People have reported Kotaku for years though.

Remember the old site when we had that little rating system where we could rate websites, the one with the "WTF" choice on it. People used to use that all the time for Kotaku after reporting them, another way to say to you guys "Hey this site is shit and something needs to be done about it". Then we find out by another mod, because he let slip, it didn't do anything, in the end it was giving us the illusion we had a role in the site when we didn't. So yeah don't say report it when people do, they've been that way for years...hell even Polygon has gotten bad in some places.

"So, call me a white knight all you want"

I didn't say you were. I said it "seems" like it. Two completely different things. I never once said "Chris you are defending him because you are a total whiteknight" and called you directly. Shouldn't really look into things that hard man.

At the end of the day N4G for years have had hit grabbing Kotaku articles along with other trash put on here and despite reports they get through and become high temperature website hits.

EDIT

LOL disagrees....bunch of two face snakes. I've seen so many people shit on Kotaku whining why they are still allowed on here for bloody years and now that I have the balls to say it I'm wrong. Yeah good one guys. If you want the site to improve grow a spine.

***People have reported Kotaku for years though. ***

And yet things still exist:

1. People get news from Kotaku
2. People submit content from Kotaku http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
3. People approve content from Kotaku

I'm not banning a site here, I'm saying the news is wrong and will be failed. If you see something similar with any other site, let me know.

But, I'm not going to outright fail a site merely because a lot of people don't like it. Because once Kotaku's gone, that will only shift to another site, and then another, and another. Until this site is comprised of sites only the majority approves of.

As it is, people submit content, it gets approved, you have the choice to read it or not. If you find it is fake or misleading, let me know.

***I didn't say you were. I said it "seems" like it. ***

Oh, right, yeah... *wink wink nod nod* Totally got your ability to circumvent directly saying it while actually saying it there.

*** N4G for years have had hit grabbing Kotaku articles along with other trash put on here and despite reports ***

Actually not true. You can look at the mass majority of Kotaku pieces, something I've actually done, and they very very very rarely have any reports on them about quality or being false information. What they do have are people complaining in the comments section. No reports, though.

And even then, Kotaku is rarely a hottest news item on N4G as it is.

We're not going to ban a site just because a ton of people don't like it. We'll remove fake/misleading articles. And, if it seems that's all that site promotes, we'll consider banning it. But, we're not just going to ban it because you don't like their content, especially considering how little of their content makes it to N4G.

***yet ignore what people have been saying about Kotaku and sites like them for years***

Yet you provide no proof of them spreading lies for hits on N4G in any recent time period. You make a claim but do nothing to back it up. As I said, if you see it, report it and let me know. But, as it is, it really is coming off as you not liking Kotaku, and not much else. It's not like I haven't failed Kotaku news or that so much news out of Kotaku is lies that we should ban them.

And why is anyone "up in arms" about promoting good journalism? The only person I see up in arms here is you, to be honest, which is why my comments are directly moreso at you and not 'others'.

***You are white knighting for him. He disclosed info ILLEGALLY. People are not making up information. What he did, he is not allowed to do. He did not follow the rules, hence his investigation.***
r
No, I'm not. And, technically, no, he didn't do anything illegal at the time. There were no rules specific to such things from the FTC until 2015 nor did Google's system support a system of flagging content as having product placement or sponsorship status. At that time, disclosure was undefined, and he did disclose it in the description. Something the majority of people on the suit didn't do at all.

Please become better informed rather than spewing misinformation yourself.

Chris I never said "ban them because I don't like them" I was just making the point why you are so up in arms about coming to PewDiePies defence, making a point about how you hate sites which rely on spreading lies for hits yet ignore what people have been saying about Kotaku and sites like them for years. Jeez. I feel like you literally see something else when replying and reply to that instead.

I never mentioned examples because I am no way going to waste my time sifting through all the shit in the past they've done. I know god damn well they have and can remember clear as day people moaning on about them

Best examples I can give was during the GamerGate thing when Kotaku were posting really crappy articles and they were let through.

" but I'm wondering why you're getting so vexed?

Because it's hypocrisy plain and simple. Saying how he dosen't like sites which lie to get hits and yet we've seen so many get through over the years, people calling them out in the article and Kotaku are the main culprits.

Yet a blog post gets made about how sites need to stop lying for hits and it all comes out to support the siltation involving Pewdiepie.

"Tbh, I don't really follow the Kotaku thing so don't really care either way"

Eh?

Then why reply and stir the pot

EDIT

Below

Chris, you guys did that AFTER a week or so Anti GG articles flooded the website. Kotaku, Polygon, the whole Gamers are dead thing were all on here.

I tried to submit an article defending GG and it was removed for not being about gaming...when it bloody was and the anti GG articles got through.

It was only when people complained and spoke to Cat that it was put back up but it was too late and was hidden with all the new news that came in.

You guys did that once all the Anti GG stuff had flooded the site and people were preparing to hit back with defence articles, then suddenly you decided to do it and block any GG articles.

Kind of fishy at the end of the day and it was clear you all had an agenda to it.

