
These charts show how the Edward Snowden story is overwhelming the NSA story - CrazedGeek
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/03/how-ed-snowden-became-a-bigger-story-than-nsa-spying-in-two-charts/
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skwirl
Just don't imagine that HN is sitting on some moral high ground. Any time
there is a story here that could be construed as possibly being negative
towards Mr. Snowden, the top comments are overwhelmingly "Why is the media
focused on Snowden and not the NSA scandal?" Whenever a story favorable to Mr.
Snowden appears here, however, the comment threads are full of praise and much
speculation over his personal future.

I'm sure these are mostly disjoint groups of users and not evidence of
hypocrisy, but clearly even many hackers have great interest in the personal
story of Mr. Snowden. And who can blame them? Personal stories are easy to
identify with and easy to understand.

Now the story is about the stories, which is even further removed from the
point at hand. And I am commenting about the story being about the stories, so
I don't claim any moral high ground either. Just an observation, though.

~~~
saraid216
> And who can blame them? Personal stories are easy to identify with and easy
> to understand.

The problem with putting a human face on such a story is _exactly_ the problem
described, though. I call it "The Gallant Knight effect", though that is a
made up term because I don't know the correct one. It's an anti-
individualistic effect that occurs when people identify a particular person as
exceptional and, in doing so, erase the individual faces of every other
relevant actor. This is the same effect that centralizes so much power on the
chief executive. It's similar to the Bystander Effect, but I'm talking about a
systemic problem rather than a situational one[1]. By shunting responsibility,
you also shunt agency.

It's an excuse to carry on with your own life because someone else is doing
the real work. Worse, it is an excuse to hide in the tavern, peering out the
window, while the gunslingers are out on the street, which is what a decent
percentage of HNers are doing by resorting to silver bullet security
solutions.

Putting someone in shiny armor and sending him out after the Grail means that
the rest of us can continue to be serfs. That's not to say it'd be any
different if Snowden hadn't disclosed himself, though: indeed, we'd probably
be spending an inordinate amount of effort trying to figure out who it was.
Someone would have guessed that it was Satoshi Nakamoto by now.

[1] Clicking around Wikipedia, I notice stuff like "diffusion of
responsibility", "social loafing" and "deindividuation" that I would also put
down as close but not quite because they are limited to talking about groups
smaller than, say, a million.

[2] I talk about it more here:
[https://plus.google.com/113476531580617567600/posts/btX9T4ku...](https://plus.google.com/113476531580617567600/posts/btX9T4ku3ax)
It's worth pointing out that this post predates the leaks.

------
walexander
There's nothing particularly unexpected by this, is there?

You see a big spike for "NSA" and "Prism" initially, then "Snowden" gradually
takes over.

People consuming information about the NSA leak learned everything available
during the first week. There is nothing new to be learned there.

Snowden's whereabouts are, however, an ongoing saga. As a result, I, like many
others interested in this, are searching for Snowden news which is constantly
changing.

It's encouraging so many are searching for Snowden. No one would be interested
if they didn't already understand the context.

------
mtowle
Apparently WaPo's key demo is imbeciles.

>You can play around with the graph here, and the trends don’t change
substantially if you try “NSA” instead of “National Security Agency” or look
at how the whole world is searching rather than just Americans.

Oh yeah? What if you combine the two?

Further, Brad Plumer, you may want to put yourself in the position of someone
doing a Google search before you announce what people are trying to find info
on. If I search NSA, what happens? I get results that don't have anything to
do with the PRISM story. Same goes for the word 'prism'. 'Snowden', on the
other hand, will bring me exactly what I need, so that's what I'm going to
search for. Or don't they teach you how to Google at the Post?

I'll stop there. Anybody with half a brain could think of another dozen
mundane ways to call Brad Plumer stupid. Except, of course, for Blad Plumer,
who is stupid.

~~~
nitrogen
The name calling ("imbecile", "stupid") is unnecessary.

~~~
mtowle
When writers get on soapboxes, they open themselves up to this category of
response. Mere question-asking ("Is there a disparity? If so, why?") on Brad's
part would be one thing, but his article is accusatory; he condescends to
everyone but himself. And if he were right, again, that would be different,
but he's not. He's just being a dick. Fuck him.

~~~
nitrogen
The name calling is also unwelcome on HN, per local norms of civility and the
site guidelines:

 _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to
"1 + 1 is 2, not 3."_
([http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html))

------
contingencies
_Mainstream media fails to communicate vast totalitarian conspiracy; English
speaking world remains uninformed, indifferent_.

~~~
anigbrowl
Understatement can sometimes be more persuasive than hyperbole.

