CNN tracks down random reddit meme poster and threatens to release his information

kunst nugget

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Ok, then let me rephrase: it is not for the media to order a private citizen to do something, under threat of consequences if they do not.

Should the media dox a 15 year old purely as part of reporting the news or not?

lifeandtimes

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Ok hang on a second. If blackmail is strictly only money related, then what, for instance, is using information to garner preferential treatment by a politician? Not blackmail?

Extortion?

Christy42

silverharp wrote: »

apparently its a 15 old kid, going to make it even worse for CNN

Please tell me no one has started publishing details of this guy. Will he end up doxed anyway? Hopefully not.

lifeandtimes

Christy42 wrote: »

Please tell me no one has started publishing details of this guy. Will he end up doxed anyway? Hopefully not.

He's older than 15,someone found out he left Maryland in 1990 meaning he's at least 26

hatrickpatrick

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Extortion?

Ok fair enough, extortion. I don't particularly see how that makes it any better :pac:

hatrickpatrick

kunst nugget wrote: »

Should the media dox a 15 year old purely as part of reporting the news or not?

It's up to them to decide whether such a story would be newsworthy and worth the potential consequences of publication. I'm not here to judge them on that. What I'm judging them for is conditional reporting - "we'll publish this IF..." - which I regard as fundamentally unethical.

lifeandtimes

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Ok fair enough, extortion. I don't particularly see how that makes it any better :pac:

But it's not extortion either

CNN aren't gaining anything from This,in fact they are down a possible article about this.

After this saga I doubt it will make people read CNN more or less to be honest.

Until the full facts of the agreement are released then we don't know either here nor there about what happened

hatrickpatrick

lifeandtimes wrote: »

But it's not extortion either

CNN aren't gaining anything from This,in fact they are down a possible article about this.

After this saga I doubt it will make people read CNN more or less to be honest.

Until the full facts of the agreement are released then we don't know either here nor there about what happened

Did you miss the part where CNN clearly want the guy to stop posting his bullsh!t and regard his vow to cease posting it as a victory?

Christy42

lifeandtimes wrote: »

He's older than 15,someone found out he left Maryland in 1990 meaning he's at least 26

Yeah. That was from a reddit post so could have been lying for whatever reason. Whoever it is I hope others don't try and find out..
He may be a piece of scum but does not seem to be subjected to mob rule.

lifeandtimes

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Did you miss the part where CNN clearly want the guy to stop posting his bullsh!t and regard his vow to cease posting it as a victory?

Where does it state they cnn clearly wanted it and it was their idea?

Could have been this guys promise that he won't do it again if they publish his details. After all this I doubt he'll use the internet again

hatrickpatrick

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Where does it state they cnn clearly wanted it and it was their idea?

Could have been this guys promise that he won't do it again if they publish his details. After all this I doubt he'll use the internet again

Ah come on, have you ever heard of Occam's Razor? The fact that they agreed not to publish if he ceased meming, plus the fact that they reserve the right to publish if he resumed meming, imply that they see how cessation of meming as a good outcome - and one which they intend to enforce.

The_Valeyard

Hmmmmm

I dont approve of this Jew bashing memes.

But i do approve of his CNN bashing memes.

Lux23

Hank Scorpio wrote: »

Agree! It's also clearly a message to others. That Trump tweet had 600k likes, prob not good for their bottom line.

Ehhh, Trump is the greatest thing to happen to news media profits since JFK was assassinated. Fox News is suffering because it doesn't cover the madness - it will start to follow the Trump is bad narrative if this continues.

Mr.H

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Blackmail-"the action, treated as a criminal offence, of demanding money from someone in return for not revealing compromising information which one has about them"

CNN aren't getting money.

In your analogy the girl would need to ask rte not to publish her details,not them threatening her with it. After that if they agree they can throw in any terms they want.

