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▲ snvzz 14 days ago

Why do so many journos keep making these politically motivated articles.

They're going full mask off, even.

>report says...

>experts see...

I am disappointed arstechnica is among them, too.

▲andybak 14 days ago | parent | next [-]

This article doesn't seem especially pernicious. The subject matter is newsworthy. The article has a position which you may or may not agree with but it's not unusual in that regard. It's probably slightly better in that regard than most pieces of writing that have a bearing on politics.

> They're going full mask off, even.

What does this mean?

▲snvzz 14 days ago | parent [-]

>What does this mean?

"to go mask off" means to drop a façade, and show the true nature.

Here, it means they are not even trying to hide what they are doing anymore: Digging into every DOGE employee they can identify, and slandering them for political gain.

Why else would they care what a random administration employee did in this free time when he was 15 years old?

It is disgusting articles like this are what passes as "journalism" these days.

▲kelnos 14 days ago | parent | next [-]

> slandering them

Is anything in the article factually incorrect? If not, then it's not slander. (Well, not libel. Slander involves speech, while libel is for words.)

It seems these websites did exist, and he admitted to doing all this destructive, anti-social hacking as a teenager. These seem to be facts.

Sure, the article is taking a moral stance on that, but most do. And I happen to agree with them that someone like this guy should be nowhere near sensitive governments systems, especially part of a task force of people who are dismantling democracy in the US.

▲rbanffy 14 days ago | parent [-]

> These seem to be facts.

Actions the person in question freely admitted having done.

▲andybak 14 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Slander (or more properly in this case "libel") involves saying things that aren't true. Is that actually happening here?

▲snvzz 14 days ago | parent [-]

Grep for "alleged".

Not convicted of, but alleged. They are simply digging into DOGE employees and throwing as much shit as they can, in the hopes that something sticks.

▲kelnos 14 days ago | parent [-]

You didn't actually answer GP's question.

▲huxley 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It would be politically motivated to ignore it.

▲abcd_f 14 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

"Hackers" in the Hollywood sense of the term, which applies here, are a red flag in many real-world scenarios.

▲rbanffy 14 days ago | parent [-]

And they lack the excellent soundtrack of the movie. Also, rarely are good looking like the ones depicted.

▲CapricornNoble 14 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Why do so many journos keep making these politically motivated articles.

Because a bunch of journalists were being paid by the government to be politically-motivated propagandists, and that gravy train went away because of DOGE.

There's a ton of threads on HN about Doge, but if you search with "site:news.ycombinator.com Internews Network".....only 1 result, in the comments.

from: https://x.com/wikileaks/status/1888072129327083979

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.

The operation claims “offices” in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN.

Bourgault’s IN bio and those of its other key people and board members have been recently scrubbed from its website but remain accessible at http://archive.org. Records show the board being co-chaired by Democrat securocrat Richard J. Kessler and Simone Otus Coxe, wife of NVIDIA billionaire Trench Coxe, both major Democratic donors. In 2023, supported by Hillary Clinton, Bourgault launched a $10m IN fund at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The IN page showing a picture of Bourgault at the CGI has also been deleted.

▲rbanffy 14 days ago | parent [-]

> USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.

This kind of work is extremely important for making the US be seen as the "police of the world" rather than a bully, who will turn a blind eye to genocide when convenient, but will shell civilians if people who come from the same city threaten commercial routes.

For instance, the US strongly condemns the Venezuelan government. At the same time, it doesn't condemn the Saudi government, even though it is obvious for anyone to see the massive human rights infringements that happen there. The US government also doesn't condemn the Bukele government and, currently, they even give Bukele money by paying him to torture prisoners deported from the US.

Do you see a pattern here? Of course the US needs all the favorable media coverage it can get.

▲CapricornNoble 13 days ago | parent [-]

>This kind of work is extremely important for making the US be seen as the "police of the world" rather than a bully

My position is we wouldn't need to spend this money spinning bullshit tales if we were neither the world's police nor the world's bully.

▲rbanffy 12 days ago | parent [-]

> if we were neither the world's police nor the world's bully.

I too would prefer a more peaceful US (and you could continue spending in making the world aspire to be more US-like via USAID). I like the idea behind the country, but the more I understand about the implementation, the less faith I have on it being an example to be followed.