Android user locked out of Google after moving cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/5dif8j/psa_google_can_lock_your_account_forcing_you_to/?st=ivrx9yoo&sh=5afe2044 <comment><USER2> Its very disturbing for me as a google user and an android phone bearer seeing many of those posts coming up.

So in all fairness if I ever get my account locked for whatever reason, I need to make noise on reddit and yc news to get it resolved?

That really makes me feel uncertain about the google apps I use day to day.

They need to change something soon on their policies or they'll start losing customers.

P.S there was a post here the other day about someone that got his account closed due to a breach of service etc. I don't mind that obviously google can close your account if it feels you are violating their terms, what shouldn't be able to do is to lock access to your data or the option to extract your data off their servers.

<comment><USER3> > So in all fairness if I ever get my account locked for whatever reason, I > need to make noise on reddit and yc news to get it resolved?

That is beginning to be increasingly required for everything. We had an issue with our land line when it would rain. Called the phone company, was 'fixed' every time, until it rained again. This went on for 12 months or so. Suggested to my wife she complain on their Facebook page. They called us, there was a truck out the next day, found the issue and actually fixed it. Never would have happened without the public complaint.

<comment><USER4> The problem with this kind of thing is this...

If its going out when it rains, its likely wiring on your house, not plant. Its probably past the point of demarkation (where you become liable for the line) ... 99% of the time this is the case (ex phone field tech)

You just raised enough attention to make it worthwhile to soak up the cost of replacing YOUR line for you...

Congratulations, you may have joined the ranks of entitled people who use public pressure to whine their way into getting what they want...

<comment><USER3> > If its going out when it rains, its likely wiring on your house, not plant

Ya, it wasn't and they knew it wasn't, they had already admitted that point. The phone company can actually tell when there is an issue on their end you know.

The issue was some of there equipment was missing a lid. So when it rained, it filled up faster than it drained and shorted the circuit. The solution was put the lid on that should be there.

But please, don't let facts (that you didn't know) get in the way of you continuing to rant as a previous field tech get in the way of telling people to suck things up because for some reason you still don't feel like doing that job.

Oh and I am fully aware of the difference in responsibility at the NID.

<comment><USER5> Phone company techs are extremely defensive. (This is often the case with cable company techs, too). Source: I used to regular DSLReports. Holy crap. XD

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have full sympathy for the person. Recently there was a news on HN about Google cloud being cheaper by 50% [1].

We must be very much worried about Google's record of ill treatment of its users, both paid/free. You cannot and should not rely on Google for anything critical to your business unless you are close friends with someone working at Google and that too at a higher up position to be able to get out of such bad situation relatively easily. I had commented there something that I will not repeat here. [2]

I hope (I may be a fool to hope so still) this type of frequent bad-light may make Google amend its ways.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12993021)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12994769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12994769)

<comment><USER7> What I can't understand is, whether the frequency of this happening is increasing or the news of it finding wide coverage.

> You cannot and should not rely on Google for anything critical to your > business unless you are close friends with someone working at Google

I personally think that you shouldn't "rely" on any third party for the critical things. The critical things are your competitive advantage and you should be in control of them, right?

<comment><USER8> Critical things aren't necessarily your core competencies, nor your market advantages.

<comment><USER9> More like having electricity in your main office. You don't necessarily need to own your own power source and battery bank if the reliability of the public grid is good enough for your business.

But if the public grid is only 98% reliable, and you need power 99.9% of the year, you do need a hot backup system.

Google isn't providing the service that is down for many customers x% of the time, but a service that can fail catastrophically and permanently for x% of customers.

As long as anyone can say that a Google robot permanently cut them off from a service that is important to them, without any meaningful recourse, you simply cannot trust Alphabet with critical pieces of your business, even to the extent that you can trust your local power utility to keep the lights on in your office. There are plenty of businesses that can operate without a backup generator. But _nobody_ can trust Google, PayPal, Amazon, Stripe, L4, Square, et al to be their sole service provider for some function critical to the business.

Those businesses are trying to be Internet utilities, but are neither as trustworthy as nor as reliable as a regular utility. Would you be comfortable buying gas from the gas company if every so often they intentionally burn a customer's house down, then tell any aggrieved survivors to suck it up and get lost?

<comment><USER10> > Those businesses are trying to be Internet utilities,

I think those businesses are fighting tooth and nail to _not_ be (seen as) utilities, because they don't want the oversight and regulation of a utility.

<comment><USER9> They are trying to be _de facto_ utilities without being _de jure_ utilities.

All the money and control, none of the responsibilities or regulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I am currently locked out of all paid Google services because I committed the crime of changing countries while holding an active Google Developer Account/Wallet. I've talked to them over the phone, and they were entirely unhelpful.

In contrast, Amazon's phone service is great. Get yourselves sorted google.

<comment><USER12> I had a similar problem. There's literally NO solution other than opening up a new account.

It was a wake up call. I've since moved most of my digital life onto other services.

<comment> angry-hacker Please tell me how to avoid this case. (according to Google)

<comment><USER10> One solution is to try not to need those services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well, something similar happened to me as well. I moved (just a few kilometres, too). In fact, it happens in about half of the cases when I'm logging in in some new location.

I want to log in (to Youtube or whatever) from the machine and the browser I always use, just from a different IP. Then I get asked for a phone number (any phone number) to verify that it's me[1], which in itself is a nonsense. That "another way to sign in" includes asking me for a date when that account was created (what???) and sending a code to email, which sometimes works, sometimes it does not.

I mean, when I was moving, I fully expected to never be able to get my account. What an utterly rubbish service. And people actually put significant amount of money to it?

[1] [https://puu.sh/rrKyG/678746a09e.png](https://puu.sh/rrKyG/678746a09e.png)

Edit: And how do you "call a rep" anyway? I haven't seen anything even remotely resembling live support, i.e. one that isn't community-based or self- service.

<comment><USER14> Hi Aoyagi,

I work at Google, and I would like to take a look at what happens to your account during login. The situation that you are describing sounds surprising to me.

If yes, then could you provide a contact point so I may contact you with my corporate credentials (corporate e-mail) to verify myself?

<comment><USER15> What everyone here is asking: Why does it take someone posting on HN to get a response? Why can't you just have a basic customer service system set up?

<comment><USER16> Not cost effective, obviously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."

\- Lily Tomlin [1], before a robot came along that could do the same job cheaper

[1] [https://youtu.be/CHgUN_95UAw](https://youtu.be/CHgUN_95UAw)

<comment><USER18> Also true for all of the other natural monopolies in your area, 'cable' included.

<comment><USER17> Tell me about it. But at least I can get Comcast to fix themselves without having to complain to the whole Internet successfully.

<comment><USER19> > But at least I can get Comcast to fix themselves without having to complain > to the whole Internet successfully.

Maybe you can, but lots of people can't:

[http://www.google.com/search?q=Comcast%20service%20stories](http://www.google.com/search?q=Comcast%20service%20stories)

(At least you can easily get a representative to say personally that they won't be helping you!)

<comment><USER17> Maybe it helps that I have customer service experience myself? All I can say is that I've never had trouble with them. But I suspect that'll change as soon as anything happens that can't be solved by Tier 1 or a truck roll.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think that the root of the problem is that most of Google's core services developer are Americans, with American cultural peculiarities.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that for an average American, moving to another country is something that less than 1% of population does, and it is like once a lifetime event.

Here in Europe, on the contrary, it is relatively common to stumble upon a German guy living in France, or a Brit living in Germany, or any combination whatsoever, and many are changing their place of living more than once, especially in the academic environment (I have 5 residence cards of different European countries).

The same goes with the localization approach. Google or Apple always want to give me services in the language of the country I currently live in, instead of remembering my priority language (English, even if I am not a native speaker), and sticking with it, even if I am now in Spain or Italy.

Changing countries is really common in Europe. Probably we need more European companies in the Internet space to adapt to our way of living.

<comment><USER21> I'm not sure I'd call it an "American cultural peculiarity". I imagine it's much the same in other physically large countries. It's also a consequence of immigration/residence policy. Even before the EU, I'm sure it was quite a bit easier to get residence in another European country as a European, vs as an American or Mexican or South African.

<comment><USER20> Well, I am Russian now living in Switzerland (and occasionally Spain) who used to live in Denmark and Italy before.

Casual, matter-of-fact immigration is a fact of life these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> angry-hacker Well, fortunately this man got help, but this is the customer service of automate everything -- win the lottery of creating enough buzz for the media/Reddit to pick it up, or you're fucked. Suddenly, having your call forwarded for help to Asian calling-center doesn't sound such a bad idea...

