Joy Reid Blog Post Scandal

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Because it needs its own thread.

Edited April 30, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

What I’m saying it this scandal was largely manufactured by bad actors and Joy Reid was the target.

I don’t know if Joy Reid is lying but everyone else sure does seem 100% certain of it and pushing for her dismissal.  It’s all too convenient.

It reminds me of how everyone was convinced Hillary should be locked up during the election and I was the despicable one for thinking perhaps she shouldn’t.  

[DDD Dad 14515]

its.

And yes, it should have been in a separate thread to begin.

Edited April 30, 2018 by DDD Dad

[Fozzz 152]

She’s always been awful. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

3 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

She’s always been awful. 

I agree with this, she does suck.

[David Dennison 19307]

I like her.

[PittsburghTiger 6292]

13 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

What I’m saying it this scandal was largely manufactured by bad actors and Joy Reid was the target.

I don’t know if Joy Reid is lying but everyone else sure does seem 100% certain of it and pushing for her dismissal.  It’s all too convenient.

It reminds me of how everyone was convinced Hillary should be locked up during the election and I was the despicable one for thinking perhaps she shouldn’t.  

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/experts-question-joy-reids-claim-of-being-hacked.html

 

Last December, MSNBC host and prominent #resistance figure Joy Reid apologized for having made homophobic comments about Florida politician Charlie Crist in blog posts published between 2007 and 2009. A week ago, the Twitter user who’d provoked Reid’s apology by surfacing the Crist comments—@jamie_maz—highlighted a number of other posts apparently published on Reid’s blog that were homophobic or dismissive of LGBTQ-rights activism. (While the blog is now defunct, @jamie_maz explained, its content had been saved on the Wayback Machine internet archive.) Here’s one example:

Reid also (apparently) wrote that gay sex is “gross” and speculated in pejorative fashion about the sexual orientation of various male politicians and celebrities. (FWIW, the other posts on @jamie_maz’s timeline are generally about progressive/left activist topics. I DM’d the account to ask if its owner would like to be identified publicly and will update this post if I hear back.)

Rather than apologizing further, though, Reid announced in a statement that she’d been hacked:

In December I learned that an unknown, external party accessed and manipulated material from my now-defunct blog, The Reid Report, to include offensive and hateful references that are fabricated and run counter to my personal beliefs and ideology.

I began working with a cyber-security expert who first identified the unauthorized activity, and we notified federal law enforcement officials of the breach. The manipulated material seems to be part of an effort to taint my character with false information by distorting a blog that ended a decade ago.

Now that the site has been compromised I can state unequivocally that it does not represent the original entries. I hope that whoever corrupted the site recognizes the pain they have caused, not just to me, but to my family and communities that I care deeply about: LGBTQ, immigrants, people of color and other marginalized groups.

Her claims have been described as implausible by tech experts. The Intercept wrote that specialists it consulted “were personally unaware of previous instances of the Wayback Machine being hacked and altered” and noted that Reid has also used some of the homophobic tropes in the newly surfaced posts (e.g., referring to allegedly gay men as “Miss”) on her presumably authentic Twitter account. A Tuesday post on the Wayback Machine’s blog said the site’s operators looked into Reid’s allegations but found that “nothing to indicate tampering or hacking” had taken place. (The post also noted that material from Reid’s blog has been automatically removed even from the Wayback Machine’s archives via a “robots.txt exclusion request,” a subject that you can read more about here.)

Tuesday night, Jonathan Nichols—an “independent security consultant” employed by Reid—released a statement responding to the Wayback Machine post and other coverage. Nichols asserted that the alleged hacking may not have taken place via the Wayback Machine but via saboteurs who logged into Reid’s actual blog itself using login information that was obtained on the “dark web.” As observers including BuzzFeed tech/politics reporter Joe Bernstein have noted, however, the disputed posts were independently archived years ago, seemingly suggesting that whoever framed Reid would have had to have done so when she was still a blogger and Florida radio host who was unknown at the national level:

 

Also, the Wayback Machine captured these posts at or near the time they were posted - over ten years ago. For this account to make sense, someone would have had to access Reid's blog with Dark Web credentials, then travel back in time https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/988963435412107264 …

10:55 PM - Apr 24, 2018

Nichols also claims (without supporting detail) that some of the material posted by @jamie_maz was never published on Reid’s blog and suggests that this material is simply the result of “screenshot manipulation,” i.e., photoshopping. As mentioned, Reid’s blog is no longer available on the Wayback Machine, which would seem to make Nichols’ claim impossible to check—but CNN reports that a Library of Congress–specific internet archive does in fact contain the disputed posts, which the network says were archived and saved in 2006.

