Wow, Teen Vogue can teach the Guardian a thing or two about how to listen to relevant people and how to get the facts right.
The whole Guardian incident shows the desire/need of media outlets to write sensationalist pieces even though the stories are completely misleading and could potentially cause at risk users to move to less secure communication platforms. Anything that triggers outrage always gets more eyeballs which translates to more ad revenue and this seems to be the driving force for media outlets these days.
It's obvious that the authors and editors over at Guardian are aware of how misleading their articles about WhatsApp's so called backdoor were, yet they have no incentive to acknowledge that they were wrong and retract those articles. Another case of media outlets' incentives not being in the best interest of the general public.
Also worth mentioning another case where media outlets chase sensationalism over facts, proper research and due diligence was the Wallstreetjournal's piece on Youtuber pewdewpie being anti-semitic. WSJ again ran misleading articles about pewdewpie and took a lot of videos completely out of context to make him look like a nazi. That piece led to many deals/contracts with media companies being canceled because of public outrage.
The point is, fake news has real consequences. Imagine the consequences of activists adopting email or telegram to exchange messages in oppressive regimes, becuase of Guardian's articles.
Here's a timeline of the Guardian's coverage and subsequent response. They tried to stand by their misleading articles, then said their ombudsman was on holiday, and were never heard from again.
The whole Guardian incident shows the desire/need of media outlets to write sensationalist pieces even though the stories are completely misleading and could potentially cause at risk users to move to less secure communication platforms. Anything that triggers outrage always gets more eyeballs which translates to more ad revenue and this seems to be the driving force for media outlets these days.
It's obvious that the authors and editors over at Guardian are aware of how misleading their articles about WhatsApp's so called backdoor were, yet they have no incentive to acknowledge that they were wrong and retract those articles. Another case of media outlets' incentives not being in the best interest of the general public.
Also worth mentioning another case where media outlets chase sensationalism over facts, proper research and due diligence was the Wallstreetjournal's piece on Youtuber pewdewpie being anti-semitic. WSJ again ran misleading articles about pewdewpie and took a lot of videos completely out of context to make him look like a nazi. That piece led to many deals/contracts with media companies being canceled because of public outrage.
The point is, fake news has real consequences. Imagine the consequences of activists adopting email or telegram to exchange messages in oppressive regimes, becuase of Guardian's articles.