We’ll no longer comment on hearsay, unsubstantiated claims, or baseless accusations from The Verge. We’ll be in touch as corrections are needed.
Setting aside the ridiculousness of this position, the statement also doesn’t make sense at face value, right? I think I understand what they’re trying to say, but aren’t those two sentences in conflict? Isn’t getting “in touch as corrections are needed” literally making “comment on hearsay, unsubstantiated claims, or baseless accusations”?
It’s just a gotcha to them. If I read an article from The Verge and Reddit hasn’t commented on it, I’m not even going to remember that quote, let alone make that connection that the article must be unsubstantiated hearsay.
Even if they do, every article about Twitter comes with:
Twitter responded to inquiries with the poop emoji, as they do every time.
This is worse, because reddit is saying if anything was wrong, they would have responded. So it looks like reddit just agrees with anything that doesn’t get a response.
Logically, yes, but in the context of journalism, it’s actually doing a company a favor to give them a chance to comment before the article is published. If a company wants to say “no comment,” or be rude, that’s a choice they can make, but a poop emoji is refusing to comment and being rude.
Imagine you’re writing an article about Twitter’s policies, and you know all your sources are angry, so you think you should try to get Twitter’s side. Maybe your sources are distorting the facts. So you send a polite email to Twitter, because you are a professional, and regardless of your own feelings, you want to present the facts. Twitter auto-replies with a poop emoji. No matter how you look at it, that’s inappropriate.
And at this point, I don’t think anyone is asking Twitter about the facts, politely or otherwise, lol. I’m not sure if a publication would even print a correction from Twitter, if they bothered to submit one. If you tell the press to screw off and not ask you for facts, you will find it very difficult to get them to publish anything you say ever again, even if you want them to. Reddit isn’t there yet, but that’s the kind of fire they’re playing with.
Right, but essentially that reads that everything is true and they couldn’t find anything wrong. Since they didn’t contact the Verge. It’s confusing because at least to me this is them rolling over and giving up.
What I took from that is that I can assume everything that The Verge is saying about Reddit is true unless Reddit says otherwise. And they haven’t.
To be honest, though, given that Reddit has been caught lying on multiple occasions recently, I wouldn’t be inclined to believe their “corrections”, anyway.
I also don’t understand how not commenting is supposed to discredit Verge. And what does the Verge guy mean when he says “so we’ll just print this statement every time”? How is that going to help them?
Not commenting = not providing The Verge with any information, so The Verge doesn’t have anything that comes directly from reddit that could reflect negatively on them.
Reddit only reaching out when a correction is needed is done in bad faith. The hope is that, by saying “you got this wrong, which is not surprising because none of the information you’re getting is coming directly from reddit,” the reader comes to the conclusion that The Verge isn’t reliable and nothing they publish about this topic should be trusted.
By printing that statement, The Verge is undercutting reddit’s attempt to discredit them. It basically tells the reader: “If we got something wrong it’s because reddit has decided that it’s more important to hope we make a mistake (that they will try to make into a big deal), rather than communicate clearly to make sure the true story gets published accurately.” In other words, reddit hopes The Verge screws up, so they can spin things and convince people to believe reddit instead of believing The Verge. The Verge is saying "we see the game you’re playing and we’re not gonna play it. And we’re telling everyone that you’re trying to play this stupid game.
Setting aside the ridiculousness of this position, the statement also doesn’t make sense at face value, right? I think I understand what they’re trying to say, but aren’t those two sentences in conflict? Isn’t getting “in touch as corrections are needed” literally making “comment on hearsay, unsubstantiated claims, or baseless accusations”?
This is their “gotcha” move - if they don’t comment, it’s unsubstantiated hearsay. If they do comment it’s because it’s wrong.
It’s just a gotcha to them. If I read an article from The Verge and Reddit hasn’t commented on it, I’m not even going to remember that quote, let alone make that connection that the article must be unsubstantiated hearsay.
It must make them feel better saying it though.
Even if they do, every article about Twitter comes with:
This is worse, because reddit is saying if anything was wrong, they would have responded. So it looks like reddit just agrees with anything that doesn’t get a response.
Logically, yes, but in the context of journalism, it’s actually doing a company a favor to give them a chance to comment before the article is published. If a company wants to say “no comment,” or be rude, that’s a choice they can make, but a poop emoji is refusing to comment and being rude.
Imagine you’re writing an article about Twitter’s policies, and you know all your sources are angry, so you think you should try to get Twitter’s side. Maybe your sources are distorting the facts. So you send a polite email to Twitter, because you are a professional, and regardless of your own feelings, you want to present the facts. Twitter auto-replies with a poop emoji. No matter how you look at it, that’s inappropriate.
And at this point, I don’t think anyone is asking Twitter about the facts, politely or otherwise, lol. I’m not sure if a publication would even print a correction from Twitter, if they bothered to submit one. If you tell the press to screw off and not ask you for facts, you will find it very difficult to get them to publish anything you say ever again, even if you want them to. Reddit isn’t there yet, but that’s the kind of fire they’re playing with.
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Yes. It’s a horrible way to deal with the media and falls apart with even a little bit of scrutiny, but I never said it was a good strategy.
“We will not tolerate any lies being told about us. If we hear any, we’ll let you know.”
Right, but essentially that reads that everything is true and they couldn’t find anything wrong. Since they didn’t contact the Verge. It’s confusing because at least to me this is them rolling over and giving up.
I think it’s spez’s attempt to make a “cool” statement, like Hans Niemann’s “chess speaks for itself”
What I took from that is that I can assume everything that The Verge is saying about Reddit is true unless Reddit says otherwise. And they haven’t.
To be honest, though, given that Reddit has been caught lying on multiple occasions recently, I wouldn’t be inclined to believe their “corrections”, anyway.
I also don’t understand how not commenting is supposed to discredit Verge. And what does the Verge guy mean when he says “so we’ll just print this statement every time”? How is that going to help them?
Not commenting = not providing The Verge with any information, so The Verge doesn’t have anything that comes directly from reddit that could reflect negatively on them.
Reddit only reaching out when a correction is needed is done in bad faith. The hope is that, by saying “you got this wrong, which is not surprising because none of the information you’re getting is coming directly from reddit,” the reader comes to the conclusion that The Verge isn’t reliable and nothing they publish about this topic should be trusted.
By printing that statement, The Verge is undercutting reddit’s attempt to discredit them. It basically tells the reader: “If we got something wrong it’s because reddit has decided that it’s more important to hope we make a mistake (that they will try to make into a big deal), rather than communicate clearly to make sure the true story gets published accurately.” In other words, reddit hopes The Verge screws up, so they can spin things and convince people to believe reddit instead of believing The Verge. The Verge is saying "we see the game you’re playing and we’re not gonna play it. And we’re telling everyone that you’re trying to play this stupid game.
Thanks for the great explanation!
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