They might be severely overestimating the stupidity of the masses [1] here by only considering the those who actually responded in comments or twitter.
Either they perceived the news as truth, or called it fake, no grey zone in between. The split between the two camps, was quite unequal. An estimate would be that 90% regarded the screw as a fact and based all the further opinion on that, only 10% were critical to accuracy.
This smells like massive response bias. I imagine most skeptical and critical readers get tired of responding with the obvious "hmm, how do we know this is true?" response.
A more interesting statistic would be how many people saw it and didn't find it interesting enough to warrant further investigation. I believe I saw the headline, rolled my eyes, and went back to work.
That's not to say lock-out isn't an important consideration, but it didn't pass the "this can be verified" test, and anyway, it would be obvious enough once the new iPhone came out.
[1] Edit: maybe the masses are stupid (I'm not convinced of this), but the vocal rush to judgement of a few is not necessarily a representative sample.
The Internet (and life) is full of the silent majority. Unfortunately it's hard and unprofitable to report on the silent majority, so the loudest opinions are always taken as true. Teach the controversy. That's why it's hard to find valid community reviews; people who don't have a strong opinion are unlikely to voice that opinion. My laptop works just fine. I'm not in love with it, but I don't dislike it. It's a tool for getting my work done, and it performs its job exactly as well as I expect it to. Which is why you don't see ThinkPadRumors.com, CultOfLenovo.com, or The Unofficial Business Machine Weblog. There's no Fake Yang Yuanqing twitter account.
Being high-profile creates buzz, and creates controversy. Controversy sells, and makes a product more high-profile. You always have to take into account that the people who are yelling are the ones who have something to yell about. Behind them, there are people actually using the products who don't care either way.
On amazon at least, it's possible to counteract this effect using 3-star reviews. The kind of people who dislike a product but aren't vindictive about it and still see its strong points tend to be even-tempered folk.
True, but you're still talking about people who felt it was important to leave a review. I try to leave reviews of everything I buy, but I frequently forget to do so if the product performs as expected (neither exceptionally good nor bad).
And you know you're in the minority. It's not even apathy, either. It takes effort to prove to a site you're not a spammer, astro-turfer etc. so most people don't bother because the barrier is too high.
I could care less about a bunch of unwanted emails in my inbox, but the pollution of the online community review and advice spheres is what really pisses me off about cnuts who try and game stuff.
I have a couple dozen Apple-oriented feeds in my reader, and I don't remember seeing anything about this screw. Either my memory is really bad, or they're seriously over-estimating their impact.
EDIT: to add a few links to sites gloating that they weren't caught.
The exact point is that the critics remain silent, while the believers (or those doing it on purpose) carry the false news forward. Then those posts will appear on the search engines. Then those searching about the topic will become convinced based on big number of similar posts.
Attempting to correct misinformation, for instance, here on Hacker News, is essentially impossible and pointless. This screw story, like many others ("MBP Retina is unrepairable", etc.) play into an ideology[1].
And no facts, no matter how well sourced, can defeat ideology when the ideologues have the down button and outnumber the critical thinker.
For instance, pointing out that Apple licensed the technology they got from Xerox back in the day, a stone cold and indisputable fact, gets down voted into invisibility and claims that it isn't true and that it was stolen, here on Hacker News. The claim that Apple stole from Xerox has been repeated so often and in so many cases that it has become "fact" in their minds. Another example is the idea that Apple didn't invent any new technology with the iPhone. They need this to be true, so they spread all kinds of nonsense (like 2001, a movie, is "prior art", which shows a significant lack of understanding of what patents are)... and they believe it.
It isn't simply that people are gullible, its that ideology (and apple hating is a prevalent ideology) is stronger than reality for so many people.
[1] Maybe religion is a better word, it feels more accurate, but is more likely to be taken as a pejorative so I'm going with ideology.
This sounds a bit like the problem of the proliferation of news on cable TV and on the Internet. With there being so many choices for news, people tend to migrate to the source that aligns with their preconceived notions. So instead of being presented with information that may run counter to what they believe to be the truth, they only get their views confirmed.
With so many sources available, it's difficult to correct misinformation. People tend to believe what they want the truth to be, and now they have sources to confirm it.
There is also a lot of (vocal) people that like to justify their consumer choice with moral argumentation. I guess when it comes to tech choice, tech minded people can't live with the fact that their reasons are mundane (like the screen better, better contract, or much worse the shape is better, your wife would like you to have the same one)
Apple also makes it hard for tech people. It is a consumer oriented brand, choosing them is like drinking a beer with your meal rather than carefully selecting the appropriate wine.
The masses are not stupid, they just don't care. Most iPhone buyers don't want to open their phone, and would never consider doing it and don't care whatsoever what kind of screws Apple use to hold it together.
Edit: OK iPhones don't have external screws. MacBook owners then. Same holds.
Weirdly I saw the screw head and thought "I know exactly how to remove that" and thus, if I had seen the articles I would have ignored them but assumed they were true.
I need to develop a bit of critical thinking I guess.
Either they perceived the news as truth, or called it fake, no grey zone in between. The split between the two camps, was quite unequal. An estimate would be that 90% regarded the screw as a fact and based all the further opinion on that, only 10% were critical to accuracy.
This smells like massive response bias. I imagine most skeptical and critical readers get tired of responding with the obvious "hmm, how do we know this is true?" response.
A more interesting statistic would be how many people saw it and didn't find it interesting enough to warrant further investigation. I believe I saw the headline, rolled my eyes, and went back to work.
That's not to say lock-out isn't an important consideration, but it didn't pass the "this can be verified" test, and anyway, it would be obvious enough once the new iPhone came out.
[1] Edit: maybe the masses are stupid (I'm not convinced of this), but the vocal rush to judgement of a few is not necessarily a representative sample.