
New York Times is taking down its paywall for World Press Freedom Day - ajay-d
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/reader-center/world-press-freedom-day.html
======
aphextim
Funny how they are doing this on "World Press Freedom Day" while at the same
time covering deplatforming of news outlets.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/technology/facebook-
alex-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/technology/facebook-alex-jones-
louis-farrakhan-ban.html)

Now I get they are using platforms which can indiscriminately ban whoever they
want. Fine lets say infowars makes their own platform.

Doing okay on their own platform when all of a sudden...

Now common payment processors ban them from being able to receive funding
through traditional methods.

When all banks ban you where do you go? Crypto currency of course.

When all common outlets ban you at the same time it doesn't seem much like
"World Press Freedom Day" it is more like "Globalization Freedom Day" where
you talk against the mainstream opinions and will be silenced. No freedom for
you!

Just my 2 cents, not that I endorse infowars I just believe in true and honest
discourse and to let the idiots keep talking to be able to show how stupid
they are. Banning them only reinforces their audience and empowers them to be
more fringe.

~~~
anon1m0us
I am finding the same thing in corporate culture. If you identify problems in
the corporation, the solution isn't to solve the problems, it's to isolate and
vilify the person who identifies the problem.

Fire that person and there's no more problem.

~~~
ineedasername
In your example the people themselves are not the problem. If you change the
example to be a person who is themselves a toxic, disruptive individual, then
merely isolating and vilifying isn't enough: You fire them. "Deplatforming" is
a close equivalent.

I used to edit a small newspaper. It wasn't uncommon (a few times a year) to
receive advertising orders from Holocaust deniers. I did not run those ads.
Maybe that was deplatforming, but I don't think it was wrong, or against the
interests of free speech to do so.

~~~
aphextim
Maybe. We've seen hosting providers banning sites.
[https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/08/14/1344239/godaddy-
exp...](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/08/14/1344239/godaddy-expels-neo-
nazi-site-over-article-on-charlottesville-victim)

We've also seen registrars canceling domain registrations.
[https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/08/14/1830223/google-
canc...](https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/08/14/1830223/google-cancels-
domain-registration-for-neo-nazi-website-daily-stormer)

Should they have this power? [https://www.newsweek.com/it-legal-hosting-
companies-ban-hate...](https://www.newsweek.com/it-legal-hosting-companies-
ban-hate-sites-654618)

By analogy, what if the electric utilities started banning people from using
electricity based on their speech? Or maybe gas stations refusing to sell you
fuel? How far do we let that go? Boycotts are great and all, but the power of
the internet is that it gives everyone a voice. So today, are we so dependent
on that voice that the 1st amendment needs to apply to it? Or is it okay to
limit politically incorrect opinions to meatspace and save the internet for
only approved speech?

~~~
ineedasername
Media platforms are the inherent venue for this content. Utility companies are
not. There's a strong difference between a media platform denying him access
and a basic utility doing the same. In fact their are laws (in the US at
least) governing this sort of thing with respect to Utilities.

If you want to pull in something like the electric utility, you need to change
the example from a trollish media figure to someone messing with the power
grid via their utility hookup. Doing that might very well get you banned.

------
duxup
I subscribed to the NYT and a few other places.

Hell if my subscription made it possible for others to read it for free and
that was sustainable, i'd be 100% ok with that.

That's how it works for public radio and public TV, I feel like they're a
thing I want to support, but at the same time share as much as support.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
The thing that makes this a bit weird to me is that the New York Times is a
for-profit organization. If you purely want to fund journalism, your dollars
may go further with a nonprofit like ProPublica.

I'm absolutely in favor of supporting great papers like the Times as well, so
I'm not sure what my point is here. But it seems misguided to compare news
corporations to public institutions.

~~~
duxup
I think of it as any other product type situation on the surface. I'm willing
to pay for content.

Beyond that there is an element of wanting to support an industry that I think
is important to maintaining a healthy democracy, thus I don't care so much how
much anyone else is paying.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
But if the New York Times removed their paywall (and didn't introduce some
other subscriber-only benefit), you wouldn't really be paying for their
content anymore, right? Because you could get that content anyway.

A payment that doesn't directly benefit you is a donation.

~~~
duxup
I don't mind calling it a donation when it is appropriate, or a subscription
when appropriate. I'm willing to do both.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Yeah, it's just that donating to a for-profit corporation is a bit weird.

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GiorgioG
I can't read/watch any news outlet anymore. It's become utter trash
(regardless of your political leanings.) Half the time I feel like I'm reading
a tabloid publication instead of a news site.

~~~
skilled
Clickbait has changed a lot of the landscape. But this is good news for self-
aware people. It encourages to look for alternative and down to earth news
sources.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Sadly self-aware people seem to be few and far between...

~~~
skilled
True that...

------
jontaydev
The thing about subscribing the New York Times - is that you still have to
deal with a tremendous number of ads, seemingly every other paragraph. The
solution is simple, just install an ad-blocker. But then why not use that ad-
blocker to just bock cookies and bypass the paywall, since I’m gaming the
system anyways? I guess I could consider my subscription a donation because
I’m going to use an ad-blocker either way. But why can’t I pay to have a great
experience? I considered subscribing through the iOS app, but of course there
is no way to block ads. So unfortunately, I don’t receive any breaking news
notifications.

The browser experience is ok with an ad-blocker. But why not reward your
subscribers with a great reading experience? Remove the ads, focus on good
typography, etc, and I would pay whatever you ask. Preferably through an app.

