
Craig Newmark: a survivor from the era of internet optimism - pseudolus
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/14/craigslist-craig-newmark-outrage-is-profitable-most-online-outrage-is-faked-for-profit
======
OrwellianChild
> _So does he think he is unfairly demonised by some journalists and does that
> rankle?_

> _“I can’t fault them for not getting around to doing the fact-checking. You
> know people are busy and a lot of people in journalism have been told by
> their managers that fact-checking may not be critical.”_

This is such an understated burn...

I'm truly astonished and confused by the idea that Newmark and Craigslist, by
providing a better alternative to the classifieds section, are anti-
journalism. To believe this, one must believe that journalism exists only as a
happy byproduct of the advertising business that supported newspapers
throughout the 20th century - that journalism does not exist as an independent
good. Advertising-funded newspapers are a business model tied to a medium -
one of many. Journalism is no more tied to them than transportation is tied to
the horse and buggy.

~~~
Nasrudith
Really it is abundantly clear that the conflation is deliberate because their
job dependa on it.

They are nakedly scapegoating tech and spreading bullshit to support their
agenda. Which is why they actually are in decline - they just aren't any good
or professional. The only one they like is Twitter which allows them to
produce stories very lazily and cheaply as the replacement to "man on the
street" interviews instead of any actual substance.

What angers me the most really is that they could do so much better yet they
decided this has to be their hill to die on.

~~~
influx
I'm often astonished by the Tweets someone like CNN will pick to justify a
story. Someone with a handful of followers with 8 retweets and 2 favorites
becomes a headline story. It's sad.

------
HillaryBriss
Blaming Craig Newmark for destroying journalism is, in a way, accurate, but,
in an important way, inaccurate. Sooner or later, someone on the internet was
going to make a free "classified ad" and distribute it. If it wasn't
Craigslist it would have been MySpace or Facebook or someone else. Maybe the
newspapers themselves would have done it.

~~~
rapind
Where I live people use Kijiji instead of Craigslist, so yeah it's obvious and
proven. Mainstream journalism died when it became about profit (wasn't
always).

* Interesting note. I've seen many complaints and unofficial redesigns touted for Craigslist, but go and take a look at the monstrously ad-ridden Kijiji on your phone in comparison. Craigslist is holding up pretty strong.

~~~
eli
What do you mean journalism wasn’t always about profit?

~~~
rapind
Stations didn't use to rely on or require News programs to make a profit. It
was a loss-leader to create prestige for the networks and comply with the
FCC's Fairness Doctrine.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine)

~~~
eli
Ah, I see what you mean. I'm not sure the Fairness Doctrine is a model for how
to improve the quality of journalism in the future.

During that same time period print newspapers were enormously profitable and
were also doing good work.

------
idlewords
For people who haven't met Craig Newmark in person, it's relevant to point out
here that he is one of the gentlest and biggest-hearted tech people in public
life.

~~~
Zenst
Thank you for that insight, more people are quick to `outrage` against a
person, fewer speak up for them based upon personal experience and for
somebody to make such a positive impression that others will speak good of
them. It's nice to see.

So not irrelevant, knowing the person and motives behind the words (if any),
effects the words and with that, most positive and relevant I'd say. Thank
you.

------
chiefalchemist
Confirmation bias is so strong in most ppl then when you explain to them the
mainstream media plays to the narrative that is most profitable for them.

Fake news isn't simply about facts, but news, by definition, entails relevence
and importance. I wish i had $10 for things I've seen served/broadcast as news
that is, at best, fluffy current events. Meanwhile, real news is ignored.

~~~
Zenst
So true about fluffy news, worse than adverts imho as add nothing and the
media's equivalent of cat pictures. Which reminds me of a unintentional parody
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiPa44LxgxE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiPa44LxgxE)
which has one of the most honest news headline, the World has ever seen.

------
unicornporn
Ahh, the good old times when there were still somewhat important online
problems that remained to be solved. He got rich solving one of them. These
days I see very little problem solving and lots of problem invention.

------
m-i-l
My favourite quote from the article: "no one needs a billion dollars". Wonder
if that's a reference to "A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool?
A billion dollars."

------
bctnry
> Outrage is profitable.

Reminds me of what have been happening in the past few months on "Weibo"
(think of it like the Twitter of Mainland China). Didn't know the details but
surely some people have been trying to profit from deliberately inspiring
outrages from feminism issues.

------
toss1
Considering that Fox News was basically founded by Roger Ailes to profit from
right wing outrage, this shows what it is worth... more than many software
companies

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-28/fox-
ne...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-28/fox-news-shows-
what-outrage-is-worth)

------
fnord77
This article is pretty ironic. Have a gander at Craigslist political forum.

It's been a complete cesspool for almost 20 years. In fact they made an effort
to clean it up a few years ago. About 10 years back it was really bad.

homophobia, sexism, lies, death threats.

and the want-ad part - up until recently a lot of craigslist was scam ads and
human trafficking.

