Bloomberg Fined $7.6M For Re-Publishing Info From Fake Press Release (straitstimes.com) 88
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.
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.
Good call... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good call... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. Let's have some liability for those who publish without checking the facts.
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
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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
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Fun fact, Journalists have traditionally require 3 sources before publishing a potentially defamatory story.
The reporters on CNN/FOX/MSNBC arent Journalists, as they apparently dont even require 1 source.
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Why not? Look at the grievious harm caused to innocent victims such as the Covington students. Why shouldn't these multi-billion dollar organizations be legally liable for their deliberate hostility to the truth and basic ethical principles?
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The US has weird libel rules, along the lines of you have to reasonably believe it is true to spread the lie in other countries, you have to be prepared to prove it is true in a court of law, else express it as an opinion and if challenged on false a statement of fact, withdraw the statement as a fact and alter it to an opinion. Fail to make that change and prepare to have to prove your statements of fact in court as true, fail and lose your case and pay for damages.
As a commercial for profit publication, m
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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)
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.
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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.
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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".
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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.
Re: Good call... (Score:3)
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
You could try using the quotation mark conveniently located on your keyboard.
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
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.
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
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.
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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.
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Re: Good call... (Score:2)
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The only site that hasnt been trashed by cartoon unicode is slashdot, and not being trashed is antiquated.
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
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Re:Good call... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
It's not really manipulation if you think it's true.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Re: Good call... (Score:2)
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.
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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
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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)
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.
Re: Assuming claims are true (Score:2)
Re: Assuming claims are true (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: Assuming claims are true (Score:2)
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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"
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They lost all credibility with that supply chain infiltration article and the supposed special chip that one one has admitted to ever seeing.
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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.
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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)
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)
Bloomberg fell for a fake? Like with the Chinese spy chips? Donâ(TM)t say!
Fake news headline... (Score:1)
Journalism or not? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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
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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.
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Re: Journalism or not? (Score:2)
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.
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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?
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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.
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'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, exactly, is a publisher? (Score:2)
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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
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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
Re: Who, exactly, is a publisher? (Score:2)
Re: Who, exactly, is a publisher? (Score:2)
And if I post satire that is mistaken for financial advice? What then?
Re: Who, exactly, is a publisher? (Score:2)
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Re: Who, exactly, is a publisher? (Score:2)
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Being first is more important than being accurate? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re: Being first is more important than being accur (Score:2)
They should. But shouldn't that price be in loss of reputation, and subsequent loss of subscriptions/eyes/ads?
Damn commies! (Score:2)
Bloomberg rewards stories that move the stock (Score:3)
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.
7.6 m is nothing. less than a flea bite (Score:2)
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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.
Bloomberg is the false news (Score:2)
talking out both sides of their mouths (Score:5, Insightful)
exchange rate (Score:2)
since when are 5 € about 7,6 US$?
Bloomberg republishes lots of unverified data (Score:1)
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)
Bloomberg still owes us a chip presentation (Score:2)
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Yes, and that was hardly the first blockbuster story those reporters had "broken" that turned out to have nothing behind it.