Apple Seemingly Censors UltraFine 5K Monitor Reviews After Poor Feedback (thenextweb.com) 97
It appears Apple is filtering and censoring bad reviews of the LG's UltraFine 5K display. From a report on The Next Web: The deletion was first spotted by a Reddit user four days ago. Though it's possible the reviews were removed for some other reason, at first glance, it looks like censorship. It's not a good look for the company. Apple said it was getting out of the monitor business, and instead chose to work more closely with third-party partners, heavily featuring LG's 5K and 4K UltraFine displays at its recent MacBook Pro unveiling. But then the monitor received multiple negative reviews from users who were experiencing issues such as the screen failing to wake up from sleep. The Reddit post also points out that: "In many cases, attempts to fix the problem through physical reconnection[sic] of the monitor, or manual restarts, have caused the attached Mac to crash, become otherwise unresponsive, or develop problems with the touch bar (where equipped)."
Re: (Score:1)
and now I am familiar with the term
ALT-Fact
Re:Slashdot seemingly censors my first posts (Score:5, Informative)
TFA has been retracted and an apology has been put at the top of the page due to the erroneous reporting. Shockingly, the redditor got it wrong and the Internet-at-large didn't bother doing the slightest bit of verification before posting their clickbait headlines about a company being evil.
MacRumors has some additional reporting on what actually happened [macrumors.com], but the gist of it is that no reviews at all were being posted for the 5K display until earlier today. In fact, the Ratings & Reviews section of the page was entirely disabled for that page until earlier today, presumably because someone forgot to activate the section after the product went on sale. Cached copies of the page [archive.org] confirm that that's been the case since the page went live last year, so the notion that Apple deleted bad reviews is demonstrably false, given that there never was a way to submit reviews--good or bad--in the first place.
Anyway, the inability to submit a review was already fixed by the time Slashdot posted this story, but, no doubt, people will be talking about the fictional bad reviews that Apple censored for months to come, simply because a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.
Re: (Score:1)
It's interesting that they don't have any reviews yet though. Maybe they are reviewing some, but it seems unlikely that none have been submitted. You need an Apple ID so I can't test it.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless of course there had never been any way to submit such reviews, as claimed in Anubis's summary - though the linked article only presents that as a possibility, not fact.
Re: (Score:1)
You can submit them right now, the form is there. There just are not any actual reviews.
Re: (Score:2)
Reviews have started showing up on the 5K page [apple.com], so either people were slow to get the news that they could review it, or Apple was slow to have a human click the "Not Spam" button for each of them.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.ssgear.com/usa_english/moment-of-truth-moto-shoes.html [ssgear.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Censoring Where? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Censoring Where? (Score:4, Funny)
did you consider clicking the link?
You must be new around here!
Re: Censoring Where? (Score:1)
Without clicking the link myself, I'll make a guessumption that it's actually the macbook pro that cant handle the external screen and therefore the reviews are criticising the wrong thing. While apple is quietly fixing the issue, they're stopping the bad reviews in the meantime.
Re: (Score:2)
It is from the Apple Web Store.
Apple Web Store (Score:1)
Apparently the Apple Web Store has reviews. I had no idea.
Re:Apple Web Store (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems pretty pointless with Apple fanbois.
"When I turned it on, it burned down the house. Steve Jobs showed up in person to shoot my dog and shit on the corpse. I was sued for existing. 5 stars, would buy again."
Re: (Score:2)
nothing can be done to right country music.
Re: (Score:1)
Some guy on Reddit said it, so it must be true, surely?
Re: (Score:2)
Netcraft confirmed it.
Actual, Webarchive confirmed there never were any reviews on that page. Until after this article came in.
Re: (Score:3)
...to just write this off as Free Speech Warrior nonsense...
While I agree with gist of your comment, the part that I quoted, while is not at all surprising coming from you, is especially misguided.
Let me put it in terms you could relate to. Freedom of Speech is what prevents Trump from shutting down any and all discussion on climate change.
Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)
It certainly won't be for lack of trying.
Re: (Score:1)
Let me be clear: I fully support freedom of speech and will defend it to the end.
But that's not what Free Speech Warriors are arguing. They think Apple should be forced to publish their negative reviews. I don't agree with forcing private companies to publish except in very specific circumstances, any more than I believe in forcing people to say things.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I think if you want, say, Twitter to be required to be covered by the same rules as the government, you need to nationalise it. That's extreme though.