------
paulgb
I enjoyed the article, but the only part that is relevant to the title is this
paragraph near the end:

> “Americans are much more reasonable and moderate than what you might guess
> when you see a little Twitter war. But I’m guessing that the purpose of many
> Twitter wars is to polarise people and, in fact, we’ve seen that happen
> because you can often trace some of the fighting groups to the same
> location. Outrage is profitable. Most of the outrage I’ve seen in the online
> world – I would guess 80% – someone’s faking it for profit.”

A good book that opened my eyes up to the phenomenon of manufactured outrage
is Trust Me I'm Lying by Ryan Holiday.

~~~
api
Fear, hate, and outrage release some powerful brain chemicals. I sometimes
feel like people are almost literally doing hits of online drama.

Tabloids, daytime TV, and radio shock jocks have always implicitly gotten this
and delivered this fix, but social media is to those what crack is to chewing
coca leaves.

~~~
swiley
It’s bad when they bring it into real life. I know people who I’ve always
thought “must get high on getting angry” and they’re some of the most
unpleasant people to be around.

------
bruceb
This includes The Guardian opinion pieces.

I am surprised their isn't outrage as a service on twitter. I writer needs 10
twitter accounts to say something controversial so that can write about the
"backlash" to some event or celeb. Maybe this already exists, just not obvious
yet.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Not really necessary. There is __always__ some pushback on Twitter. Take a
position and you'll find those on your side, and those against you.
Confirmation bias is alive and well on the internet.

What continues to shock me is how willing (so called) jouranalist are to use
Twitter as a source of reliable and trustworthy info. Again, you can find a
handful of tweets to support - or not - _any_ issue.

~~~
pm90
Journalists don’t use Twitter as the source of truth unless there is no other
way to get info. Eg the current POTUS doesn’t even have regular press
briefings and uses Tweets to broadcast everything.

Journalists _do_ seem to like Twitter as a platform to debate though. This was
where they found it very useful, and why so many of them were early adopters
and continue to be active there.

Why do they like Twitter?Today’s issues are so complex that writing long form
articles on every event can limit the scope of your views to one or 2 main
things while you may still be interested to debate other things. Twitter is a
low cost, easily setup platform to do that.

~~~
heavenlyblue
>> interested to debate

Can you elaborate on good debate threads that happened on Twitter?

------
grenoire
Not particularly a case of outrage per se, but what's up with articles quoting
a couple of ~10 like tweets and pumping some small thing as if the "whole
internet" is arguing about it?

Lazy authors, or does it make money?

~~~
pessimizer
It launders an opinion that no one at the paper would be willing to put their
name to because they would be expected to explain themselves.

The weirdest thing is when the tweets on those articles have < 20
likes/replies

~~~
cagenut
the interesting thing is, quotes have always done this, now we can just see
some related metrics.

------
amelius
> Outrage is profitable.

What will it take to make this statement false? Ban online advertising? Any
less drastic options?

~~~
creato
> Ban online advertising?

Would this even change anything? I don't think "profitable" is the right word
here. Outrage gets _attention_ , and people want that for many reasons, it
just happens to align with the ad business model. I'm not even sure it's the
most significant factor though.

~~~
amelius
Yes, but what if you had to pay for your content, instead of having ads pay
for it? Would you still consume the same outrage-laden content? Wouldn't the
outrage turn against the publishers of that content?

An internet with a different monetization scheme could be a better internet.

------
Pfhreak
This seems like an appeal to authority, supposing that Craig is an authority
on internet outrage.

I don't see any data to back this claim up, but maybe I didn't read the
article deeply enough.

I'm also suspicious of the folks who label criticism as 'outrage'. I suspect
that it's a mechanism for dismissing critics for their tone rather than
engaging with their arguments...

~~~
throwaway8879
I don't know what to tell you. If you haven't noticed the overwhelming mass-
production of engineered outrage over the last few years, then perhaps we
don't frequent the same places on the internet.

~~~
Pfhreak
I'm on twitter, I'm on HN, I read the news. I see some outrage, but I wouldn't
qualify it as 'mass-produced' or 'engineered'.

I see things like migrant detention, police shootings, discrimination against
minorities (and especially the targeting of trans people), climate change,
etc. Those things get a response on the internet, sure, and some folks are
outraged over them.

But calling it 'mass produced' and 'engineered' is the same thing as saying
they are 'virtue signaling'. You are saying, "Those people don't have
genuinely held opinions." Implicit in that you are saying, "... but I do."

Additionally, outrage serves a really important role in our democracy. It is a
critical tool that can be used to address injustice. It's not the only tool,
obviously, but it is an important component in raising the voice of those who
are the bottom of our society. Many of us live in relative wealth and comfort
and wouldn't otherwise be made aware of how bad it is for the poorest among us
without outrage.

It's definitely not the only tool. We should also be engaging in debate and
advocacy and charity and organizing, etc. But calling for the elimination of
outrage is calling for the silencing of voices that have no other means to
effectively engage with the system.

~~~
throwaway8879
> I see things like migrant detention, police shootings, discrimination
> against minorities (and especially the targeting of trans people), climate
> change, etc.

I'm not American. Literally none of those things are relevant to me.

> You are saying, "Those people don't have genuinely held opinions." Implicit
> in that you are saying, "... but I do."

I didn't say that. You did.

> But calling for the elimination of outrage is calling for the silencing of
> voices..

Again, your words, not mine.

