PSXHAX.COM Update on Clickbait / Fake News / Rumors Handling

Howdy all! Up until today the way news was reported here at PSXHAX.COM consisted of users posting what they want in the Forums or Shoutbox, and then the Staff would move their posts to the main page for everyone to read and discuss.

Since PSXHAX.COM opened 17 months ago that simple system contributed to over 800 articles with a handful of snafus along the way, most notably the @GTAWWEKID PS4 2.50 exploit deemed fake and @racer0018's PS4 4.50 Beta Linux claim that was never substantiated.

It has come to our attention a warning has been put on Se7enSins.com stating the following:

"Please be aware that posts containing psxhax as a source for tools, homebrew, news, and misc information will be removed as this site is known to spread fake information, exploit', and brickware."

This PSXHAX warning is no longer accurate as of today, so if anyone is a member there it would be great if you can link them to this article which reassures their members and Staff that we are proactively addressing their concerns, effective immediately.

PSXHAX.COM Action Guidelines as of March 15, 2017:

• We have removed the @GTAWWEKID and @racer0018 problem threads and will continue to do so should any new ones surface.

• Any reported news that can't be substantiated (Sony rumors, for example) will contain the word 'Rumor' in the article title to ensure the headline accurately and clearly indicates the article's content as such.

• Forum user-submitted news will NOT be mainpaged without reasonable proof as determined by the community including pictures, videos or code documentation to validate their claims or work.

• Everyone from the current Staff except myself has been removed for the time being, so that we can properly retrain all selected Moderators before giving them permission to promote news here.

Finally, if we've missed anything with regards to these new guidelines or if you feel an article here still contains Clickbait / Fake News / Rumors let us know via Email, the Comments, Private Messaging or Twitter and we'll either remove it from the site or label it accordingly as detailed above and THANKS in advance for your help!

 

[NoctivagotH]

I don't know you, and I don't know him either, your comment just doesn't add up

Nice to meet you! I really found it funny when @bombob said "And remember you swore on your son's head." about @racer0018. Than you said "You killed me with your comment". As we all know, @racer0018 isn't going to release anything. So I asked you if he was you father, because you're dead!

 

[HYTR]

Might work but this site has already been blacklisted by a ton of "scene" sites. Good luck though.

 

[GR33N TR14NG73]

Might work but this site has already been blacklisted by a ton of "scene" sites. Good luck though.

If we remove the fake news and post factual information when it is released over time we may be white listed.

 

[Jaroslav01]

whatsza thiz

 

[LarryK]

Blacklist??? That's funny...... Might as well black list every News Network.

Sources don't always turn out to be reliable. I've been coming here for years and anytime I've seen an error or mistake, it's always corrected. It wasn't psxhax's fault that racer is a c()nt......

Keep up the great work here at PSXHAX.com and I will keep coming back.

(Blacklist isn't a bad place to be.... Everyone's here, CNN, FOX NEWS, BBC, CBC)

 

[PSXHAX]

Yep, we've addressed and corrected the concerns last month and will continue to follow our updated Site News Posting Guidelines so no worries there.

Ironically some who called us out on 'clickbait' and 'fake news' over my beliefs of @racer0018's team are guilty of the same claims, yet because nobody bothers to expose them they get away with it untarnished.

For example, I've seen several intentional clickbait / fake news headlines from @tthousand (2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015) with @STLcardsWS deliberately leading people on in some of the article comments on PSX-Scene saying things like "Very interesting stuff" and "My sources are liking what they are seeing" as a lame April Fool's joke attempt.

The same applies to Wololo ClickBait / Fake News article headlines which entice unsuspecting visitors from search engines to click them hoping to read what the title reflects: that Dark Alex is back, and is working on a PS4 Jailbreak. Clickbait and fake news!

Or going back even further brings more Wololo ClickBait / Fake News with a headline reading "A legend returns or just a false hope? Official Dark~AleX website updated for Playstation 4!" when Dark_Alex's spokesman Mathieulh confirmed dark-alex.org isn't controlled by Dark_Alex, it's controlled by Mr_TutoAlek. CONFIRMED FAKE - SO REMOVE IT!

Wololo is another example of a hypocrite who cashes in on clickbait and fake news traffic he openly admits to quoted saying "the title of that article is intentionally click bait" that he even agrees he's conning uninformed and unsuspecting visitors quoted saying "Yes, agreed. It's intentionally click-baity and frankly my regular twitter followers are not the "target" for this article."

Wololo also admits to profiting from his clickbait (as confirmed by others) and fake news articles with warped logic that suits only his own agenda to line his greedy pockets from all his ads and Amazon affiliate links not caring about visitors who still continue to be mislead.

