[memeCrasher]

It's not like it'd be difficult for NYT to have whitelisted commentator accounts run by NYT editors to game their own comment/vote system and drive a false consensus for readers.

Modern media do this every day already with their yellow-journalist hit pieces, biased comments to drive a narrative aren't even a skip away from that.

[creaghpatr]

The thing is that commenting on NYT is limited to paying subscribers so it's not like they need to defend from outside 'raids'.

Then again, I would be shocked if PACs of all flavors didn't have pay groups of subscribers to crash the comments sections of the most prominent publications (NYT, WSJ, etc). Especially during the primaries last year. When you consider the amount of traffic they get, the top comment is valuable thought capital real estate during election season.