
Bloomberg Misreports on Whatsapp Story - 2arrs2ells
https://twitter.com/alexstamos/status/1178308065268920320
======
alephnan
I’m questioning the journalistic integrity of Bloomberg after the author of
the article about the “Big Hack”, with China infiltrating hardware, received a
promotion.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/17/bloomberg...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/17/bloomberg-
reporter-challenged-big-hack-story-gets-promoted/)

~~~
paulcole
Promote the incompetent to the level where they can do the least amount of
damage.

~~~
Thorrez
Ah, the Peter Principle. But I'm not so sure it will work. Maybe the higher
level will allow more editorial decisions, and we've already seen problems
there.

~~~
paulcole
Close but it’s the Dilbert Principle.

Who downvoted this? It’s true!

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

~~~
Thorrez
Hmm, I think it could be either, depending on whether leadership viewed the
author as incompetent. If leadership viewed the author as incompetent, it's
the Dilbert Principle. If leadership viewed the author as competent, it's the
Peter Principle.

~~~
paulcole
> Promote the incompetent to the level where they can do the least amount of
> damage.

I think my original comment is quite clear.

------
withinrafael
Unless I'm missing something, it appears Mr. Stamos (and others) are refuting
the original reporting [1][2] with details from the US CLOUD act [3]. The
original reporting did not mention the CLOUD act and only mentioned an
upcoming "treaty" or "accord". While it's a reasonable guess that these are
related, I fear the Hacker News headline prematurely burns Bloomberg with
unsubstantiated opinion that currently holds no more weight than the original
reporting.

[1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-28/facebook-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-28/facebook-
whatsapp-will-have-to-share-messages-with-u-k-police)

[2] [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-can-access-
suspect...](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/police-can-access-suspects-
facebook-and-whatsapp-messages-in-deal-with-us-q7lrfmchz)

[3]
[https://www.justice.gov/dag/cloudact](https://www.justice.gov/dag/cloudact)

~~~
2arrs2ells
If you remove the word "encrypted" from this sentence in the Bloomberg
article:

 _Social media platforms based in the U.S. including Facebook and WhatsApp
will be forced to share users’ encrypted messages with British police under a
new treaty between the two countries, according to a person familiar with the
matter._

Then the article matches Stamos's account entirely.

With the word "encrypted," the article makes no sense – it would take
legislation to force US companies to build backdoors to encryption, not an
international accord.

I agree the HN headline could be better (my fault!) - but my money is on
another Bloomberg security reporting error. Hope they actually issue a
correction this time...

~~~
Marsymars
> With the word "encrypted," the article makes no sense – it would take
> legislation to force US companies to build backdoors to encryption, not an
> international accord.

It makes sense if you take it to mean that WhatsApp with share the encrypted
messages, without any means to decrypt. It's not a very meaningful statement
though, and will only confuse people.

~~~
larkeith
If that's truly what they mean, that's far more than confusing - it's flat-out
deceptive.

------
alister
Sorry for a meta comment here, but does anyone enjoy long articles in “Twitter
format”? The formatting is ugly, it’s transient, and beholden to a third
party’s whims. Much better would be a blog article and a link to it from
Twitter.

~~~
sroussey
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1178308065268920320.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1178308065268920320.html)

~~~
anon4242
LOL! Making the Internet readable again!

------
blibble
isn't this the company where their reporters bonuses are highly influenced by
how much their stories move the markets?

[https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-
compensa...](https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-
compensation-2013-12)

in such an environment it seems obvious that they're going to stretch stories

------
2arrs2ells
HN discussion of Bloomberg story (with denial from head of Whatsapp):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21100588)

------
lousken
readable version
[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1178308065268920320.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1178308065268920320.html)

------
PeterStuer
Why oh why are people writing long copy in a gazillion tweets instead of
anouncing/advertising the article there and then referring to a place more
suited for that type of essay?

~~~
mrunkel
Kids these days, am I right?

[https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1178308065268920320.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1178308065268920320.html)

I find it annoying too, but some people really like twitter/have an
established following there.

~~~
PeterStuer
What does age have to do with it?

I get the popularity of Twitter, but I don't see how anyone can think this
sort of tweetsalami essay writing can beat having a summary in 1-3 tweets with
a reference to a webpage that has the full essay.

------
ltbarcly3
Another great opportunity to quote the "Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect" (coined by
Michael Crichton).

For those who don't know, Gell-Mann won the nobel prize in physics. He pointed
out that whenever you see a news article about a topic you personally know
about, the article is always shockingly inaccurate.

The 'amnesia' part is that you immediately forget that every article you have
expertise on is hilariously inaccurate, and assume that articles you read are
accurate the rest of the time.

Lesson: news articles are written by non-experts trying to sum up some things
that they do not understand, and with exceptions I am unaware of, _never_
accurate

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmn...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect)

~~~
comex
Most news articles are a whole lot more accurate than these ones were.

------
mcarmichael
Forbes has a reasonably clear article on the subject, although they do
themselves no credit by inserting gratuitous Twitter snark about their
competitor into their article presentation:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/09/29/whatsapp-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/09/29/whatsapp-
backdoorwill-facebook-be-forced-to-break-message-encryption-as-
reported/#732a215e1b38)

------
buboard
Whatever happened to those chips that were tweaked?

