Samsung Auto-Email Signature Accidentally Reveals Scripted Government News Story (theverge.com) 68
Two days ago, Egypt's former president, Mohammed Morsi, collapsed in court during a trial and died from a sudden heart attack. Even though Morsi was the first democratically elected Egyptian president, news outlets have scrubbed that information from stories of his demise in what appears to be a government-mandated description sent out to press. The Verge reports: As noted by Mada Masr, a majority of newspapers published the same 42-word story sent to editors as a directive via WhatsApp. In the case of at least one outlet, a news anchor did that a little too well. In the clip below, the anchor can be heard wrapping her report with "sent from a Samsung device."
Morsi was elected in June 2012, though military forcibly removed him about a year later. The former president collapsed on Monday while in the midst of a courtroom hearing. The circumstances of Morsi's death have been called into question by rival regimes, including that of Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was aligned with Morsi during his brief rule due to both men's links to the Muslim Brotherhood. However, human rights groups have cited Morsi's deteriorating health over the years as the probable cause of this death. It's unclear why the current government, led Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, instructed news outlets to scrub Morsi's presidential history.
Morsi was elected in June 2012, though military forcibly removed him about a year later. The former president collapsed on Monday while in the midst of a courtroom hearing. The circumstances of Morsi's death have been called into question by rival regimes, including that of Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was aligned with Morsi during his brief rule due to both men's links to the Muslim Brotherhood. However, human rights groups have cited Morsi's deteriorating health over the years as the probable cause of this death. It's unclear why the current government, led Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, instructed news outlets to scrub Morsi's presidential history.
What is this trying to say? (Score:1)
I don't think I understand anything about this story. How does the title relate to the disjointed summary? How does the first half of the summary relate to the second half?
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The point they are trying to make is that the Egyptian government censors the press.
This is an important point, because there may be some visiting aliens from Andromeda that didn't already know that.
More quality journalism from The Verge.
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Its not MERELY that they censor the press... Its that the Egyptian government writes what they are to say as well when documenting any event, so, that goes beyond simple censorship into "forced speech" as well, the press is essentially forced to be a mouthpiece for whatever regime is in charge.
Censorship is forcing media to avoid certain topics or not say certain things --- clearly they do that,
but forcing media to write certain things is a bit more: that means they may make the media write favorable a
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I believe the anecdote is suggesting the news presenter had been clearly told, "Read out the text below. Read out all of the text and nothing else."
So she did..
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They are saying that the news media received their story on the death of Mohammed Morsi verbatim from an outside source, presumably the government. Whoever put the story on the teleprompter or notes didn't remove the automatic email signature from whoever sent it. When the story was read on air, the anchorwoman pulled a Ron Burgundy and just read the entire thing, including "sent from a Samsung device", suggesting that the story was not produced or edited by the news organization itself.
The story as report
Time to update that Samsung slogan! (Score:2)
a majority of newspapers published the same 42-word story....can be heard wrapping her report with "sent from a Samsung device".
Looks like the Samsung slogan should change from "Create the Future" to Control the Future!
Morsi was only president for his supporters (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Morsi was only president for his supporters (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the same with populists everywhere. Good leadership partly lies in governing for everyone, not just the people who support you.
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Well, unlike other countries, trump isn't a ruler, he's an executive, which is a big difference. But, to humor you, Trump is only ruling for Republicans, union members, people who want a job, people who want job stability, and blacks who want a fair chance. So, not a small majority, but basically everyone who isn't an idiot progressive. However, he's having so much fun trolling the leftist press that all you hear is that he's the spawn of satan, hell bent on destroying everything Saint Obama did through imp
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No, Trump is only ruling for himself, like he always has, as is clearly demonstrated by his "illustrious" business carreer of 40+ years during which he accumulated more than 1300 civil lawsuits, destroyed countless small businesses and ruined countless lives. How do I know ? Because I lived on this planet for all of these 40+ years, and more.
The only people who don't already know this are clueless, ignorant, uneducated, recluse, basemement dwelling little shitfucks like you. Even most of the Trump voters kn
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The only people who don't already know this are clueless, ignorant, uneducated, recluse, basemement dwelling little shitfucks like you. Even most of the Trump voters knew that he was not a good choice, he was the lesser evil. But he was still evil.
Proving once again, that when someone elses issues are in play that the jackass in the box doesn't like. They're always clueless, ignorant, uneducated, recluse, basement dwelling little shitfucks. Man, those SURE were the people that showed up in Florida the other day weren't they [imgur.com]...I mean we could take a look at the current democratic field, but there's an awful lot of them who have more reporters than people show up. Struggling to have 50 or even 300 people show up is a lot more telling...
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It says nothing.
It does, however, say an awful lot about the state of our own press in the US. Recall during the 2016 election season when nearly every form of media conceivable, within the span of a week, suddenly decided to paint a potential Trump administration as "dark".. tens of media sources all used the exact same single word in only a handful of phrasings. They definitely got the "Samsung memo" on that one.
It was freaking creepy to see that happen here in the US.
Re:Morsi was only president for his supporters (Score:4, Insightful)
Populism happens when the government doesn't listen to it's people and fails to govern for everyone. When governments work on the behalf of business and special interest groups like in the US. In Canada, where the government panders to special interest groups and the major cities. In Europe where the government is pandering to special interests, and it's own ego.
