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Bloomberg Fined $7.6M For Re-Publishing Info From Fake Press Release (straitstimes.com) 88

Posted by EditorDavid from the real-fines dept.
A fake press release posted at vinci.group (mimicking vinci.com) led to a multi-million dollar fine -- for the news outlet that fell for it.

AFP reports: France's financial markets watchdog on Monday (December 16) hit Bloomberg with a five million euro (S$7.6 million) fine for a report based on a fake news release that triggered a plunge in the shares of French construction giant Vinci and wiped billions off its market value... The financial markets watchdog AMF said Bloomberg distributed "information that it should have known was false". The AMF said Bloomberg did not respect journalistic ethics "as no verification of the information was undertaken before publication...."

Bloomberg News said it was disappointed with the AMF's decision and that it plans to appeal. "Bloomberg News was one of the victims of a sophisticated hoax... We regret that the AMF did not find and punish the perpetrator of the hoax, and chose instead to penalise a media outlet that was doing its very best to report on what appeared to be newsworthy information," said a spokesman.
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Bloomberg Fined $7.6M For Re-Publishing Info From Fake Press Release More

Bloomberg Fined $7.6M For Re-Publishing Info From Fake Press Release

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  • Good call... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ddtmm ( 549094 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @11:44AM (#59547520)
    I have to side with AMF on this one. The only effective way to curb fake news is to stop it from being released in the first place, which Bloomberg should have done. Finding and punishing the source of the hoax is pointless after the damage is done. Hopefully we'll see more decisions like this.

    • Re:Good call... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ScooterBill ( 599835 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @11:46AM (#59547528)

      I agree. Let's have some liability for those who publish without checking the facts.

      • It's even legal on US!?
      • Quit reading them or trusting anything they publish. I can't think of a larger liability for a publication than losing their readers or the trust of the general population.

        If the company that was damaged by this wants to take it up in court I'd be fine with that and even support them recovering damages from Bloomberg if it turns out that's what a jury determines is best. We already have laws for libel on the books. However, I'm not sure if I want a little Ministry of Truth deciding to shake down anyone w

    • Finding and punishing the source of the hoax is pointless after the damage is done.

      What about the profit the source made by shorting the stock before making the release, and then cashing in on the next day?

      It would seem fitting if their profits were confiscated to at least provide a deterrent to others thinking about trying the same thing.

      "Funding secured! We're going private!"

      • Re:Good call... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @12:45PM (#59547692)

        What about the profit the source made by shorting the stock before making the release, and then cashing in on the next day?

        The identity of the person forging the press release is unknown. Most likely they were not even under French jurisdiction.

        The stock price did not drop when they released the forged press release, because forged press releases happen all the time and investors routinely ignore them.

        The price only dropped when Bloomberg downloaded the release from a slimeball site, made no attempt to verify the information and published it as if it was authentic.

        There is no way to stop fake news. But fake news should be kept separated from reputable financial reporting.

        • Did bloomberg directly (from the pump&dump, not from the sale of the story) made money off the publication? If not, they will take the hit to their "reliability score". If so, use existing securities to go after them. Otherwise, the capitalism's "invisible hand" will smack them in the face. No need for the courts to waste money on this.

          • Did bloomberg directly (from the pump&dump, not from the sale of the story) made money off the publication?

            The Bloomberg staff all have an alibi for the time when this incident occurred:

            They were all down getting drunk in the "Wine Cave" for a few days, and were too intoxicated to make decisions about posting the fake news, or initiate short options.

            At least I would hope that Bloomberg initiates an internal inquiry about how this happened, and make policy changes to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

          • The "invisible hand" only works when there is a free market and all players have full information. It doesn't work when established players have a monopoly on discourse and can prevent any new competition by branding it "alt right" and saying it's full of "nazis".

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              It's not the established players, it's the failure of every alternative.

              Brietbart, Thinkspot, even Gab have all failed to provide decent competition by themselves. Al-Jazeera is probably the closest to doing it, ironically.

