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Comment by brookst | Hacker News Reader

If you’re accusing them of lying, it would be nice if you brought evidence.

Seems really strange to me to reject the notion of 'reading between the lines' when we know the motives of the company's leadership. We know they work with Google, we know they are interested in driving views and profits. Any interpretation that is consistent with their known motivations is worth considering.

Some things just aren't feasible to collect evidence for. You would need access to their private communications to find evidence. So your basically giving a pass to any maleficence done in the dark.

Anyone can make “truthy” statements that sound plausible, and feed into an anti-business conspiracy. Without evidence, such comments are mostly noise.

Are you saying that the very lack of evidence for a conspiracy theory means it’s probably true?

People are free to believe what they choose to believe, but that doesn’t seem like an especially well grounded worldview.

THEY are the ones that say that google has provided them "proof" I want to see that proof, else I have every right to call them liars.

What you are saying is that you are biased against Google. I doubt that you demand proof every time you see retraction, and that you consider the publisher liars if they don’t show the proof. Right?

Also, Wired didn’t say the “proof” came from Google

Yes if there is a retraction I want to see the source of it, else I will assume there was an ulterior motive for it.

And yet you’ll happily accept the original article that did not have sourcing, because it aligns with your biases?

Meta says they remove 95% of hatespeech and neglects the “of the 5% percent of hatespeech found” part in their public communication

I thinks it’s adequate to not accept anything at face value here.

It reads as more of an opinion than accusation. What’s wrong with an opinion?

There are zero wiggle words to indicate doubt or to frame the statement as an opinion.

It’s a comment on an Internet forum with the name of company written with a typo. Clearly an opinion comment.

Ah, so when I tell you the Chicago Beers defeated the Miami Saints 37-12 in last year’s Super Bowl, it’s not lying or even incorrect, it’s obviously just an opinion?

The default position when commenting something on the internet is that it is opinion (this comment included). I don't think it has to be stated explicitly.

When idle speculation is presenting as a fact, that is called a "lie".

The internet may be full of liars... but that doesn't mean they aren't liars just because there's a lot of them.

"It is my opinion that Wired is not a good source of news" — opinion, expression of subjective epreference

"It is my opinion that Wired is intentionally concealing a conspiracy behind closed doors for their own gain and the harm of the public" — baseless conjecture about objective reality and conspiracy theory-spinning, that just happens to start with "it's my opinion that..."

Conspiracy-mindedness (leading to viral spread of disinformation, and even to acts of violence and terrorism) has taken too much root in the modern psyche, hiding behind the stolen shield of "all opinions are valid", when in fact they are not statements of subjective opinion, but instead baseless assertions about objective reality.

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