> Until recently, I was a writer for the Times Magazine, and the idea that anyone on the organization’s masthead would direct a reporter to take down a niche blogger because he didn’t like paywalls, or he promoted a petition about a professor, or, really, for any other reason, is ludicrous;
Niche? A blog that get's 600K page views a month and is highly regarded (aruably even moreso than the NYT) by numerous intellectuals and public figures?
I will concede that perhaps no one would direct a reporter to take down Scott. However, that leaves open the possibility that they tend to hire the kind of people who would take on that initiative themselves. As Noam Chomsky once told a reporter "I'm sure you actually say what you believe, but you would not have your job if you believed differently".
> For one thing, the S.S.C. code prioritizes semantic precision, but Metz—if Alexander’s account is to be taken at its word—had proposed not to “doxx” Alexander but to de-anonymize him
What, pray tell, is the difference?
> as if these supposed inconsistencies were dispositive proof of the paper’s secret agenda, rather than an ad-hoc and perhaps clumsy application of a flexible policy.
They also have previously given anonymity to a psychiatrist political blogger for the exact reasons Scott asked for anonymity. I think there was really very little differences between Scott and this other blogger, but I'm sure we can all guess what those differences might be.
> They have given safe harbor to some genuinely egregious ideas, and controversial opinions have not been limited to the comments.
Merely arguing against neo-reactionaries (rather than banning the outright/deplatforming them) is considered providing "safe-harbor"? This is why the re-assurances of benign intent don't hold much water.
> in which Alexander explored and upheld research into innate biological differences between men and women. (As it turned out, the Damore memo was written before the post, but there was a noticeable overlap between them.)
If I recall correcty, that post was actually a sort of defense of Damore (or at least a response to Damore's detractors).
> Many technologists and their investors believe that media coverage of their domain has become histrionic and punitive, scapegoating tech companies for their inability to solve extremely difficult problems, such as political polarization, that are neither of their own devising nor within their ability to solve.
Not that I don't share skepticism of SV, but I see no self-reflection here on whether skepticism of corporate media is ever justified.
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At the very least the author didn't doxx Scott.