~~~
mtowle
Litotes

~~~
anigbrowl
Not bad, though I'm a meiosis fellow myself.

------
marshray
Why should we believe that "the Snowden story" is actually _detracting_ from
the NSA story?

That makes about as much sense as saying Deep Throat and the book "All the
President's Men" detracted from the Watergate story.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_President's_Men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_President's_Men)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate)#Contro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_\(Watergate\)#Controversy_over_motives)

------
neoludite
This is simply shows how users interact with search engines. If I want to
visit the NSA homepage and learn what wonderful people they are I'll search
for "NSA", if I want to find out the last clusterf __k to hit the NSA I 'll
type in "Snowden".

------
unclebucknasty
In some ways I wonder if he (and the impact that he wanted his leak to have)
would be better off if he just turned himself in.

If the media insists that the story be about him, at least it won't be this
Hollywood style, "where in the world is Edward Snowden" drama. Perhaps it can
instead be about why this man is being prosecuted, and whether he should be.

It's an outside chance, but at least it gets us closer to the real story if it
goes that route. If nothing else, at least the mundane day to day details of
legal proceedings are less exciting than this global pursuit. And, perhaps in
those details, as the government begins to make its case, we can learn more
and have questions again raised about what the government is doing.

------
mpyne
What's interesting is how this all should have been entirely predictable to
Snowden. He's an American, he knows what Jerry Springer is. He said right from
the beginning that he didn't want this to be about him, so why has he let the
circus go on so long?

Did he think that the press focuses on human-interest stories because they
_don 't_ sell or drive pageviews? He's giving the media so much to drive
stories on, and all about Snowden and Assange and Wikileaks and asylum... but
not about the big bad NSA. But so be it, I'm sure his current padded cell must
be more comfortable.

~~~
el_fuser
You seem to believe that Snowden can control the media.

~~~
mpyne
In fact I claim the opposite; Snowden cannot control the media, and should
have predicted its _inevitable reaction_ to the input he has been feeding it.

~~~
mtowle
Ah, and were he not to have done so, are we so sure the NSA bits and pieces
would be dominating the headlines, or might those have drifted into the
background regardless? Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man
schweigen.

~~~
mpyne
Last time I checked Greenwald is not an idiot. The ongoing leaks have come
without any interaction by Snowden at all, if I'm understanding him correctly.
If anything he keeps stealing the thunder of WaPo, Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc.

------
alayne
Snowden is important because it's a way to humanize the issues with the NSA.
He's a sympathetic character.

------
coopdog
This is classic journalism. People are wired to consume stories about other
people. Collections of facts and abstract concepts appeal to hackers,
engineers and analytical types, who are in the minority as most people can't
stomach that kind of information.

Journalists always add a face to a story, and Snowden is that face. I'd say
it's actually kind of encouraging because it means the message has been
tailored for the mainstream and/or mainstream readers are interested.

------
prostoalex
This crisis management technique is employed by politicians while running
their campaign, is it really that surprising that it persists when former
campaign staff gets government titles?

1) Move the limelight away from the story and onto the opponent.

2) Dig out some questionable behavior from the past, or coin a term that
portrays everyday common behavior in a negative light, e.g. if someone changed
their opinions about anything, they're now a "flip-flopper".

3) Profit.

------
awhitty
This article doesn't consider an aggregate like "nsa + national security
agency." Plotting the two terms combined shows the Snowden story isn't
clouding out the NSA searches.

For people who might suggest plotting "edward snowden + snowden," the graph
doesn't change at all, for obvious reasons.

------
bpatrianakos
It really doesn't help that Snowden himself keeps asking for attention. He
broke the story, gave away the docs, and still checks in every week so we all
don't forget about him. I still think his leak was at least in part motivated
by selfish reasons.

~~~
marshray
So you're living in the terminal of an international airport. The most
powerful government in the world is trying to shut you up by throwing you in
prison probably for the rest of your life. Every other spy in the world wants
to recover what's encrypted on your laptops, so you sleep with them as your
pillow.

You have a legal advisor from Wikileaks, and the Russians will probably keep
you from being killed where you are, but not much else in the way of tangible
support. International press are phoning your media relations consultant,
Julian Assange, around the clock begging to know if there are any updates
which they might possibly write about.

And folks on the Internet and the press at home call you a selfish narcissist
if you open your mouth once a week.

------
microb
I think people are interested in Snowden because people are curious to see
what happens to someone who so brazenly defies a democratic government in the
name of democracy.

------
junto
I disagree with the chart. The search terms don't make sense.