Even when he tries to get away with it despite not researching thoroughly enough (another example HERE) and admits his incompetence to save face stating "I cannot guarantee this is reliable information at the moment, and will update as soon as I have more info" yet to very this day he has not removed the article for being fake nor added 'rumor' to the title.

To make matters worse, he tries defending himself by attacking his own audience with excuses stating, to quote:

"Don’t like my reports on the PS3 scene? That’s because I have a stupid 4.10 PS3 and can’t actively follow what’s going on everywhere. If you think you could have better insights on the PS3 scene, contact me in PM, I am looking for guest bloggers!" Yet nobody blacklists him, just us... so it's no surprise he'll continue until others speak up.

The problem is the fake news including their April Fool's articles still exist, even though they added "Happy April Fools" to some of the article bodies anyone who sees the headlines present day through search engines will be BAITED to CLICK on them and ultimately read that they were just FAKE NEWS so the visitor continues to get CLICKBAITED by their FAKE NEWS yet they aren't blacklisted.

@tthousand also called us out HERE of "possibly harmful files/guides" of which there are none I'm aware of on PSXHAX, and when asked to provide links of his claims HERE so we could remove the alleged harmful content he never responded back.

Yet @STLcardsWS has no problem offering our UMDGen utility for download even though I'm the one with the source code who can verify what it actually does while running on a PC, and according to a VirusTotal scan it reports as 'malicious (moderate confidence)' and 'exploit.Buzus.Win32.127332' so it appears they selectively trust us only when it benefits their own interests... big surprise!

More recently, while I haven't seen anything extremely negative from @HydrogenNGU about us, it's no secret he writes articles for NextGenUpdate and tweets them as news (many of which we also report on and crediting him where relevant).

However, NextGenUpdate isn't called out and blacklisted anywhere even though some of their headlines can be considered as 'clickbait' and 'fake news' also.

For example, our article on Evilsperm of Team Rebug reaching out to Qwertyoruiopz has the following headline:

Evilsperm of Team Rebug Invites Qwertyoruiopz to Join PS4Dev Channel

This title is neither clickbait nor fake news as it ONLY states the FACTS, that evilsperm of Team Rebug invited qwertyoruiopz to join their PS4Dev channel with the citation of the date/time-stamped Twitter tweet source URL linked in the article.

On the other hand, compare the NGU article on it: PS4 Hacking Dream Team is Here - Is The PS4 Officially Getting Ruined?

Clearly theirs is sensationalising the information contained in Evilsperm's tweet using their egregious headline: "PS4 Hacking Dream Team is Here - Is The PS4 Officially Getting Ruined?"

Not to pick on NGU as they are chill folks, but this title can be considered 'fake news' as it assumes facts not currently in evidence (that a PS4 hacking dream team 'is here' or exists at all) and 'clickbait' as it leads people to click the link with the unfounded presumption the PS4 is 'officially getting ruined' as no citable evidence exists to substantiate such a claim to date.

Point being, hypocritical examples exist on ALL scene sites and EVERYONE could be called out for one thing or another the way some have done to us over the GTAWWEKID and racer0018 articles.

Nobody is perfect, but if we're the only ones being blacklisted for such mistakes that says a lot about hidden agendas to keep our site from rising up out of fear others might lose their audience.

In the past, @DerfJagged used to rip all our news and post it to the Reddit PS4 Homebrew Wiki and he credited us so it wasn't an issue, however, since he blacklisted us there look what happened... their 'news' has now been taken over by competing scene site wololo with Derf_Jagged's blessing despite Reddit's Self-promotion Policy, which states in part:

Here are some guidelines for best practices:

• You should not just start submitting your links - it will be unwelcome and may be removed as spam, or your account will be banned as spam.
• You should submit from a variety of sources (a general rule of thumb is that 10% or less of your posting and conversation should link to your own content), talk to people in the comments (and not just on your own links), and generally be a good member of the community.

So now that we've addressed and corrected the concerns last month, where is the 'variety of sources' Reddit's policy demands (including PSXHAX.COM in the mix) on the PS4Homebrew Reddit?

If there are any remaining issues with PSXHAX.COM since abiding by our updated Site News Posting Guidelines last month by all means let us know what they are @DerfJagged so that we can be treated fairly and not continue to be discriminated against in Reddit's presumably unbiased PS4 Homebrew news sourcing.

Thanks to all for reading this and becoming aware of how some unscrupulous site admins are attempting to eliminate their competition while not practicing what they preach, and getting away with it because nobody is calling them out yet.

Perhaps we should create a 'watchdog' forum section for just that purpose, and post a new thread calling each site / admin out for every occurrence (past and present) of clickbait, fake news, etc?