I.e. it's not blackmail if CNN don't gain financially and the person in this circumstance asked THEM not to publish,they didn't threaten him with it. It was after the fact when they posted their statement saying the can retract the agreement if the other party breaks a term of it

blackmail
ˈblakmeɪl/Submit
noun
noun: blackmail
1.
the action, treated as a criminal offence, of demanding money from someone in return for not revealing compromising information which one has about them.
"they were acquitted of charges of blackmail"
synonyms: extortion, demanding money with menaces, exaction, intimidation; More
money demanded by a person or group engaged in blackmail.
"we do not pay blackmail"
the use of threats or the manipulation of someone's feelings to force them to do something.
"some people use emotional blackmail"



I love the way you completely blanked the last example of blackmail

lifeandtimes

Mr.H wrote: »

blackmail
ˈblakmeɪl/Submit
noun
noun: blackmail
1.
the action, treated as a criminal offence, of demanding money from someone in return for not revealing compromising information which one has about them.
"they were acquitted of charges of blackmail"
synonyms: extortion, demanding money with menaces, exaction, intimidation; More
money demanded by a person or group engaged in blackmail.
"we do not pay blackmail"
the use of threats or the manipulation of someone's feelings to force them to do something.
"some people use emotional blackmail"



I love the way you completely blanked the last example of blackmail

That emotional blackmail,two different things.

Also again no one knows this was CNN idea,it was probably the guys
"Please dont post my details,I promise I'll never do it again "
Seems like a reasonably possible scenario that played out

hatrickpatrick

lifeandtimes wrote: »

That emotional blackmail,two different things.

Also again no one knows this was CNN idea,it was probably the guys
"Please dont post my details,I promise I'll never do it again "
Seems like a reasonably possible scenario that played out

You are still wilfully ignoring the fact that by explicitly stating that they will publish in the future should the guy not change his ways, they are explicitly attempting to affect a change in somebody's behaviour using the threat of information being published.

Whether or not this legally qualifies as blackmail is irrelevant. It's unethical behaviour for journalists. They should not be using the question of whether or not to publish information as leverage to change somebody's behaviour, in any manner whatsoever.

It doesn't matter who suggested it in the first place. If CNN are the broadsheet, serious news outlet they claim to be, they should have walked away from the very idea of cutting a bargain with the subject of a potential story.

ricero

The news networks of the liberals showing how nasty and evil they are once again. A disgusting network with a nasty agenda, their mask is slipping. Gotta give props to the donald for calling them out and making a fool out of them

Mr.H

lifeandtimes wrote: »

That emotional blackmail,two different things.

Also again no one knows this was CNN idea,it was probably the guys
"Please dont post my details,I promise I'll never do it again "
Seems like a reasonably possible scenario that played out

Blackmail is where you get something in return for something simple as..........

It does sound like a reasonable narrative but so does the alternative:

CNN tells the guy to say sorry and stop making these posts or they will reveal his details.

Both sides sound like they could be real but the issue is we are only getting one side from the corporation side of the argument and the statement comes across more than a little shady.

They are gonna be careful not to incrimante themselves but even at that cant help themselves in forcing the idea that if he does it again they will make sure everyone knows who he is and could end up receiving death threats (their words)

hatrickpatrick

I'm going to offer CNN's defenders another analogy. If Donald Trump had proposed an arrangement whereby he would no longer criticise CNN in public on condition that they refrain from publishing the "grab her by the pussy" tapes, and CNN had agreed to do this, retaining the tapes as leverage to make sure he kept his word - would anybody regard this as anything other than incredibly unprofessional and unjournalistic conduct?

Bearing in mind that this could easily have had an impact on the election in terms of how many votes Trump received.

dfx-

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I know the weather is crazy nowadays but I've never seem so many snowflakes in July. :P

Yer man is a bit of an arsehole lads, he got called up on it, he pissed himself and apologized. So what?

I glanced at the trending stuff on Twitter, this came up and it unleashed a hell of very similar accounts trying to one-up each other in rage really. It's very hard to get pitchforks out for them. A lot of these accounts have built up reputations and followers that they need to keep.

