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The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

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The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

#1

Post by Bootstrapper909 »

The New York Times published an article that criticizes dark patterns.

They call out several companies that uses dark patterns, but fail to mention how hard it is to unsubscribe to the New York Times (only by talking to a person).

That's unfair. It's ok for the NYT to write an article about it. I'm sure the reporter is not responsible for NYT's unsubscribe flow. But if you call-out other companies, have the decency to mention your own company.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/opinion/dark-pattern-inte...

Re: The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

#3

Post by Bootstrapper909 »

Another comment: The article mention big "sign up" banners as a dark patterns. I don't think it is.

a dark pattern is either (i) getting the user to do something they don't intent to do, or (ii) preventing the user from doing something.

A big sign up banner might be poor/aggressive design, but as long as users choose to click on it, it's not a dark pattern

Re: The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

#4

Post by bourgwaletariat »

Rules for thee, but not for me.

The New York Times lied us into the Iraq War. They are a consent factory. We keep assuming someone is immune to the human condition because of their title. Journalists are human beings. They want to eat, drink and have a roof like all the other humans. Doctors. Scientists. Politicians.

We are all humans. We are all subject to the same laws of nature.

The NY Times is corrupted by the same laws of nature as medicine, science and politicians.

We are broken. We have to accept that before we can fix us.

Re: The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

#5

Post by dang »

My first reaction was - wait, that's just an opinion piece - you can't draw strong conclusions from that. However, the author's byline says "member of the editorial board". So you have a point. And I'm sure nearly all of us agree with you about the NYT unsubscribe.

But there's not enough information here for a substantive discussion [1]. It's just going to be a generic thread, and we try to avoid those [2].

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Re: The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

#6

Post by bmeski »

bourgwaletariat wrote: post #4

Rules for thee, but not for me. The New York Times lied us into the Iraq War. They are a consent factory. We keep assuming someone is immune to the human condition because of their title. Journalists are human beings. They want to eat, drink and have a roof like all the other humans. Doctors. Scientists. Politicians. We are all humans. We are all subject to the same laws of nature. The NY Times is corrupted by the sa…

No, it's the patriarchal structures that are broken, I'm perfect. /s

Re: The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

#7

Post by nabla9 »

dang wrote: post #5

My first reaction was - wait, that's just an opinion piece - you can't draw strong conclusions from that. However, the author's byline says "member of the editorial board". So you have a point. And I'm sure nearly all of us agree with you about the NYT unsubscribe. But there's not enough information here for a substantive discussion [1]. It's just going to be a generic thread, and we try to avoid those [2]. [1] https…

Editorial board is not charge of the business of the newspaper. They are only in charge of editorial policy. The board doesn’t even speak for the newsroom.

NYT has huge institutional wall between editorial decisions and the business to keep them separate.

Here are the people running the company: https://www.nytco.com/company/people/

Re: The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

#8

Post by freshair »

Suppose I am an alcoholic drinking myself to death, and my friend is as well. I tell my friend that he should stop drinking.

That would make me a hypocrite, but it wouldn't make me wrong. Pointing out hypocrisy to 'dunk on' people is rarely a persuasive rebuttal.

Re: The New York Times criticizes dark patterns, but fails to criticize themselves

#9

Post by coliveira »

nabla9 wrote: post #7
dang wrote: post #5

My first reaction was - wait, that's just an opinion piece - you can't draw strong conclusions from that. However, the author's byline says "member of the editorial board". So you have a point. And I'm sure nearly all of us agree with you about the NYT unsubscribe. But there's not enough information here for a substantive discussion [1]. It's just going to be a generic thread, and we try to avoid those [2]. [1] https…

Editorial board is not charge of the business of the newspaper. They are only in charge of editorial policy. The board doesn’t even speak for the newsroom. NYT has huge institutional wall between editorial decisions and the business to keep them separate. Here are the people running the company: https://www.nytco.com/company/people/

But you don't need to be making decisions to see what is going on in the business of you own newspaper. They just had to do the most trivial research to see problems in their own organization. They just decided not to do it.
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