Before the internet, some people wouldn't air their views in public anyway. Imagine going to a public place, getting on a soap box and arguing that paedophilia is okay. The internet allows views like that to be put forward in relative safety, on the dark web if necessary but actually most of it is out in the open. Stormfront, for example.
Re: (Score:2)
I really hope Trump presidency will remind everyone on the left why they should cherish freedom of speech.
Re: (Score:2)
Except nobody forces the private company to say anything?!? They don't have to allow reviews however IF they do it is reasonable to demand that they DO show the reviews that people write (except spam and obvious crap posting). If not they don't actually allow reviews, they just allow endorsement of their products.
If a company want to show endorsements on their website it is obviously 100% okay however it shouldn't be called reviews and they should make sure that consumers are fully aware that the ones shown
Re: (Score:1)
I guess you could make an argument that they should advertise them as endorsements or state clearly that they only show positive reviews. Transparency is good.
Re: (Score:2)
If we've learnt anything from politics in 2016 it's that partial truths can be as damaging (or effective, depending on your point of view) as outright lies.
So whilst I agree we shouldn't force companies to publish things they don't want to, there should at least be some guarantee that they don't mislead.
As such allowing reviews, but hiding the negative ones is grossly misleading, as it acts to give people a false impression about your product. It implies to people that the product is well received by custom
Re: Amazon's influence? (Score:1)
Re:What's the [sic] for?? (Score:4, Informative)
I have a feeling [sic] that no one [sic] actually knows [sic] what [sic] means!
"reconnection" is a word...
Latin, "thus".
"(Sic)" after a word means "thus", a statement that the word used is correct as written and not an error.
Re:What's the [sic] for?? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a feeling [sic] that no one [sic] actually knows [sic] what [sic] means!
"reconnection" is a word...
Latin, "thus".
"(Sic)" after a word means "thus", a statement that the word used is correct as written and not an error.
That's the literal translation of "Sic" but that's not what it means when used in this context.
It's used when quoting source material which has an apparent error, usually of spelling but can sometimes also point out grammatical errors or archaic/outdated usage. Specifically, it indicates the error existed in the original quote and is not being changed or corrected.
Some people will claim it's an abbreviation for "Spelling Isn't Corrected", and although that's not technically correct it's the same idea.
But the point here is that there is no error in the provided quote. So either the poster DID correct an error, or one never existed, and in either case the use of [sic] is not appropriate.
Re: (Score:1)
I have a feeling [sic] that no one [sic] actually knows [sic] what [sic] means!
"reconnection" is a word...
Latin, "thus".
"(Sic)" after a word means "thus", a statement that the word used is correct as written and not an error.
Translation: It's a word that people use to convince you that they know how to write.
Re: (Score:2)
Embedded in a quote, "[sic]" actually doesn't mean that the preceding word/phrase is 'correct' or 'incorrect' from a grammar, spelling (or factual) standpoint -- just that it IS an accurate quote even though the preceding might be incorrect OR be misinterpreted as incorrect.
For example, in the following, "[sic]" is used correctly to note that the error was made by the student, not the person offering the quote
Re: (Score:2)
Embedded in a quote, "[sic]" actually doesn't mean that the preceding word/phrase is 'correct' or 'incorrect' from a grammar, spelling (or factual) standpoint -- just that it IS an accurate quote even though the preceding might be incorrect OR be misinterpreted as incorrect.
A quote is correct when it accurately states what the quoted person said.
If I write the moon is made of ice cream, that is incorrect. If I write He said "the moon is made of ice cream," that is correct (if he actually said that.)
Re: (Score:2)
Embedded in a quote, "[sic]" actually doesn't mean that the preceding word/phrase is 'correct' or 'incorrect' from a grammar, spelling (or factual) standpoint -- just that it IS an accurate quote even though the preceding might be incorrect OR be misinterpreted as incorrect.
A quote is correct when it accurately states what the quoted person said.
If I write the moon is made of ice cream, that is incorrect. If I write He said "the moon is made of ice cream," that is correct (if he actually said that.)
So what if you write He said "the moon is made of ice creme," - what is correct and what did he say? He said "the moon is made of ice creme [sic]." - clear now?
Re: (Score:2)
You got it.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed you are!