Moreover, while I am not a tech expert, I did read many blogs, political and otherwise, during the midaughts and can attest that if the 40-plus disputed posts at issue are in fact the work of hackers, they are hackers who were very, very good at capturing the milieu of the midaughts internet to a precise and even mundane degree. For example:

[RayDog 682]

6 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I agree with this, she does suck.

If she thinks gay sex is gross, probably not. And, forget about anal.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

6 minutes ago, PittsburghTiger said:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/experts-question-joy-reids-claim-of-being-hacked.html

 

Last December, MSNBC host and prominent #resistance figure Joy Reid apologized for having made homophobic comments about Florida politician Charlie Crist in blog posts published between 2007 and 2009. A week ago, the Twitter user who’d provoked Reid’s apology by surfacing the Crist comments—@jamie_maz—highlighted a number of other posts apparently published on Reid’s blog that were homophobic or dismissive of LGBTQ-rights activism. (While the blog is now defunct, @jamie_maz explained, its content had been saved on the Wayback Machine internet archive.) Here’s one example:

Reid also (apparently) wrote that gay sex is “gross” and speculated in pejorative fashion about the sexual orientation of various male politicians and celebrities. (FWIW, the other posts on @jamie_maz’s timeline are generally about progressive/left activist topics. I DM’d the account to ask if its owner would like to be identified publicly and will update this post if I hear back.)

Rather than apologizing further, though, Reid announced in a statement that she’d been hacked:

In December I learned that an unknown, external party accessed and manipulated material from my now-defunct blog, The Reid Report, to include offensive and hateful references that are fabricated and run counter to my personal beliefs and ideology.

I began working with a cyber-security expert who first identified the unauthorized activity, and we notified federal law enforcement officials of the breach. The manipulated material seems to be part of an effort to taint my character with false information by distorting a blog that ended a decade ago.

Now that the site has been compromised I can state unequivocally that it does not represent the original entries. I hope that whoever corrupted the site recognizes the pain they have caused, not just to me, but to my family and communities that I care deeply about: LGBTQ, immigrants, people of color and other marginalized groups.

Her claims have been described as implausible by tech experts. The Intercept wrote that specialists it consulted “were personally unaware of previous instances of the Wayback Machine being hacked and altered” and noted that Reid has also used some of the homophobic tropes in the newly surfaced posts (e.g., referring to allegedly gay men as “Miss”) on her presumably authentic Twitter account. A Tuesday post on the Wayback Machine’s blog said the site’s operators looked into Reid’s allegations but found that “nothing to indicate tampering or hacking” had taken place. (The post also noted that material from Reid’s blog has been automatically removed even from the Wayback Machine’s archives via a “robots.txt exclusion request,” a subject that you can read more about here.)

Tuesday night, Jonathan Nichols—an “independent security consultant” employed by Reid—released a statement responding to the Wayback Machine post and other coverage. Nichols asserted that the alleged hacking may not have taken place via the Wayback Machine but via saboteurs who logged into Reid’s actual blog itself using login information that was obtained on the “dark web.” As observers including BuzzFeed tech/politics reporter Joe Bernstein have noted, however, the disputed posts were independently archived years ago, seemingly suggesting that whoever framed Reid would have had to have done so when she was still a blogger and Florida radio host who was unknown at the national level:

 

Also, the Wayback Machine captured these posts at or near the time they were posted - over ten years ago. For this account to make sense, someone would have had to access Reid's blog with Dark Web credentials, then travel back in time https://twitter.com/ErikWemple/status/988963435412107264 …

10:55 PM - Apr 24, 2018

Nichols also claims (without supporting detail) that some of the material posted by @jamie_maz was never published on Reid’s blog and suggests that this material is simply the result of “screenshot manipulation,” i.e., photoshopping. As mentioned, Reid’s blog is no longer available on the Wayback Machine, which would seem to make Nichols’ claim impossible to check—but CNN reports that a Library of Congress–specific internet archive does in fact contain the disputed posts, which the network says were archived and saved in 2006.