If you don't want populist governments, then you don't spend 20 years pissing off the blue collar, farmers, and non-urban middle and lower class electorate. Cutting healthcare availability, increasing their taxes and energy costs, and telling them that they're entitled(lookin' at you Ontario Liberal Party, Alberta NDP, and so on). Then try to pull through what will be a disasterous election by spiking the min. wage, throwing "universal daycare" into the mix, and telling people don't worry your electricity price will get cheaper - because we simply are paying 10% ourselves, which you'll be paying an extra 15% for 10 years down the road.
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Oh did you need for me to spell out 4 years of bad policies, while claiming that shutting down power plants and heavily investing in the exact same way that the Ontario Liberals did. It was that model they followed - by throwing large amounts of money for FiT in "green energy" many of those windmill plans fell flat of course because despite the wind being nearly constant, in areas where they would have been used the 120km/h gusts with sustained winds of 70-90km/h would have caused them to automatically shu
The intellectuals were idiots (Score:2)
There was nothing really wrong with Morsi. But in a Muslim country he reflected conservative Muslim values. The intellectuals that demanded democracy did not like Morsi, so the wanted him gone. The military were only too pleased to oblige.
And now they are in a much worse position than they have ever been in.
Democracy means you accept the verdict of the people, but then try to change the people's opinions.
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At the end of the day does it really matter if it's the military that oppresses you, a king that does it, or if it's the rest of your fellow countrymen?
Constitution? (Score:3, Informative)
The UK does not have a constitution. The USA does. The USA also had slavery up until 1870 odd and massive repression up until the civil rights movement in 1960s. Also a crazy judicial system with a huge prison population. The trail if tears happened despite a court order forbidding it, heck the war of independence was largely about being able to steal Native American land without British interference.
Would the USA be worse without a constitution? Maybe. But a constitution is neither a necessary nor su
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The UK does not have a constitution. The USA does.
Nonetheless, the UK still had the Magna Carta limiting the power of the king --- that served the purpose for them
that the constitution served the US; Although the limitations on Parliament are much less than the US Constitution's limitations on the congress --- and that has caused some encroachments upon citizens liberties and risks causing others, for example, see the laws regarding forced removal of crypto/people required to hand over keys upon reques
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That's all fine and good, but who's to say what the "correct" choice should have been? Isn't that the same thing as dictatorship? I think you grossly oversimplify the situation now, and what happened during what was hoped was Arab spring. Western governments have a lot to answer for for the mess that is the middle east. We tell them, have a democracy and vote, so they do. And they often pick people who wouldn't be so friendly towards us (for obvious reasons). Or people we have labeled as terrorists. So
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The problem is these young democracies concentrate power too much, mostly because they have not had time to develop the various institutions and branches of government necessary to distribute and tame it.
In a properly functioning democracy there are a range of views in government, there are checks and balances, and the greater the change the more consensus it needs. Ideally the ruling party is a coalition.
It's very difficult to bootstrap a democracy that has all that does all that. Even if you create the in
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The president of the United States is a prime example right now. He rules for his base, plain and simple.
He doesn't rule for anyone else but himself. It looks like he's ruling for them, but really it's because he happens to agree with them (for now). The only difference between him and his base is he started off with a New York real estate business that his daddy built.
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In addition the Muslim Brotherhood believed in "One Man, One Vote, One Time", there was no way they were going to allow another fair election where they'd have to stand on their record. That spoiled twat Erdogan is no different, he admitted to the King of Jordan (paraphrase) that democracy was like a bus, when he got to where he wanted to, he was going to get off. One can see that in this abrogation of the vote in Istanbul, he wants a do-over because he lost.
Hey Erdogan, you ignorant monkey, the trick is to
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Report was released.
No further indictments recommended.
You can read it, with redactions.
Redactions were performed by Mueller and Barr, together.
Nothing redacted rises to the level of a suspected crime - if it did, there would be further indictments recommended (see above).
Congress has not pointed to anything in the report that would be a crime (and they had access to the unredacted copy and chose not to read it).
Democrats are destroying themselves by continuing down this path. It was a dead end from the st
This breaking news just in (Score:2)
Signs (Score:5, Funny)
He who controls the present, controls the past
He who controls the past, controls the future
He who possesses a Samsung Phone, reported it
Burma Shave
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youre both autistic. please stop polluting slashdot with your garbage. kthx bye.
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He who controls the pants controls the galaxy.
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Agent 47 Scenario (Score:3)
WhatsApp or Email? (Score:2)
Was it really sent via WhatsApp, or has that now become so popular in Egypt that it is the default generic name for any message sent from a mobile?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Democratically elected, but helped end democracy (Score:1)
Long time Slashdotter here. Egyptian too. Posting anonymously out of fear of repercussions. Yes, it is that bad now, so being an anonymous coward is a necessity.
For a good background on what Morsi's legacy is during his short one year rule, read this very good article in The Atlantic [theatlantic.com].
After Morsi, the military general who seized power actively silenced any opposition from all the spectrum. This includes seculars, liberals, leftists, actors, as well as Islamists.
Too bad the Muslim Brotherhood repeated the exa
I'm Ron Burgundy? (Score:2)
Anchorman meets real life
"Go fuck yourself, San Francisco."
Scripted by the government? (Score:2)
Maybe. But many of our news outlets just read copy straight off independent wire services. Could be the same thing going on in Egypt. Put that together with shitty editing (where have we ever seen that before) and you get the story read as written by the pool reporter.