A lot of this kind of thing seems to stem from a desire to claim a double standard. When Trump moves onto slamming something else, people will ditch this and join in with the new target as being the worst thing ever.

It was Sadiq Khan a few weeks ago, Stephen Colbert before that, last week it was Joe Scarborough.

Mr.H

dfx- wrote: »

I glanced at the trending stuff on Twitter, this came up and it unleashed a hell of very similar accounts trying to one-up each other in rage really. It's very hard to get pitchforks out for them. A lot of these accounts have built up reputations and followers that they need to keep.

A lot of this kind of thing seems to stem from a desire to claim a double standard. When Trump moves onto slamming something else, people will ditch this and join in with the new target as being the worst thing ever.

It was Sadiq Khan a few weeks ago, Stephen Colbert before that, last week it was Joe Scarborough.

True except this is NOTHING TO DO WITH TRUMP

CNN are at fault yet somehow people are trying to push Trump as the bad guy:rolleyes:

kunst nugget

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I'm going to offer CNN's defenders another analogy. If Donald Trump had proposed an arrangement whereby he would no longer criticise CNN in public on condition that they refrain from publishing the "grab her by the pussy" tapes, and CNN had agreed to do this, retaining the tapes as leverage to make sure he kept his word - would anybody regard this as anything other than incredibly unprofessional and unjournalistic conduct?

Bearing in mind that this could easily have had an impact on the election in terms of how many votes Trump received.

Is Donald 15 years old in this analogy?

osarusan

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

You are still wilfully ignoring the fact that by explicitly stating that they will publish in the future should the guy not change his ways, they are explicitly attempting to affect a change in somebody's behaviour using the threat of information being published.

I don't think this is fully accurate.

The change in his ways had already happened before he ever spoke to them hadn't it?

Through his deletions of posts and published apologies the guy had already changed and promised to change his behaviour, before he ever actually spoke to CNN.

Skullface McGubbin

"President Donald Trump's Thin Skin" says the CNN headline

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/24/politics/trump-legitimacy-voter-fraud-inauguration-crowd/index.html

A bit rich coming from CNN who have shown themselves to be way more thin skinned the he'll ever be. Going after some reddit user for posting a funny meme. The fools.

Them calling Trump thin skinned was just...

Richard Hillman

ricero wrote: »

The news networks of the liberals showing how nasty and evil they are once again. A disgusting network with a nasty agenda, their mask is slipping. Gotta give props to the donald for calling them out and making a fool out of them

The mask is indeed slipping. It was never about uber liberal values, it was about controlling people. Same stuff happening in Europe, people desperate to control others and they found a way of doing it by using Faux Outrage.

lifeandtimes

osarusan wrote: »

I don't think this is fully accurate.

The change in his ways had already happened before he ever spoke to them hadn't it?

Through his deletions of posts and published apologies the guy had already changed and promised to change his behaviour, before he ever actually spoke to CNN.

Actually that is a very valid point that has been missed. He deleted everything and issued an apology before he contacted cnn,the fact the put it in is irrelevant

PopePalpatine

ricero wrote: »

The news networks of the liberals showing how nasty and evil they are once again. A disgusting network with a nasty agenda, their mask is slipping. Gotta give props to the donald for calling them out and making a fool out of them

Gotta love double standards.

ricero wrote: »

Liberals are trying to ruin this countries morality. I for one will not vote in abortion to be used as a easy fix for hussies who forget to use contraception

WinnyThePoo

ricero wrote: »

The news networks of the liberals showing how nasty and evil they are once again. A disgusting network with a nasty agenda, their mask is slipping. Gotta give props to the donald for calling them out and making a fool out of them

Haha. CNN with the nasty agenda?

Some little vile racist got a shock. Posting memes about what Jews work for CNN. Sick little puppy.

Why give trump props. He hasn't gained in any way from this. He still looks like an absolute fool.

hatrickpatrick

kunst nugget wrote: »

Is Donald 15 years old in this analogy?

