[FlingPoo]

In Canada you can record someone (phone call, in person, etc) if just one party consents to the recording. In other words, if I'm a phone call with someone, even if there are several people on the call, it's NOT illegal for me to record them, as long as I'm a participant in the call. It's called the "one party consent" exception. I have no obligation to ask, or tell the others on the call that I'm recording.

[darth_avocado]

There are legitimate reasons for having one party consent legal. My experience with employer harassment has been that it’s extremely hard to prove discriminatory behavior without being able to record without consent.

[pvarangot]

In California you can record without consent if you have reasons to suspect a crime is going to be committed. It's not the most straightforward thing to get away with and you should work with a lawyer before you do it to be sure it will be accepted as evidence, but you can totally do it.

[morkalork]

Laws that make something legal or not conditional on a hypothetical that hasn't happened yet are kind of lowsy. It's like the stand your ground one's where you can just say you believed your life was in danger.

[pvarangot]

Are you implying you should be able to shoot at someone just because they are at your house or something?

[morkalork]

I'm not implying anything, just criticizing laws where guilt or innocence rests on claim of a hypothetical situation. Shooting someone when you believe your life may be in danger. One party consent recording allowed when you believe a crime may happen.

[ShadowBanThis01]

before you do it*

*before you REVEAL that you did it

[coldtea]

There's always the risk of being caught while doing it, or to be exposed that you've done it before the time that you intend to "reveal" it.

So it's better to talk with a laywer and get informed of your options and the risks, and how to go about it, before you do it, not merely before you reveal you did it.

[withinboredom]

No, before. Don’t give cops freebies.

[ThunderSizzle]

Don't talk to a cop without your lawyer present.

Don't keep the recordings on your phone.

[logdap]

And this kind of thing, trouble with a boss/landlord/etc, is a lot more likely to personally impact the average person than any sort of PV-related scenario. Single party consent is a clear net positive for most people.

[morkalork]

It was interesting to see this fact crop up with the reddit vs. Appolo debacle.

[bob-09]

How did this apply? I admit I haven't been following the drama closely.

[sillysaurusx]

It’s such a depressing situation. Steve Huffman got caught red handed making up lies about Apollo’s dev for no reason whatsoever. I wish I was exaggerating.

Every time I try to describe the event, it ends up sounding like low quality flamebait. Yet it’s a complete description of what happened.

He never acknowledged it, either. It was just evil. Usually there are confounding factors or reasons to be on the founder’s side, or to at least see the situation from their point of view. But in this case, it was a blatant lie.

The most charitable explanation I’ve ever been able to think of is “maybe Huffman literally forgot that he misunderstood the Apollo dev because he was so stressed.” But eventually I concluded that requires so much mental gymnastics that I may as well compete at the Olympics. And even in that situation, he should’ve said something.

Huffman was a part of the original YC batch. There were no YC alums before him. This was the era when pg wrote “Don’t be evil”, which was at least a good idea, if not an implicit guideline to all founders. And then this happens a decade and some change later.

[mcpackieh]

Memory can be a funny thing, people repeat stories to themselves to keep memories fresh, but with each retelling the story can shift. "I thought he threatened me but then he clarified that he didn't" could turn into "He seemed to threaten me, but then chickened out when I confronted him" His memory of admitting he made an error could turn into a memory of still feeling threatened but trying to let the Apollo dev save face.

All this is to say that Steve Huffman might not be deliberately lying in this instance. Maybe. It's hard to give him too much credit since he's already shown himself to be a snake who edits other people's comments and that's certainly not something that could be done by accident. Nonetheless, memory is a funny thing.

[murphyslab]

> All this is to say that Steve Huffman might not be deliberately lying in this instance.

Huffman has had 26+ days to correct the record. He has done nothing to that end. He made a "potentially career-ending" allegation, which hurt the reputation of the developer of Apollo, Christian Selig.

June 8th: Selig released his side of the story, along with messages which were sent to him from a Reddit employee as well as from moderators engaged in a subsequent call with Reddit:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230608172250/https://old.reddi...

June 9th (a full 24 hours later): Huffman had the facts, including the recording, which confirmed their mutual understanding. Huffman could have revised his stance there and then. Instead, Huffman doubled down, effectively reiterating the lie through his scare-quote and instead criticized Selig for acting publicly to defend his reputation against Reddit's internal and external slander:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230616033947/https://old.reddi...

Huffman is the CEO of the Reddit platform and nothing is stopping him from apologizing for making a potentially "potentially career-ending lie" against the developer of Apollo, Christian Selig. He hasn't made a peep on the platform since June 9th.