Moreover, while I am not a tech expert, I did read many blogs, political and otherwise, during the midaughts and can attest that if the 40-plus disputed posts at issue are in fact the work of hackers, they are hackers who were very, very good at capturing the milieu of the midaughts internet to a precise and even mundane degree. For example:

It’s possible she was actually convinced she was hacked.  The FBI is looking into it which is good. She obviously didn’t handle this situation well regardless but most are presupposing she had malicious intent to cover something up she knew to be true.  I don’t know but the whole situation stinks.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

3 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Mueller is looking into whether Trump colluded with Russia, which is good, but Trump says he didn’t, so I don’t know why anyone is presupposing malicious intent to cover something up. Obviously, he could have handled the situation better, but I guess you have to take him at his word.  It’s possible he was actually convinced he wasn’t colluding with Russia.

Welp, I guess you’ll have a lot more free time on your hands now, Hugo.  I suggest golf.

Holy false equivalency.

FTR, Trump may have been a useful idiot

Edited April 30, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[PittsburghTiger 6292]

17 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

It’s possible she was actually convinced she was hacked.  The FBI is looking into it which is good. She obviously didn’t handle this situation well regardless but most are presupposing she had malicious intent to cover something up she knew to be true.  I don’t know but the whole situation stinks.

What if she lied about it being hacked? What if she lied to the FBI about it being hacked?

Do you really think "I don't believe I wrote those" to be a good defense?

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

I have no idea.

[PittsburghTiger 6292]

MSNBC personality Joy-Ann Reid appears to have changed her story about those homophobic blog posts. And with this sea change in Reid’s defense, there could be legal trouble ahead.

At first, Reid claimed she was hacked. That story completely fell apart when The Daily Beast–where Reid had her own column until it was suspended over those same posts–published a thorough dissection and dismissal of Reid’s claims.

In no uncertain terms, Kevin Poulsen writes, “the evidence provided crumbles under scrutiny.” Citing to  alleged “evidence” obtained by Reid’s “cybersecurity expert,” Jonathan Nichols, Poulsen observes, “Blog posts that Nichols claimed do not appear on the Internet Archive are, in fact, there. The indicators of hacked posts don’t bear out.”\

Throughout Poulsen’s piece, various of Nichols’ statements are walked back and Reid’s story is thoroughly undercut by actual data and evidence. Let’s underscore this next bit for Reid’s erstwhile defenders on Twitter and elsewhere:

Today Nichols says Reid and her team no longer believe the archive was hacked, and the Internet Archive has denied any such manipulation could have occurred.

Reid’s already implausible defense fully withered upon basic and further inspection. After that, Reid’s tune shifted from neutral to reverse. On her Saturday morning show, Reid said:

I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me. But I can definitely understand, based on things I have tweeted and I have written in the past, why some people don’t believe me…I can only say that the person I am now is not the person I was then. I like to think I’ve gotten better as a person over time — that I’m still growing. That I’m not the same person I was 10, or five, or even one year ago. And I know that my goal is to try to be a better person, and a better ally.

 

What a difference a day or two makes. Except that in the interim–between Reid/MSNBC’s dogged insistence that hackers had somehow discovered time travel and Saturday morning’s Alberto Gonzales-inspired pseudo-apology–someone in Reid’s camp or at MSNBC got the FBI involved.

After Mediaite‘s Caleb Ecarma broke the story, Reid said she and Nichols “notified federal law enforcement officials of the breach.” On Wednesday, The Daily Beast confirmed that the FBI was looking into the claims. Reid’s attorney John H. Reichman said, “We have received confirmation the FBI has opened an investigation into potential criminal activities surrounding several online accounts, including personal email and blog accounts, belonging to Joy-Ann Reid.”

Reichman previously distinguished himself–in a December 2017 letter sent to Alphabet and the Internet Archive–by claiming that Reid could not have possibly written one of the disputed blog posts due to time constraints. Reichman’s argument was explored in an earlier piece for Law&Crime.

https://lawandcrime.com/legal-analysis/could-joy-reid-or-msnbc-face-legal-trouble-for-bringing-apparently-false-hacking-claims-to-fbi/

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Good! Get to the fucking bottom of it!!

Yall keep trying to paint me in a corner as someone defending Joy Reid to the death, I’m not.  She could be guilty AF.

I’m just not as bloodthirsty as the rest of y’all.

[David Dennison 19307]

She's probably in the clear legally. She'll just say she relied on her tech guy.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

I don’t know who Joy Reid is.  

