
Anatomy of a Moral Panic - maxerickson
http://idlewords.com/2017/09/anatomy_of_a_moral_panic.htm
======
vonnik
Ironically, the premise of this critique of journalism is as false as the
Amazon story it cites. Algorithms and the Internet didn't ruin journalism, and
this is not the end of the world. Journalism was corrupted by sensationalism
as soon as it moved from subscriptions to ads, which in the US was in the 19th
century. Remember when we discovered a colony of aliens on the moon? Yeah,
that was the New York Sun way before we had electricity... Remember when
Hearst started the Spanish-American war? No Internet then. Bad signals via the
media is a very old problem. We should think about it, but we shouldn't think
it's the Internet's fault.

~~~
notzorbo3
Your entire comment is a straw man. The article doesn't claim the internet
ruined journalism, and I don't even know where your "end of the world" comment
is coming from. You're also comparing papers like the New York Sun and other
tabloids, while this article is talking about respectable papers such as the
New York Times.

I'll quote the relevant part of the article:

> The real story in this mess is not the threat that algorithms pose to Amazon
> shoppers, but the threat that algorithms pose to journalism. By forcing
> reporters to optimize every story for clicks, not giving them time to check
> or contextualize their reporting, and requiring them to race to publish
> follow-on articles on every topic, the clickbait economics of online media
> encourage carelessness and drama. This is particularly true for technical
> topics outside the reporter’s area of expertise.

> And reporters have no choice but to chase clicks. Because Google and
> Facebook have a duopoly on online advertising, the only measure of success
> in publishing is whether a story goes viral on social media. Authors are
> evaluated by how individual stories perform online, and face constant
> pressure to make them more arresting.

~~~
vonnik
Your entire comment misses the point. What I'm saying is that most journalism
was always this way. Algorithms don't exacerbate this tendency any more than
daily sales did for the Sun. As a former reporter for the NYT, I can say that
journalists there are subjected to many of the same pressures, if in a more
limited way than reporters at Buzzfeed. And that sales always mattered at the
Times, too. Reporters have always, always chased readers.

~~~
danielam
I agree that journalism (particularly mass media which followed the invention
of rail transportation) has been compromised by advertising. However, I'm not
quite certain that subscriptions freed newspapers from advertising since
subscriptions alone cannot cover the costs of running a newspaper.
Furthermore, the problem with advertising isn't just how tighly linked to
newspaper sales it is, but how it can constrain what's written in newspapers
for fear of having clients pull advertising from the newspaper. So
subscriptions may reduce the dependence on advertising and offer more freedom
to journalists, but not entirely. Also, the danger of subscriptions is that we
can only pay for so many and this limitation can constrain the number of
sources we can draw from. The challenges facing newspapers are complex.

A general comment: while it is important to draw attention to the perverse
incentives journalism is subject to, it is also important not to fall prey to
the fallacy that people must act according to perverse incentives. Nothing
justifies publishing unsubstantiated nonsense. Journalists are morally bound
not to do so.

~~~
vonnik
The challenges facing media are complex. The subscription model encourages
publications to become luxury goods, just as the pace of the Web pushes print
editions to become future-focused and heavy on analysis. Subscriptions can
sustain niche products, but the free content on the Internet makes that harder
than it used to be.

Almost every publication is beholden to someone, and often to several
entities, usually the owners. Bloomberg News treads carefully with Michael
Bloomberg, and the same is true for every billionaire-owned outlet. You can't
avoid it, and as long as there are enough publications, it doesn't matter.
They all make up for the others' blind spots.

While it may be a fallacy that people _must_ act according to perverse
incentives, it is not a fallacy to expect that they probably will.
Statistically speaking, moral bounds are not strong arguments when confronted
with power and wealth. Those who decline on moral grounds are easily replaced.

------
wolf550e
Wasn't the "baseball test" an accepted norm in journalism?

"A reporter should not be assigned to cover subject X unless he has as good an
understanding of X as a baseball writer is expected to have of baseball."[1]

Shouldn't media outlets be embarrassed into retracting stories written by
people who know nothing about the subject? Shouldn't the reputation of the
media outlet suffer?

