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

[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...

[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

[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.

[amelius]

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

[freshair]

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

[SilasX]

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.

[zepto]

This is the irony of the NYT, it is like this in pretty much every respect.

[Symbiote]

Did anyone write to the NYT about this? "Letters to the editor" seems a more useful place for feedback than this, or the previous blog post.

(I can't check, I'm not a subscriber.)

[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...

[52-6F-62]

With respect, I work closely with editors for a couple of major Canadian publication.

The number of them who understand the subscription and unsubscribe process of any of their media properties and UX patterns enough to rule on the subject for one of their writers is probably near 0.

It's not because they don't care, or wouldn't take to concern; it's because it's a business matter and a big blind spot. They have no ruling power over it, and just generally expect subscriptions to be a resolved business matter since it has long been.

It's easy for us "tech" people to see these kinds of things; it's obvious to a lot of us because our days are consumed by it. That is not at all true for most people.

Thankfully, even with blaring blind spots, editors tend to be open for discussion—hell, they started the discussion.

I think before anyone goes off the rails, they should take a look at the NYT comments section on this article where they can see the top comments on both the All and Reader Picks tabs. There are a number of comments pointing directly back at the NYT about this issue. A lot of those comment sections, like HN, are moderated by humans: https://qr.ae/pGncF5

To me, it reads that this particular writer came upon a subject that began to concern them, did some research and put together a piece to open up a discussion. It's not a final ruling, and it's not complete (it's just an opinion after all).

To me, that seems healthy, not intellectually dishonest.

[cosmotic]

> did some research

How did said research not uncover the problem with NYT itself? I think that's the upsetting part.

As part of a journalistic organization, journalists and editors have some ethical responsibility to be especially rigorous about the organization they represent, similar to full disclosure. At the very least, they should acknowledge what research they performed on their own employer. This is similar to Reply All reporting on racism at BA but forgetting to reflect on their own internal structure first.

[52-6F-62]

That's not the function of an opinion column, though.

He had the freedom to go as far as he wanted for the column of course, but it's not a requirement.

The column does carry a disclaimer that he is a member of the editorial board, but being an opinion column does mean he's not speaking for the paper, but himself. Of course any halfway-intelligent person can extrapolate and understand that his opinions will help form the editorial direction of the paper but is not representing the paper directly in this column. It wasn't a deep-dive.

I'm speaking to the function of the newspaper and opinion columns here, not about whether the article was good enough or not.

[cosmotic]

Regardless of how prominent it is to some, I suspect being "an opinion piece" will escape or be meaningless to at least a majority of readers. Who's fault is it then? The educated, professional author that should know their audience or the common reader doing a drive by scan of the article?

[52-6F-62]

Fair point. That’s probably an endless discussion subject. I could see many arguments for either.

I suppose it depends on what the intent was.

If it’s just to illuminate the subject, then the ball is entirely in the readers court. It certainly wasn’t hard to apply his reasoning to the NYT for anyone who was paying attention.

I’m sure there are plenty of sound arguments for the opposite, too, but that discussion is outside of the point I was trying to make.

Hope I wasn’t confusing. I have a tendency to ramble.

[dang]

Oh I agree! but the very first example that the author gives is the difficulty of canceling Amazon Prime. That's a pretty big gaffe.

I canceled Amazon Prime once; yes it was a pain, yes it "required multiple screens and clicks"—but it was nothing as abusive as having to make a phone call and (one can only expect) wait on hold for a punishing length of time.

[52-6F-62]

It's an oversight for sure. I agree that the writer should have asked the question "do we do this, too?" but didn't. At least not in writing. It would have made for a better, more rounded argument.

But that's a pretty small qualm. At worst it means the article wasn't as good as it could have been, but that's about as far as I would take that qualm.

At least as I understood the article, the maxims they put out there should be applied equally, not conditionally anyway.

But that's a failure as a thoughtful writer, not of a dishonest person or editorial process or body of colleges or an entire media industry—but those are the kinds of comments that are proliferating the larger thread.

There are a lot of accusations about dishonesty. That's pretty heavy-handed, even if the writer is on the editorial board. Being on a panel of editors does not magically make one all-seeing, even if we think that would be best.

[dang]

(Sorry, I was editing while you were replying.)

I take your point that it isn't an intellectual honesty issue if the author didn't know; it's just an embarrassing gaffe. I also take your point that one should be scrupulous about using terms like that only where they're warranted. I appreciate your defense against unfairness! usually I'm the one posting those, and it's interesting to be on the other side for a change. You outdanged me :)

On the other hand: if the commenters have pushed back as you say, surely he knows by now. If he knows, then why has the article not been updated? That would be an honesty issue, no? This isn't some minor inconsistency, this is NYT behaving markedly worse than the leading example criticized.

