Talk:Appin (company)

If something is wrong with the article let's discuss here

I have taken the initiative of reverting the recent edit by @stacy_tembo which undid a number of edits that have been made to the article over the past weeks. The claim was that:

the publishers of many of the sources cited have either taken down their news articles or redacted some portions of the article pertaining to the company based on the prevailing circumstances. This is verifiable by a careful review of the sources. Going over the edit history, it showed that those taken down or redacted were removed on case-by-case review. The article is now being returned to its clean status before the sock revert that brought the non-existent sources and links

I have not assessed every link which was added, but this claim does not account for a lot of what was deleted. For example, the New Yorker article has not been taken down. An archive.org article has not been taken down (how could it?). If any of the sources and links are "non-existent" then I suggest they be edited individually rather than through a mass reversion.

If there is sockpuppetry being perpetrated on the page, the place to bring that is WP:SPI.

This article was the subject of an unsuccessful AfD. It was then greatly cut-down based on the same kinds of arguments brought at the AfD. And then, it seems to me, it was steadily rebuilt. I'm not saying that everything on the page is fine, but anything that's wrong can be changed rather than mass-reversion and blanking of content.

If I'm missing something, which I very well may be, I'm open to hearing about it on this talk page. Oblivy (talk) 13:49, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Note that a number of the accounts that were editing the article over December-January have been blocked for sock-puppeting. Stacy's edit left the article in a state very similar to what those accounts created. James (talk) 08:50, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I think the proper frame here is to look at the article at the time of the keep vote, vs. where it ended up 2 weeks later at the hands of sock-blocked user @NoWarNoPeace. [1]

Perhaps other sock users came in later and made changes which I'm treating as constructive but if you look at the diff I think you'll see that what Stacy (a newly created account with few edits) did was to reinstate what the prior sock-blocked user had done.[2]. I don't know how to compare the two diffs but I think this is accurate.

Unless there are policy-based reasons we can't keep the current text I think we should edit from here. As I said above, a quick check suggests what I reinstated are actually good cites irather than "taken down" or "redacted" cites. Oblivy (talk) 11:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I was going by the description of the block [3], which lists the three accounts as related. When a new user's first substantial edit is to make similar changes as those sock puppets, it looks suspicious: [4]

I agree that your revert was the right first step, since a lot of the information that was blanked is highly unlikely to be defamatory (e.g. the names of the founders). James (talk) 05:50, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

No problems. It seems edits since the revert have been productive, maybe a lull before another sock-driven storm but that can be addressed if it happens. Oblivy (talk) 23:39, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Good revert. No outlet has retracted their reporting; like Reuters, they've made clear they stand by what they wrote. And coverage now goes far beyond Reuters, we have many more sources we can use. Some of these newer sources are linked here, which is itself a source we could cite. DFlhb (talk) 10:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The article now updates the legal threats/compliance situation. Thanks @DFlhb for pointing me to the Techdirt article. The Wired, New Yorker and Techdirt articles are very in-depth.

I also had a look through the article and the state of references. Every link works, although I didn't read all the material. So I can't say fact by fact that every statement is supported. The claim that the two brothers started the business might (might) be sourced to the Reuters article - I see a lot of cached articles that came out around that time so it might be; I'd be happy to see it go unless someone has a better source. Oblivy (talk) 11:49, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I've made some changes. The powerpoint slides look dodgy to me, and there's the issue of the founding brothers. Otherwise I think it's in good shape. Oblivy (talk) 04:04, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Oblivy for the work on this page but I think that you need to take a second and careful look at the references again because there are some references that are not accurate or relevant to the information they purport to support. It is a controversial subject and it is important to ensure that everything in the page is accurate and verifiable. In my opinion, there should be a thorough cleanup and I’m leaving that to you since you have already started working on it.

Below are my comments on some of the sources reviewed

Reference No.2 Shadowserver Foundation report from 2013 clearly mentioned Appin several times in the report but it clarified or disclaimed that its report was not intended to implicate any entity or individual. Shadowserver stated in the report that though the word “Appin” showed up multiple times, its report is not “implicating or suggesting inappropriate activity by Appin”. I think with this, the reference can’t support the claim: “In 2013, a report by Shadowserver Foundation publicly attributed several hacks of high-profile organizations to Appin.” This claim is quite authoritative and attributed to Shadowserver Foundation report that already clarified that it is not implicating Appin. The Shadowserver Foundation reference should be removed and a different reference that supports the claim should be used in its place. And if none exist then the claim may have to be removed.

Reference No. 4 from Lawfare though discusses Reuters reporting that was taken down to comply with a preliminary court order but there is no single mention of Appin in the article. If the reference No. 4 doesn’t mention Appin, why cite it to support this claim this claim: “The company offered what its founders termed ‘ethical hacking services”. What is the need for that reference since there is another one supporting the claim?

What is reference No. 6 from Wired supporting? It does not mention Appin or anything related to the subject throughout its reporting.

Reference No.12 from Politico have a single paragraph about Appin planted in the middle of their long article discussing multiple unrelated issues or subjects. I think a better source should be used to support the claim in that paragraph and if different source can’t be found to support the entire paragraph then that paragraph may have to go. This is important considering Freedom of the Press Foundation (reference No.11) reporting that several news outlets in India, America and around the world have taken down their reporting about Appin.

Reference No.15 from LawFare Media is a duplicate of reference No.4 which does not mention Appin its reporting. I don’t think it’s appropriate to keep the source in the article. Lagdo22 (talk) 15:23, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Which PR firm did Rajat hire you from? 170.55.154.123 (talk) 14:11, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Please edit under a username not on a bare IP address, so I can respond to your comment appropriately. Rather than comment on the merit of the concerns raised about some sources in the article you choose to attack my personality with vile allegation. I challenge you to prove otherwise the concerns raised about some of those sources in the article. Oblivy stated here that any further changes to the article be discussed here first and that was the reason I drew attentions to some of the references. This is a collaborative work and everyone is welcomed to edit or air their opinions on issues. I urge anyone willing to take a moment to do a thorough review of the sources and issues raised about them and present their own opinion. Lagdo22 (talk) 09:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Taking seriously your complaints about some of the sources:

• Ref 2 mentions Appin repeatedly. Since you are upset about the word attributed (disclaimers aside, surely that's the whole thrust of the report) I've changed it.
• Ref 12 is completely accurate - there was a description of the Reuters article in the Politico article and the words of Politico are quoted in the article. If you would prefer to substitute a cached copy of the Reuters article itself that might be more authoritative, otherwise we have to live with second-hand reports.
• Refs 4 and 15 - the reason Lawfare doesn't mention Appin is almost certainly because of the legal threats. That's substantiated by other reporting such as Techdirt and that's now clearly reflected in the article, by creating a duplicate inline citation to the Techdirt article

As to your suggestion an IP editor needs to create an account (so you can respond appropriately??) the ability to edit anonymously is a founding principle of Wikipedia. Oblivy (talk) 02:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)