1 - [https://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2007/08/the-
bas...](https://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2007/08/the-baseball-
test/54682/)

~~~
dogruck
It's an ilformed test. Can a writer truly understand baseball as well as a
baseball player? But, isn't a baseball player bound to be heavily biased
toward the consensus baseball view?

Or, take finance. If a financial journalist _truly_ understood finance,
wouldn't they be running a hedge fund instead of scraping by pumping out
articles?

~~~
weberc2
He said baseball writer, not player, unless he edited his comment between your
post and mine.

~~~
dogruck
I think we read the same post. I'm just saying that a writer's bias is
correlated with his expertise.

------
brianjoseff
Who is making strides in fixing the underlying business model problems that
are driving the increasing virulence and frequency of these moral panics, and
undermining the integrity and function of journalism? Or at least providing
alternatives that are equally profitable yet less pernicious.

Because barring the entrance of one of these as-yet-unimagined alternatives,
it seems we'll need to lean on regulation...but then we get into messiness of
regulating free speech.

There was Beacon Reader, the crowdfunding journalism platform, but they shut
down. [1]

Then there's Google's "Fact Check", but its reach is limited [2]

[1] [https://www.poynter.org/news/beacon-reader-journalism-
crowdf...](https://www.poynter.org/news/beacon-reader-journalism-crowdfunding-
platform-closing-down) [2] [https://www.blog.google/products/search/fact-
check-now-avail...](https://www.blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-
available-google-search-and-news-around-world/)

~~~
Iv
> Because barring the entrance of one of these as-yet-unimagined alternatives,
> it seems we'll need to lean on regulation...but then we get into messiness
> of regulating free speech.

OK. I'm on break, I'll make it a big longer to translate and sum up what I
think has been the most underrated video of the 2016 french presidential
election discussing how to «fix» political press. (reference:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GspZxQGRAXw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GspZxQGRAXw)
). Be warned, the proposal is pretty radical, but compare them to the
radicalism of people who first proposed to separate the three branches of
power. Here we are trying to make the media into a 4th one, independent as the
others are.

The speaker is the director of a famous left-wing newspaper, "Le Monde
Diplomatique" (not related to Le Monde). His goal is to substract the media
from 2 influences: political influences exerted through public aids and
funding, and market influences exerted through shareholders and advertisers.

He first proposes to separate media into two categories: entertainment and
information (well information, general interests and political debates). He
wants to avoid having a government agency arbitrarily sort between them so
instead, he proposes 3 (radical) objective criterion to identify information
media:

\- non-profit. They are forbidden to give dividends to shareholders.

\- non-concentration. One economic agent can not own more than one media in
the "information" category (I did not know that until 1984, this was the rule
in France)

\- no advertisement.

Not fulfilling these criterion would lead to be classified as entertainment.
100% legal but makes one unsuitable for public aid.

Then he proposes to replace public aids by a pooling of means, financed by the
state, that would provide services that all these media need: printing,
distribution, office space, servers, storage, distribution, accounting
services, juridic services, commercial services, subscription databases,
correction, etc...

He mentions that, in France at least, most media already outsource their
subscription database, to a few big private operators. Also that semi-public
pooling of distribution networks is already in place to allow small
publications to exist.

How does this make it independent from the state if the state is the payer?
Well he propose to organize that as a «régie publique» which could be
translated as "autonomous public authority" and reminds that the French
healthcare is managed that way and oversees masses of money more important
that the State's budget.

The key there is twofold:

\- Money does not come from a tax but from a "cotisation" (contribution). It
is often seen as the same by payers, but it follows a very different circuit:
taxes go feed the state's budget that is then debated to fund the various
public efforts. A contribution goes directly into the authority's budget and
it does not need the state's approval for spending it one way or the other. It
only needs state's approval to be in deficit.

\- The authority is managed by representatives elected from its employees and
service users as well as some representative from the newspapers' readers.

This is a very radical proposal, but so far that is the only one I saw that
takes seriously the claim that the media is a branch of a similar importance
than justice and that it needs to be as independent as possible from market
and political influences and proposes realistic means to prevent market and
politics influence as well as respecting the freedom of speech.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I love this. Not because I understand it fully - I suspect someone is going to
shoot plenty of holes through this proposal - but because it's the first one I
saw that actually treats the problem seriously, and seems to preserve the
reason we need press while eliminating the bad incentive structures.

~~~
Iv
For the context, this proposal was made by this journal director to JL
Mélenchon, the far-left candidate in the election (who got 19% of votes, i.e.
not a marginal) hoping it would be included in his political program.

It is a well-thought proposal by someone who knows the press industry well. It
of course has leftist bias but I suspect that while there can be political
criticism, it is probably pretty solid.

I don't know how applicable it is in the US though.