I think I'd disagree a bit with this too: "At worst it means the article wasn't as good as it could have been". That doesn't take into account the externalities. For example, it damages credibility.

If I map this into the HN space and imagine some sort of comparable scenario, it's unthinkable that we wouldn't post something saying "Ok you guys, you got me, mea culpa."

[52-6F-62]

> you outdanged me

I can only take that as a badge of honour!

You've got a point on one end of that—I agree I think he should be more engaging in response to some of the critiques and questions he faced. I read through the comments. Some of the same critiques came later (they appear to have closed the comments after a week elapsed), but others were posted the same day as the article.

I know some of their writers, editors, and moderators take part in online discussion in the comments; but most publishers maintain their discussions offline.

Usually they'll respond in a later article or shorter columns to an aggregate of the comments or direct letters. At least, traditionally that's how those kinds of publishers have operated.

So while I would also prefer he be more engaged, especially to a reasonable and seemingly obvious question like the one we're all posing, I can't give him marks for not engaging in another manner than is usual for the paper.

Credibility? Well I can't argue there—people will form their opinions no matter what. It's certainly best to try and get ahead of the obvious which he failed to do.

But then, credibility how? As a thoughtful person remarking quite fairly and accurately about a problem? Not at all, what he said is valid regardless. But as a self-reflecting finger wagger? Surely.

Personally, the article seems to be net-good to me. I'm just glad people are writing about the subject in the mainstream, so I have to give him kudos there, even if it made him look bad (not to make him sound like some kind of credibility martyr, not even close—just a step up from soapboxing).

All of what I really take issue with, is the seemingly growing consensus that it's somehow a moral failing of the newspaper itself. I have no real attachment to any outlet in particular, but I believe what they do and represent is important; that as a society it's good to have panels of people who work to keep up with the current, and work to understand the goings-on enough to remark and report on them intelligently. The last several years we've seen first-hand what happens when even good information is grossly misunderstood. It helps to have institutions working to form coherent discussions. I find it frustrating when I see so many very smart people swept up in disparaging one of the pillars of cooperative society; usually growing from one small gripe into sweeping condemnations of an "other" they don't seem to fully understand, but think they do.

[nabla9]

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/

[coliveira]

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.

[nabla9]

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.

[52-6F-62]

No. One writer wrote an opinion article. No sane daily (or 24/7) editorial board will dictate the minutiae of an article like that.

• Is it factual? Check.

• Is the grammar correct (often enough according to a sleep-deprived junior or production editor)? Check.

• Confirmed the article reads like a relatively sane person writing something relatively thoughtful and hopefully isn't cleverly disguised Nazi nonsense or the like? Check.

• Fits the general tone of the paper? Check.

Approved.

It's not the business of an editor to repeat the entire process of R&D and writing an article just to confirm they've covered every fact. Most of their staff probably doesn't even subscribe to the paper. The writers attentions will not be fixed on how that process works, it's just a job. Instead of lambasting an entire industry, or news organization and editorial processes, why don't you write the writer and ask them why the excluded it? Or write the editorial board? They read letters, and they respond to them. Sometimes they also correct and amend articles based on those letters. So why not get active about a problem rather than slandering them in forums?

So many of the qualms I see are based on misunderstanding both the purpose and function of publisher's like the NYT and the purpose and influence editorial process especially. The parent to your comment was correct, in spite of their comment being downvoted.

The solution isn't to try and sully their reputation by spreading vitriol—it's to engage in the discussion.

[giantg2]

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.

[dang]

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

[giantg2]

I just brought it up because everyone else is jumping to the conclusion that the person is a hypocrite, which it seems we would also need more information to know.

[dang]

It's a good point, and also in keeping with the intended spirit of this site - for example "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[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.

[ChrisArchitect]

instead of posting your comments as an item, post the article and then comment! what

[dang]

Yup, it's generally bad to use text posts to add commentary on a link. In fact HN has always disallowed this. From the FAQ (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html):

How do I make a link in a text submission?

You can't. This is to prevent people from submitting a link with their comments in a privileged position at the top of the page. If you want to submit a link with comments, just submit it, then add a regular comment.

The same issue comes up with titles. I tell people all the time: if you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

In this case, though, I made an exception because the post isn't recommending the article the way submissions usually do, but rather the opposite. It seems a bit unfair to make it link to it in the standard way. Don't worry, it's not going to become a pattern (dark or otherwise).

[coliveira]

It is an old tradition of newspapers to point the finger at others when your side is doing the same or worse. They still have the hubris to call it journalism.

[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.