
Ask HN: What to flag and how to detect sponsored stories? - jacquesm
Hello HN, given the text of this comment: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10573590 , what would be good criteria to determine if a story is a sponsored one?<p>I do a fair bit of looking at the new page but it is getting harder to figure out which articles are written with payment by the subject of the article. For instance, I flagged the story about the audio plug-in ( https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10636826 ) but it was not immediately obvious (and there is no proof). Given that comment we can expect a wave of such sponsored content to arrive and it might be good to establish a bunch of criteria based on articles suspected to be sponsored content.
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Tomte
I just skimmed the audio plugin story and I find it perfectly fine.

Let's not swing the pendulum too far in the direction of suspecting every
story to be sponsored.

It will only lead to more accusations of being a shill in the comments, and
I'm very happy we users (and the moderators) seem to have successfully pushed
back against that.

~~~
jacquesm
The whole point of this ask HN is that it's not clear (at least, not clear to
me). At least two users independently flagged that article, there may be quite
a bit more. Without objective criteria of what sponsored content looks like
good content will end up flagged and sponsored content will end up dominating
the discussion.

After all, that's the goal of the sponsored content, to drown out any
'regular' content because the two are in competition for the same amount of
attention that we can expend, but because sponsored content has money behind
it and 'regular' content likely does not there will be a significant risk that
the sponsored content will win that match.

~~~
Tomte
I don't see any possible way to distinguish sponsored content from other
content, short of an admission by the involved parties.

Therefore I don't see a positive outcome from the question.

~~~
jacquesm
Ok, some things that might work - or not:

\- sponsored content would likely only talk about one product, not about a
product against a competitive background

\- it would likely _only_ talk about that product in a positive sense

\- it would likely be part of a larger campaign

Maybe there are more criteria and hopefully simpler ones (certain keywords,
calls to action, incessant repetition of product or company name or other
giveaways).

------
dang
As we know from pg's submarine essay, variants of this problem have existed
for a long time. I don't see a big difference between PR-written articles and
sponsored articles. The former are arguably more insidious because they leave
a fig leaf of independence (c.f. Dan Ariely's argument that conflict-of-
interest guidelines actually increase corruption because people feel that as
long as they satisfy those, anything else goes).

The only information we're guaranteed to have is the text of the articles, so
we might as well all get better at reading. Fortunately, for most topics, HN's
community contains people who know something about it, are unlikely to be part
of any marketing campaign, and can provide valuable critique. That's exactly
what happened in the audio equipment thread.

Edit: I just noticed an interesting case:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10641543](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10641543).
That's a profile of HN favorite Bret Victor, apparently sponsored by BMW in
some disclosed but not explained way. At first glance it seems to be a good
article for HN.

I suppose a best-case (if unlikely) scenario of sponsored stories is that
authors would be funded to write high-quality content and wouldn't have to
worry about making it baity or dumbing it down. That would be closer to
patronage than advertising.

------
scholia
Don't look at the story, look at the website.

If the publication is an honest one (The Guardian, New York Times, ZDNet,
whatever) then the story is not sponsored, and if it is, it will say so. And
with an honest publication, the sponsorship only buys you the space, it does
_not_ buy you the journalist's opinion or a favorable review.

Note: it doesn't matter if you agree with the journalist's opinion or not.
Different people have different needs, experiences, and views, even on the
same paper. Even if you think a review is deluded, that doesn't mean the
journalist is a shill. (And maybe you're the one who is deluded....)

If the publication or website isn't honest, then it really doesn't matter
whether the story is sponsored or not. Caveat emptor. You can decide for
yourself whether or not the story is useful for _you_.

~~~
jacquesm
How about this then:

[http://www.condenast.com/press/press-
releases/2015/01/26/new...](http://www.condenast.com/press/press-
releases/2015/01/26/new-branded-content-studio-23-stories-conde-nast-debuts)

~~~
scholia
Branded content, isn't it? Which means it's still advertising rather than
editorial....

------
DanBC
Is it a good article? Is it interesting? Paid or not is irrelevant.

~~~
jacquesm
That's a good point. But I'd very much like to know when I'm looking at
content that is pushing something versus something that is genuine. The same
could be said for reviews: if the review is good and interesting whether it is
paid or not is not relevant. But for me it does matter whether the reviewer
was paid by the maker of the product, it tends to skew the review towards
favorable or even very favorable when in fact the product may be mediocre or
simply bad.

~~~
DanBC
Don't US rules mean sponsored content has to be marked as such? FTC has some
stuff here: [https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-
center/guidance/ftc...](https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-
center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking)

If it's a UK source the rules are much tighter: any sponsored content has to
be clearly identified as such before the user "clicks" it. So, a YouTuber who
has a sponsored post must include the fact that it's sponsored in the title of
the video, and should probably have "sponsored" in the thumbnail, and in the
first few frames of the content.

Having, for example, a three second clip at the end of the video saying it was
a sponsored post is not enough.

~~~
J_Darnley
Just because there are rules don't expect anyone to actually follow them.

~~~
DanBC
Well, I'm used to UK regulation where these things actually are enforced.

------
MrQuincle
There is funny South Park episode on this:
[http://uk.businessinsider.com/south-park-sponsored-
content-a...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/south-park-sponsored-content-ad-
blocking-episode-2015-11?r=US&IR=T)

In perfectly sponsored content there should be no ads you can click on. :-)