Even after you guys put the "no GG articles on N4G" thing into effect, defence articles would be failed straight away while pro GG articles would most likely get through to the main page before being removed. Again...kind of funny don't you think.

-Foxtrot, the example you gave? It led to this: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...

I think I handled them fairly and equally to this one and your hypocrisy claims are unfounded. Especially considering at that time I had to get permission from Cat to make it happen since I wasn't in charge at that time. But, hey, that's just me.

@above: ***Kind of fishy at the end of the day and it was clear you all had an agenda to it. ***

You are getting real tiring with projecting your own bias. I have no agenda other than keeping this site about video games. The number of things failed on both sides isn't an exact number to me, but I believe you are right it was more on the anti-GG side (and still is). But, guess why the rule was put in place? Because those anti-GG stuff had absolutely zero to do with gaming. Nothing. It was just social issues creating another us vs. them situation that dragged the site down with it as it grew. So, did an opposing view article get failed after the rule was put in place? Yes, as did a lot of anti-GG submissions. Do I agree with Cat putting back up the article she did due to pressure? Not at all. I would have kept it down and with good reason, it had nothing to do with video game news.

You can disagree with me on our GG policies, but to say I have an agenda? How many anti-GG posts do you see here that break the rules that apply to both sides since they were enacted? Do you only think pro-GG things get submitted? Do you think I haven't failed a good number of anti-GG stuff since then?

Please see what is there, not what you want to see in me. But, I believe my plea falls on deaf ears. You've already decided who I am. Much like so many others who only see that they aren't getting what they want, therefore I must be on the "other side" of some topic I've decided to just not involve myself in.

they lie

https://www.google.com/sear...

OK, and going through the first couple pages of that google search, half the articles are about how misinformation spreads, a piece which this blog is partially trying to stop, others are tweets from individuals over at Kotaku or about Kotaku, and still others are GG related articles.

Putting in N4G into the search to see what I can find that got posted here, I can't seem to come across any non-gamergate "news" articles that lied, and were posted on here. Their opinion pieces were posted here some, but a cursory glance at the headline and first paragraph didn't show any actual lies.

I'm talking about news here, not their asinine opinion articles which they're free to have, and much to my chagrin, are valid forms of submissions for this site so long as they fall within the content guidelines laid out for the site.

I'm not one to defend Kotaku, nor do I even want to, and will be the first to call them out for unethical behavior, and really laid into Totillo when he came here to back up his writers in reply to a blog post(my first up bubble vote BTW). But at the same time, when someone makes spurious claims that N4G is allowing Kotaku to use this forum to spread it's lies and misinformation, I do feel it necessary to say that they aren't doing what the OP says they're doing, and ironically, the OP is using the same tactics the article on PDP did to try and discredit him, by making claims that are either untrue, or he can't back up. The only claim of lying he cares to cite was already taken care of.

There are plenty of things that Kotaku does, which can be used to discredit them and try to get them banned from this site without making stuff up, or railing against them based on one's personal beliefs on what is actually happening. Fox is using a lot of hyperbole to try and make his point, but what he's complaining about has already been taken care of indirectly, and his accusations against Kotaku aren't enough to warrant what he's asking for IMO.

Is Kotaku unethical? yes. Do they outright lie on actual news? Probably sometimes given their nature. But GG is the only example I can think of in recent times, and while their implication in GG may be part of it, their pieces were still framed from the point of view of what many people believed. They were poorly researched articles, and IMO biased to get the heat off Kotaku, but the "lies" themselves were more misconstruing or overstating of the facts, and twisting the story to suit their own needs. That was taken care of in the GG ban on N4G, and since, I haven't seen anything other than opinion pieces which obfuscate the facts....with the only one of recent memory being an article by Totillo about Ubisoft and I believe 2K blacklisting their site.

Truth is, the vast majority of their actual news does not lie, and I can't recall any article since GG where N4G posted an actual news article from them where they could be accused of lying about the facts.

Spot on Sgt. I stopped commenting regularly and submitting articles months ago because of how pathetic this site has become. The mods love to wave the impartiality banner but at the end of the day they love to fan the flames of the fanboy war to generate those extra clicks. It's really quite laughable.

This is an aggregate site, they don't actually post any homegrown content.

I've reported lots of articles and lots of them get away with it anyways.

Bear in mind we can never come across all the clickbait articles since this is a website that relies on users to approve and disapprove articles. Every article that is approved by the community should be sent to admins before it hits the front-page. What's the point of having it hit the front-page then removing it after the article accumulated a heat of 500?

N4G can be way better in how it handle things, how biased fanboy mods handle things, but this won't happen until you guys have competition. Without competition, N4G will always be careless and ignorant to the facts.

People are quick to jump on something with pitchforks and torches. I have too, but when you're wrong you're wrong and in this case the many people jumping on this guy are for the wrong reasons.

I'm no fan of him but it seems pretty clear that he never reviewed the game and gave it a perfect score and he did disclose he was paid by WB to talk about the game.