<comment><USER22> That would be a mistake. Companies have replaced humans that can actually solve your problem with humans that just placate you and occasionally sell you on something else.

I had a problem with T-Mobile, where I tried to convert my month-at-a-time plan to a family plan, and T-Mobile completely disabled my phone, irrevocably broke my SIM to the point where I had to buy a new one (paying the setup fees).

I spent HOURS on the phone (someone else's phone - mine wouldn't work) with various reps in various departments before I finally just ejected and changed to another phone company.

They even filled their subreddit with paid shills who will just shout down anyone who comes there with a problem.

Honestly, Google isn't doing that bad in comparison.

<comment> angry-hacker Honestly, considering human nature, it's better to have someone to yell at (sorry, reps) and ask for the boss than sending e-mails to a black hole (Google).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yeah, have had similar problems, dealing with Google support is a nightmare.

I can't use Google Ads at all anymore. I once had an account for a business in NY, and I was listed as the point of contact for it. Lost access to that account when I moved (locked out due to changing location, Google refused to offer any means to recover it), and now I can't sign up for Google Ads with my name on any account. It simply informs me that I'm already using the service on another account, and that I should use that for Ads.

<comment><USER24> And I suppose without an account you can't contact the support for Google Ads to see if maybe they can fix it? (Since people always argue that Google support is only shit for the free products)

<comment><USER23> Correct. Since I can't get through account creation at all I'm mostly stuck. I've tried social media, but without much luck there as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> And that's why I moved most of my website registrations to a firstname.lastname@example.com address and host the server myself on a $4/mo VPS. Still, my domain name is tied to my gmail address. Now I'm paranoid I'll lose access to my gmail, and my domain name quickly after. (remember the @N guy?)

Unless I manage to learn some social engineering skills or hire myself a marketing team I doubt I'd be able to get my stuff back. I'm no social butterfly, I'm not pretty and I've got some serious Eastern European accent.

So I'm considering maintaining two mail servers with different companies and different registrars, both pointing at each other. Such that in case I lose one, I can recover with the second.

Am I crazy?

<comment><USER26> What I'm planning to do is move the services I have registered with my Gmail account to a Fastmail account, and migrate my Gmail archive to that service. They handle contacts and calendars too, and their basic service is $3/month. That's cheaper and easier than running one's own mail server.

I've been test driving their service for a few days and so far it feels much more intuitive and faster than Gmail. It also works properly on every browser I've thrown at it, and their Android app is nice. I'm going to spend the next few days pruning my Gmail archive before transferring it so I don't have to buy the 25GB plan from Fastmail, then I'll tell all the services that use the Gmail address to use the Fastmail address instead. That second task will be the most time consuming and frustrating one, but it's worth the effort to break the chains of the big G.

(Edit: Corrected the price for Fastmail's basic service)

<comment><USER27> Good luck. I did the same and now I have all sorts of issues when employers send Calendar invites to my (ex-Google, now Fastmail) email address. I cannot accept them due to weird errors, etc. Not the best look if you're ostensibly an Operations guy. :)

<comment><USER28> We're not aware of any general issues like that. Please open a support ticket with the full details and we'll happily investigate: [https://www.fastmail.com/action/support/](https://www.fastmail.com/action/support/)

<comment><USER27> I'm absolutely certain it's not you, but some lingering record in Google that thinks there's some mismatch when I go to accept.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you're tired of having your data taken hostage and want to host your own stuff, you can set it up easily with sovereign ([https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign/](https://github.com/sovereign/sovereign/))

</comment><comment><USER30> If they had a way for people to talk to them and fix these situations, those affected wouldn't have to garner a bunch of attention in order to get it fixed. Just a crazy dream I guess.

<comment><USER31> I think it's all about staffing levels. This [1] maths isn't something I've checked, but it does make sense, alas, you'd need 20,000 staff to deal with 1 query every 3 years from 0.1% of a billion users.

[1] [https://www.seroundtable.com/google-support-staff- limits-139...](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-support-staff- limits-13916.html)

<comment><USER32> I did a little back of the napkin math and came up with something similar. However, 20k staff would cost Google between $1b and $2b per year, which they absolutely have. They've been consistently posting quarterly earnings of around 5b, 20b per annum.

They just don't want to pay for it, and the users don't care enough to force them to.

In addition, I think google could probably solve the problem with paid support. That would limit volume and pay for itself. Then people who are having a serious problem (like being locked out of their Reb account) could have some recourse. Unless they already do this and I'm not aware?

<comment><USER33> One option is to use premium rate phone lines, That way, people pay for support via their phone bills. It's far from perfect but it might be better than nothing...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Creating noise on HN, reddit is a sure way of getting their attention, but there has to be a better way to deal with issues when everything is automated. Does Google have a single point of contact for such issues?

<comment><USER35> They are a rough company do deal with. I think they do a lot of internal chargeback that people give a shit about so even when you find a sympathetic ear, the person on the other side gives no shits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's always a challenge when I travel for pleasure to other European countries (I'm from SE-Europe) and when Google tells me I cannot log-in into my email account when using my phone. Luckily most of the times I also carry a laptop, which surprisingly enough does not have the same limitations, but it still sucks.

</comment><comment><USER37> Key points:

Asks to provide scanned id and cc info to restore account access. But google fails to reinstate account.

This user was actually able to get hold of google customer reps who told him only way is to start afresh, talks to supervisor and supervisor "assures" that everyone there in his department absolutely cannot help and that my only hope is to reply to the emails and try to appeal to them.

All purchases made with old account will not be moved into new account if user opens new google account, which by the way requires a new credit card too as old cc info is associated with blocked google account!

What!! Does google even read their own stupid resolution process??

He was able to contact google customer care but they couldn't fix it until the user got some love on reddit and twitter.

I have nothing to say, really

</comment><comment><USER38> So all it takes to get stuff like that resolved is to get on the HN _and_ the /r/android front pages.

</comment><comment><USER39> You, as a user, are geolocked, it's not only Google, it's everyone.

The only excuse they have to do that is the different countries legislation, but besides that, like any geolocking, it's just not fit for "I can access my stuff, my services, from anywhere in the world because ... internet!", nope ... you can't.

I had the problem with Google, google dev license with a wallet, moving to another country ? well then create another google account, no other choices, period.

Can't we have the option to be a google dev in 2 different countries ? no you can't.

Same for Google Ads, even more so if you connect ads to a bank account to get paid.

Same with Apple, same with Facebook, same with Paypal, same with Microsoft Xbox, etc.

Some tricks can work: using a Google Apps for your domain email when you move to another country, alter slightly your name or use your middle name to create another account for the same service but from another country (and a different bank account), alter your gmail with old google trick +something eg. email@example.com and firstname.lastname@example.com etc.

If you move often it get old pretty quick.

</comment><comment><USER40> I've been caught out by this before. This could be resolved by allowing city/country/IP range level whitelisting of login locations ahead of travel, or by providing a list of temporary download tokens for later authentication from unusual locations.

And no, I'm not giving you my number.

<comment><USER41> Or, even better, they can have proper customer service since the problem was eventually sorted out which suggests it could have been sorted out with the very first phone call. It's not like resolving a billing problem caused by moving hasn't been done hundreds-of-thousands of times before. Maybe Google should ask the assistant manager of a bank how it's done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think Google should offer paid consumer support for their free services for instances like this. I wouldn't mind paying $40-50 if I get locked out of my gmail for 2 days.

I use my gmail for many important services as my main email. Looks like time has come to change that.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is an example of Artificial Stupidity; what we get when the pipe dream of AI fails.

</comment><comment><USER44> And I thought Privacy was the main reason to avoid Google when possible...

</comment><comment><USER45> Just FYI: I know the pain it has caused the user.

Eventually his account was unlocked

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/5dif8j/psa_google_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/5dif8j/psa_google_can_lock_your_account_forcing_you_to/da59egv/?context=3)

Quote from above link

""To protect our customers from fraud and abuse, we routinely monitor account behavior on Google Play and take action on potentially suspicious activity. Unfortunately, in your case, your account was wrongly flagged and suspended. I have just reopened your account..." "We strive to provide excellent care to all our customers but we have obviously failed you in this instance. I sincerely apologize for the stress and inconvenience this has caused you. You can reply to this email if you have any questions and concerns. "

<comment><USER46> Who is "I" in the "I have just reopened your account"? Because apparently whoever that person is ended up being the "right" person to contact.

