
Epstein Suicide Conspiracies Show How Our Information System Is Poisoned - tim333
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/opinion/jeffrey-epstein-suicide-conspiracies.html
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mhkool
Let's forget "conspiracy" and let's think "curiosity" for a moment. How is it
possible that Epstein, who is accused of organizing sex with children and
apparently with lots of evidence against him, and who has apparently tried to
kill himself two weeks ago, has to appear in court and is facing many years in
jail, apparently has a lot of dirt on others, (a) is _not_ on a suicide watch,
(b) is found dead in a specialised institute where suicide is said to be
impossible (stated by a man who was imprisoned there).

I do not buy it when officials say that it was not necessary to have him on
suicide watch. For whatever reason them come up with, I do not buy it. I find
it extremely suspicious that he was found dead. We have to wait and see what
an investigation will bring forward... but probably I will not buy whatever
will be stated.

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wyldfire
This was a really interesting comment:

> This creates big incentives to game trending. Either:

> 1) press will cover it & amplify

> 2) press will debunk & still amplify, while creating controversy

> 3) press will very occasionally ignore,then conspiracy press will cover to
> ask why

> if you make it trend, you make it true.

~~~
sebazzz
Let's just be hypothetical though. It is possible that one of more of his rich
friends knew or participated in his activities with children. It was all nice
and under the covers until now, his might confess.

Let's say for instance POTUS was involved. How hard would it then be for
Epstein to have a "accident" like suicide? The truth is simply we don't know,
but if there is anything, perhaps it will leak out one day.

But the investigation will be stopped now, only know other suspects will be
looked into.

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chovy
Epstein isn't a left vs. right problem. It's an "everyone is corrupt" problem.
Easiest thing for the powers that be is that he go away.

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teilo
You mean just like all those conspiracy theories that said that Epstein was
engaged in child sex trafficking on his private island?

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oceanghost
Well played.

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noja
Has the question been answered though? Why was he allowed to die? Why wasn't
he on suicide watch, or why did the suicide watch fail?

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jjtheblunt
What a hilarious title, coming from the NYT, I thought, with no particular
bias myself, just a grossed out observer of all American politics and media.

~~~
smitty1e
I mean, we pay a lot of money for the buffoonery, corruption, and incompetence
that isnour government.

If we can't enjoy some tinfoil hat riffs over idiocy like this, then what good
is the First Amendment?

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tim333
I thought it was interesting that there is a kind of positive feedback on
conspiracy theory stuff - people share it so it trends and goes exponential in
a way that boring factual type stuff might not. I was wondering if you could
use machine learning pick out stuff that looked like that and damp down the
spread by mechanisms similar to HN where you move it down the list and so on.

~~~
ykevinator
Polynomial

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haunter
BBC also playing the conspiracy card [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-
canada-49312746](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49312746)

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kappi
hackernews has become more and more nytimes traffic forward website...how many
nyt links gets posted here everyday

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dang
You can check for yourself, by clicking on the domain name next to the
submission title. Or use HN search to filter by points>N or comments>N:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=nytimes.com%20points>30&sort=b...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=nytimes.com%20points>30&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

I'm not seeing many off-topic NYT submissions getting significant attention.
Also, NYT has always been a prominent source of good HN submissions. I don't
think this has changed much.

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kappi
I know you moderators got profiled by NYT and got free publicity but doesn't
mean that this site should be become a traffic generator for NYT fakenews Rot
of journalism ethics at New York Times has turned into leftist plague
[https://nypost.com/2019/08/13/rot-of-journalism-ethics-at-
ne...](https://nypost.com/2019/08/13/rot-of-journalism-ethics-at-new-york-
times-has-turned-into-leftist-cancer/)

