Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

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Giving narcissistic sociopaths like SBF an audience is absolutely disgusting—from "citizen journalists" like Tiffany Fong that are engagement farming this tragedy for clout, to Mario Nawfal's cringe-inducing Twitter spaces, to Kim Dotcom's insufferable attempt to regain any kind of relevance, to Bitboy Crypto trying to convince his followers that he saw through SBF the whole time (even though he shilled FTT just last year)—in typical crypto fashion, everyone is trying to take advantage of this situation for their own gain. Oh yeah, there's also Kevin O'Leary who said SBF ain't that bad of a guy. But then again, a16z just gave Adam Newmann $350M, so maybe it's just par for the course. And who can forget about the NYT, writing several puff pieces about SBF, with gems like:

> Critics of Mr. Bankman-Fried in the crypto community have questioned the idea that someone with his intelligence could have blundered into losing billions of dollars, suggesting that he took the money knowingly.

Gross. Anyone with their wits about them knows SBF literally gambled with other people's money. Full stop. Maybe he's not indictable by the US government and will never see a day in jail, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to give him a platform.

What does “giving a platform” even mean? Asking him to explain himself while the slow moving process of banks, regulators, courts, and criminal investigators take apart his company?

Do you think this will somehow stop any of that from happening? That he can talk his way out of losing $5 billion?

> Asking him to explain himself

There's nothing to explain, and more importantly, no one is challenging him on bullshit answers. He gets asked questions like "So what happened to the 8+ billion dollars FTX is missing?" to which he's answered (several times now) with a variation of "Well you see, running an exchange is complicated, and we mislabeled accounts. Really, though, the money is actually almost all there, and people can be made whole" with zero pushback.

He was grilled here, and it was posted by Tiffany Fong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKrT9Jae4No

I listened to that spaces, and Coffeezilla is the one exception. Btw, SBF quickly bailed just after Coffeezilla took the stage because he can't handle it when someone really brings the heat; he was around for like an hour+ prior taking softball questions from the crypto clown show.

Yeah just listened to that snippet posted above and coffeezilla was pretty savage. FTX/SBF coverage is basically his bread and butter now

There is this growing belief, especially among genZ kids, that what happens online, what is seen by an audience, is the prevalent reality.

And this is not entirely false, in practice.

All I see on social media is that SBF engaged in a black and white pump and dump scheme or is a straight up Bernie Madoff.

That’s also probably not reality either, it’s far more complicated and nuanced.

Would you prefer that is how the narrative stays? He becomes a Disney villain? That it’s as bad as possible to punish him? As some sort of deterrence?

GenZ won’t be watching raw WSJ interviews, it will be chopped up in TikTok videos with the usual “world is going to shit” spin the media always uses.

SBF is, at the minimum, a conman and a liar. And not only is he a conman and a liar, but an exceptionally skilled one. He managed to get the backing of the World Economic Forum, and even various world leaders including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

The "narrative" should stay within the domain of the facts established, and not within the ever-widening range of fables being spun by a skilled liar. And the facts established are not ambiguous.

Money, in the billions, is completely unaccounted for. What money that can be accounted for was repeatedly misappropriated (which is a high felony, and not the 'oopsie' it might sound). There were "backdoors" to enable money to be removed from accounts with 0 accounting, and more. This is a not a "nuanced" case.

> GenZ won’t be watching raw WSJ interviews, it will be chopped up in TikTok videos with the usual “world is going to shit” spin the media always uses.

I am old enough to remember when mostly Silent Generation and older types were saying essentially the same thing (using different youth culture reference points) about the “the MTV generation” (Gen X, mostly), and its a lot like complaints about youth that have been attested to about as far back as we have recovered writing.

> GenZ won’t be watching raw WSJ interviews, it will be chopped up in TikTok videos with the usual “world is going to shit” spin the media always uses.

This is an unfair statement, because it implies a difference about GenZ versus the millennials with cnn or boomers with Fox News.