Figuring out where he/she works (what department) would be helpful in determining how to navigate this issue for future users.

<comment><USER18> Exceptions are costly in any circumstances, and will be abused by attackers wherever possible.

I don't know of any company or even government that has a solution for this issue that isn't too costly in at least one of: false positives, false negatives, monetary cost, time cost, or some set of the previous failures during the 'error handler'.

Ultimately, the root cause of this failure is the lack of a strong 'digital', opt-in, national/global identification system. Along with your government issued plastic would be a government signature on your digital signing keys. That would make "identity theft" far less possible and would vastly reduce the false positive/negatives for cases like this where you are establishing that you are who you say you are for banking/related activity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I wonder if this account holder had a couple of medium sized Android apps on Google play. Would he lose the apps and all the work behind them? Makes it scary to develop small and medium size Android apps.

<comment><USER48> Actually the Play Store Developer account is often the _source_ of people's Google accounts getting suspended. As a point of note, you should always publish apps on a completely separate account from the Google account you use, and keep all details like address, phone, and payment accounts separate, as to avoid either one being affected by the other.

With both the Play Store and the Apple App Store, since only one company decides whether or not your app is listed, developing a mobile app can be a pretty risky investment, since one company can make all your work worthless in short order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The sad part is, he doesn't seem to be the only one. There are other people having the same problem.

</comment><comment><USER48> Google's behavior will continue until enough people leave to seriously impact their bottom line.

</comment><comment><USER50> Google has horrible customer support. That is well known fact for almost a decade.

I workaround most of those issues by using VPN. Google always thinks I am sitting in datacenter in Germany.

<comment><USER29> Just wait until they lock your account because the location of the IP and the GPS disagree...</comment></comment>


The Generalist – On Alexander Grothendieck - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebigquestions.com/2014/11/17/the-generalist/ <comment><USER2> I've been devoting myself for a while now to an approach to thinking that seems along the lines of Grothendieck's project (as described in the blog), where difficulty should only come in defining the framework to work within, while work within the framework is easy.

In defining a framework, fundamentally you are coming up with a set of types and describing how things of these types are able to interact with one another; if it's a framework that's easy to work with, the number of types, relations, and operations is small (relative to other formulations). If this framework is concise, but the universe of things described by it is large, then the types must be very general. Therefore, using an approach of finding an elegant framework, rather than mastering the complexity of an inelegant framework, relies heavily on one's ability to generalize.

My issue with spending a lot of time thinking this way is that it gives me a sort of uneasy feeling... What are these super abstract generalizations? From what I can tell, this mostly comes from wondering whether with all this 'zooming out' we are getting closer to truths about the universe, or our own minds—and the latter possibility feels a little suffocating.

Anyone know any books, essays, whatever taking up that issue?

<comment><USER3> I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to construct the universe in as general a way as possible. Every now and then I feel like I 'level up' and the picture becomes clearer. Then usually about the same time I learn something new from mathematics that shows me I am following a path already travelled. Or in this case following a path closely related to a path well travelled. I think the truths about our own minds are intimately connected with truths about the universe. I suspect the mystery of consciousness is very similar to the mystery of the universe. Understand one and you understand the other. For me the ultimate mystery is explaining why there is pattern rather than no pattern. Why is there self similarity, why is the universe compressible? Why is it that within everything there is a place where this exists and why does 'this' have the structure it does. Can we invoke the anthropic principle,or is there something like population dynamics within totality. I am currently following an interesting line, starting from the thought experiment - If you recorded every moment of the universe on a physical representation, a hard drive for instance with perfect fidelity. Would there be any difference between the representation and the universe itself? I don't think there would. This is leading me to try to recast what I know of mathematics without the notion of process, to visualise it all it terms of structure only. And to to truly grok that our notion of computing is a method for finding a piece of the internal structure of a larger structure. Within a structure constructed from self similar elements. Just ramblings, sure it's non sense, or perhaps trivially obvious, but am trying to connect with someone :)

<comment><USER2> Your project makes a lot of sense to me—same kind of questions I've been wondering on: why patterns, why self-similarity, etc. I'm westoncb[at google's mail service] if you want to discuss sometime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lovely writing. This is better than most of what popular science writers have produced on the subject.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone who understands sheaves clarify the whole "point is a place where all functions are constant" analogy?

<comment><USER6> You actually don't need all the machinery behind sheaves to understand this! The general concept is that of a terminal object in a category. In the category of sets, the terminal objects are the singletons: given a set S, there is only one function f:S -> {a}... send everything in S to a! In the category of topological spaces, the terminal objects are the single-point spaces.

<comment><USER5> That was my first thought as well, but the author directly linked this notion to sheaves and also was talking about mapping _from_ points.

<comment><USER7> I guess this is because the structure sheaf of the spectrum of a field is a constant sheaf.

<comment><USER8> Yes, this is exactly what I intended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "What else falls when you drop it?" A duck!

<comment><USER10> Exactly! So logically if Grothendieck also fell when dropped he was a witch!

<comment><USER11> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing)</comment></comment></comment>


BankSimple Announces API Plans - <AUTHOR> https://www.banksimple.net/api/ <comment><USER2> What I'd like to see is the ability to give a read-only login to third parties like Mint.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand how BankSimple is going to work. Is it going to actually store people's physical money somewhere, or is it just a layer on top of existing banks?

<comment><USER4> I'd like clarification on that as well.

From reading their posts it sounds like they are doing a abstraction layer on top of existing banks so they can avoid the paperwork of becoming a actual bank.

That makes me wonder how well their no fee scheme will work in practice.

<comment><USER5> Right. We'll handle everything except treasuries and compliance.

What makes you wonder about our "no fee scheme"?

<comment><USER6> I think he worries that since the banks "under" banksimple are already taking a good cut of the "interest gap" between the rate you can lend it out at and the rate you pay customers, there won't be enough left for you to cover your costs.

P.S. get a real username?

<comment><USER4> Precisely. Also concerned that the underlying banks could be jerks and change terms etc to make their model not work or cause problems.

I'm not against trying it, just concerned about how well it will play out.

I haven't been looking forward to switching banks before. So far every time I have switched banks it has been to get a local branch to deposit checks. I'm really hoping BankSimple is the last bank I'll ever need but I'll need to see how it works in practice.

<comment><USER5> Ah, O.K. Fair question. Unfortunately, I couldn't provide you with a satisfactory answer until we announce our partners. I expect we'll be doing so sooner than later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If their product is half as good as their stated plans I'll switch as soon as it is available. API + Check cashing via cell phone is pretty cool.

<comment><USER7> _...Check cashing via cell phone is pretty cool._

FWIW, I can do this with Chase and an iPhone app that they offer. No API, but, I don't _need_ one. Mint works fine with Yodlee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> And as usual, i presume this is only going to be available in the U.S.

Seems great financial products either make their way to the UK very slowly, or dont come at all.

Mint still doesnt support UK Banks, so i'm using lovemoney but its reporting is not as good as what Mint has on offer.

BankSimple looks really good, and if it was in the UK, i'd certainly be interested in signing up.

<comment><USER9> Banking is a highly regulated industry and so products usually stop at national borders. Even banks that operate in multiple countries (RBS/Citizens, Santander/Sovereign, HSBC, etc.) basically operate as separate companies in each country.

It's expensive and time consuming to comply with so much regulation. If BankSimple does well, I'm sure they'd be happy to expand internationally, but at this point it's questionable whether the public will gravitate to BankSimple. If they tried to launch in multiple countries from day 1, they'd be spreading resources very thin dealing with all the different laws. This way, they can launch, be successful, and expand.

In some ways it's like physical businesses. You wouldn't expect a new fast- food chain to launch with 50,000 stores worldwide, would you? Unlike the web which is decently universal, they need to wait a little to catch on and grow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Go check out the discussion on their Google Group. It is already filling with insightful discussion.

<http://groups.google.com/group/banksimple-api>

</comment><comment><USER11> permitting third party developers to interact with bank accounts in even a strictly limited way seems like an absolute gift for phishing schemes...</comment>


Facebook Forces NYT to Quietly Delete Unflattering Reference to Sheryl Sandberg - <AUTHOR> https://lawandcrime.com/exclusive/facebook-forces-nyt-to-quietly-delete-unflattering-reference-to-sheryl-sandberg-in-story-about-russian-trolls/ <comment><USER2> FWIW, a NYT article undergoes many changes from the time it was originally posted to whatever its final state (usually, the next day, after the print edition). The story in question was just a few paragraphs when it was first posted, and then more details were added. You can use newsdiffs.org to see the various changes:

[http://newsdiffs.org/article- history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co...](http://newsdiffs.org/article- history/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex- stamos.html)

Here is the specific diff where the Sandberg reference was changed:

[http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytim...](http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook- alex-stamos.html)

That said, if the explicit conflict between Stamos and Sandberg was a prominent detail, then many folks would argue that the NYT should have a clarification or editor's note explaining the change. However, it's worth noting that the reference to the conflict between Sandberg and Stamos is _not_ omitted from the final edition.