[David Dennison 19307]

8 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

I don’t know who Joy Reid is.  

B Team liberal pundit on MSNBC. Hosts a weekend show for a couple hours Saturday and Sunday morning.

[SizzleChest 8299]

24 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

I don’t know who Joy Reid is.  

That's a good thing.

[Billy Pilgrim 2051]

No one really gives a shit who Joy Reid is- just pointing out the hypocrisy that if these posts were made by a right-leaning talk show that they would've been fired immediately. I'm fairly middle of the road politically but I'm a HUGE proponent of free speech on both sides. I just want to see things like this treated equally- either censor both sides equally or allow both sides to express their opinion. Just don't suppress one side and not the other.

Edited May 1, 2018 by Billy Pilgrim

[bad_teammate 13442]

Y'all trying to trick me into giving a shit about Joy Ann Reid.

Won't work, suckers!

[Brothahorn 10096]

13 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Good! Get to the fucking bottom of it!!

Yall keep trying to paint me in a corner as someone defending Joy Reid to the death, I’m not.  She could be guilty AF.

I’m just not as bloodthirsty as the rest of y’all.

Oh, now you believe in innocent until proven guilty? 

[Macanudo 13170]

On 4/30/2018 at 6:16 PM, David Dennison said:

I like her.

You're an idiot.

[ndawg 1242]

On 4/30/2018 at 8:04 PM, Billy Pilgrim said:

No one really gives a shit who Joy Reid is- just pointing out the hypocrisy that if these posts were made by a right-leaning talk show that they would've been fired immediately. I'm fairly middle of the road politically but I'm a HUGE proponent of free speech on both sides. I just want to see things like this treated equally- either censor both sides equally or allow both sides to express their opinion. Just don't suppress one side and not the other.

Do you mean a right leaning pundit on a "liberal" network or a right leaning pundit on Fox News? Because a conservative pundit has to pretty much unmask himself as a demon of some lower region of hell to get fired from Fox News.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Damn it, I hate agreeing with Hannity.

[David Dennison 19307]

Hannity in CYA mode.

[F250 29120]

Who the hell is Mando Ramos?

[R2D2 91]

Blogs used to be all snarky. Then, Twitter!

[HiggyBaby 2600]

[Goredho 17595]

I feel like there is some context missing in this thread.

[BrazilHorn 6770]

On 4/30/2018 at 6:56 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Good! Get to the fucking bottom of it!!

Yall keep trying to paint me in a corner as someone defending Joy Reid to the death, I’m not.  She could be guilty AF.

I’m just not as bloodthirsty as the rest of y’all.

Unless she worked for Fox. You’re the most biased poster on the site. 

Just own it. 

This is why the vast majority of news agencies should be viewed  solely as entertainment. 

Theyve all turned into “The view”

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Don’t like Joy Reid? Fine, don’t watch.

It’s the exact same position I have with Hannity.

So tell me again how I’m biased. 

[TahoeHorn 107]

Society has gone nutty with the way we treat various offenses.  Guy A embezzles from the company, Guy B cheats on his expense account, Guy C bangs a co-worker's wife, Guy D is an alcoholic, Guy E gets into a fist fight with a coworker, Guy F fabricates his divisions sales numbers, and Guy G makes an ethnic slur.  And who gets fired?  It's nuts.

I can think of a lot of good reasons to fire Joy Reid but her blog posts of yesteryear aren't on my list.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

Old offensive blog posts that one repudiates in the present generally shouldn't be grounds for firing a news show host.  But lying about being hacked and getting the FBI to investigate to cover your ass should be.  That is not too high a standard for our media figures. 

[TahoeHorn 107]

27 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Old offensive blog posts that one repudiates in the present generally shouldn't be grounds for firing a news show host.  But lying about being hacked and getting the FBI to investigate to cover your ass should be.  That is not too high a standard for our media figures. 

I'll buy that.

[Pods 7608]

On 6/2/2018 at 10:18 AM, BrazilHorn said:

Unless she worked for Fox. You’re the most biased poster on the site. 

Just own it. 

This is why the vast majority of news agencies should be viewed  solely as entertainment. 

Theyve all turned into “The view”

It's always the same absurdly biased posters that claim this. Don't think it's not obvious to the rest of us. 

