Everyone who was right and informed in the original thread was greyed out by users here.
Any story about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, Uber, or PayPal doing anything negative tends to bring out the most cynical commenters. HN is usually a skeptical crowd, right until a story arrives that fits their worldview.
The false story about Apple's refund policy that garnered 2000 upvotes before being retracted is a prime example ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23987584 ). When it was in the #1 spot, several people tried to correct the story in the comments. They were heavily downvoted. For some reason, the majority wanted to believe a random Twitter comment over actual iOS app developers trying to correct the misinformation.
Likewise, stories about psychedelics being miracle cures tend to rocket up the front page despite deeply flawed studies (no control group, usually). Meanwhile any study showing negative effects from psychedelics or cannabis tends to get picked apart for for small sample sizes or the evergreen "correlation is not causation" no matter how good the study was.
The real problem is assuming that HN is somehow immune from the same problems as other social media platforms. HN is very much a social media platform.
> Any story about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google, Uber, or PayPal doing anything negative tends to bring out the most cynical commenters. HN is usually a skeptical crowd, right until a story arrives that fits their worldview.
It's these companies that are cynical, not my worldview!
Nearly every single allegation about these companies doing something sneaky, evil, greedy, and underhanded has turned out be completely true.
When Uber was doing grey-balling, it turned out to be true. When Uber had made a secret agreement with Apple to have their app take screenshots in the background, that was true. Just off of the top of my head I can think of so many preposterous sounding incidents that turned out to be 100% true.
I would assert that people were completely correct to just assume that Apple was doing something shady with the app store. I think it is kind of naive to give Apple the benefit of the doubt at this point.
In any case, just for posterity, the actual event may well have happened, I'm just commenting on whether "HN believes it" has any impact on the truth of whether it happened or whether that company's reputation is shot.
Something is less of a "conspiracy theory" when there is explicit evidence written down in a contract that supports it.
Plenty of abuse and mismanagement from these companies have affected a lot of people, to different degrees, and that sets a precedent over which we all subjectively evaluate their actions.
Just last month I had a Twitter account for a side gig banned for absolutely no reason and with zero explanation. I am more inclined to believe the "rich kid from LA" story than the "hack"/"sim swapping" whatever nonsense. Why? Because I see it happening all the time, everywhere.
Here’s the follow up retraction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23995750
I’d be interested in knowing what thread that was though.
Just to check, I looked at all posts with over 1000 points in the past couple of months where a big tech company is accused of doing something "evil" to the little guy. They are:
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1. Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com (1656 points) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24506303
The OP accused GoDaddy of registering a domain for itself after the OP had added it to their cart. It turns out that many people were searching for the same search terms and someone else just happened to register it via GoDaddy on the same day.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24523901
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2. Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store (1313 points) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24304275
The OP implied that Google was banning all Fediverse apps with no recourse for the developers. But it turned out that Google was asking developers to block logins to a set of unmoderated instances that are known to be full of hate speech. Some developers refused, but it seems like most did not, and are doing just fine.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keylesspal...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.juggler.sub...
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3. When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited] (1243 points) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23987584
The original title and tweet said that Apple keeps the 30% cut. The author turned out to be misinformed.
https://twitter.com/twolivesleft/status/1288625617873694721
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Can you link to this? Not trying to be meta, I just don't believe random claims on the internet without any evidence.
I think this is partly because so many of us have worked in (or with) the targets of most conspiracy theories: government and large corporations.
Danny (@danny) • Instagram photos and videos
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photos and videos from Danny (@danny)
Why would someone jeopardize his reputation by using his real name on some kind of staging of a fake account swap? I kindly disagree with your second sentence.
Do you honestly believe a jury of average people would agree with this proposition? It seems contrary to common sense.
Keep in mind that there is a significant difference between what meets the relevancy bar in court, and what is logically probative. See, e.g., https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_401
The account messaged and said a facebook employee was involved. It isn't proof, it isn't strong evidence, but it is evidence and an implication that a facebook employee was involved.
> It’s actually not even evidence that the account even swapped hands!
Similarly the change in account usage pattern isn't proof but it is evidence.
It's easy enough for a Facebook policy team to confirm this one way or the other by looking at the logs. If this gets enough visibility I assume that will happen.
If Instagram account takeover favors can occur, how much do they cost?
[0] https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/site-...
In the new Danny's screenshot, it shows that he's followed by three other "OG" account names: "blood", "murder", and "dead". Furthermore, the screenshot was taken from another account, otherwise it would have shown as "This account is private" (Try viewing your own Instagram profile while logged in and private). Whoever was viewing it was therefore friends with Danny, 'blood', 'dead', and 'murder'. In other words, someone interested in OG accounts, or one of new Danny's alternate accounts.
Finally, it would be truly bizarre if new Danny immediately implicated a friend at Facebook before anyone asked him how he got the account. If this was true, I would suspect new Danny would be going to great lengths to hide the fact, rather than trying to hand the excuse out before anyone even asks. This guy just stole someone's Instagram account. He's hardly a credible source.
I wouldn't rush to conclude that a Facebook employee did this. It sounds like the kind of excuse someone would give to pretend to be coming from a position of internal power rather than appearing to be the result of a hack.
The account jacking idiot then messaged me trying to get me to put them in touch with my friend so they could try to help them get other accounts and bragged about how he was just going to take some of my other accounts that he somehow knew belonged to me despite there being no link to one another outside of what would be Twitter-internal data. It was the most brazenly ridiculous thing I've ever encountered, but I'm assuming it's an ignorant kid who doesn't realize the possible consequences or a really dumb adult.
So, I can totally believe the idiot would just blurt out how he got it because that gives him clout amongst his miscreant "OG account" friends.
Maybe the employee claim is wrong, who knows, but determining who owns the account should be trivial. And frankly, given what we know about how the Twitter "hack" went down (rate limits? sign offs? resetting 2FA? impersonating accounts?!) it is fully believable.
That's how it works on Facebook.
So if you have full control, you will pass these tests.
I don't understand how he is 'spamming'.
There’s really no evidence of anything at all.
Typically it is not the people with cushy jobs, but those working for vendor companies (moderation, customer support, etc) who have little investment in the company, are barely making minimum wage, and are more than happy to flip a few switches in the dashboard for a few thousand (or less).
Anyway, yes some people think that because they are good enough at what they do, they will be given a pass when caught. Unbeknownst to them, if any auditors catch them, then the "jokers" can start updating their CV.
Given the kind of ethically vacuous tech-bro who might join FB in 2020? Not _that_ far-fetched.
Isn't that how actual crime works?
[0]: https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Discussion/Incident-...
Yup, here it is, just five days ago.