      • In the USA, the Securities and Exchanges Commission has a process called *clawback* that it uses to rectify such situations. I do not know if France has anything similar. (Asterisks used instead of quotes since Slashdot, seemingly alone among web sites, cannot handle modern quote characters.)

        • You could try using the quotation mark conveniently located on your keyboard.

          • Not on a iPhone.

            • Even on the iPhone, the quote is right there on the keyboard. Your keyboard just has a bug where it types characters you did not.

              • Quote and double quote work just fine on every other website. Here, they appear as â and âoe. No idea why this site cannot handle it. It seems really poor design.

                • Quote works "just fine" on Slashdot. Your keyboard has a bug. It's not generating the quote character you are typing. The quote is ASCII character 34. You just need to type a real quote character. It's unfortunate your keyboard has a bug which limits you from doing so.

                • Because the iPhone doesn't use the ASCII quote and double quote, they opted for the typographic quote and double quote which is only in extended ASCII character sets, or UNICODE.

                  • And Slashdot can't support this because...? Like I said, I know of zero other websites that have a problem with it. Can Slashdot not handle Unicode yet? That's some significant tech debt.
          • Hes an iIdiot that is not capable of fixing his software keyboards quote marks, because gong into the options is not only hard, but who would even think there would be an option to turn off cartoon mode.
    • So much for a free press. It was nice while it lasted.

      • Re:Good call... (Score:5, Informative)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @12:49PM (#59547704)

        So much for a free press. It was nice while it lasted.

        1. This happened in France.

        2. In America, stock price manipulation has been illegal since the 1930s. There is no exception for journalists.

        • It's not really manipulation if you think it's true.

        • 2. In America, stock price manipulation has been illegal since the 1930s. There is no exception for journalists.

          In the United States, you would have to establish intent. A news outlet reporting something they believe to be true falls squarely within the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fred911 ( 83970 )

        Except Bloomberg is far from free. Their subscribers pay a large amount of money to assure the quickest availability for their news, and that cost is due to the reputation of the service and the accuracy of their data. They dropped the ball here, but it's the subscribers that may have been damaged that they should be required to pay.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nadass ( 3963991 )

      Vinci's shares tumbled by nearly a fifth on November 22, 2016, after several media issued reports based on what purported to be a press release from Vinci.

      AFP was among media that received the fake information

      From the article. To single out Bloomberg is disingenuous; they were one of several who reported the information. Either all of the publishers get fined, or none of them. Bloomberg will appeal depending on how many other publishers get fined.

      • Is everyone on here retarded (donâ(TM)t answer that)?
        Bloomberg supplies terminals to traders with trillions of dollars under their control. When they read stuff on those terminals they expect it to be confirmed.
        What the fuck is wrong with people on this forum, the first amendment doesnâ(TM)t apply in France.

        • But a lot of people, mainly socialists, want these laws in the USA (where the 1st amendment DOES apply). That way they can claim "fake news" on anyone who disagrees with them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by nadass ( 3963991 )

          Bloomberg supplies terminals to traders with trillions of dollars under their control. When they read stuff on those terminals they expect it to be confirmed. What the fuck is wrong with people on this forum, the first amendment doesnâ(TM)t apply in France.

          1. All public news sources (including syndications like AP and AFP) are supplied and translated to all humans on Earth, which have access to the entire global economy -- both publicly reported markets and black markets alike. That's more than just a trillion or two.
          2. Everybody expects everything on the Internet to be true. What's the difference between an opinion, a fact, and fake news?! The answer may be more subjective than you believe... so you must be smart enough to recognize that.
          3. The AFP dire

        • Why are YOU bringing up the first amendment?

          1) This was a ruling in France which doesn't observe laws in the US.
          2) If this was in the US, this still wouldn't be first amendment related. Please go back and read it again.

  • Assuming claims are true (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DavenH ( 1065780 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @11:57AM (#59547552)
    If Bloomberg did indeed undertake no verification, they are admitting their "very best" is no better than a 4chan post. No coming back from that...