It's not relevant, the question is whether offering to withhold a story specifically in exchange for something - in this case, change in behaviour - from its subject can be regarded as ethical journalism.

hatrickpatrick

osarusan wrote: »

I don't think this is fully accurate.

The change in his ways had already happened before he ever spoke to them hadn't it?

It's a continuation of this that CNN are attempting to *enforce* by retaining the right to publish the dox depending on his future behaviour.

ThisRegard

ScumLord wrote: »

As the Americans would say, I'm not defending what this guy said, I'm defending his right to say it without threats of life changing ramifications. I don't even know what racist stuff his said, all I've seen of him he's a silly badly done video.

Some people need to learn that a debate isn't telling the other side to shut up or else.

There is no right to say anything deemed as anti-Semitic in America is there? Freedom of speech is not an entitlement to say anything without repercussions.

ScumLord

Richard Hillman wrote: »

The mask is indeed slipping. It was never about uber liberal values, it was about controlling people. Same stuff happening in Europe, people desperate to control others and they found a way of doing it by using Faux Outrage.

I think you're reading too much into it. CNN are a for profit corporation. They don't care about controlling people they care about making a profit out of advertisers. We see all media outlets playing a holier than thou approach to news where they're the good media and everyone else is the bad media.

All news media whether it be CNN or breitbart are the same, they just come at it from different angles.

hatrickpatrick

ThisRegard wrote: »

There is no right to say anything deemed as anti-Semitic in America is there? Freedom of speech is not an entitlement to say anything without repercussions.

A very large number of people firmly believe that it should be. That's ultimately what the culture wars of the last ~5 years have been about.

I'm not often stunned by things I read on the internet, and CNN's behaviour doesn't particularly shock me.

What I am astonished by, is the lengths to which people will go do defend blatantly bullying behaviour by a news organisation, simply because that organisation embraces their worldview.

I have so much sympathy for the anger at how CNN has been denigrated by the alt-right, and by Trump himself. But CNN's political worldview is not the issue here. They have intimidated a private citizen into making a grovelling apology for daring to poke fun at them, on fear of having his identity publicised by them.

That is appalling behaviour, and it is unreasonable for any right-thinking person to defend CNN's behaviour. Not alone does it disgrace CNN, it provides legitimate ammunition to the 'alt-right' to discredit and condemn the organisation.

ricero

PopePalpatine wrote: »

Gotta love double standards.

Classic liberal tactic of bring a completly different topic into play to deflect from cnn's misgivings

Christy42

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Actually that is a very valid point that has been missed. He deleted everything and issued an apology before he contacted cnn,the fact the put it in is irrelevant

And cnn are saying no agreement was in fact made.

The order in which things happened is irrelevant. What matters is assuming that this person was threatened by cnn and going with that line.

PopePalpatine

ricero wrote: »

Classic liberal tactic of bring a completly different topic into play to deflect from cnn's misgivings

Go on then, what's so "nasty" and "evil" about CNN? Hell, you could have picked a far more severe word than "misgivings" to describe CNN's actions.

osarusan

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It's a continuation of this that CNN are attempting to *enforce* by retaining the right to publish the dox depending on his future behaviour.

I agree, but it is not what you said earlier: an explicit attempt to change his behaviour.

Maybe you think the distinction isn't that important, but I actually do.

ScumLord

ThisRegard wrote: »

There is no right to say anything deemed as anti-Semitic in America is there? Freedom of speech is not an entitlement to say anything without repercussions.

I haven't seen any of his other memes, maybe he's deplorable I can only go on what I've seen, a silly video of Trump, a video that attracted the attention of a large media company who now hold a persons future in their hands. The guy posting could be an uninformed idiot, he could be an racist activist who hates non whites, he could be a troll who just wants to wind people up, he could see the whole left/right war as a pantomime and doesn't understand the ramifications of his posts.. He's not an organisation though, he doesn't have the resources to educate himself like a media corporation does, it's not a fair fight.