 

[HydrogenNGU]

Dear PSXHAX,

You must've not read the title right. *Is* the PS4 getting ruined? A question which could be rumored to be a yes or no. Not to be click bait, and it's not our fault almost every forum blacklisted you. Hope you understand as NextGenUpdate doesn't go against other forums. I even told you, which many did as well that Racer was not going to release anything, but you still went with it. I don't know why, but that was your choice.

Since that's almost the only one that you could *try* to consider click bait, it really isn't the point to start talking down to be honest since that's the only thread someone could pull up. Wololo, PSX-Place, PSX-Scene are the main three forums that wait for the right moment that there is big news that has been 100% approved, which of course, I like to do too, but I also enjoy sharing the little things which could may be an impact to help someone out: githubs, code, tools, etc. It's simple to wait weeks just to post a nice lengthy article approving one specific topic that is actually exquisite. Yet, that's not my choice. Overall, like I said before, NextGenUpdate knows when there is fake news or not. We also don't like fighting forum against forum which is pretty pointless. I know when things are fake and when they're not since we have some great PS4 Developers that are from NGU.

In conclusion, not really a bashing comment to be honest, but don't put us in this since we're not part of this. Only comment I'm posting upon this since I'm not the type of person to go back and forth like some people enjoy doing lol. Hope you understand PSXHAX.

- NextGenUpdate, Hydrogen

 

[PSXHAX]

I most certainly read it correctly, but I too am not trying to bash you or NGU so let me try to follow-up more indirectly.

Many 'clickbait' and 'fake news' articles on the Internet use 'shock' headlines in the form of a question, like DID YOU SEE XYZ? or WHAT DONT THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT XYZ? and so on.... you get the idea.

A question mark doesn't exclude article titles from being clickbait or fake news, if it were that simple authors would post anything they wanted and just slap a question mark on the end of it to magically waive themselves free of any scrutiny or liability

I could literally sit for months nitpicking at almost every article on any of the sites you mentioned... but we'll save that for another day as it comes down to personal opinion and everyone's own writing style.

Also the reason most of the sites you mentioned "wait for the right moment that there is big news that has been 100% approved" is because they are lazy and don't wish to invest hours a day on this stuff... it's easier and less time-consuming to simply 'do nothing' and then when a story from a smaller site like this one catches wind (the PS3 game injection news that came here from the Russian site before any of their sites) they finally get off their arse and post something on it realizing that there is enough interest and it's generating traffic.

Of course scumbags like PSX-Place won't even include an attribution link in their article to the Russian source site the content originated from, and instead provide a URL link to GaryOPA's MaxConArtist site and only non-clickable text to the true source yet they are fine with stealing the Russian site's content... just not linking to them.

Now to get more direct just briefly... you said "I know when things are fake and when they're not since we have some great PS4 Developers that are from NGU."

I completely agree with you, NGU has some phenomenal developers... far more than we've ever had (or will ever have probably) here.

However, you expect people to believe you based on that without providing any citations, evidence or proof... I too did that (having the same connection years ago with some of the devs in @racer0018's group) and even Wololo was jelly tweeting at me asking for proof I'm not able to provide but it's ok for you to say "I know when things are fake and when they're not" (because of your dev connections) and yet the same doesn't apply to others such as myself who's been in the scene nearly 20 years?

Look how utterly clueless STLcards of PSX-Place was when he first got in the PS3 scene back in 2010, I'll quote it in case he removes it

"First PS3 so new to the scene, but have had a hacked PSP for awhile and familer with some of the things, I know i know they aren't the same when it comes to hacking ..

So my question to everyone what do i need to know.. What can my PS3 slim do? .. What with the USB dongles that let you play homebrew.. do they work?

Any helpful info on anything i should know being a new owner of a ps3 weather it hacking related or not would be a great help..

Thanks,

-Brandon"

He didn't become an 'expert' on anything (especially not taxes) but copy-pasting for QJ / Caputo / Keebali sites, and if you read any of 'his' recent PS4 posts on PlayStationHax and PSX-Place you might notice they look as if someone more knowledgeable but still with poor English / grammar / punctuation / vocabulary skills such as GaryOPA or Paul Owen wrote them using his account.

Getting to the point I'm trying to convey though, is everyone posting news should be held to the same standards and treated equally... I'm ready and willing to try if others are open to extending us the same courtesy.

 

[DerfJagged]

In the past, @DerfJagged used to rip all our news and post it to the Reddit PS4 Homebrew Wiki and he credited us so it wasn't an issue, however, since he blacklisted us there look what happened... their 'news' has now been taken over by competing scene site wololo with Derf_Jagged's blessing despite Reddit's Self-promotion Policy, which states in part:

Here are some guidelines for best practices:

• You should not just start submitting your links - it will be unwelcome and may be removed as spam, or your account will be banned as spam.
• You should submit from a variety of sources (a general rule of thumb is that 10% or less of your posting and conversation should link to your own content), talk to people in the comments (and not just on your own links), and generally be a good member of the community.