Original:

> _Mr. Stamos had been a strong advocate inside the company for investigating > and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook, often to the consternation of > other top executives, including Sheryl Sandberg, the social network's chief > operating officer, according to the current and former employees, who asked > not to be identified discussing internal matters._

Final:

> _Mr. Stamos joined Facebook from Yahoo in June 2015. He and other Facebook > executives, such as Ms. Sandberg, disagreed early on over how proactive the > social network should be in policing its own platform, said the people > briefed on the matter. In his statement, Mr. Stamos said his relationship > with Ms. Sandberg was "productive."_

The latter reference seems to be just as damning to Sandberg when it comes to her complacency in policing the FB platform, though it doesn't say that her disagreement with Stamos was specifically about the Russia question.

You could still argue that this merits a clarification, i.e. _A previous version of this story stated that Ms. Sandberg disagreed with Mr. Stamos in his advocacy for "investigating and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook". However, Mr. Stamos said that he and Sandberg disagreed in general with how proactive Facebook should be in policing its own platform, but the two never specifically debated the issue with respect to revelations of Russian interference_.

<comment><USER3> Original: "investigating and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook".

Final: "policing its own platform"

Note that the reference to disagreement about _disclosing_ the information was removed. This seems like a significant change.

<comment><USER2> Keep reading:

> _Mr. Stamos would be the first high-ranking employee to leave Facebook since > controversy over disinformation on its site. Company leaders — including > Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, and_ Sheryl Sandberg, the chief > operating officer — have struggled to address a growing set of problems, > including Russian interference on the platform _, the rise of false news and > the disclosure over the weekend that 50 million of its user profiles had > been harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company._

Sandberg's name, and the inability to address growing problems "including Russian interference", are _all in the same sentence_. If Sandberg called in a favor for this, it was a pretty weak-ass favor. I don't think it matches the OP's assessment that Sandberg re: Russia was "wiped clean off the ether".

In fact, it seems the OP itself requires a correction, because it made the same mistake you did:

> _Now, Sandberg's name and the story's only reference to her alleged role in > frustrating Stamos' attempts to highlight and root out Russian troll > influence on the platform are gone because someone at the New York Times > replaced the entire sentence._

Again, people can argue that maybe Sandberg asked NYT to move the reference to later in the story. But I mean, there's still the issue of why Sandberg would not pressure NYT to hold off on this story which is extremely damaging to FB as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's also interesting that there is barely a mention of all this in my news feed on Facebook and there have been no links to it as a trending story.

<comment><USER5> It is a trending story for me on Facebook.

Interestingly the lead article is, "Here's how to see which apps have access to your Facebook - and cut them off".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Where's Zuckerberg in all of this? It's strange with all the controversies hitting and the stock crash that he hasn't made any sort of public statement (unless I missed it?).

<comment><USER7> He's been super busy dumping a whole lot of his Facebook Shares before the Sh*t hit the fan.[1][2]

Sources:

[1] Zuckerberg has sold more Facebook stock in the last 3 months than any insider at any other company => [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/zuckerbergs- facebook-stock-s...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/20/zuckerbergs-facebook- stock-selling-dwarfs-all-other-insiders.html)

[2] Zuckerberg saved tens of millions of dollars by selling Facebook stock ahead of Monday's decline: [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/zuckerberg- saved-tens-of-m...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/zuckerberg-saved-tens- of-millions-by-selling-facebook-stock-ahead-of-monday-decline-2018-03-19)

<comment><USER8> I'm super frustrated with Facebook, but this is conspiracy theory territory. Place the anger in the right direction.

Those trades were part of his 10b5-1, a scheduled trading plan set in place at a minimum 3 months ahead of time and typically extends out 12+ months. Trades in the plan are protected from insider trading accusations and considered an "affirmative defense" [1].

While you can trade shares outside your 10b5-1 plan, those trades aren't protected from insider trading accusations.

[1] [https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2016/03/24/a-guide-to- rule-1...](https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2016/03/24/a-guide-to- rule-10b5-1-plans/)

<comment><USER9> Both links contain facts not stories.

You came up with the idea that there would be a conspiracy. You are the conspiracy theorist.

<comment><USER5> It's a conspiracy theory to state or insuniate that Zuckerberg is committing a crime in order to save some money.

Especially given that the facts are that (a) selling stock involves a lot of people, (b) Zuckerberg has gone on record saying he will be selling stock, (c) he has plans for politics/philanthropy which will depend on an intact reputation and (d) he will be so rich i.e. multi-billionaire regardless that it seems strange to risk jail time for a few hundred million.

If you make claims. Then you need to back them up.

<comment><USER9> I didn't make claims nor did anyone else. There's only facts that he's been selling stock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there any evidence that this change was the result of external pressure from Facebook, rather than as the result of internal NYT editing?

Articles frequently change in content, titles, and so on after publication, after all - that's why HN has to update titles so frequently.

Edit: Whoops, missed it the first read-through. Looks like the change _was_ confirmed by the original reporter to be as the result of a request from the Facebook PR team.

<comment><USER11> Respectable sites usually include a list of corrections and changes made to an article after publication.

When it comes to submission titles, HN has a tendency to change them for no obvious reason even if the original title hasn't changed.

<comment><USER12> NYT stories routinely change, sometimes substantially, between online and print versions, without corrections.

There used to be a site that tracked this.

<comment><USER13> You may be thinking of [http://newsdiffs.org](http://newsdiffs.org)

Here's the page for the article in question: [http://newsdiffs.org/article- history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co...](http://newsdiffs.org/article- history/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex- stamos.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As someone who worked at the NYT for 8 years and saw the inner workings I want to say the main assesrtions of this article are FALSE. Seriously. WTF

<comment><USER15> Please be clearer. Which claims do you not think are true, and what reasons/evidence do you have behind your assertions?

Do you mean the assertion that NYT made these changes in response to being reached by Facebook's PR team? (This is difficult to prove but suggested by the facts we have.)

Do you mean the assertion that the NYT regularly changes headlines in response to criticism of those being covered? (This is alleged, but I have no proof of this.)

Do you mean the assertion that Facebook contacted the Times after the article was published? (I highly doubt that this is false, and it being true suggests that the first point was true.)

<comment><USER14> I was on the subway so I couldn't dig deep.

In short, the opening paragraph, which the article leans on struck a nerve.

      The New York Times offers powerful third parties the ability to
      edit away–that is, to delete from the internet–unfavorable coverage
      appearing in the paper of record's online edition.

It's false. The editorial process is pretty rigorous. No company has a magic "edit" button.

The article goes through rounds of edits post-publish. It's a established process and not done as-hoc.

<comment><USER16> Nobody at Facebook pushed a button, but the article was edited to remove an unflattering reference to Sheryl Sandberg after a phone call from Facebook PR.

Also, just because you work(ed) at a company it does not mean you are fully aware of everything that goes on there, so don't make blanket statements about what can or can't happen.

Employees are often some of the least informed about the inner workings of an organization, as they tend to dismiss uncomfortable findings out of hand and refuse to read about them.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. While I have generally held the NYT in high regard, the whitewashing of their coverage after being contacted by Facebook's PR team is immensely concerning.

<comment><USER2> The NYT reporters have denied that Facebook's PR had any influence, so why do you take OP at its word when there is no proof otherwise?

Furthermore, those same NYT reporters who apparently were cowed by Sandberg and Facebook PR published another article _that same day_ in which the focus is on the disgruntled CSO:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos- fa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook- security.html)

This was part of Facebook's PR push too?

<comment><USER15> That is an excellent point. The authors of the article you've provided are both authors on the edited article. It may be simply coincidence. In the absence of other information, I was concerned, albeit understanding `post hoc ergo propter hoc`. Taken with this, it seems that they perhaps wanted separate emphases for separate articles.

