Hacker News Reader

Politico likes to skip between narrative, anecdote, and data.

The title uses the word Maybe. What does this mean in legal terms exactly?

"Maybe" here is a rhetorical device. We were told by libertarian experts, "there is NO WAY there is collusion. It's bird flu. Duh".

Now, turns out, there was actual price manipulation occurring (Read the article. It's clear what was going on. There were text messages of their criminal conspiracy!) Now the headline is sassily saying "hey, maybe there was price collusion!" This use of "maybe" is a common expression of sarcasm.

I did read the article but as mentioned it is a word salad that weaves these three concepts together, ending up in nothing. What I'm asking is, what is the point of the article?

Strictly speaking, the point of the article is to drive clicks for ad revenue and the title was optimized to do just that.

I wish they didn't use that ambiguous word, though. The evidence seems pretty clear, most most people won't read past the headline and will think there's still doubt.

"It sure looks like there was an egg cartel after all" would give the same rhetorical effect but be much clearer.

>most people won't read past the headline and will think there's still doubt

Sadly, changing headlines won't solve functional illiteracy, in this case, the belief that the headline is the story.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com