So now that we've addressed and corrected the concerns last month, where is the 'variety of sources' Reddit's policy demands (including PSXHAX.COM in the mix) on the PS4Homebrew Reddit?

If there are any remaining issues with PSXHAX.COM since abiding by our updated Site News Posting Guidelines last month by all means let us know what they are @DerfJagged so that we can be treated fairly and not continue to be discriminated against in Reddit's presumably unbiased PS4 Homebrew news sourcing.

Pardon me for not replying sooner, I didn't realize I was logged out of the site for the last month or so.

Firstly, I think you misunderstand the purpose of reddit. Look up reddit in Wikipedia and the first sentence is "Reddit... is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website". The main part I'm referencing is it's a "social news aggregation", and not a "news website". I never ripped news from your site, I would post a link to an interesting article, so that others can visit your site and gain you ad revenue. If anything, it brings more traffic to your site, rather than reducing the amount of traffic by copying and pasting an article.

Secondly, in regards to the Self Promotion policy, none of the links I've posted on reddit link to my own content. Reddit doesn't ask for a variety of sources, just that you source things other than your own content, which 100% of my posts (and all I've seen so far) on the subreddit follow. Keep in mind, I'm not the only contributor to /r/ps4homebrew; others are also free to post their own links, and they do, and I have no control over which site they choose to link to.

Generally, when a big piece of news hits one scene site, all of them write an article and their own spin on it. If I see the same topic on three scene sites, I choose the best written and most informative article out of them and link it on the subreddit (if not already linked by someone else). Nine times out of ten, Wololo would win as they are good writers. If the article was unique on PSXHAX, it would be posted on the subreddit BUT, as everyone knows, there's been a lot of shady content and unlabeled rumors on PSXHAX in the past, which would always make me hesitant to post news from your site as it couldn't be trusted, and eventually led me to remove PSXHAX from the sidebar. Now that this problem is being addressed, I intended on adding PSXHAX back to the sidebar given that the news remains accurately labelled for a period of time (2 months or so) following the new policy change.

So now the question stands, why try to shame and accuse me in public instead of sending me a message saying "Hey, we noticed you removed us from /r/ps4homebrew's sidebar. We've changed our policy and would like to be added back", at which point I would have?

 

[PSXHAX]

Now that this problem is being addressed, I intended on adding PSXHAX back to the sidebar given that the news remains accurately labelled for a period of time (2 months or so) following the new policy change.

So now the question stands, why try to shame and accuse me in public instead of sending me a message saying "Hey, we noticed you removed us from /r/ps4homebrew's sidebar. We've changed our policy and would like to be added back", at which point I would have?

Welcome back! Fair enough, we made the necessary changes as outlined in this article and look forward to having PSXHAX among all the sites equally represented on Reddit in the future.

The self-promotion concern was addressed to you in your Moderator capacity on Reddit, as far as I'm aware you don't have a site of your own to promote so no issues there.

I was pointing out that Wololo's account on Reddit should be posting content from various sources and only around 10% from his own site according to Reddit's policy... I'm not sure if you're aware of Wololo's self-admitted (check his Twitter) misleading tactics of making fake news articles to gain prominent placement on keywords in search engines but he also uses multiple accounts (frwololo and elnacho to name a few, just check the last few years of them taking turns submitting and voting on wololo.net submissions, synchronized online activity, etc) on sites like N4G to upvote content from his own site and bypass their approval system... so he's definitely involved in some shady practices also but not blacklisted on Reddit.

Finally, we need to start bringing attention to these very serious discriminatory inequalities publicly so we're past the discreet 'hush, hush whispers' to hide such injustices as our members and those on Reddit should be aware of what's going on.

I kept things quiet when our old site was removed from Reddit despite most of the information on the PS3 Wiki, PSX-Scene, PS3Hax, etc originally coming from our old site. Last I checked you don't even have a record that CJPC of psxhax.com released the first PS3 homebrew app ever... his PS3 FTP client, but he's since moved on so I let it be.

We may start a 'scene watchdog' forum (not news) section dedicated to exposing articles on sites like PSX-Place (who made it to the static Reddit PS4 sidelinks, yet their site includes very little PS4 related content strangely ) and Wololo among others who don't practice what they preach about clickbait and fake news.

It shouldn't be anything you are ashamed of though, I'm not ashamed of fixing what was broken with our news posting guidelines here.

You explained why you removed the link and we've since updated our news posting guidelines to ensure compliance... which is more than you'll see on other sites allowed on Reddit such as Wololo as he's still posting deliberate mislabeled and fake news to this day as outlined above.

Thanks for listening, and we look forward to all working together in the future to bring a better site to our audience and a more balanced active PS4 scene site representation on Reddit.