<comment><USER2> It wouldn't be coincidence because they were the reporters to have gotten this inside information from their sources. Their followup, which focuses on how Stamos got fucked over for his stance against Russian interference, is long enough that it would have had to been mostly written by the time FB is alleged to have put pressure on NYT to change the first story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This story doesn't appear to back up the headline. Unless I've missed something, it says that Facebook PR reached out to the NYT, and that the article was edited. That might mean Facebook "demanded" changes, or it might mean that they pointed out errors or additional facts that warranted the correction.

<comment><USER2> You are correct based on what's written. The author implies that Facebook PR reached out to NYT -- but doesn't claim what Facebook PR wanted or how the NYT reacted. This fact (the NYT agrees that FBPR contacted them) is juxtaposed with the observation that people are mad the NYT removed this graf from the original 300-word breaking news story:

> _Mr. Stamos had been a strong advocate inside the company for investigating > and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook, often to the consternation of > other top executives, including Sheryl Sandberg, the social network's chief > operating officer, according to the current and former employees..._

This is definitely an interesting graf, but I don't (and neither do the NYT reporters, ostensibly) think that it's the key part of the story, not even of the 300-word blurb. In any case, this blurb was updated (rather, replaced) by a 1,300 article at the end of the day:

[http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytim...](http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook- alex-stamos.html)

The critics of NYT think that the "consternation" line should not have been erased because it apparently is so directly damning of how Sandberg was resistant to deal with Russian interference. The NYT reporters have disagreed; they see the 1000+ words adding far more evidence of how Stamos tried to warn FB.

In any case, the article author is trying to associate 3 unrelated events together:

\- NYT made a major update/rewrite of its article about Facebook

\- People are mad that the most damning line against Sandberg (re: Russia) was watered down

\- Facebook PR contacted NYT after the first version of the story/blurb was published.

The OP has a hypothesis. But no evidence to support it. "Facebook Forces NYT" is not the right headline because the author never purports to prove or claim that Facebook forced NYT to do anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The NY Times twitter accounts are saying this is false:

[https://twitter.com/NYTimesPR/status/976499121799483394](https://twitter.com/NYTimesPR/status/976499121799483394)

</comment><comment><USER2> My main argument for incompetence vs. malice is not necessarily that the NYT is too good to be corruptible/pressured, but because the purported gain (in favor of FB) is so small.

Let's assume the NYT can be influenced to change/kill stories. After all, the Obama administration was able to get the NYT to delay/suppress stories on national security grounds [0], and this doesn't count all the stories that have been starved because of discouragement/apathy by editors.

But these are stories that have been stopped before they saw the light of day. This reference to Sandberg was published in a widely-publicized (i.e. banner breaking news headline on nytimes.com) breaking news story. To censor it for any reason is going to be a difficult and embarrassing _and noticeable_ decision, and one that is going to piss off someone in the editorial chain (e.g. the reporter, or her editor).

So if Sandberg has the ability to pressure the NYT to revoke this reference, _why would she do it now_? The story is already a major clusterfuck for Facebook because it ties the abrupt dismissal of Facebook's _entire security team_ to allegations about Russian/CA malfeasance on FB's platform. How much face does Sandberg save when the entire company is eating shit, with Sandberg at the helm and being conspicuously absent from making a public statement?

If Sandberg had editorial power, don't you think she would've exercised it by having prior review of the entire story? If the NYT editors were so afraid of her that they'd cave in to pressure to retroactively edit a story in her favor, don't you think they would've brought this story to her attention _before publishing it as a breaking news item_ and spreading it all over Twitter?

NYT famously has one of the most anal-retentive social media policies among all media organizations. If Sandberg had real influence, NYT reporters would not be tweeting this kind of stuff about her:

[https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/975899584550465537](https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/975899584550465537)

[https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/975793549076611072](https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/975793549076611072)

FWIW, the author of the NYT article in question has responded to the claims made by the submitted Law & Crime article:

[https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976156184909553664](https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976156184909553664)

[https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976157825331216384](https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976157825331216384)

[0] [https://www.wnyc.org/story/nyt-reporter-james-risen- reportin...](https://www.wnyc.org/story/nyt-reporter-james-risen-reporting- during-war-terror/)

<comment><USER18> I do not see that there is any relevance to this case in the NYT being sensitive to national security issues - that is clearly not an issue here. And if issues of importance have routinely been "starved because of discouragement/apathy by editors" (as opposed to possibly flawed judgements of importance), then it would be helpful to your argument if you could enumerate them.

No-one is suggesting that Sandberg had the editorial power of reviewing all Facebook-related articles before they were published, so the question of why she did not suppress this article before it first appeared does not arise. NYTs failure to seek permission beforehand can adequately be explained by a) it didn't expect the response it got and b) if it were in the habit of seeking such approval, it would destroy its brand, and its reason for existence.

The issue is that the NYT caved in to a demand without even following its normal policy of explaining a correction, and this is a serious matter regardless of whether Sandberg or Facebook were ill-advised to follow this course of action.

The article's author's responses look to me like an attempt at damage control, in that they talk around the central issue with heavy use of weasel words. If the original was deleted because it was superseded by a clearer follow-up, why is the follow-up notably unclear on this very issue?

<comment><USER2> > _The issue is that the NYT caved in to a demand without even following its > normal policy of explaining a correction,_

If you start with this premise then you are already begging the question. That is, it's not a given that this revision benefits Sandberg, nevermind that she pulled the strings to make it happen. The reporters' responses have been that the story has been revised to add additional detail (which includes doubling the mentions of Sandberg by name). If you think Sandberg doesn't have such a cozy relationship as to have prior-review power -- or more likely, the suppressive power of reporters being told not to pursue such embarrassing scoops in the first place -- then her asking for this change is going to rankle feathers. So she made this demand, but was OK with the reporters adding this completely unnecessary mention of how reputation-paranoid Sandberg and Zuckerberg are?

> _The public reaction caused some at Facebook to recoil at revealing more, > said the current and former employees. Since the 2016 election, Facebook has > paid unusual attention to the reputations of Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. > Sandberg, conducting polls to track how they are viewed by the public, said > Tavis McGinn, who was recruited to the company last April and headed the > executive reputation efforts through September 2017._

And how is it that Sandberg successfully intimidated the NYT to change their story, and then less than 24 hours later, the same NYT reporters publish an a followup that centers completely on the disgruntled executive (CSO Stamos) and is even more explicit about Sandberg and Stamos fighting over Russian interference -- including implying a direct cause and effect between their deteriorating relationship and Stamos's punishment?

> _By October, the relationship between Mr. Stamos and Ms. Sandberg had > deteriorated over how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how > best to reorganize Facebook's security team before the midterm elections, > according to more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at > the company. Mr. Stamos proposed that instead of reporting to Facebook's > general counsel, Colin Stretch, he report directly to Facebook's higher- > ups._

> _Instead, executives released Mr. Stamos from much of his day-to-day > responsibility, employees said._

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos- fa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook- security.html)

<comment><USER18> It is rather interesting how you use the techniques of the conspiracy theorist to deny that anything is going on - the techniques, specifically, of asking a bunch of questions that depend heavily on motives (and with the tacit implication that the answers all fall the way that works for you), and of replying to objections with more questions that do not directly address those objections.

It is indeed possible that this statement is a falsehood: "Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook's public relations team reached out to the New York Times–some time after the story was published", but I am disinclined to believe it is simply on the basis of questionable questions about motives, when the facts behind those questions could equally be explained by both parties trying to back off, in their own ways, from their initial mistakes.

And the issue of whether it was Sandberg, specifically, who initiated the initial retraction request, is a red herring.

<comment><USER2> I'm the one who provides proof and rationale, but that's all just "techniques of the conspiracy theorist"? Whereas you are accepting at face value a blog post that itself produces no proof, other than to point out that Facebook PR contacted NYT and NYT made an edit to their story?

OK, I'll make my argument by assuming that I'm wrong and you are right:

\- NYT defers to FB and Sandberg

\- Yesterday, an NYT article was edited and a phrase particularly damning and specific to Sandberg was removed without notice.

\- It's reasonable to assume Sandberg pressured NYT to make that change.

OK, I propose these facts:

This change was made at 9:21PM EST on Monday, 2+ hours after the story originally published at 7PM:

[http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytim...](http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook- alex-stamos.html)

At 8:33PM Tuesday, the two reporters for the first story published this story:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos- fa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook- security.html)

[http://newsdiffs.org/article- history/https%3A/www.nytimes.co...](http://newsdiffs.org/article- history/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook- security.html)

The End for Facebook's Security Evangelist [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos- fa...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/technology/alex-stamos-facebook- security.html)

I bring up the time stamps to argue that this story would've had to been partially reported and on deck for it to have been ready to publish less than 24 hours later. It's reasonable to assume they had some fo this reporting done at the time Sandberg is alleged to have coerced them into changing their story.

