Blood, Fabrication, Death, War & Gambling (Update)
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War correspondent Emanuel Fabian probably isn’t the first reporter gamblers have tried to pressure into fabricating an article. But he might be the first to report on how gamble-on-anything platforms contribute to gamblers trying to create fake news
On Tuesday, March 10, a massive explosion shook the city of Beit Shemesh, just outside Jerusalem, in yet another Iranian ballistic missile attack during the ongoing war.
Rescue services scrambled to the scene in search of possible casualties, though as it turned out, the projectile had struck a forested area just outside the city, around 500 meters from homes.
On The Times of Israel’s liveblog that day, I reported that the missile had hit an open area and no injuries were caused, citing the rescue services, as well as footage that emerged showing the massive explosion caused by the missile’s warhead.
And then the messages asking him to issue a correction began. Fabian performed some journalism and discovered a $14.6 million bet on whether Iran would strike Israel on March 10.
My minor report on a missile striking an open area was now in the middle of a betting war, with those who had bet “No” on an Iranian strike on Israel on March 10 demanding I change my article to ensure they would win big.
The messages kept coming in. And then someone started sending him threats. I won’t describe them as funny, but the pattern of issuing a deadline by which Fabian must comply OR ELSE, and then issuing another threat giving him “… exactly a few hours left to fix your attempt at influencing [the market],” and then another deadline was pathetic.
Polymarket’s response indicates that it isn’t spending any money on PR flacks.
“Polymarket condemns the harassment and threats directed at Emanuel Fabian, or anyone else for that matter. This behavior violates our terms of service and has no place on our platform or anywhere else,” a spokesperson for the betting company said in a statement to ToI.
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The spokesperson did not address questions about whether the company has heard from the Israel Police, whether Polymarket can help identify suspects in the case, whether the platform can take measures to prevent threats or media interference, or whether Polymarket is aware of any similar incidents in the past.
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see a lot of inconvenient questions from a reporter.
In a subsequent statement, posted on X later Monday, Polymarket said it had “banned the accounts for all involved & will pass their info to the relevant authorities.”
I wouldn’t bet on that.
The attempt by these gamblers to pressure me to change my reporting so that they would win their bet did not and will not succeed. But I do worry that other journalists may not be as ethical if they are promised some of the winnings.
Certainly there are unethical and short-sighted reporters. I’m sure there are outlets where any reporter can issue a correction or change a published article without anyone caring. But I don’t know if these betting platforms are that easy to manipulate. In this scenario, would the “No,” bet have paid if one reporter had issued a correction on an article (thereby enraging the people who had bet on “Yes”)? Or, could an individual reporter/gambler bet on “No” and then win the bet by fabricating an article to that effect?
If it is that easy, I don’t see how the platform can survive. Darn.
And that doesn’t get into situations where several reporters cover the same story. Could different sides of the bet engage in a bidding/intimidation war with each journalist? Maybe the dilettantes can bet on how many reporters will issue a “correction” and from which outlets. We can’t be more than a foot deep in the silliness this will generate.
Update: Thanks to commentator dsmilev for sharing some background on how Polymarket decides “What is truth”? Basically a subset of assholes pay extra for the privilege of debating over it. Sounds like Satan’s version of social media.
The Washington Post had a follow-up story which answers one question:
Polymarket determines the “truth” used to resolve bets on its platform via a complex system of voting by users who have bought a particular cryptocurrency token. As those users debated who should win the bet over missile strikes on March 10 in the days following the blast, more Polymarket bettors piled in, wagering another $7 million, with some individuals standing to win more than $1 million if the market resolved to “yes.” And Fabian began to receive messages from strangers encouraging him to revisit his reporting.
Please stay on topic in the comments. Unless you’re the sort of person who places a bet on when they’ll take their next dump.