If it wasn't deliberate, then he's had nearly a month to speak up for the truth. At some point, refusing to correct the record, a lie does become deliberate.

---

Here's TechCrunch's reporting on the situation, if you prefer to hear it from a journalist:

https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/09/reddit-ceo-doubles-down-on...

[sillysaurusx]

This is an excellent comment — thank you for getting these sources together. I’ve favorited it in case I have to explain the situation to someone again.

But! There’s suddenly a ray of hope. See the comment upthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36612285

Do you happen to know whether the call was with Steve himself, or some other Reddit employee? If it wasn’t Steve, then this whole thing was a giant miscommunication, which I’ve always suspected from the beginning.

Boy it’s nice to feel hopeful about this for once. I really hope it wasn’t Steve.

[sillysaurusx]

Agreed, and I went down that road too.

Unfortunately what sealed it for me was Steve’s response during his followup AMA when someone asked him about the Apollo dev. He said that the dev often said one thing and did another. Christian (the dev) called him out on it and said “I give you permission to name a single time this has happened.” No response.

In other words, Steve doubled down yet again and tried to do the same damn thing after he was caught. Why lie like this?

A developer’s reputation is their most important asset. What Steve did (or tried to do, till the phone conversation proved otherwise) was simply awful.

[newaccount74]

> maybe Huffman literally forgot that he misunderstood the Apollo dev

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the person on the call wasn't Huffman himself. Selig was talking to some Reddit employee, who presumably then told Huffman about the call.

It's possible that the employee who talked to Selig didn't 100% accurately describe what was said in the call (because he didn't have a transcript to check what was said), and then Huffman misunderstood whatever the employee said further to come up with the blackmail accusation.

[sillysaurusx]

Is this correct?

I thought the call was with Steve himself. If this is true, it changes everything.

Would anyone mind checking? My wife and I have been in the hospital for a month, and it’s 2am here. Their voices and mannerisms sounded similar and I always assumed it was Steve.

If it wasn’t Steve, then I’ll immediately reverse my opinion. The evildoer was the employee.

That’s a rather crucial detail.

[newaccount74]

I looked it up, Selig said it was an employee [1]:

> As mentioned in the last post, thankfully I recorded the phone call and can show this to be false, to the extent that Reddit even apologized four times for misinterpreting it:

> Reddit: "That's a complete misinterpretation on my end. I apologize. I apologize immediately."

> (Note: as Steve declined to ever talk on a call, the call is with a Reddit representative)

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_t...

[Zaerru]

It was a different employee than Steve on the call that apparently perpetuated the misunderstanding despite it being cleared up immediately and the employee apologizing; however, Steve continued to repeat the claim after Apollo Dev had refuted and proved the claim false, which the media (such as The Verge) had picked up.

So though it was not originated from Steve, Steve perpetuated it when he should have known better.

[whywhywhywhy]

I mean he's got a track record of silly and petty behavior https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev...

[heywhatupboys]

> It’s such a depressing situation. Steve Huffman got caught red handed making up lies about Apollo’s dev for no reason whatsoever. I wish I was exaggerating.

this is false?

[silisili]

Did you listen to the call?

A) it wasn't Huffman

B) the dev absolutely was trying to get money out of them. You can't make a demand, then say 'uh, im kinda kidding' repeatedly. If someone held a gun to your head and asked for your wallet multiple times, each time saying they were kinda joking, what would you do?

That said, Huffman et al absolutely shouldn't have aired dirty laundry.

[didntcheck]

I did listen to it. The dev was calling the Reddit rep's bluff, effectively saying "if Apollo is really costing you so much money, why not just buy it for $cost/2?". He wasn't asking for personal hush money. He clarified this on the call and the rep understood and apologised for misunderstanding. Then Huffman went and publicly claimed the misunderstood version of events

[silisili]

I do agree that it -wasn't- a direct threat per se, maybe a more implicit one? Or maybe I'm reading too much into it.

It sounded to me a lot like 'well, if I'm costing you money, give me money and I'll stop costing you money.'

Quotes my interpretation, not direct quotes.

[evandale]

The dev was obviously joking. What part of the recording suggests he wasn't? Exact timestamp please because I want to go back and listen to the context around it on my own rather than relying on your self selected soundbites/quotes.

[silisili]

It's a pretty short call, please do! But try to keep an open mind and not take mine or his word for it - it's all out there.

[jtokoph]

The apollo dev is based in Canada and recorded the phone calls with Reddit without them knowing. The Apollo dev released transcripts (and perhaps recordings) of the calls to disprove statements made by Reddit.