    However if AMF is incorrect and Bloomberg did a verification that they can explain and show, then it's rather an indicator of incompetence rather than indifference, which is marginally better because at least their motives are amenable to improvement.

    • Modern journalism sometimes takes a third path by saying that a third-party says X, but we cannot confirm. This allows them to stay a part of the 24-hour news cycle while still trying to confirm sources. Personally, I think this is a bad strategy, but it dodges both of the issues raised by parent post.

      • Re: Assuming claims are true (Score:4, Insightful)

        by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @02:17PM (#59547978)
        The problem is that there's some claims that are going to be impossible to prove. If in the run up to Enron's collapse someone had leaked a report claiming that company was rotten, any journalist that asked Enron for comment would have received a denial from Enron. Unless they could look and understand the real finances of the company themselves, there's no way to verify anything beyond, "Third party claims X, but we cannot confirm. Party Y denies claims."

        There's no perfect solution to this. At best a journalist or a publication has to do their best and use their judgement. Sometimes they'll miss out on stories that happened to be true and others they'll report on events which turn out to be false. At best they can hope to gain a reputation for due diligence so that a reader can trust that they've investigated and accurately reported on what's being presented.

        Consider the case where you have some source that's fairly conservative (not in a political sense) in what they report. They hedge more than others and don't report on anything if they can't find some really good evidence to support it. As a result they gain a lot of trust for being correct, even though they've probably missed a few big stories. If you're trying to use misinformation for nefarious reasons, you get far more value if you can fool the publication with the reputation for being correct in their reporting. Eventually they'll be hoodwinked.
        • Reporting that person A claims X about person B and that B denies it is good journalism. The case Iâ(TM)m talking about is where they just report what person A said because they have not had time to check with B. That is the model I dislike.

        • The problem is that there's some claims that are going to be impossible to prove.

          How come its only a problem now?

          Answer: Because journalists used to require 3 sources, which is a far cry from "a person making a claim thats impossible to prove"

    • They lost all credibility with that supply chain infiltration article and the supposed special chip that one one has admitted to ever seeing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Bloomberg has only gotten worse in the last few years as it's become more partisan and more shit filled. The topping on the cake was this year when Bloomberg himself ordered his company not to report on anything negative relating to democrats or even himself. [nytimes.com] Which kinda leaves the FT and WSJ as the only options in terms of trustworthy financial reporting.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If you find one bad apple in the orchard you don't have to burn the whole thing to the ground. You might want to look at how common bad apples are before lighting a fire.

      Maybe it was just some lazy journo on a Friday afternoon. Maybe it wasn't. Fortunately we have thousands of stories to check their general level of accuracy with.

  • SOP (Score:2)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 )

    Isn't this kind of standard operating practice nowadays? There is, more or less, a constant stream of retractions and corrections as news outlets report on events based on little more than cell phone video clips and twitter posts.

  • So what (Score:3)

    by joh ( 27088 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @12:14PM (#59547586)

    Bloomberg fell for a fake? Like with the Chinese spy chips? Donâ(TM)t say!

  • The fine was € 5 million... which is $7.6 million only in Singapore... or about $5.5 million of your United States greenback dollars

  • Journalism or not? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @12:31PM (#59547640)
    What does Bloomberg want to be? An organization either adheres to journalistic standards, or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways. Journalism has all sorts of rules, regulations, responsibilities, and ethics codes to follow. It's cumbersome and annoying, but it also means that the info from that source is significantly higher quality.

    Most major printed newspapers are journalistic organizations. So is CNN, the BBC, US News and World Report, The Economist, and others. These are reliable sources of information. Google, Facebook, China Daily, The Daily Stormer and InfoWars are NOT JOURNALISM. They DO NOT FOLLOW JOURNALISTIC STANDARDS. FACTS DONT MATTER AND TRUTH IS NOT REQUIRED. I can't repeat this enough - if you get your news from the Facebook Feed or from Infowars.... YOU... ARE..... AN... IDIOT.

    Fox News used to be a conservative organization that adhered to journalistic standards. They were high quality. Nowadays, I'm not so sure. Their news side is bleeding reputable editors and reporters because the real journalists can't stand what's going on inside the organization. What's left probably doesn't meet the bar any longer.

