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Comment by dj_mc_merlin | Hacker News Reader

There is a long, long history of false-flag operations undertaken during protests. Some caution is advised when deciding whether any one action is taken by genuine protesters, especially when it's as comically "unpatriotic" as burning the bible and flag.

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Obviously, just as it's important to be cautious in general when reporting on hot issues. But to claim that it's a lie because they might be false flag seems ridiculous. Your reporting might always turn out to not be accurate in hindsight, but I wouldn't consider it a lie unless you knew it to be inaccurate at the time of publishing.

Agreed. I don't know the article author's opinion on this, but my personal problem with the article is not its veracity, but that it is obviously engineered to cause outrage in a certain group. It is nearly impossible to put forward facts that do not tend towards a bias, but efforts can be made to present it in a less emotionally charged way. Many comments on HN that are factually true get downvoted because of accusatory phrasing, this is the same in my opinion.

If it makes our side look bad then it's fake news

Ok, but then you could call almost everything in the news a lie because there is always a chance that it's a set up by some nefarious, false-flag operation.

Not exactly helpful.

For example (maybe - nobody will ever know):

> The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre, Haymarket riot, or Haymarket Square riot) was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day, the day after police killed one and injured several workers. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to disperse the meeting, and the bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; dozens of others were wounded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair

Then a Factual facts based reporting would be something like

"Today there were protests, and during those protests these things occurred, we do not yet know if the people committing these terrible acts where part of the protest or not"

Instead we get

"During mostly peaceful protests everyone sat in a circle chanting defund the police" while in the background we see buildings on fire

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