This follow up story is entirely focused on CSO Stamos, i.e. the Facebook exec who was forced out of a job and is the exec that advocated the most against Sandberg when it came to detecting Russian interference. The NYT reporters published this story sympathetic to Stamos despite agreeing to soften their coverage just 24-hours before to please Sandberg.

This follow story ends with a damning claim, that Stamos and Sandberg had a "deteriorating" relationship specifically on the issue of "how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how to best reorganize Facebook's security team before the midterm elections." Even worse, the story alleges that when Stamos asked for a restructure to avoid reporting to general counsel, Stamos's work and department was dissolved. To put these two events (Sandberg disagreement, Stamos losing his job) in consecutive paragraphs strongly implies that Sandberg fired Stamos because of the Russia thing.

Even worse, this story sources this claim to "more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at the company."

\-----

Assuming those facts above, here's the argument from contradiction: the NYT reporters are accused of erasing the following sentence regarding Sheryl Sandberg:

> _Mr. Stamos had been a strong advocate inside the company for investigating > and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook, often to the consternation of > other top executives, including Sheryl Sandberg, the social network's chief > operating officer, according to the current and former employees, who asked > not to be identified discussing internal matters_

The allegation is that the above sentence is damaging to Sandberg, and she went out of her way to threaten/pressure the NYT to change/remove it.

But as the facts stand, the NYT has published a separate story that states this:

> _By October, the relationship between Mr. Stamos and Ms. Sandberg had > deteriorated over how to handle Russian interference on Facebook and how > best to reorganize Facebook's security team before the midterm elections, > according to more than half a dozen people who work or formerly worked at > the company. Mr. Stamos proposed that instead of reporting to Facebook's > general counsel, Colin Stretch, he report directly to Facebook's higher-ups. > Instead, executives released Mr. Stamos from much of his day-to-day > responsibility, employees said._

\- The "consternation" sentence was so offensive to Sandberg that she used influence to get NYT to revise/remove it from a story yesterday.

\- Today, those same editors published a story even more damning regarding Sandberg and Stamos and Russian interference.

\- That this followup story was allowed to be published (and 4+ hours later, has had no revisions), contradicts the assumption that NYT is subservient to Sandberg/Facebook.

<comment><USER18> This is just the same set of motives claims as before, expanded in tedious detail, and with some confusion about what are facts and what are speculation. If, as TFA states, "Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook's public relations team reached out to the New York Times–some time after the story was published", then it is all beside the point.

<comment><USER2> > _Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook's > public relations team reached out to the New York Times_

OK, so your argument is basically "correlation is causation", i.e.

\- Facebook PR contacted Perlroth at some point

\- After talking to FB PR, Perlroth and colleagues edited their story.

\- Therefore, we assume the edit was made because of Facebook's wishes.

Note how the OP doesn't explain what this "edit" that Perlroth admits to and confirms. She responds to him on Twitter [0] when he asks her about the story being "wiped"; he characterizes her response as "downplay[ing] the change". Uh OK, I guess that's a matter of opinion. But the OP fails to mention that the edit/update in question involves changing a first-edition story from 300 words to 1,300 words. Here's actual data:

[http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytim...](http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1652560/1652801/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook- alex-stamos.html)

But if your reasoning is "correlation is causation" and "no such thing as coincidences", it's good to know where you stand, I don't think there's much more need to quibble.

[0] [https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976157486188081152](https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976157486188081152)

<comment><USER19> Your logical argument makes sense to me, but I think your summary is a little off in the details of mannykannot's argument. In particular, I don't think he requires that Facebook PR had direct contact with the authors of the piece. I would suggest this timeline instead:

1\. Perlroth et al publish a story in the NYT that arguably reflects poorly on Sandberg.

2\. Facebook's PR firm contacts the NYT post-publication requesting that changes be made to the story.

3\. Within a few hours the story is edited in a way that arguably is less negative toward Sandberg.

Given just this information, is it fair to claim that 2 caused 3? You (with your "conspiracy theory" level of attention to detail and logic) say "no"; mannykannot says "yes". While logically you would seem to be right, let's see how strong we can make the argument that this series of events actually does show causation. How about this:

1) Facebook is willing to pay an expensive PR firm to reach out to the NYT with the goal of changing the coverage. At the least, I think we can say that Facebook (and probably their expensive PR firm) believe that such edit requests produce results. Do you think they are wasting their money? If so, why should we trust an idealistic academic on this rather than a self- interested profit-driven firm willing?

2) If the authors know that there is pushback from Facebook on the story, they will edit the story differently than if there was no pushback. The only question is how big the difference is. Maybe it only prevents them from adding further negativity, or maybe it makes them choose slightly more defensible word choices. They might eventually redirect their efforts in a different piece, but do you really believe that knowledge of pushback will have truly zero effect on their editorial choices? And we've established that it's a non- zero influence, aren't we (like Churchill) just haggling about the price?

3) In addition to having journalistic ideals, the NYT is also a business who needs to be concerned about their reputation as a trustworthy news source. Facebook is one of very few companies influential enough to make or break the NYT's reputation. Thus when Facebook reaches out to the business side of the NYT suggesting that greater consideration be given to their side of the story, it would be prudent for the NYT to do so, or at least to give Facebook the impression that they are doing so. While this doesn't directly explain any individual edit, it might explain a general trajectory whereby edits are generally made in a direction favorable to Facebook. Do you deny that these forces exist?

<comment><USER2> Appreciate the discussion. I think the first point of contention is that, speaking from experience (as a reporter), we have different assumptions about the influence of these PR firms. There's a wide latitude of contact that happens in which the PR firm provides info or clarification. Sometimes the PR firm is the only way to get a formal statement, and this is exactly what Nicole Perlroth asserts:

[https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888](https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888)

> _FB PR gave us a statement from Stamos after the first post in which he > described the dynamic "as productive." We appended that to our story, while > also laying out disagreements._

I'm assuming this was the graf that was added:

> _Mr. Stamos joined Facebook from Yahoo in June 2015. He and other Facebook > executives, such as Ms. Sandberg, disagreed early on over how proactive the > social network should be in policing its own platform, said the people > briefed on the matter. In his statement, Mr. Stamos said his relationship > with Ms. Sandberg was "productive."_

The other reporter, Sheera Frenkel, adds the specifics that Facebook PR "made no such request" about removing references to Sandberg:

[https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/976238483122487296](https://twitter.com/sheeraf/status/976238483122487296)

\-----

So what's your rationale, given the complete absence of evidence, such as an inside source -- to distrust the NYT reporters out of hand? Why do you think the benefit of the doubt should be given to the reporter from Law&Crime, who is only making allegations? He's more knowledgeable and trustworthy than the actual reporters who investigated and published this story in the _first place_?

Maybe it's not clear enough that the Stamos vs. Sandberg story was the result of reporter effort; Stamos's departure (nevermind the reasons and the controversies) was _not_ an official announcement. So I admit my bias that it's hard to believe why we should suspect the NYT reporters of censoring their own story when it's entirely their fault that the story even exists?

<comment><USER19> _So what 's your rationale [...] to distrust the NYT reporters out of hand?_

As you can guess from my phrasing, I don't absolutely distrust them, and merely suggest that their statements should be assessed with an awareness of their self-interest. I presume that the authors believe that they did not make edits in response to threats from Facebook, although I'd expect them to say the same even if they did feel pressured. But in the same way that the "anthropic principle" is outside formal logic but sometimes produces interesting insights, I think it's worth considering what conclusions can be drawn from the fact that these authors remain gainfully employed by the New York Times.

 _it 's hard to believe why we should suspect the NYT reporters of censoring their own story when it's entirely their fault that the story even exists?_

I agree, but censoring is not absolute, not everyone within the paper has the same goals, and no individual has just a single goal. There are tensions pulling the journalists in multiple directions, and Facebook's PR firm is one of these tensions. Perhaps getting a story out with minor modifications satisfies enough of the goals of the parties involved. Would you concede that "zero impact" from corporate criticism is probably an unachievable ideal, and that Facebook's pushback here might have had at least a tiny influence in the way the story evolved (and will continue to evolve)?

