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

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

#11

Post by 52-6F-62 »

It's one opinion article. The New York Times does self-report and self-criticize. And to be clear: the NYT did not write the article. One writer wrote about it.

Single opinion articles are not representative of the sum of their publisher. And thank god for that...

That said, their unsubscribe process (and some of the stories) is the only thing preventing me from subscribing. I would subscribe if it were easier to cancel or pause the subscription. I wish they'd get that sorted, especially since they killed their Apple News contract.

That applies anywhere though: if I can subscribe with a click or two, the unsubscribe process should follow the same pattern.

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

#13

Post by amelius »

freshair wrote: post #8

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.

A better analogy would be if you told the world that your friend should stop drinking.

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

#15

Post by SilasX »

freshair wrote: post #8

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.

I disagree. Hypocrisy allegations are expressing an important insight: "Obviously, moralizing about X isn't helpful because you know it's wrong, and you still do it", and further, "maybe you should use your special position as someone tempted to X to provide insight on what would stop you".

In your example, you're drinking yourself to death despite knowing it's stupid, and probably despite others telling you not to. Why would you think lecturing your friend helps?

Your reaction should be, "hey, what would stop me from drinking? Maybe I should try that and propose it for my friend too?"

In the NYT example, they should know why they're using the dark patterns, and what would get them to stop, and should be proposing that.

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

#16

Post by giantg2 »

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…

Is it possible that person opposes the practice but is a minority opinion on the board? They might be restricted from talking ill of the paper and are using other examples to make thier point.

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

#17

Post by freshair »

amelius wrote: post #13
freshair wrote: post #8

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.

A better analogy would be if you told the world that your friend should stop drinking.

In this analogy I am still a hypocrite but I'm still dead-right, so sure.

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

#18

Post by dang »

giantg2 wrote: post #16
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…

Is it possible that person opposes the practice but is a minority opinion on the board? They might be restricted from talking ill of the paper and are using other examples to make thier point.

It's certainly possible. We'd need more information to know.

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

#19

Post by [deleted] »

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/

[deleted]

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

#20

Post by nabla9 »

coliveira wrote: post #9
nabla9 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was countering the point made in comment I was responding. I contributed facts to the discussion.

You make a different point. You should not make it by responding to me.

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