Edit: I’ve been a subscriber for years, and I’m willing to pay regardless. I
just think they could improve by making the subscription meaningful to a
generation that doesn’t want to see ads.

~~~
blakesterz
I can only guess... when you buy the actual paper there's still ads. In the
end they are an advertising company. They write things to increase circulation
(hits and copies) so they can get more people to see more ads. That's how it's
always worked. That "subscribe and you won't see ads" probably makes no sense
at all to company that spent decades selling paying subscribers printed ads.
People spend money to buy print ads, why wouldn't they mind paying money to
see ads on their electronic device as well? They (The Times) and most
subscribers probably don't think it's any big deal to pay to see more ads.

~~~
moneil971
For most publications, the newsstand sales are a minuscule amount of income -
subscriptions are a bit more (and help them plan budgets), but ads is how they
keep the lights on. But it’s harder and harder to do that bc no one wants to
pay for quality reporting and fact checking when they can get rumors and
opinions for free on any clickbait website that pays writers pennies and has
fired their fact checkers and copy editors. If you truly want quality
journalism, pick the publications you don’t want to lose and subscribe - and
know that the ads are what keep the cost low enough for the average person to
get reliable news.

------
ineedasername
I like the NY Times, and I'm not saying it should be free, but this seems a
self-contradictory stunt. In recognizing the importance of access to a free
press, they take down the roadblock to accessing their own content. But only
for 3 days.

If this were something like Earth Day, a company vowing to recycle it's waste,
but only for a day, would immediately seem just as ridiculous as this does
after brief reflection.

~~~
melling
It’s not free press as in zero cost, it’s press freedom.

~~~
ineedasername
Yes, I get that, but by recognizing press freedom (free as in speech) they are
providing free press (free as in beer), which rather conflates the two. By
implicitly recognizing that the two are intertwined, it's a contradiction of
their support of press freedom to charge the rest of the year.

The conflict would be resolved if they kept the paywall and said something
like "remaining solvent is a necessary requirement for press freedom. In honer
of World Press Freedom Day, we will do X instead." Where X might be something
like sponsoring independent journalists in areas of the world where press
freedom is much more of an issue.

------
ekanes
Update: After a few articles, you need to register to continue reading.

------
radcon
Using pictures of starving children as props to collect our personal
information is a new low for them. I can't believe this made it through any
sort of approval process.

------
return1
Nytimes seems to lean more on the one side since they erected a paywall. It is
inherent to subscriptions that they create a selfreinforcing bubble by telling
subscribers what they want to hear, but other publications are doing better
(ft, wsj)

------
ricardobeat
> The Times is taking down its paywall from May 3 to 5 so everyone who
> registers can browse as many articles as they like

> everyone who registers

Nice move, to celebrate “freedom” by collecting personal data that will most
definitely be used for marketing and upselling subscriptions.

~~~
tyingq
A sales pitch accompanied by a tragic photo is in poor taste also.

~~~
blakesterz
Calling that photo of the starving kid "tragic" is a bit of an understatement.
Who the hell that was a good idea?!

~~~
_rpd
The Guardian has been using this technique intensively, and is now profitable,
so I think we can expect to see a lot more of this.

~~~
OneWordSoln
Yeah, but the Guardian is, by my estimation, a truly bad-ass journalistic
institution devoted to speaking truth to power.

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dredmorbius
"You’re in private mode."

"Log in or create a free New York Times account to continue reading in private
mode."

~~~
blakesterz
I've noticed they can catch Chrome in incognito, but it doesn't catch Firefox
in private mode.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I believe that's one of those cat-and-mouse games, where ideally they can't
tell if you're in incognito.

~~~
mffnbs
If you try chrome canary, there's a feature you can enable that removes the
incognito leak.

------
OneWordSoln
The NYT employs enough disingenuous obfuscators that I will never pay them a
penny, nor will I let them collect my information.

Beyond that, what they don't realize is that other news sites will simply
report on what is reported in the NYT, and those sites will forever be free.
From time to time I will copypaste a NYT url to a single-use non-private FF
instance to read (and then immediately clear history) whereby I invariably
find that the article only has a few bits that expanded my knowledge. Most of
the articles are those few bits of new info followed by summaries of days or
months old information that I am already fully aware of. And the same goes for
the WaPo.

I understand that we need to support good journalism and I will when I find
some really good journalism, without auto-play vids and ridiculous amounts of
ad content and making sure the readership on "both sides" is fairly
represented. The WaPo has potential but Bezos' quest for all the dollars is
ruining it.

What they don't get is that they can't control the information and that
information has no intrinsic price, for our primary advantage as human beings
is our ability to spread ideas and information from person to person. Their
information is going to get aggregated and there's not a damn thing they can
do about it, and I'm willing to wait 12 hours for it to get to me secondhand.

The MBAs are digging their own graves every single day and they don't have
anyone to blame but themselves. That they have gone all in on the advertisers
is only hastening their demise.

~~~
jrlocke
> The NYT employs enough disingenuous obfuscators

The opinion writers are purposely selected to oppose and challenge the
viewpoint of the editorial board. Assuming that the editorial board is largely
truly correct, there is going to be some degree of intellectual dishonesty
among the opposing opinion writers.

I do sympathize with you; I do not enjoy many of their opinions.

~~~
malvosenior
The NYT hired Sarah Jeong to their editorial board so it's safe to say there
is toxicity on both the editorial and opinion side of the paper.

Edit, for those of you unfamiliar with this particular editor you can read her
own words on Twitter:

[https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1025437806775226368](https://twitter.com/nickmon1112/status/1025437806775226368)