~~~
groby_b
For context on "far-left" \- it's nothing like the far left in the US. France
has an extremely well-developed set of leftists. It's the only country I ever
visited where people had deep discussions about the difference between
Trotskyism and Leninism when debating actual political events.

The US far left would maybe, possibly, pass as moderate left in France. Obama
would be considered... center right? OK, centrist.

These ideas will not easily translate into a US political context :)

For those curious, his movement, FI, proposes also a rewriting of the
constitution, Frexit, withdrawal from TTIP, sustainability as law. It's...
interesting. It's a very uniquely French party.

~~~
rmc
I remember reading about Uber opening in France. Obviously the french taxi
drivers weren't happy with it, and Uber were putting out press releases about
how they "want to work together and blah blah corporate waffle".

But you can't just ignore the law like that like you can in USA, the French
taxi drivers started attacking and burning Uber cars.

[https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/25/french-anti-uber-
protest-t...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/25/french-anti-uber-protest-
turns-to-guerrilla-warfare-as-cabbies-burn-cars-attack-uber-drivers/)

~~~
Iv
To be fair this was a clusterfuck. Taxi here are almost universally hated:
they are rude, rare, dishonest, expensive and disorganized. Also, their
scarcity in Paris was purposefully organized.

Most people also see that Uber violates important labor laws so most people
did not take sided there.

The reason why taxi drivers could get away with so many violence is because
the owners of the main taxi companies are VERY well connected to the political
world.

------
mikestew
As one who has not reloaded ammunition in a number of years, I’m going to
guess that the only reason Amazon won’t sell you black powder (or gun powder)
outright is due to shipping restrictions. Which means instead of buying the
ingredients with a highly-trackable transaction from Amazon, your low-budget
terrorist will have to resort to buying the powder pre-made, and anonymously
in a cash transaction from the local gun dealer. Last I checked, they’ll sell
you big cans of the stuff for cheap.

~~~
pjc50
.. in the US, or the UK? I'm fairly sure you'd need an explosives license for
more than the 100g ""personal experimentation"" limit, although I'm still
trying to find a good canonical rules summary.

~~~
mikestew
U. S., where there are enough people that reload ammunition that I made a
pretty good bit of money back in the 90s selling software for that market. So,
yeah, if you want to buy a couple pounds of the stuff, it’s not terribly
difficult and no one is likely to think a thing of it (last I bought gun
powder was probably ten years ago; take it as the dated information it is).

EDIT: I also forgot that referring to smokeless gunpowder as just “gunpowder”
is mostly a U. S. thing. But smokeless gunpowder is what I mean, in contrast
to the stuff old school muzzle loaders use (black powder in the U. S.).