More generally, I'm dubious that a for-profit press can ever please all stakeholders. Are you familiar with this criticism of the NYT from a couple years ago: "An obituary of The New York Times" [[https://email@example.com/an-obituary-of-the- ne...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com/an-obituary-of-the-new-york- times-50f2cb0f8157)]. I thought it did a good job of pointing to some previous examples of the imperfect wall between business and journalistic goals.

<comment><USER2> Let me be the first to say that I would not argue that we should _a priori_ trust a journalist, NYT or wherever. When I ask for rationale in distrusting NYT reporters out of hand, I mean, why should we distrust them moreso than the _other_ journalist (the lawandcrime blogger)?

I'm not asking us to discern with extreme acuity the integrity and honesty of these NYT journalists. I'm limiting it to the claims that have been made against them, their responses, and the evidence available. Trying to draw conclusions about their scope and length of gainful employment and what that says about them is all an unnecessary tangent.

I absolutely agree that censorship (and racism, and hate, and everything not binary) is not an absolute. And that journalists are influenced by many biases, overt and hidden. In fact, the NYT journalists in question could be compromised if they are avid FB users and have many fond memories.

But why is that the topic of debate? Law&crime has made a specific assertion about how FB interacted with NYT reporters about a specific situation -- this negative FB story. I don't have to argue about whether FB's pushback had "zero impact" because I don't have to agree or disagree. Those small factors may push this question one way or another.

But before considering those minute details, and tackling the ongoing issue of the trustworthiness of corporate media and the presence of harmful incentives, we have to agree on some easily observable facts, regarding a well-defined question.

In other words, I don't think I have a lot to disagree with you. But if I have to convince you about the unified theory of journalism and business, just in arguing about whether the OP is full of shit, I don't think I can win that :)

<comment><USER19> _But if I have to convince you about the unified theory of journalism and business, just in arguing about whether the OP is full of shit, I don 't think I can win that_

Depends on which OP you mean. I don't think mannykannot made a strong argument here, but I was surprised by this. I seem to recall upvoting him on numerous previous occasions for comments I liked, and that I thought were logically sound. I was trying to figure out whether there was stronger argument hiding underneath his (at least superficially) logically flawed one.

If by OP you mean the author of the blog post on Law and Crime, yeah, I agree it seemed irredeemably awful. I'm willing to believe that it's a low quality hit piece for clicks and not worth considering more closely. Are they thought to be a brand that normally has higher standards? My expectations for mannykannot (a name I recognize on HN) are significantly higher than for an unfamiliar linked blog.

 _But why is that the topic of debate?_

The actual debate of interest for me is why you and mannykannot seem to disagree so completely here, and why it was so difficult for the two of you to even make sense of each others' arguments. From the outside, it looked like both of you were arguing in good faith, but getting nowhere. Logically, I'm mostly with you, but while I find your argument compelling, others apparently do not. I'm interested in understanding the underlying cause of this.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, by OP I meant the Law&Crime article. As much as I strongly disagreed with mannykannot, disagreement != "full of shit" (at least on HN, for me).

The disagreement between me and mannykannot has to do with our fundamental assumptions. He believes that the OP's allegation -- that Facebook PR contacted the NYT, and the NYT afterwards edited its story -- is a sound premise. My argument (among many) is that the OP has provided no evidence for assuming that premise.

Not only did the NYT reporter explain what FBPR told her (they gave her an official statement to be associated with Stamos), they've denied that FBPR pressured them to do anything else. FB PR certainly hasn't said anything. I know that this is what we should _expect_ to be the case if NYT and FB were in cahoots, but in these situations, the reporter making such an allegation has done the investigative reporting to find sources who can make the claim (NYT's story on Facebook is very dependent on anonymous sources).

So from my perspective, there is no reason to think that FB PR visit and NYT story update/edit have a causal relationship. I think mannykannot think I doth protest too much (which is fair!) and that my rationalizations and evidence is no more valid than what a conspiracy theorist would be doing.

That's fine, HN isn't about winning debates :)

<comment><USER18> I see this discussion has been around the block a few times while I have been away, and it set off in the wrong direction in claiming that I am mistaking correlation for causation. While the phrase "Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook's public relations team reached out to the New York Times–some time after the story was published" is formally only stating a correlation, this style of usage is extremely commonly used to state a causal relationship, and it seems clear from the context that this was the intended reading in this case.

While correlation alone does not automatically imply causation, causes result in correlation. I have noticed an uptick recently of invalid uses of the 'correlation is not causation' statement, as if it were a conclusive rebuttal, in situations where the correlation was, in fact, a consequence of the cause, and this seems to be the case here.

The rest of your argument rests on a number of assumptions about which specific people initiated actions, their motives, and that these specific people were each adopting for themselves a single, unchanging, rational and consistent policy -- so much so that the phrase quoted above must have been a fabrication. To me, that seems to require that a lot of the uncertain issues all line up in a particular direction (to be correlated, if you will), and the episode is more parsimoniously explained by the NYT (perhaps in the persons of a junior editor and PR staffer) initially making a decision that the larger organization realized was a mistake, but which then compounded the problem by attempting to gloss over the initial response. The good news, as your references indicate, is that the NYT's action seems to have been a temporary aberration.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, we just have different premises and assumptions. You and I both accept the following statement made by the article:

> _" Perlroth, however, confirmed that the change occurred after Facebook's > public relations team reached out to the New York Times–some time after the > story was published"_

You think it's clear that the author is intending to state a casual relationship. Great. So my point is that the author is obliged to prove how he knows this is a causal relationship.

You can re-read his post all the way up and down, he provides no evidence. Meanwhile, Perlroth has explained [0] why she was in contact with FB's PR people -- because they wanted to give her Stamos's formal statement. This statement is quoted in Perlroth's story.

So we're still back at square one, starting with the author's hypothesis that FB's contact with NYT is related to the NYT's edit/update of their article. You're free to assume without evidence that it is more than a correlation, just as I'm free to take up skepticism. In a court case, if the NYT thought it'd be a good idea to sue for defamation, I really wonder what the L&C author would use as evidence. NYT, at least, will have the messages/emails between its reporters and FB.

[0] [https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888](https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/976159345195941888)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't even like Facebook, but really, is this newsworthy now? I know the media sees it as a chance to dogpile the company that has taken them to the cleaners, but there's a reason people don't trust or like the media anymore and "articles" like these are a big reason why.

<comment><USER2> Cambridge Analytica has been the subject of two very high profile investigations in the UK this past week, which caused Facebook to take punitive action against the firm, even though the firm and its misuse of FB data was written about several years ago. One of the revelations this week is that Facebook's CSO had been critical of FB's lack of response to CA and is now leaving the company: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook- alex-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-alex- stamos.html)

Sometimes newsworthy things become newsworthy after the actual time of events. Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse had been hinted at for years but only this past year did the amount of reporting and attention cause him to face real legal and business problems. Same with Bill Cosby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For everyone who cheered when Thiel took down Gawker, this is what you've wrought. Look up the definition of "chilling effect" sometime: _even if_ Gawker's behavior wasn't defensible, now that newspapers know Facebook has a board member willing to go to war with news organizations that don't get in line, they have to self-censor to stay alive.

<comment><USER22> The coverage of Facebook has been quite negative, including from the NYT. So I'm not sure what self-censorship you're referring to.</comment></comment>


F-strings in Python 3 - <AUTHOR> https://realpython.com/python-f-strings/ <comment><USER2> In the past I've suggested that these string prefixes be made user-definable. I was just starting out learning programming for serious back then (which I never really did BTW), as a uni dropout, so that was a bit stupidly audacious of me maybe. But I still think that this is what Python should do. Because the way things are, they keep changing the syntax all the time and they have nothing like Perl's "use v..." syntax, which can cause problems like a script written for python 3.n can fail with a _syntax error_ when run with an interpreter 3.(n-1), and that _is_ a fiasco, compared to an error like "AttributeError: type object 'str' has no attribute '__prefix_f__'". I guess same goes with the "@" operator, this sort of things are what major versions are for.</comment>


Google to invest in SpaceX - <AUTHOR> http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-to-invest-in-spacex-2015-1?r=US

<comment><USER2> > A source close to the alleged deal says Google "has agreed to value SpaceX > north of $10 billion."

And whatsapp was valued at double that. Something is very wrong.

<comment><USER3> > Something is very wrong.

