I'd recommend reading the original story[1] if you've only read this wave of criticism about it. The PropOrNot portion is only a relatively small part of the whole piece.<p>And yes, they may have jumped the gun on that source a bit. But I also think the characterization that this is neo-McCarthyism (see The Intercept's hysterical take [2]) by the Washington Post is <i>far</i> out of whack.<p>The piece as a whole, regarding Russian interference in the election and use of social media for propaganda, is a well researched piece and continues to be vindicated by reports and news that has come out since.[3][4]<p>edit: sources<p>[1] <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-prop...</a><p>[2]
<a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/" rel="nofollow">https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgrace...</a><p>[3]
<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-01/russia-weaponized-social-media-in-u-s-election-fireeye-says" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-01/russia-we...</a><p>[4]
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama-orders-review-of-russian-hacking-during-presidential-campaign/2016/12/09/31d6b300-be2a-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obama...</a>
The Post story is being twisted by competing media outlets to try to harm the Post's reputation. The background here is that the Post has, over the course of about 4 years, gone from being a floundering digital operation to one of the most popular news destinations on the web, beating a lot of expectations.<p>There are 2 ways the Post story is being twisted.<p>1) Critiques of the Post story and PropOrNot always note with disdain the anonymity of the PropOrNot team. Setting aside the obvious hypocrisy (most of the folks complaining have used anonymous sources themselves), this misses the important point that <i>PropOrNot are not anonymous to the Post</i>. Post editors know who at least some of those people are, and are satisfied that they are not idiots.<p>This is almost certainly why the Post is not backing down: they have information that their critics do not.<p>So when the article calls PropOrNot "a newbie group with no track record whatsoever," it's sort of a sleight of hand. Yes the <i>group</i> is new; that doesn't mean the <i>members of the group</i> are therefore newbies.<p>2) Everyone is reacting as though the Post story, and/or PropOrNot, issued a blanket condemnation of the news properties on the list. Well first, the Post did not even report the list, just that PropOrNot had issued one. Second, PropOrNot makes it clear that the list covers a wide range of concerns, from sites directly funded to push propaganda (RT), to otherwise great sites that are just not quite suspicious enough of a few stories that seem to agree with their worldview.<p>And worldview is really the issue here. Most of the properties and blogs named by PropOrNot are those that freely mix reporting and opinion. They built their audience by taking a strong point of view on the world. That provides an entry point for external propaganda, if it can align with that point of view.<p>And because it aligns, it is hard for them to see it at all. This effect is incredibly common; for example Republican Senators are reluctant to have the intelligence agencies look into what Russia may have done to shape the presidential election. Why? Because they like the way the election turned out! If the ends were good, the means must have been acceptable.<p>What PropOrNot (and others!) are advocating for is simply more diligence and introspection from these publishers. Just because a story fits into a pattern, that doesn't mean it is true--and it might be part of a bigger pattern someone else is weaving.