------
firasd
Good article. When I saw this I thought the UK press in general is really into
panicking about the internet. Didn't they prompt the Youtube "Adpocalypse"?
Not saying the concerns are irrelevant, but that the call-outs and subsequent
remedies have to be well-considered.

~~~
JauntyHatAngle
>When I saw this I thought the UK press in general is really into panicking
about the internet. Didn't they prompt the Youtube "Adpocalypse"?

No, that was primarily the Wall Street Journal that started that.

------
gcb0
the talk missing here: accountability.

reporters can screw up. like everyone else. heck in the IT security industry
we have a mantra that you should not punish mistakes, because over time that
makes people more prone to hide mistakes instead of disclosing.

why isn't journalism the same? in the past they would publish erratas and mea
culpas.

now, they get the clicks, ad revenue, and on to the next "mistake".

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _why isn 't journalism the same? in the past they would publish erratas and
> mea culpas._

They still do. But it doesn't matter (and I don't think it ever mattered) - if
you lie on the first page, and next week put an errata on the second page in
small print, that correction isn't doing anything. Most people will not read
it anyway, and by the time it's printed, the damage to readers' cognition is
already done.

------
factsaresacred
> Missing in these reports is any sense of proportion or realism.

Funnily enough I get the same sensation when reading Maciej's Twitter.

Trump is going to go to war to approve his ratings, apparently. And it seems
Twitter employees have an obligation to prevent Trump from using the 'Block'
button. for some reason. Also, Peter Thiel (a pet hate/obsession) runs a
company that 'powers ICE deportations' and needs to be ostracized for his
beliefs.

Some 'sense of proportion or realism' would be nice. That aside, great
writing, as usual.

------
ikeboy
It does not take a lot of views for Amazon to link stuff together.

I have a wholesaler dealing in closeouts (end of life products) that sends out
emails with new inventory. I noticed once when looking at one item, that 2-3
entirely unrelated items showed up under "Customers who viewed this item also
viewed", all that had been previously offered by the same wholesaler.

I don't know how big their email list is, but it's probably in the double to
low triple digits. So several dozen people, at best, viewed all of these
items, and that was enough for Amazon to pick up and correlate them.

A different time, I was advertising multiple entirely unrelated products with
the same associates ID. One of them ended up, similarly, on the other item's
page, presumably either due to the same people viewing both ads or them
correlating by associate id.

~~~
Gibbon1
I looked at pressure cookers on Amazon and for months was getting ads for full
figured bras on other websites.

------
adrianratnapala
_The real story in this mess is not the threat that algorithms pose to Amazon
shoppers, but the threat that algorithms pose to journalism. By forcing
reporters to optimize every story for clicks, ..._

Because newspapers never did this kind of sloppy reporting before the interweb
thingy.

~~~
edmccard
I think the point is not that _some_ news outlets are doing sloppy reporting
in exchange for eyeballs, but that _all of them_ \-- even those that used to
be able to trade on their reputation for good reporting -- now have to chase
the same eyeballs using the same tricks.

------
vvanders
I used to do rocketry about 15-20 years ago, we had some pretty stringent
requirements back then for the high power stuff(G+ impulse motors).

I'm kinda surprised that the hobby hasn't been shut down completely given how
hysterical some of the media can be about this stuff.

~~~
Yossarian1
I'm pretty sure you can just buy black powder in the store for muskets. You
don't even have to go through the trouble of buying all the ingredients off
Amazon and mixing them.

~~~
KGIII
In most States that is true. NY has restrictions in it, and I think CA does.
Federal law allows up to 50 pounds of the stuff, before you need a permit. You
can buy it at your local outdoor/sporting goods stores.

------
Dove
It boggles my mind that in such a connected age, getting accurate news should
be such a hard problem. Never mind influencing the world - if I personally
want to know what is really going on, I have no idea where to turn. Surely,
surely, there must be a group out there that cares about accurate information
and responsible research, to which I can subscribe? I am all for critical
thinking, but having to become an expert in everything is wearying.

------
dwaltrip
Is there no robust way to hold publications accountable for carelessly
peddling bullshit?

I fear it will be incredibly difficult to improve the existing incentives.

~~~
dom96
This is a good question and I have given some thought on this. One quick idea
would be to somehow shame publications for incorrect coverage, but doing so
seems like an uphill battle. It will always be significantly easier to peddle
bullshit than it is to disprove that bullshit.

~~~
WillReplyfFood
Some gatekeeper like google would be needed to raise exposure by
verifyability. The problem for a algorithm is to quanitfy truthfullness- it
needs some feedback by the audience for that- and it needs to learn whos
feedback is qualified.

Doubt that even google could build such a curating search engine.

------
pjc50
I don't really agree with the author's stance here. Especially since it was
posted a couple of days after the inept bomb attempt on a tube train:
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/20/parsons-green-
two...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/20/parsons-green-two-men-
arrested-bucket-bomb-terror-attack/)

Yes, it's a bit sensationalist, it's the news. Have you _seen_ the UK news
scene? This won't even be in the top 5 most misleading things said or printed
in the news that day.

Please also bear in mind the law on explosives precursors:
[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supplying-
explosi...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supplying-explosives-
precursors/supplying-explosives-precursors-and-poison)

------
Laforet
I might be wrong about this, but I think thermite is used more often as a
simple welding method. Railroad workers doing track maintainence routinely use
thermite to repair damaged sections.

[https://youtu.be/5uxsFglz2ig](https://youtu.be/5uxsFglz2ig)

~~~
ekimekim
True, but I suspect they wouldn't be buying it on Amazon. The retail market
means you need to look at hobbyist uses, not industrial.

~~~
WillReplyfFood
Why would you buy that? Its just aluminium powder and iron-rust.

------
rdiddly
Minor additional point - if you're trying to create dangerous shrapnel, don't
you pick something angular & sharp like crushed gravel, nails or even hex
nuts, instead of nice round ball-bearings?

