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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

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.

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