    Again... what does Bloomberg want to be? A dumb re-tweeter of any random information? If that's the case, they don't really have any responsibility. If they want to be a respected journalistic organization, they need to man up and do the job right.

    • Most major printed newspapers are journalistic organizations. So is CNN, the BBC, US News and World Report, The Economist, and others.

      I so wish that were true. But here in the United States the haven't been that for most of my life - which has been long.

      One of the big pieces of fallout from the 2018 election cycle was the exposure (by WikiLeaks among others) of how far they've fallen - from whatever journalistic ethics they might once have had into a propaganda operation for the Democratic Party and the pr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        It should be made clear that one can be objective and yet produce biased results. For example, only reporting or replaying stories and facts that make a given party look good or bad. All your facts could be accurate but still biased. But it's also hard to measure inclusion and exclusion in terms of bias.

        • The "Big 3" ABC/NBC/CBS (this was before CNN) have always leaned left. However, they used to report stories that were mostly accurate, even though they biased the reporting. Put a filter on what they were saying and you could get closer to the truth. However, and especially since 2016, the MSM (now CNN/NYT/etc) have either taken everything the left-wing has told them w/o checking anything (Hence Limbaugh's term "Drive-by Media", or out-and-out made things up. Sometimes they retract, other times they don'

    • Bloomberg - like FT, WSJ, Forbes, and the rest - are primarily interested in pumping/dumping stocks for insiders. Everything written in the financial press must be taken with a giant dose of salt. The fact is most companies are priced on bullshit and group think. This type of price discovery is always going to be sensitive to others' bullshit. Real investors and good companies are not harmed by this sort of behavior.

    • Journalism has all sorts of rules, regulations, responsibilities, and ethics codes to follow. It's cumbersome and annoying, but it also means that the info from that source is significantly higher quality.

      Who enforces these "rules, regulations, responsibilities, and ethics codes"? Is there a journalistic board that strips journalists of their licenses if they fail to live up to those industry standards? Are those regulations listed in the code of federal regulations, and is there an agency that fines journalists for failing to meet them?

      ... or is it actually none of those? Are those "rules, regulations, responsibilities, and ethics codes" some sort of 'unwritten code' of journalists, unenforced and unenforc

    • CNN and BBC reliable sources of information? These are outlets who'll report on a terrorist car ramming of a bus stop and axe murdering spree as "Israeli police kill man". CNN has been the laughingstock of journalism longer than I've been alive.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      'These are reliable sources of information.'
      Generally correct, dependant upon the expertise of the author for the subject matter. All the above on occasion publish articles by authors that aren't qualified for the subject that are reporting.

      'Google, Facebook,.... .... are NOT JOURNALISM.' That is because they aren't publishers. They're just indexing others content. Whereas the former at least makes a diligent effort not to index crap, the later will sell user eyes to whoever will pay.

  • Who? Am I a publisher, posting this comment on /.? If so, do I have the same 1st amendment rights as a "journalist"? (I would say yes, and yes.) So suppose I repost something I heard or read elsewhere, honestly believing it to be correct (not having done any acutal checking, mind you - I'm just a guy sitting in a spare bedroom on my PC). Should I be liable for millions in damages if other people decide to bet money on what I said? If yes, we are on a very slippery slope toward massive censorship-by-lawsuit.

    • If yes, we are on a very slippery slope toward massive censorship-by-lawsuit.

      In the EU, you are probably right. In the USA, you have exactly the same first-amendment rights as any "journalist", and there is no distinction in the law for a journalist or otherwise.

      However, there are plenty of people wanting various powerful entities to censor "wrong" information, and it's already happening on a wide scale. "Wrong" being in the eye of the beholder in almost every case.

