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posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 30 2018, @10:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-internet-is-forever dept.

Joy Reid, an MSNBC host, apologized in December for "homophobic content" on a "now-defunct blog". This month, a Twitter user found similar material by using Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, although robots.txt is now in effect. This time around, Reid blamed hackers (archive) for inserting these posts into the blog, before admitting that it could not be proven (archive) that the blog had been hacked/manipulated:

Joy Reid, the MSNBC host who accused hackers of inserting homophobic posts into her now-defunct blog, said on Saturday that while she continued to deny having written the offensive language, security experts could not conclusively say her blog was breached. "I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things, because they are completely alien to me," she said on her morning show, "AM Joy." "But I can definitely understand, based on things I have tweeted and have written in the past, why some people don't believe me." She hired a cybersecurity expert to see if her former blog had been manipulated, she said, but "the reality is, they have not been able to prove it."

The posts containing the offensive language, which Mediaite wrote about on Monday, said that "most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing" and that "a lot of heterosexuals, especially men, find the idea of homosexual sex to be ... well ... gross." They also allegedly showed Ms. Reid arguing against legalized gay marriage and criticizing commentators who supported it, including Rachel Maddow, who is now one of Ms. Reid's colleagues at MSNBC.

The Internet Archive responded to claims that its database might have been manipulated:

This past December, Reid's lawyers contacted us, asking to have archives of the blog (blog.reidreport.com) taken down, stating that "fraudulent" posts were "inserted into legitimate content" in our archives of the blog. Her attorneys stated that they didn't know if the alleged insertion happened on the original site or with our archives (the point at which the manipulation is to have occurred, according to Reid, is still unclear to us).

When we reviewed the archives, we found nothing to indicate tampering or hacking of the Wayback Machine versions. At least some of the examples of allegedly fraudulent posts provided to us had been archived at different dates and by different entities.

We let Reid's lawyers know that the information provided was not sufficient for us to verify claims of manipulation. Consequently, and due to Reid's being a journalist (a very high-profile one, at that) and the journalistic nature of the blog archives, we declined to take down the archives. We were clear that we would welcome and consider any further information that they could provide us to support their claims.

Also at CNN.


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @12:04PM (18 children)

    Believe me when I say I would not have linked it if it had been what normally passes for "science" in psych fields. It was proper science.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday April 30 2018, @12:48PM (11 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 30 2018, @12:48PM (#673693) Journal

    What makes you think is proper science?
    Besides, why should I believe you?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @12:57PM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @12:57PM (#673700)

      Proper science comes to conclusions that one is comfortable with.

      Science should be used to uphold traditional values and gender roles.

      Or something.

      • (Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @01:26PM (4 children)

        Proper science deals in provable facts and doesn't give a damn about politics.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday April 30 2018, @01:51PM (3 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 30 2018, @01:51PM (#673721) Journal

          Fact: watching two men kissing triggers elevated levels of the same enzyme the body uses to breakdown starch, in a sample of unknown representativeness and size of Utah men. Other hypotheses considered for these elevated levels investigated are unknown. No explanation provided on why the level of α-amylase is considered an appropriate metric to associate with stress. No other replication of the study/results is known.

          Interpretation: yet another phack** psychology study that got acceptance as real science by TMB because of unexplained/unknown reasons.

          Sciency enough for you?

          ---
          ** From the abstract, while waiting for a certain hub to be functional:

          A series of paired-samples t-tests was performed and found that sAA responses to images of same-sex kissing (t(98) = 3.124, p = .002) and universally disgusting images (t(98) = 2.128, p = .036) were significantly greater than sAA responses to the slide show depicting everyday items.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @02:03PM (2 children)

            You appear to misunderstand science. You see, when someone goes and proves something with actual data, you have to prove why they're wrong or find a critical flaw in their methodology if you disagree. This study wasn't a thirty year study on a third of the population but its methodology was quite passable for the sample size it did have.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday April 30 2018, @02:27PM

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 30 2018, @02:27PM (#673739) Journal

              You appear to misunderstand science.

              While it may be so, I doubt it.

              You see, when someone goes and proves something with actual data, you have to prove why they're wrong or find a critical flaw in their methodology if you disagree.

              I don't disagree, I only use the facts that I have available. Yes, availability (and the lack thereof**) is a big factor.
              And your "Trust me" doesn't help with facts.

              but its methodology was quite passable for the sample size it did have.

              Passable (=acceptable but only barely so) for you. And even you cast a shadow over the representativeness of the sample.

              ---
              ** (damn'd. The twin.<name>.is is still not resolving)

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @06:12AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @06:12AM (#674057)

              You appear to misunderstand science

              They certainly misunderstand what p-hacking is (reporting a p value != p-hacking).

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @01:41PM (4 children)

      I read the paper. The core methodology and results are passable even if some of the prior assumptions aren't. I'd give you a sci-hub link but that could cause trouble being as I'm staff.

      Because I never earnestly say anything I know to be untrue. I may be less precise than I should or just be flat wrong but I do not lie. For comedic purposes is another matter entirely but that is not relevant to this discussion.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Monday April 30 2018, @02:00PM (1 child)

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 30 2018, @02:00PM (#673727) Journal

        I'd give you a sci-hub link but that could cause trouble being as I'm staff.

        Unfortunately, the site mirror that I still can use is malfunctioning for the moment, the onion one is mostly unusable from here.

        Because I never earnestly say anything I know to be untrue.

        I trust you to hold a sincere belief the article is true.
        Unfortunately, your belief in its truthfulness doesn't necessary translate in an actual truthful article.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @02:08PM

          How many science articles have I nit picked about methodology and such on? I'm not exactly known for being generous with my forgiveness of poor science. This one was done with some assumptions/presuppositions that shouldn't have been made but I'm unable to see how they could have influenced the results. The experiment and results themselves seem solid, barring evidence of a flaw.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday April 30 2018, @07:14PM (1 child)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday April 30 2018, @07:14PM (#673866) Journal

        Eh, you never say anything you believe to be untrue. Belief and knowledge aren't the same thing.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 30 2018, @08:21PM

          Yeah, I covered that a couple sentences later. Finding out you're wrong on something should be one of the great pleasures of life. It gives you an opportunity to correct the wrongness and actually be as right as is currently possible. Unfortunately that is something we all have to put the effort into keeping in mind. Very few people can manage it even half the time.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @01:58AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @01:58AM (#673999)

    Two glasses of mead and a martini in me and I still know better than to trust your judgement about science.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 01 2018, @02:44AM (4 children)

      Yes, you should never trust someone's judgment on science when they base it something as foolish as following proper scientific method. By all means, review the results and attempt to reproduce or refute them.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:37AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @03:37AM (#674026)

        That's assuming you can recognize the scientific method if it bites your arse. From your posts, I'm convinced that's not the case.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 01 2018, @10:33AM (2 children)

          This is most likely because you believe reality should or must conform to your preconceived beliefs. Reality doesn't work like that though. You are a very tiny and unimportant speck in it and it gives not a single fuck about your beliefs.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @05:00PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2018, @05:00PM (#674205)

            Now repeat this to yourself every morning for the rest of your life