[andriesm]

What indication do we have that environmentalally unfriendly companies are murdering activists?

I cannot imagine that being their best PR strategy, not to mention the fact that murdering your opposition attracts a lot of scrutiny, investigation, and which corp exec would want to risk going to jail for ordering a hit on an activist. Far more practical to lobby or spread counter marketing spin.

[cmav]

There are well documented murders of union workers, for example https://www.ituc-csi.org/guatemala-pre-meditated-murder-of?l...

The situation is probably the same for environment activists, you can be sure that it's not PR that will prevent them from getting killed...

[coldtea]

>I cannot imagine that being their best PR strategy

The "backend" 80% of the world doesn't work with PR strategies.

Nobody cares if an activist is murdered in Nigeria or Mexico etc., same way few care about journalists in those area. There will be some reports (if that), most will never even reach your preferred news outlets, and that's it.

And in more subtle areas (outside the developing world) they can always make it look like a "mysterious" homicide case, despite e.g. known threats, beatings, etc, that had been reported prior to the murder.

There are interests of billions to be made, from mega-corps, local lackeys, corrupt politicians and cops on their pockets, and so on.

Same way nobody cares for 10-100 million dollar bribes all too common in big construction, supply, procurement, finance, and so on, tenders. One in 100 might get some scrutiny (usually after the party doing it is out of power with no way to be re-elected, so those affected don't have any clout anymore).

>not to mention the fact that murdering your opposition attracts a lot of scrutiny, investigation, and which corp exec would want to risk going to jail for ordering a hit on an activist.

Lol. No exec "orders a hit" (except if it's some local representative or director and knows the ropes in that area).

Foreign execs convey a message that "this thing is an inpediment", "something must be done" and so on, in the vaguest (but clear) possible ways, and people with a lot to gain locally, paid for those deals, know how to take care of things, with several layers of indirection.

Same way sweatshops and child labour (all the way to small kids working on cobalt mines) have "plausible deniability" from industry execs, and several layers of contractors between them.

[inglor_cz]

Not everywhere is the First World. In many places of the world, you can buy protection from scrutiny and investigation of the local authorities, and remote authorities in London or New York won't likely give a damn about what happened somewhere in eastern Indonesia, for lack of jurisdiction.

Plus, given how dangerous some places are even for locals, you can always plausibly deny your involvement: oh, it was the bandits, they are awful to everyone.

[spacemanmatt]

FTFY: PR is a product they buy from media agencies, not something they produce internally through the merits of their actions.

[PeterisP]

Arguably, if journalists and activists get a credible understanding that investigating this activity is likely to just get you hurt or killed without achieving anything, that "a good deed won't go unpunished", then this reputation would decrease scrutiny and investigation.

[yunohn]

Wow. Not sure I want to even try replying to this uninformed mess of a comment.

I’ve never been more sure of the sad HN bubble.

[rendall]

> They’re reporting on the increase in evil activities by anti-environmental mega corps

Is there an increase, though?

The BBC has sadly become known to be rather loose with facts. The answer to the upstream question here would let us know if there is an increase and what kind. Absolute? Relative? How big of a problem is this, really, or is it more of the BBC fomenting noise and anxiety for clicks.

We're trying to get information to understand the world better. People who run around insisting that x piece of information is irrelevant and how dare you ask either don't understand the question or have something to hide

[yunohn]

You know what? Sure, let’s assume the BBC is “FUDing for clicks”. We’ll ignore the source report, and general common sense.

Do you think that these murders (as stable or as decreasing as you believe them to be) should not be reported on? And that your statistical skills somehow matter to the real world activists dying?

[rendall]

> Do you think that these murders (as stable or as decreasing as you believe them to be) should not be reported on?

Personally, I don't like this kind of discourse. It gets people excited, anxious, and not thinking clearly, as intended. That would be ok with me maybe, if there ever were some good results from that (e.g. effective environmental control, or good legislation), but there never, ever is.

I could go through and answer your questions as if we were talking for real, but your response is kind of a poison pill, designed to put me on the defensive ("Oh, of course I didn't mean...")

No. The adults in the room do need to know if activists are being murdered at an ever increasing rate, or if we can devote our limited time and attention to other very important matters. We don't like to be guided to the "proper" opinion by people who will shout But it's murder, you cold-hearted nerd! if we go off track and ask for accurate information

[yunohn]

Effectively you’re saying that a status quo of stable-percentage murders is okay. I (and others on this post) are saying that any non-zero percentage is bad. So I guess we fundamentally disagree then.

[kodah]

Nobody thinks murder is okay, and if this is the way you conduct discourse you're probably working against your own goals.

There is a lot more behind a statistic than just a number or trend-line, one which often requires single or multiple policy changes that could take years. So yes, observing that the trend line goes and keeps going down is good, a sharp rise is a cause for concern. That is not the same thing, at all, as thinking the status quo is just fine.

[rendall]

The article premise was not "Environmental Activists continue to be murdered at a rate higher than the general populace".

It instead implies that it is an increasing problem, without giving us the tools to evaluate the claim or understand the scope of the problem.

If you want to accept such claims as true, go ahead. That practice won't arm you to understand your world better, but will instead make you excitable and easily swayed.

[djbebs]

There is a diference between reporting and propaganda

[yunohn]

And what’s the propaganda according to you? What’s the goal, and who’s pushing it via the BBC?