Not only is it unsubstantiated but also unnecessary.

I don’t think it’s any different but let’s be honest about the type of political content younger people often consume. It’s always snippy, fast paced, and with a “surprising” angle.

24hr talking heads are equally low brow but it’s usually more straight forward sound bite + overt opinion layer.

A few of the best in-depth coverages of the scummy US politicians during the 2020 election were done by Teen Vogue. TikTok is a pile, but I agree that juxtaposing it to Clinton Network Network, MSDNC, and Fox Snooze as if those hold any integrity at this point is laughable.

There’s no need for name calling. It may come from frustration but it sounds childish and reduces the quality of discourse.

This is such a bizarre view. Allowing him to explain himself in his own words (a) lets him create lies that are difficult to worm his way out of further down the road and (b) lets journalists cross reference what he's saying with anonymous sources - who may be less willing to cooperate with the law lest the sources incriminate themselves - and challenge SBF with that information, a process which beautifully crystallised during SBF's latest interview with Coffeezilla in a Twitter space where he was challenged on several statements which appear to be lies, and led to extremely uncomfortable squirming from SBF.

This position of yours is so weird. Yes, if someone does quality journalism, like Fong and Coffeezilla have done, then they do earn clout from that. What's the problem there? The person who is at the centre of the story should be allowed to give their side of the story, "Bad person bad, no I won't talk to them" is not useful journalism.

Also, this should go without saying but the bizarre stalking that Bitboy did is obviously unacceptable harassment, and the vulture-like tactics of others is not helpful and not what I'm condoning here.

> Giving narcissistic sociopaths like SBF an audience is absolutely disgusting

Their goal should be informing the public-- putting SBF up does that, he's not duping anyone else now.

The fact that he may be getting off on the attention isn't any of our concern.

But yeah the puff pieces are obnoxious. This is a case where no one (in the US, probably anywhere) is getting fired for coming out guns blazing. There isn't any good reason I can see to hold back here, there won't be any more "donations" of customer funds to media orgs.

Too much modern journalism isn't just unwilling to speak truth to power, it's unwilling to speak the truth about scammers that put on a power nose and glasses.

> Their goal should be informing the public-- putting SBF up does that, he's not duping anyone else now.

Arguably, allowing SBF to make unsubstantiated claims and not challenging them is the opposite of informing the public.

Like you've said, many institutions are unwilling to challenge even the most vile scammers, and it's because interviewing the scammer generates clicks and the scammer won't agree to come on if they know they'll be challenged. It isn't just journalism either: lot's of auditing firms more-or-less rubber stamp their larger customers because giving them a hard time means they won't be hired again; heck, the ratings agencies were key factors that lead to the 2008 collapse, for similar reasons.

What can modern journalism do when it was all bought by the 'power' its supposed to be speaking truth to?

The consolidation of media has been a massive issue throughout the world but predominantly in the US and started a long way back. There are two movies that are imho great watches reflecting the topic:

Network: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film) Christine: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a51606/christin...

> farming this tragedy

There's no tragedy here. Let's be absolutely clear - every single person who lost money in this abomination was as greedy as SBF, trying to milk a cryptocurrency ecosystem they never believed in nor understood.

Was it marketed to regular people, the financially naive? Were misleading statements and advertising used?

Then people who were told it was a safe way to invest lost significant money, they were defrauded. Some lost life savings, kids college funds, retirement funds, you name it. There are likely thousands of small tragedies here.

Being ripped off due to naivety does not make one as culpable of fraud as SBF. This is pure victim blaming.

People invest in things they don’t understand every day, and we have regulations to prevent predatory fraudsters taking their money. The crypto space needs to be regulated the same way. Preferably regulated right into the dirt.

Not everyone involved chose to be - for example, the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan invested $95M into FTX. Thousands of teachers' retirement plans are impacted through no fault (or very possibly, knowledge) of their own.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemcshane/2022/11/15/a-crypto...

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