Liberals could have seen the video as Trump attacking the press as entertainment just like all the fake fighting in the likes of WWE. Conservatives could have seen the video as their man fighting "the man". The only thing that swings it one way or the other is the fact Trump retweeted it.

hatrickpatrick

osarusan wrote: »

I agree, but it is not what you said earlier: an explicit attempt to change his behaviour.

Maybe you think the distinction isn't that important, but I actually do.

An explicit attempt to change / control his future behaviour, so - that work as a re-wording? Every bit as insidious in my view.

lifeandtimes

Christy42 wrote: »

And cnn are saying no agreement was in fact made.

The order in which things happened is irrelevant. What matters is assuming that this person was threatened by cnn and going with that line.

Everyone is assuming he was threatened but there is no proof he was.

Everything up until this point is speculation based in his apology and the CNN statement added with him deleting eberything he has posted.

I'm too busy now to keep replying to this thread

hinault

Boycott CNN.

And more importantly boycott those commercial entities who advertise with CNN

ScumLord

ricero wrote: »

Classic liberal tactic of bring a completly different topic into play to deflect from cnn's misgivings

There's no reason to reduce people down to stereotypes.

I'm liberal and anti-Trump. I'm also against mainstream media and have been for a long time, long before Trump jumped on the bandwagon and hijacked a general distrust of news for profit companies and turned them into comic book bad guys looking for world domination.

This goes beyond left/right hatred, it has little to do with Trump, it's about a news organisation abusing its power to silence someone over something trivial.

MRnotlob606

seamus wrote: »

Funny how racists always start crying when people might find out they're racists. It's almost like it's not OK.

Anyway, this is very far from doxxing. He's not being extorted or blackmailed or threatened. If anything they're protecting him by giving him the opportunity to go quietly into the night. Breitbart or the Daily Mail would just publish.

They also didn't say that they would release his information if he did anything else. The provided a rider for legal purposes which maintains their right to publish this information in the future.

What about free speech? If a redditor wants to satirize a news outlet, then why can't he do it uninhibited?

Richard Hillman

ScumLord wrote: »

I think you're reading too much into it. CNN are a for profit corporation. They don't care about controlling people they care about making a profit out of advertisers. We see all media outlets playing a holier than thou approach to news where they're the good media and everyone else is the bad media.

All news media whether it be CNN or breitbart are the same, they just come at it from different angles.

I am talking about the presenters, editors and contributors to their shows.

hatrickpatrick

lifeandtimes wrote: »

Everyone is assuming he was threatened but there is no proof he was.

Everything up until this point is speculation based in his apology and the CNN statement added with him deleting eberything he has posted.

I'm too busy now to keep replying to this thread

The very statement "we reserve the right to publish if he doesn't change his behaviour" is in and of itself a threat, regardless of any context in which such an agreement was made.

I'm out to walk the dog so I too will be absent for the next while, I expect a ridiculous amount of water under the bridge upon my return as is inevitable with these threads

20Cent

Guy made the now most well known gif ever. He is news now dunno what the the fuss about reporting who he or she is. Thats what news organisations are supposed to do.

hatrickpatrick

20Cent wrote: »

Guy made the now most well known gif ever. He is news now dunno what the the fuss about reporting who he or she is. Thats what news organisations are supposed to do.

Agreed. How do you feel about the media cutting deals to suppress stories in exchange for actions on the part of the story's subjects?

ScumLord

20Cent wrote: »

Guy made the now most well known gif ever. He is news now dunno what the the fuss about reporting who he or she is. Thats what news organisations are supposed to do.

He's news because they made him news. If CNN ignored him he would have slipped into obscurity again. I've never once thought about who's behind memes, I spend all of 2 seconds looking at the ones I like and less on the ones I don't like.

The fuss is that he'll be crucified if he's real name gets out, he'll have the internet moral brigade after him and they won't be happy until he's destitute on the street because it's all a pantomime to them too.

20Cent

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Agreed. How do you feel about the media cutting deals to suppress stories in exchange for actions on the part of the story's subjects?

by supress stories do you mean asking him not to make anymore gifs attacking them? A gif is hardly a story.