikipedia is a very poor source of information when it comes to sensitive and politically charged subjects. The articles starts with qualifying them as "far-right" and then quotes opinion pieces or other irrelevant factoids.

Going big, public, and viral with an attention-grabbing piece of doctored footage, while saying that the full-length video is technically available to anyone willing to dig and compare the viral fake to the looooong raw footage, is textbook new media dishonesty.

Examples?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29223684

You just reposted this trhead

> “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

Yea, they didn't really say anything like that. They're saying Veritas are scumbags and the FBI might be wrong but should proceed with oversight.

Their statement has so many qualifications and judgements attached to it, that it is nearly meaningless.

The ACLU has vigorously defended the KKK on civil rights grounds, which is admirable.

If nobody defends the KKK, the steamroller of censorship and oppression will continue until it reaches something you care about.

Evergreen Mencken quote:

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

I am also fond of Larry Flynt, "If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, it will protect all of you."

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