      T

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by laird ( 2705 )

        I have to disagree with the assertion that "'Wrong' being in the eye of the beholder in almost every case." There's a difference between truth and lies, it's possible to determine truth vs lies, and it's important to do so. If we hold news sources responsible if they lie, that's a good thing, because if we don't hold sources responsible for the accuracy of their reports, readers are doomed - they don't have the resources that publishers have to check sources, and often they don't have much motivation due to

    • Did you make a profit from your post, directly or indirectly? If so then, yes, you should be liable in that case, and various US court decisions on libel and defamation would support that. Wire fraud and stock dumping are heavily prosecuted crimes in the US, without damage to the First Amendment. You can say whatever you want, but if you make a profit from that speech, it better be true to the best of your ability to confirm.

      • And if I post satire that is mistaken for financial advice? What then?

        • IANAL (and not a judge), but I do have to be wary of this area of law for my job. I would say you are guilty. Properly tagging fiction and satire is your job as a publisher. If you did it deliberately to troll people, and you make a profit from the trolling, yeah, you are guilty of fraud. And the further you go to make it seem credible, the more guilty you would be.
          • Properly determining "reporting" from satire" is the responsibility of the reader. People always underestimate the stupidity of some folks. Do people really believe Trump was actually asking the Russians to dig up Hillary's emails? If so, you don't have enough brains to take part in this debate. And any lawyer/politician/reporter/professional who believes this should (note I didn't say legally shall!) immediately resign and never take a job in anything above mind-numbing labour.
    • What exactly has the First Amendment have to do with civil lawsuits for the shit you say?

  • Being first is more important than being accurate? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @12:39PM (#59547664)

    News organizations need to pay a high price for purposely not verifying story accuracy. The Covington story [deadline.com] is a case in point.

    Where do people go to get their reputations back?

  • Ops... Who will expect it from a private company, right?
  • Bloomberg has metrics to measure which stories affect the stock price most. And rewards journalists for moving the stock most.

    So it should be punished by the same token. If it publishes wrong news it has to be punished, else there is no stopping this giant font of FUD.

    All through 2018 it published the most click baitiest headlines, most negative spin on everything Tesla.

  • For bloomberg it is just cost of doing business. It will continue to reward its columnists for moving the stock price, not for veracity, accuracy or in depth reporting.
    • And anybody who falls for the dribble should consider their loss as "educational costs". "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice/3/4/10/50 times, shame on me."
      • Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice ... twice ... you can't be fooled twice is the official version, I think, ask Dubya.
      • It is not about me getting fooled or schooled.

        It is the others who still trade based on Bloomberg and they hurt me. Eventually they will learn, and Bloomberg might become better or go out of business. That is all fine and dandy free market, invisible hand and all that.

        The problem is Free Market will correct mistakes, ... eventually. The people who went bankrupt in the mean time will not have any restitution. They are gone.

  • "All the news that fit, we print."

  • talking out both sides of their mouths (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mewsenews ( 251487 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @01:04PM (#59547756) Homepage
    Journalists: "Nobody wants to pay for real journalism anymore!" Also journalists:"We will vigorously defend our right to publish a news story without any verification that is also a hoax"

  • since when are 5 € about 7,6 US$?

  • Bloomberg routinely scrapes data off of web sites they deem to be interesting without asking for permission and then republishes the data as part of its various platforms without any sort of preceding verification.

    They are not trying their best to publish news. They are trying their best to take data published by others and republishing it as quickly as possible to make money off of it.

    Bloomberg are information thieves. The fine is too low, but it is a start. I hope there will be many more in the future.

  • Bias from Bloomberg? (Score:3)

    by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 ) on Sunday December 22, 2019 @06:06PM (#59548466) Journal
    No surprise, after all they will not investigate their own boss who's a Presidential candidate [reuters.com] or his Democratic rivals [thehill.com], saving everything to attack Trump. That's just the bias you can expect from the Bloomberg organization!
  • Remember the "Chinese spy chips on SuperMicro boards"-story Bloomberg brought? To this day, they have not presented any evidence, despite the easiness of presenting the spy chip if it was, indeed, shipped to any customers.

    • Yes, and that was hardly the first blockbuster story those reporters had "broken" that turned out to have nothing behind it.

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