> You're talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Personal insults are inappropriate in this forum. Please look at the HN guidelines.

I think you are trying to suggest that there is some contradiction between me saying that ‘we really don’t know what happened’, and also saying ‘the tweet was bullshit’.

Obviously there is no contradiction. We really don’t know what happened between Apple and Dustin because the two stories leave an incomplete picture. You wouldn’t still have ‘questions’ if this wasn’t true.

We really do know that the tweet (and the comments about Apple’s policy) are bullshit, because those have already been contradicted by both Apple and Dustin.

What we don’t have is Dustin’s explanation for how he came to post them.

If you look back through the comment thread, you’ll see that this conversation is a response to you denying that we needed to hear from Dustin.

Nothing more.

I haven’t made any positive comments about Apple here, or denied that there is a problem.

All I have done is point out that you are drawing conclusions that you cannot actually know to be true without more information, which Dustin can provide.

What is your aim in this thread?

> Exploit how?

By taking the falsehoods and magnifying them to create widespread false beliefs.

There are plenty of people with an ideological or personal axe to grind against Apple.

There are also competitors and investors who benefit from bad press about Apple.

Obvious stuff really.

> Are you actually waiting for more information from Dustin, or have you already made up your mind and are only waiting for an apology?

I haven’t made my mind up about anything, except that Dustin’s original tweet was bullshit, and that we don’t have enough information about his side of what happened.

> Public criticism of powerful entities is necessary.

Agreed. Bear in mind that Dustin is a public entity too. He is a prominent tech blogger, founder, and investor.

Obviously he’s not comparable to the worlds largest corporation in terms of power, but he has had respect in this forum and has influence in his communities.

His original bullshit tweet for example, was echoed to his approx 50,000 followers.

How many of those people also read the blog post, and how many are now aware of the uncertainty?

We have a right to expect forthrightness from him as much as from Apple.

Regardless of present size and power, I think it’s reasonable to want to promote that.

Portraying him as purely a bumbling victim doesn’t do him justice.

Portraying him as ‘loyal’ to Apple is even weirder. Customer loyalty is a figure of speech used in marketing.

It just means someone is likely to buy again. Not that they see the company as a friend whose interests they want to protect.

> Some criticism will be accurate, some inaccurate, but in any case it's healthy.

Firstly, in context this reads as an an attempt to minimize responsibility for making false statements.

Secondly, if that is your view, then we definitely disagree.

I think that inaccurate statements are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean they are healthy.

I think it’s important for people to take responsibility when they make false statements, for whatever reason.

Propagating misinformation simply isn’t a good thing to do in this world. It pollutes the discourse and weakens the very critique that I think we do agree is important.

It’s disappointing that you don’t see this.

> and being branded as a criminal, as is being done to Dustin. So many "he basically stole a MacBook Pro"

Nobody is branding Dustin a criminal, nor is there anything for him to ‘fear’.

The comments about the stolen computer are people pointing out that this is the situation almost any business would be concerned about in the absence of a response from the customer.

It is perspective taking by people who are trying to understand both party’s points of view under the circumstances we know about.