~~~
thaumaturgy
And now for the follow-up from Channel 4 and other media outlets: "hacker
forum tries to find the best shrapnel for home-made explosives".

~~~
TeMPOraL
Would running a computer simulation for that be classified as terrorism?

------
eridius
It looks like this is an unpublished post. It doesn't show up on the front
page of idlewords.com, and isn't available as a "next" link from the previous
story.

maxerickson, how did you find this post?

~~~
idlewords
He subscribes to idlewords premium.

------
marter
Drivers scare me more than anything I see on the news.

------
sixothree
Wait, so will Amazon ship magnesium, iron oxide, and aluminum powder all in
the same box? That sounds kinda scary to my layperson ears.

~~~
Laforet
The activation energy to get the magnesium ignited is rather high. There is
little chance for them to spontaneously ignite unless the delivery truck
is.gutted by a fire, and by then you have bigger problems than a kilogram of
thermite.

~~~
jfoutz
Sounds like regexes. Now you have two problems.

------
ufmace
It's almost like we have a moral panic about moral panics...

------
ocfnash
This is a good piece but I have one nit: it is incorrect to say "thermite
[...] will not detonate."

I was shocked to discover this first hand some years ago:
[http://olivernash.org/2009/11/12/fun-with-
thermite/index.htm...](http://olivernash.org/2009/11/12/fun-with-
thermite/index.html)

I can still recall the echoing boom of that (copper) thermite.

~~~
idlewords
Thank you for this correction. Do you know whether Al + Fe2O3 thermite as
normally prepared (meaning, not ground up into nanoparticles) will detonate?
I'll update the piece accordingly.

Moreover, are you sure this was a detonation (shock wave) rather than a
deflagration?

~~~
jjoonathan
Given that ocfnash's page never uses the term detonate, never discusses the
difference between detonation and deflagration, and doesn't describe the
experiments that would distinguish them, I'm pretty sure they were not in fact
performed, and the (informal) explosion he witnessed was not a (formal)
detonation.

That's not to say it isn't worth a footnote to explain that "doesn't detonate"
does not mean "won't go pop and propel burning material everywhere." Even a
campfire can do that, but I could understand if someone heard "doesn't
detonate" and drew the wrong conclusion.

~~~
ocfnash
Thanks for these helpful words of clarification!

As I commented above, I was rather sloppily using the words "explosion",
"detonation" to mean flash and boom.

On the two occasions on which I witnessed this event, it was stunningly
powerful but I now believe most likely just a deflagration.

------
cisanti
Well written piece.

I stopped reading news after Trump got into office and I have no shame about
it. It feels great and I don't I miss out on anything.

When people talk or ask me about politics I just say I don't know because I
don't read. They make s surprised face and then continue talking and arguing
about absolutely pointless topics and about the upcoming apocalypse.

I just hope someone tells me an hour beforehand. I'd pay for a service that
emails me only once s month and only about topics that matter. Just a brief
overview. If I want details I can study history later.

~~~
Cleisthenes
That was your lesson from this? Stick your head in the ground and pretend
politics is pointless?

Ignorance of politics is a luxury afforded only to citizens of authoritarian
regimes. You live in a democracy (assuming that discussion of Trump in
politics means you live in the US). Politics is how society chooses to make
and use government.

People pretending they are morally superior or lead better lives through
ignorance never cease to amaze me.

This article talks about sensationalism in news. Sure, avoid it. Be skeptical
of bold claims. But right now Trump and Republicans are talking about making
gigantic changes to the nation's healthcare system. Regardless of where you
sit on the fence, this absolutely matters.