I see no different than what Sam L Jackson does for Capitol One or any other sport celebrity does in commercials.

Absolutely 100% agree.

Not a fan of his. Tried watching his channel, and couldn't get into the premise of Let's Plays, and found him insufferable to listen to for more than a couple minutes. But despite how I feel about him, I'm not going to try and bring him down for something that isn't considered illegal, and given that he disclosed it, I'm not going to try and bring him down for what I consider to be unethical behavior....because he handled it ethically.

Would love to see people moderate their pitchforks and torches for the time it's actually needed, so maybe when we do need something to happen, people may take the community more seriously. As it is, all these kinds of things make it out like the community is some angry mob, because some people fly off the handle, and jump to the most extreme conclusion they have, usually with no more basis for their opinion than a headline.

Don't care for the practice that was employed for WB, and don't care that content providers...and possibly reviewers....are accepting such cash incentives, but if they disclose it, all I can do is shake my head at the practice, and say how I don't approve.

Talking the merits of the core issue is one thing, making libelous statements based on no facts is quite another.

And yes, I think everyone here has at times, some more than others, jumped the gun on their calls for justice.

Console war rhetoric is one thing, but here we're talking about a man's career and reputation, and it's sad that nowadays it's so easy to strip that from someone who doesn't deserve it.

Ok Chris. The information wasn't right, the journalist should have made a better research... I understand why you took it out from the site.
I still don't like Warner Bros (and others I must assume) paying Youtubers to tell people what to buy BUT not forcing them to an adequate disclose (at least for the last 3 years that seemed to be the case) ...
I was a subscriber to PewDiePie (I think I fell for his eyes :) ) not anymore, I'm not convinced by his video.

FTC requires paid sponsorship be disclosed in some way in some way in some place, or apparently obvious(in the case of TV commercials). It doesn't necessarily have to be disclosed at the venue it's being broadcast or promoted, but the information has to be publicly available. While PDP disclosed it was paid for, others didn't, because it wasn't stipulated they had to, and it wasn't made publicly available that they were doing this, which is why WB got into hot water. As an aside, I have a feeling that many of the youtubers who didn't disclose the nature of their content probably realized it would likely make them look bad among many.....which in itself should be enough to say they probably knew that what they were doing wasn't really a good thing.

Anyhow, back on topic, I don't know what YouTube's policies are on it, but since it's a US based firm, I'm going to assume it has some stipulation in place that content providers follow FTC rules on at least their US based site, just because the lawyers will think that YT could in some way be held responsible. But I'm speculating, and don't really care to go look it up.

I'm glad you made this blog for two reasons. One, it sets the record straight, and lays out that any "news" such as this has to be properly represented(which I hope happens for anything that's not legit. And two, shows just how quickly people will jump to a conclusion based on an article, and form their opinion on their own bias without any further knowledge of the situation. I think this shows just how authoritative a written article can be for the reader, which I've mentioned many times in the past, and why there needs to be some level of ethicacy within the press to actively not partake in such actions. Hopefully it will make some also think a bit, or at least do more research before making an extreme reaction.....which honestly, we all do at times, or make them not be so quick to trust a source without further verification. Or heck, read past the headline and description if they're going to call for blood.

Anyhow, have nothing against the people who decry the practice as a whole, or even judge PDP by it, but saw a lot of people trying to bring the man down for something he was transparent on, and wasn't in any way illegal. Unethical...maybe, but that's one's personal opinion, and I don't believe the community as a whole has really gone through enough of this kind of potential unethical behavior to really form any kind of consensus opinion by which to openly black list someone who partakes in it. Also think a lot of people were taking the news and applying it to a broad spectrum of the industry, as if this was an extremely common thing, and that the industry as a whole needed to partake in paying for reviews. For the most part, the press kits are more than enough to get a review in the internet age, because reporting is limitless.

Sorry for the extended rant.:)

Burn. Lol

I saw an article that stated "Pewdiewhatever accepts bribe for game review." He didn't take a bribe, he took a sponsorship(which he disclosed when he didn't have to), and didn't make a review. That's specifically what I am referring to, and it's ridiculous. What I saw was entirely, ENTIRELY false.

@FullmetailRoyale @NotEvenMyFinalForm
A sponsor pays for your expenses if you promote there brand etc.
Being paid to review or play the game becomes a bribe when you dont disclose the arrangement clearly. And the terms of the agreement which was leaked by Angry Joe and Total Biscuits was highly unethical. If Pewdiepie faked his enjoyment of the game, or edited out bugs and glitches etc in his uploads, that is against consumer law. Which is why Pewdiepie was also named in this, while he did a little more then others who promoted the game, his 'disclosure' was in the hidden section of the video description. And that too is not enough as the videos get shared through Facebook etc where viewers wont be able to see any disclosures.

Most of the time you report something people approve anyway. Most of these websites, particularly the smaller ones, already have a crew in here that approves anything they post. It's pointless.

The only times a story's taken down it's because a mod or something does it. And they only do it with certain topics that seem to bother them a lot.