...with your valuation methodology being realistic. A small value multiplied by a big number can still end up very big.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where to get legitimate information about the coronavirus? - <AUTHOR> The media frenzy has made it almost impossible to untangle the (mis)information coming out about the virus, the outbreak, and treatment. Comments on social media are (unsurprisingly) extreme in every direction.<p>Where can I find the least biased, most informative source of information with detailed expert commentary? <comment><USER2> This was very helpful to me: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw)

Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology. He is Regents Professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, a professor in the Technological Leadership Institute, College of Science and Engineering, and an adjunct professor in the Medical School, all at the University of Minnesota. Look for his book "Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Deadly Germs" for more info. [https://amzn.to/2IAzeLe](https://amzn.to/2IAzeLe) [http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/](http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This seems pretty legitimate, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus](https://www.who.int/health- topics/coronavirus)

[https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel- coronavirus-2...](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel- coronavirus-2019)

</comment><comment><USER4> Try /r/covid19 for more scientific oriented discussions and information sharing. Mods are trying to do their best to keep the subreddit focused on scientific discussion.

It's sister subreddit /r/Coronavirus is more for general public discussion.

</comment><comment><USER5> One thing I also recommend - [https://edition.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/corona- virus](https://edition.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/corona-virus) (Sanjay Gupta)

</comment><comment><USER6> Good Youtube channel with daily updates: [https://www.youtube.com/user/Campbellteaching](https://www.youtube.com/user/Campbellteaching)</comment>


Why Developers Get Fired - <AUTHOR> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/features/article.php/3839981/Why-Developers-Get-Fired.htm <comment><USER2> Ugh. I severely dislike articles like this, because they lend legitimacy to a pay-by-politics form of reward and punishment.

Each of the three reasons he lists can be traced back to manipulation of one's political image: you fail to take the absolute most cynical view that everyone's failures from above will come crashing down on you, and cover your ass accordingly; you fail to wave your achievements around, because you believe someone is actively paying attention or gives a crap about anything you're doing; or you fail to appropriately hide your boredom and lack of motivation by plodding on at the same rate as everyone else like the good cog that you are.

None of these have anything to do with actually doing anything. You could be accomplishing next to nothing, and still be able to hit all of these points; you could be working miracles in code, and manage to flunk all three and get thrown out on your ass. They are all the departmental equivalent of spin control, and are the sign of a broken department and quite possibly a broken company. It is a sign that people have stopped caring about doing things in favor of appearing as though they are doing things. This sort of thing is a slow death of a thousand cuts to an organization, and will result in people getting fired anyway, when the lack of revenues from people not getting anything done force staffing cuts anyway.

I understand that a lot of companies are run like this; I don't need to be reminded about how the real world works, and especially not with the usual condescension. I'm not trying to convince myself or anyone else that the corporate world is not stacked this way; what I am doing is yelling in the same way Dan Pink did about motivation by incentive that this sort of ass- covering doesn't work. It results in an organization that will steadily decay from the inside, and will ultimately end up shafting the same people who thought they could save themselves by just hunkering down and playing the political game. All these people bought was a little more time cower in fear, and convince themselves this will all blow over if they just behave. It doesn't work, and people need to stop convincing themselves, for the sake of themselves, their coworkers, and the organizations they purport to work for, that it does.

Life is too short, peoples' time and effort is too valuable, to put up with asinine wealth tarpits like this. No one, not even the person cowering, is benefited in the long-term in any way by this sort of attitude.

Ugh, I need to go take a walk to unwind.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cover Your Ass Folder - If you need one of these, you need to quit. If there are issues, man up and get them resolved. Don't just hide away the details until some big angry manager knocks on your door.

Need to Brag - Work for a company that does code reviews/inspection. It's a) great for the quality of the code and b) great for assigning merit to the people who've earned it, do that.

<comment><USER4> What do you do when your team thinks code reviews are not worth the time they take for a majority of the commits?

At my previous job, code reviews were required foreverything more complicated than a CSS tweak: change the DOM significantly, and a UI dev has to Ok it. Change a piece of JS, and the UI definitely needs to ok it. Change a piece of the mid-tier, and you can bet your ass that it's vetted before it's comitted - often by additional developers that don't even work on the mid tier.

Granted, this was a corporate b2b app for a fairly large company. Everything needed to be vetted, and sometimes it splled delays (hey, can you do my code review so I can test on staging? Ok, in 15 minutes then..).

At my current position on a small team, we do optional weekly code reviews: do something interesting or that you want feedback on, bring it up in the weekly.

How do you make pre-commit vetting of code quality scale, especially on a low headcount, high velocity team?

Without impacting the weekly velocity numbers that people not involved in said code reviews are used to seeing?

<comment><USER5> _How do you make pre-commit vetting of code quality scale, especially on a low headcount, high velocity team?_

Make sure to hire only top notch. Vetting goes faster when everybody knows what they are doing (yes, this is sort of a "duh!").

 _Without impacting the weekly velocity numbers that people not involved in said code reviews are used to seeing?_

No idea what "weekly velocity" is or who is making that number up in your company but I suggest to start measuring in months and quarters for a tangible idea of effectiveness. Forest, Trees.

<comment><USER6> 'weekly velocity' is the Agile expression for the number of high-quality man hours a person or team can be expected to actually produce.

<comment><USER5> _high-quality man hours ... expected to actually produce_

So, a bit like these velocity points in Pivotal Tracker, only... even more detached from reality?

I'll let you in on why measuring mostly anything related to code in weeks is wrong: It promotes short-term thinking and code debt, not unlike what we have seen in the banking blowup.

Yes, there are classes of tasks that can be solved in a week-timeframe. But those are not normally the ones that make or break your project.

For a small, contrived example: You can hire a low-skilled worker to provision new servers. You can then measure how many servers that person gets done per week.

Or you can hire a high-skilled worker to build infrastructure for provisioning servers with a mouseclick. This will take months. But once finished you have saved yourself an ongoing full-time salary and can assign the high-skilled worker to other tasks.

Good luck determining that high-skilled workers "weekly velocity", though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it somewhat amusing that anyone would be interested in writing or reading this sort of advice. Getting fired is not something you should avoid. Any relationship that isn't working is better off coming to an end, for both sides. If you're stuck doing work you don't like and for some reason didn't find yet the motivation to move on, be glad that your manager did you the favour.

<comment><USER8> >Getting fired is not something you should avoid.

In the long-term, you are right. However, you are much better off sucking it up for a couple of months while looking for your next job. You avoid the been- fired stigma, and you have much better negotiating power with your next employer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article didn't mention this, but in my experience, the person who most negatively affects the team's chemistry is the first one out. Producing bad code (or not enough/none at all) or breaking things is sure to destroy your connection to the team, but so is being overly negative, distracting or intrusive.

<comment><USER10> in my past experience, those linger on for veeeery long time. The first ones out are usually the ones who speak up when things are wrong, and the ones who get involved in too many aspects/things (the Rule of Visibility applies: first seen, first fired!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I strongly disagree with his "developers need to brag" section...in my experience, those developers that brag the most are those whose code is a negative contribution (pardon the oxymoron).

Also, if you're generating a bunch of good code and solving hard problems, people are going to notice you.

<comment><USER9> Maybe "brag" is too strong of a word, but it all depends on what kind of company you work for. Keeping quiet pretty much ensures that only your peers and possibly your tech lead will know what quality and quantity of work you're churning out, unless they decide to share.

If you're working for a small company where the CEO sifts through source control to see what's changing, producing good code will certainly suffice, but if you work in a large company with a multi-tiered management structure, keeping quiet only pushes the responsibility to promote your work to someone else - and you can't always rely on that happening.

<comment><USER2> _If you're working for a small company where the CEO sifts through source control to see what's changing, producing good code will certainly suffice, but if you work in a large company with a multi-tiered management structure, keeping quiet only pushes the responsibility to promote your work to someone else - and you can't always rely on that happening._

In the cases where you can't rely on that happening, then that means no one else gives a damn about what you are doing. This would be very odd in a multi- tiered organization, since often times development projects are decreed onto the programming staff by strategic direction committees. If no one cares, the project is make-work; warning. Either it is going to contribute next to no value to the organization, or no one has a clue what value it is going to contribute. Either way, you'll be hard pressed to convince everyone who needs to be convinced what you are doing is that valuable.

To borrow a PG idea, to everyone above you in the management hierarchy, you are represented -- as an aggregate of the rest of your group -- by either your lead or manager. A lot of the interaction between your group and the rest of the company will be done by them. They _need_ to be your advocate; if they're not doing that, then your entire group is getting shafted, and need to find a better advocate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Results don't always matter. politics can factor in, too. :(</comment>