I'd like to say I was referring to the son's passion for astronomy and related fields, but that would be a lie.
I'd like to say that I left that in there for you to feast on, but that would be a lie.
The truth is much simpler -- I was too lazy to carefully proofread my comment or even notice the bright red squiggly line under the word :(
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. There's no reason for [sic] to be there unless it was in the original quote.
Even if it were an error I argue against EVER putting [sic] inside a quote, or otherwise altering a quote. If the quote is incorrect, leave it. If you want to quote a portion of something and need to change a tense or replace a pronoun/article/whatever, you change your surrounding structure, not the fucking quote.
Re: (Score:2)
Why argue against a useful communication tool? The common usage of [sic] is to communicate to the reader that the writer is aware of the misspelling/odd spelling etc. but that it is correctly quoted. If one just leave the error (or unusual spelling, word etc.) then the reader have to assume the writer did a correct quote or that the writer did a mistake while quoting.
TL;DR doing that would reduce the information bandwidth with one bit per potential wrongly quoted word.
It's not censorship, it's courage... (Score:2, Interesting)
I thought they were selectively removing reviews, but they just disabled reviews and made the (low) star rating disappear completely just for that monitor. Funny. There have been other products in the past with dismal reviews on apple's store, for example the 1 star replacement usb charging cable for a MacBook I had (circa 2009?), which had a tiny shiny plug that most people couldn't grab on, while at the same had poor construction which meant pulling the cord a few times destroyed it. So, you had to buy a
Re: (Score:3)
Sorry, it wasn't usb charging, it was some proprietary magnetic charging thing. It's a bit fuzzy since I only kept that macbook for a few months (it was really bad - switched to a proper Mac Pro), but I remember while it would have plugged/unplugged very easy with its little magnet, they had left you no area to grab it from (unless perhaps you had tiny fingers?), except the cable. And it would come apart very easily...
It was a magsafe (Score:1, Informative)
It was a MagSafe adapter. They still make some pretty bad ones that fail all the time and get very bad reviews [apple.com], but they don't seem to care.
Re:It's not censorship, it's courage... (Score:5, Informative)
I thought they were selectively removing reviews, but they just disabled reviews and made the (low) star rating disappear completely just for that monitor.
Except that they didn't. The article [thenextweb.com] was retracted and The Next Web has issued a formal apology for their erroneous reporting.
The actual problem wasn't that Apple disabled the section in order to censor reviews; it was that they forgot to enable the section in the first place. Cached copies of the page [archive.org] show that the section was never enabled at all. It looks like someone at Apple simply forgot to press the button to enable ratings and reviews on the monitor. From there, a redditor used the opportunity to bend the truth quite a bit by claiming that Apple had disabled the section to hide bad reviews, despite the fact that they have a history of letting bad reviews stand, as you pointed out. The blogs love salacious news, so they posted it without doing proper vetting, and now they're all having to post retractions.
Yay for the Internet.
Re: (Score:1)
Damn it Reddit. Should have known better than to trust the Free Speech Warriors over there.
Re: (Score:2)
"I thought they were selectively removing reviews, but they just disabled reviews and made the (low) star rating disappear completely just for that monitor. Funny."
Wrong. There were NEVER any reviews of that product. The review button was never enabled so there were no low or otherwise reviews to "disappear".
Re:To the tards that commandeered Apple... (Score:4, Insightful)
"If he's so smart, home come he's dead?"
-Homer Simpson
On the surface is a simple joke playing on Homer's simple mind. However, there is a deep truth to it. We are ultimately all of equal worth in death, and thus in life.
$10 says it's a shitty DRM issue (Score:2, Interesting)
My 4k panel would do this shit all the time when I used it with a windows computer. Randomly blanking out, refusing to wake, etc.
Switched to Linux where none of this DRM bullshit gets used and it has operated flawlessly ever since.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not HDCP. In Sierra, some TVs and monitors are incorrectly reported as being non-HDCP-compliant, and the result is that certain software (e.g. Netflix, but only in Safari) throws errors. The OS as a whole, however, is perfectly content with displaying content on a non-HDCP-capable screen.
Re: (Score:2)
What's funny, is that my Apple Cinema Display does this as well, connected through a DisplayPort switch into a PC. The PC seems unable to wake the display randomly, and I fix it by plugging it into a Mac. Then I switch it back to the PC and all is well.