[BrazilHorn 6770]

7 minutes ago, Pods said:

It's always the same absurdly biased posters that claim this. Don't think it's not obvious to the rest of us. 

I believe all media should have to do like stock analysts and disclose their “positions” 

this way you know lens they may view a story through. 

I don’t have a “party”. I’m liberal on many social issues: gay rights, abortion, legalization of marijuana, hitting police in their pensions vs taxpayers for settlements

but I’m conservative fiscally and on immigration. 

I think Trump and Hillary are both terrible humans. 

 

[Chrispy 132]

1 hour ago, Mojo Hand said:

Old offensive blog posts that one repudiates in the present generally shouldn't be grounds for firing a news show host.  But lying about being hacked and getting the FBI to investigate to cover your ass should be.  That is not too high a standard for our media figures. 

Of course she repudiates the blog posts, she has yet to admit she wrote them. It’s a clever tactic, I have to admit, and the lobotomized sycophants continue to entertain such nonsense. 

[Pods 7608]

4 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

I believe all media should have to do like stock analysts and disclose their “positions” 

this way you know lens they may view a story through. 

I don’t have a “party”. I’m liberal on many social issues: gay rights, abortion, legalization of marijuana, hitting police in their pensions vs taxpayers for settlements

but I’m conservative fiscally and on immigration. 

I think Trump and Hillary are both terrible humans. 

 

Then you are barking up the wrong tree going after Hugo, because he pretty much has all of those same viewpoints, aside from possibly immigration. Agree with him or not, he's also generally very consistent. 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Pods

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Everyone is 100% certain she wrote these blog posts from 10 years ago and that she intentionally lied about it with the intent to deceive.

Yall are some bloodthirsty motherfuckers.

I don’t give a shit what she said on a blog or if she lied about it.  She’s not in public service or getting paid with tax dollars so IDGAF.

Joy Reid sucks at her job too.  Her delivery is shitty and she talks way too fast for the average viewer.  Her guests are the only thing worth watching on her shitty show.

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[BrazilHorn 6770]

10 minutes ago, Pods said:

Then you are barking up the wrong tree going after Hugo, because he pretty much has all of those same viewpoints, aside from possibly immigration. Agree with him or not, he's also generally very consistent. 

Ok. Noted. Just seems more like he’s set himself up as the anti-swam/Tahoe in terms of thread starting/posting. 

Both approaches are wearying. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

9 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Everyone is 100% certain she wrote these blog posts from 10 years ago and that she intentionally lied about it with the intent to deceive.

Yall are some bloodthirsty motherfuckers.

I don’t give a shit what she said on a blog or if she lied about it.  She’s not in public service or getting paid with tax dollars so IDGAF.

Joy Reid sucks at her job too.  Her delivery is shitty and she talks way too fast for the average viewer.  Her guests are the only thing worth watching on her shitty show.

 

I love your selective belief system.......  Typical.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Just now, Onboard 2.0 said:

I love your selective belief system.......  Typical.

What is selective about it?  Joy Reid is basically the television equivalent of an actor, like Hannity.

she’s not Tom Brokaw or Shep Smith.  

[Pods 7608]

13 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

Ok. Noted. Just seems more like he’s set himself up as the anti-swam/Tahoe in terms of thread starting/posting. 

Both approaches are wearying. 

I get it. I think Hugo is also aware of it. Unfortunately, the scale of the disaster Trump presents is enormous and Hugo is presenting only a slice of what is presented on Twitter most days. Trump really is an existential threat to democracy and law and order in the United States. My personal feelings are that Hugo isn't posting too much, the rest of us aren't posting enough. This is a legitimate crisis and we should all remember that.  

My read on Hugo is that he's in the exact same situation I am with regards to this. I think he's a moderate that is horrified at the trajectory Trump has put us on and is scrambling like hell to do what little he can to try to prevent it. Likely in vain. 

@Hugo StiglitzHe's right on this one dude. Who gives a fuck about Joy Reid? Keep your tinder dry for the battles that matter. 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Pods

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Pretty much.  It’s become a hobby of mine to do what little I can to talk about this stuff and try to break the preference bubbles.  I honestly wish this place had more Trump supporters because those are the ones that I’d like to get more input and engagement from as to why they support Trump.

What sucks is I’d get banned from a Trump echo chamber because I’d come off as the troll “just asking questions”. 

I’m not the biggest fan of mob rule tyranny on these forums either for that reason.

Edited June 4, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz