ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat footage from Syria

Re:ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat foo... by nyczomg on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @04:01PM (#21263009)

Why does this seem to be disappearing from the HN front page? This blatant war propaganda was broadcast to millions of people, possibly after someone at ABC doctored the video. That's a big deal by itself. And if that's not enough for this to be relevant to our interests here, we only know about this because of tech companies like reddit and twitter that give a platform to some random person who can identify this BS within minutes. Decades ago ABC and others could have gotten away with this on every single one of their broadcasts.

Are people numb to this? Do we just not want to discuss it because we don't think we can be civil any more?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat foo... by catalogia on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @04:08PM (#21263117)

This discussion has now been flagged as well. I'm curious if anybody who's flagged this would be interested in explaining why they did so.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat foo... by Erwin on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @04:08PM (#21263123)

It's not relevant to the HN guidelines and so most people will flag it: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Is it interesting that some news org is passing stock footage? Is that in any way new? Maybe if they were using "deepfakes" to generate fake news videos it would be interesting, but it's not like the Turkish attack is in any way disputed.

Is reddit a good "detective"? Well,: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-did-it-reddit

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat foo... by catalogia on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @04:15PM (#21263210)

> "Is reddit a good "detective"?"

How is that relevant to this discussion? That reddit is correct in this particular instance isn't in question. Unless you're entertaining the notion of devious redditors hacking youtube to fabricate the original video.. Responding to this circumstance by calling into question the reputation of reddit seems like textbook FUD. There is no legitimate defensible uncertainty or doubt here, no matter reddit's reputation.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat foo... by equalunique on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @04:27PM (#21263351)

War propaganda, i.e., information warfare, is absolutely relevant to HN & it's readers.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:ABC news is trying to pass gun range videos as combat foo... by nyczomg on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @04:19PM (#21263253)

Those guidelines are fairly subjective when it comes to something like this. They don't say "most stories about politics..." rather than "all stories about politics..." for a reason. I think you could effectively argue either that this is on-topic or off-topic...

That said, then why not err on the side of leaving this up? I like HN because there are usually insightful, level-headed discussions about a wide variety of topics. This is definitely one I'd love to read a larger take on from the HN crowd on. This isn't a status quo I'd like to see more people accept.

[ Parent | on HN ]