I figured it's a problem with the switch thingy.
Or (Score:2)
Could be a driver problem, but sure blame DRM...
Re: (Score:1)
How did you have it connected?
HDMI has DRM, but DisplayPort doesn't. 5k monitors all seem to use DisplayPort.
Re: (Score:2)
Incorrect.
There's a reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Ninety percent of all bad reviews was about the fact that a crash occurred if you connected/disconnected with the lid closed.
They fixed that bug in the latest macOS update. It came out yesterday. Basically all the reviews wouldn't make sense anymore.
I'm not saying it's a good reason, but I'm guessing that's the thinking in the apple mothership.
Re: (Score:1)
Ninety percent of all bad reviews was about the fact that a crash occurred if you connected/disconnected with the lid closed.
They fixed that bug in the latest macOS update. It came out yesterday. Basically all the reviews wouldn't make sense anymore.
I'm not saying it's a good reason, but I'm guessing that's the thinking in the apple mothership.
That's irrelevant. If it's fixed then in a few years the reviews will be disregarded as something which has been resolved, in the meantime they deserve to suffer for putting such a thing in production.
Re: (Score:3)
That's irrelevant. If it's fixed then in a few years the reviews will be disregarded as something which has been resolved, in the meantime they deserve to suffer for putting such a thing in production.
The article was retracted even before it was posted to Slashdot's front page, so we're talking about a hypothetical case that never happened in the first place. The redditor falsely claimed that Apple disabled the Ratings & Reviews section of the page in response to bad reviews. A slew of sites then reported on that claim without doing any verification, other than noting that the Ratings & Reviews section was indeed missing from the page.
Unfortunately for them, cached copies of the page confirm that
Is this all LG Monitors? (Score:3)
I bought an LG monitor in 2015, just a basic 23" 1080p display, and it turns off instead of going to sleep. There is no way to wake this screen with any computer.
A pretty big design flaw, but I'm too cheap to replace it. I have to turn the screen back on every time I wake the computer.
Re: (Score:3)
Are you connecting via DisplayPort? This was a common issue on Nvidia cards.
Re: (Score:2)
HDMI here.
Re: (Score:2)
Relationship between TouchBar and Monitor (Score:2)
Can any Mac users tell me how the TouchBar interacts with a monitor? I can't figure out how those could possibly be related in a way that unplugging the monitor would change anything with the TouchBar?
Is it a volume thing? Does audio go through that same connection and you adjust the volume of the monitor through TouchBar controls?
Or is it actually just triggering generic unrelated instabilities in the TouchBar as the computer switches between 'have a monitor' / 'don't have a monitor' modes?
Not much new here... (Score:1)
If it's just some oddball problem with your configuration; your post will typically stay up. If it's a bug for which a patch doesn't exist; or a recall in the making, it'll be shoved into the memory hole in fairly short order. A trifle oblique; but actually fairly informative.
Are they sure it is a display problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
Turned out - bugs in Skylake graphics drivers.
(in the end had to move to Fedora 25 for rock solid stability)
This makes me ... (Score:2)
... [sic]
Nice misdirection of blame (Score:2)
AFAIK, Apple was never in the panel manufacturing business. They used to make Apple-branded monitors, but those simply used panels manufactured by and bought from a third party (Samsung, LG, Sharp, and lately JDI - Japan Display Inc).
So when the reviews rave about a Macbook's display, it's an App
Re: (Score:2)
AFAIK, Apple was never in the panel manufacturing business. They used to make Apple-branded monitors, but those simply used panels manufactured by and bought from a third party (Samsung, LG, Sharp, and lately JDI - Japan Display Inc). So when the reviews rave about a Macbook's display, it's an Apple screen. When the reviewers complain about it, it's an LG screen.
When there is a LG sticker on the damn monitor, it's a LG monitor. How is that hard to understand?
Oh, about your " simply used panels manufactured by and bought from a third party " bot - why don't these third parties use these same screens in their own products and get the same good reviews for them, if there is nothing specifically Apple-y about them?
LG 4k monitor is okay (Score:1)
WRONG: Apple never allowed reviews (Score:1)
Do your homework! Apple never allowed reviews on that product. Check again, you JOURNALISTS!
reddit was wrong--there never were reviews (Score:3)
There never were reviews to remove. The original reddit poster was wrong.