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And media outlets like the NYT manipulate our opinions. An endless parade of articles written by non-experts with no incentives to get anything right, but plen

And media outlets like the NYT manipulate our opinions. An endless parade of articles written by non-experts with no incentives to get anything right, but plenty to keep the story going and traffic coming in.

overAndOver 8y ago
NYT manipulate our opinions. They try to. Especially here on HN. HN is a specific target of NYT groupthink, and you can see that they began to campaign HN specifically about two years ago, targetting HN as an aggregator of choice, for users with pockets of the right depth to pay for digital subscriptions.
- elipsey 8y ago
  >> you can see that they began to campaign HN specifically about two years ago No, I can't see that. If your going to accuse people of things, please explain what you mean and furnish some evidence. EDIT: It looks like your account is new. How do you know what was happening here two years ago? Did you change accounts or just lurk?
bepotts 8y ago
I can't remember who said it, but someone once compared the outrage over how tech companies use data to Yellowpages. There used to be this free book that had everyone's name, address, and phone number and the only way to opt out was to pay. This is much more egregious act than Google and Facebook; the only difference is the scale. At least Google and Facebook only take what you give them.
- staplers 8y ago
  Horrendous analogy. Yellowpages never tracked your real-time location, served hyper-targeted political ads, or tested emotion-manipulation on its readers.
  - bepotts 8y ago
    All that stuff is private and is never disclosed to anyone without a court order; or at least that is supposed to be how it works. Yellowpages told the public. That is the point.
    - staplers 8y ago
      Step away from the bong for a sec and reread what I just wrote.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  > the only difference is the scale. Well, no. But assuming for the sake of argument that were true; scale is important. Quantity has a quality all of it's own.

overAndOver 8y ago

NYT manipulate our opinions. They try to. Especially here on HN. HN is a specific target of NYT groupthink, and you can see that they began to campaign HN specifically about two years ago, targetting HN as an aggregator of choice, for users with pockets of the right depth to pay for digital subscriptions.

elipsey 8y ago
>> you can see that they began to campaign HN specifically about two years ago No, I can't see that. If your going to accuse people of things, please explain what you mean and furnish some evidence. EDIT: It looks like your account is new. How do you know what was happening here two years ago? Did you change accounts or just lurk?

bepotts 8y ago

I can't remember who said it, but someone once compared the outrage over how tech companies use data to Yellowpages. There used to be this free book that had everyone's name, address, and phone number and the only way to opt out was to pay. This is much more egregious act than Google and Facebook; the only difference is the scale. At least Google and Facebook only take what you give them.

staplers 8y ago
Horrendous analogy. Yellowpages never tracked your real-time location, served hyper-targeted political ads, or tested emotion-manipulation on its readers.
- bepotts 8y ago
  All that stuff is private and is never disclosed to anyone without a court order; or at least that is supposed to be how it works. Yellowpages told the public. That is the point.
  - staplers 8y ago
    Step away from the bong for a sec and reread what I just wrote.
darkpuma 8y ago
> the only difference is the scale. Well, no. But assuming for the sake of argument that were true; scale is important. Quantity has a quality all of it's own.