Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by 312c 1543 days ago
> I feel like torrents and filesharing isn't going to need much fact checking. Unless you're perhaps talking about lawsuits or something where you might end up getting sued for your words.

torrentfreak.com is a current example of a long running blog about filesharing/torrent related news that constantly gets things wrong with no fact checking. Their articles are fine when they're about legal cases, new copyright laws, or actions of governments. But when they report on the goings on of non-mainstream streaming sites or private trackers they're almost completely fabricating their articles - believing the words of any "source" that sends them info without doing any sort of validation on it.

1 comments

> But when they report on the goings on of non-mainstream streaming sites or private trackers they're almost completely fabricating their articles - believing the words of any "source" that sends them info without doing any sort of validation on it.

The thing is, in such a community the only real source is going to be sources. The people often aren't going to admit to things especially if it makes them look bad. The one time I did actually go to check something out which was someone told me the nickserv nick wasn't reserved on a tracker's irc and the services were down so people could use it. They then accused me of stealing passwords instead of checking out if what I was told was true. So they want me to fact check but when I do they complain too.

But overall having to believe sources when it comes to criminal stuff is major thing. You can't do much else. For example, look at most gangland reporting. They'll often be wrong because they're dealing with word of mouth.