Pay attention. Find less sensational news. Pay for good journalism and also
look for balanced analysis.

~~~
treehau5
> You live in a democracy

> People pretending they are morally superior or lead better lives through
> ignorance never cease to amaze me.

First of all, we don't have a direct democracy. This concept that everyone has
to be 100% engaged (or even 90, or 80, or whatever subjective figure in your
head that qualifies good enough is, which is another issue, your concept of
being engaged enough doesn't match another) need not apply. Just _enough_
people have to be engaged, which historically speaking has happened.

Second of all, I don't think anyone is claiming a moral high ground here, and
if they are you are correct to say shame on them.

Third of all, people who place the same onus of keeping up with whatever the
hell is going on in the world as some moral duty never cease to amaze me
because it is so easy to flip the script on you and say you don't know enough.
There is an endless amount of information out there. "News" as a concept is
not even a fraction as old as the concept of government and democracy. We face
information overload. How can you blame people for just wanting to live their
lives? What if I never signed up for this system? Most people care more about
their issues locally (which is in line with human psychology, we weren't meant
for these large social networks) but people who sit here and cast stones at
people who aren't keeping up with what happens with the Mueller investigation,
for example, (which something happens every 2.5 seconds) is what never ceases
to amaze me.

~~~
whorleater
> First of all, we don't have a direct democracy.

This isn't an argument against being informed, it's a pointless debate over
semantics. You and anyone reasonable understood what GP meant, they meant
democracy as a "national built on foundations of democratic values, such as
freedom of press, freedom of speech (to varying extents), right to assemble,
etc" in contrast to "authoritarian regime where those values are not enshrined
in the government legislature or cultural values".

> There is an endless amount of information out there. "News" as a concept is
> not even a fraction as old as the concept of government and democracy. We
> face information overload

The concept of modern news may not have been a invented at the same time, yet
it remains a fundamental core part of many democratic-leaning nation's values.

> How can you blame people for just wanting to live their lives? What if I
> never signed up for this system?

You're probably free to move to an authoritarian regime if you cared to. No
one chose to be born into a government system, but to claim no responsibility
in a system that you've benefited from since you were born is passing the
buck.

~~~
treehau5
> You're probably free to move to an authoritarian regime if you cared to. No
> one chose to be born into a government system, but to claim no
> responsibility in a system that you've benefited from since you were born is
> passing the buck.

Ah yes, the "if you don't like it, you can go back to where you came from"
argument, in different clothing of course. This is just never a good
rhetorical device. What a person did or did not benefit for is up for debate
-- even North Korea provides basics -- but that's not what is being argued
here. If I was born into an environment I had no say in building, and I find
it incompatible with my way of life (imagine being a white boy from the south
on a plantation and against slavery, then shoved into the Civil war), I am, by
definition now oppressed -- I am forced to be subservient to a system I had no
say in building. I brought this up not to argue it but as a counter example to
the person who just says "I am fine just living my life"

~~~
jacalata
> What a person did or did not benefit for is up for debate -- even North
> Korea provides basics --

What

------
katastic
Interesting how >80% of the commenters are defending panics, or attacking the
website or author itself instead of actually debating the findings.

~~~
mikestew
What's to debate? There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why product
grouping was observed, and that explanation is far more plausible than
imagining terrorists are ordering supplies from Amazon. Something something
Occam. All we're left with is what you've observed.

Or did I completely miss the point you're trying to make?

------
avip
I see 2 claims:

    
    
      1. The suggested materials are not for building bombs.
      2. No one would be radicalized to build bombs by following shopping recommendations.
    
    

Since uncharacteristically, he did not provide very good support to any of the
above claims, I feel free to opt-in with my own made-up opinion:

    
    
      [1] is False. The materials ARE for building bombs. The "bearing balls" ARE what author says they are not (using an extremely unconvincing argument), and Mr idlewords is mistaken wrt how much data is used to build recommendations engines.
      [2] is True

~~~
eridius
The article did provide reasonable support for claim 1. Thousands or tens of
thousands of people would have to buy the combination for it to be
recommended, and aspiring terrorists don't usually purchase their terrorism
supplies in a manner that makes it trivially easy to identify them (since
Amazon knows who its customers are).

The article also provided a far more plausible explanation for the
recommendation than people building bombs.

