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Comment by jprete | Hacker News Reader

The first thing I saw on the page was a phone-screen-filling disclaimer that everything they said was opinion. I didn't read any further.

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You can't even click the button to not agree to their terms because it's not a button.

That's why I flagged it.

It's a news/reporting site, they should all have this. So you are discounting one of the few honest news sites for being honest.

If it's opinion then it's op-ed. That's not news. If they were truly honest they would not say they are a news site.

They're probably being extra careful to protect themselves from defamation lawsuits. I have more trust in the information reading this, because I can assume they're willing to say things that put them at risk of being sued by powerful organizations.

Not just defamation lawsuits, but also the SEC

It's very worrying that consumer protection against poisoning in the US comes from a for-profit company that makes money by short selling companies they found to have issues and then covering their back this way against lawsuits, which any less aggressive reviewer would face.

On the other hand it’s great to have them investigating all these companies and their widespread misdeeds

The investigating is great, the problem is who is doing it and for what reason.

If the misdeed is done by a non-public or poor company there is no money to be made so they would never even investigate it. And not accepting a payoff that returns more than the short position would be ignoring fiduciary responsibility, so some investigations could disappear.

Most Newspapers are profit driven. The only difference is how the profit is derived. It seems to me that the choice is to have this information come to light or not have it all.

You can trust the information. That's a personal choice. But that doesn't make it journalism-driven news - in the textbook definition sense - for everyone else.

As honest goes: "We are an op-ed oriented information sharing site. We do not adhere to normal journalistic standard."

Defamation is when the information being spread is false. You're saying you trust them more because they're willing to say things that are false. That doesn't make sense.

1,200 words of legalese, boiling down to "you can't hold us liable for anything we say here" is not "being honest".

It's also an activist short seller. They make money by publishing negative research reports on companies they've shorted. It's a valuable service.

The disclaimer amounts to "we're not insider trading and we really believe this stuff" many different ways. Insider trading is illegal so they are scrupulously careful to stay away from MNPI (and want you to know that). Really believing this stuff is important because if they turn out to be wrong, it's sort of ok to be honestly wrong, it's not okay to be knowingly wrong and put out the report anyway to manipulate the stock.

And so paragraphs and paragraphs of

>"Reports are based on generally available information, field research, inferences and deductions"

We're not insider trading

>"Our opinions are held in good faith, and we have based them upon publicly available facts and evidence"

We really believe this stuff, also we're really not insider trading.

> "We conducted research and analysis based on public information in a manner that any person could have done if they had been interested in doing so."

Did we mention we're not insider trading?

Well perhaps if these companies didn’t all have skeletons in their closets, they may be able to avoid the bad press, lawsuits, stock prices issues, etc. That is probably the best way to avoid all this

Agree, that's why it's a valuable service to make it hard to have skeletons.

Hindenburg published a report about Super Micro and their information/analysis turned out to be right.

How is this insider trading? Do they have access to material non-public information?

You seem to think I'm arguing that they are insider trading. I'm not arguing that!

Now is it investment advice? Isn't that the other side what they say they are not?

It's not a news site.

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