[judge2020]

Has a lawyer weighed in on if this was actually legal? It’s concerning wiretap laws with participants in two different countries, so the legality might not be just “is it legal under Canada law”

[michaelmrose]

Why would a Canadian talking on his Canadian phone service expect to be bound by the laws of a foreign country because a call terminated there.

[brightlancer]

Expectation's got nothing to do with it.

Any country can claim jurisdiction on any action committed anywhere; the question is whether that country can reach you.

[aidenn0]

If a Canadian, connecting to his Canadian ISP hacks into a computer in the US, if they aren't extradited, I think they should be cautious about traveling to the US.

The law exists to protect the person being recorded, so if the person being recorded is somewhere where the law is in effect, then it can be applied.

There is case-law supporting something similar within the US at least: if a person in e.g. California (where all parties' consent is needed) is recorded by a person in e.g. Virginia (where only one party's consent is needed) then they have violated the California law.

[pyuser583]

Why would an American talking on an American phone service lack protection provided by American laws?

[NoZebra120vClip]

Good luck trying to record a phone call on any modern smartphone. They purposely make it nearly impossible, unless you want to use speakerphone and the analog hole.

[rstuart4133]

It must depend on region. In Australia the Google phone app has a [Record] button. My mother could use it. Google documents it here: https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/9803950?hl=en

I often use it.

[mcpackieh]

To be fair, the analog hole is effective and easy to 'exploit'.

[bleepblop]

It's actually not difficult to patch a recorder into your phone's output.

[noonething]

GrapheneOS

[thatguy0900]

This is the case in some us states as well

[eyelidlessness]

And while it might feel counterintuitive how obvious a good idea it is, it becomes a lot more intuitive when you consider the contrary implications. You can not only be a party to something without being able to demonstrate what you observed, but you can be a party to something where any convincing accusation about your own involvement is equally compelling to your own recount by default. Even if you don’t realize you’re a party to anything in particular.

Being able to record your own experience is a matter of basic autonomy and self defense. Being denied it is a gift to anyone with the power or motivation to exploit that.

Edit: I didn’t even look at who was involved in the case. I am not remotely surprised to find the ruling favors political opponents, and I’m not swayed by that either. If anything, it’s better for everyone if PV has to play by the same rules as anyone they’re interacting with.

[cubefox]

I assume this allows people to publish seemingly private conversations you had with them. (Both recording and publishing would be illegal in the EU.)

[firstlink]

Indeed, PV targets will now be able to record themselves physically assaulting PV agents!

[eyelidlessness]

Thank you for demonstrating my point I guess?

[addisonl]

Surprisingly, most states (39) are one party consent: https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/one-party-consent-state...

[wang_li]

In the US the only function of two party consent laws is to allow people to lie about what they said. Even in two party consent states you can still report what someone said to you. And they can lie and say no I never said that. Without recordings it's just one person's word against the other's.

[sneak]

Surprisingly? Why shouldn't you be allowed to record the things you hear?

[dylan604]

I interpret the "surprisingly" as shocked that that many have common sense one party consent rules. My skepticism would think idiotic rules to be the majority.

[cubefox]

From my (European) perspective this sounds strange. Wouldn't you be worried when e.g. your employer or partner is secretly recording your conversations with them? In Canada it seems to be even legal to publish these conversations without consent, though I don't know about the US.

[simiones]

Publishing is a whole other thing, but why should I be worried that someone is recording what I'm saying, in general?

And if I'm discussing sensitive information (say, I'm discussing an extra-marital affair, or illegal conduct), why should I think I can rely on the law to protect me from the recording? Is my marriage less ruined if the recording was illegally made and illegally presented to my spouse?

[echelon]

California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Washington, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, Montana, and Delaware need to get with the picture.

[cvalka]

In most of the states

[starkparker]

Oregon, where this is filed, also has one-party consent on phone calls. Considering the plaintiff, this is mostly about hidden cameras and surreptitious recording in person.

[netheril96]

Do you use Android phone? Since iOS doesn't allow phone call recording without jailbreak.

[ale42]

There are lots of other types of phones besides mobile phones (nowadays, usually implying VoIP somewhere in most places, but some countries still have analog landlines, too). Assuming that all phone calls are either made with Android or iOS is reductive to say the least...

[moffkalast]

At this point I'm really wondering why anyone still uses iOS given the ever increasing list of things it can't do for completely arbitrary reasons.

[03JVO25KDI6BZV3]

This is a good reason to avoid phonecalls with Canadians