And so the question becomes: when an editor at the New York Times makes a decision that seems wrong-headed and cruel, what interface do they present to the world, and how should we make use of it?
I think the interface involves pageviews and subscriptions.
With subscriptions, the right strategy would be to threaten to unsubscribe if NYT proceeds with the story. I heard that the process of unsubscription is quite complicated, so publishing a step-by-step manual would be a nice threat.
With pageviews, it is more complicated. The strategy “let’s make the entire internet angry about doxing Scott” could easily backfire. NYT could simply publish a story without doxing Scott, which everyone would obviously carefully read… then another unexpected story about Scott, again without doxing him, again many readers… and again… and again… and when the stories would no longer get enough pageviews, then they would publish another story where they would dox Scott, so again tons of views… and afterwards some meta-stories like “why we believe it was ethically correct to dox Scott”… heck, even stories “reader’s opinion: why it was wrong to dox Scott”, the opinion doesn’t matter, there are pageviews either way… etc. This is why online advertising is such a force of evil. It is not obvious to me whether losses from subscriptions would outweigh the gains from views.
To be fair, they also have a feedback page where you can type stuff.
To me, this seems like a strong counterargument—I’d think that petitions are an interface to the NYT the same way that they are to me, that is to say an unwelcome one.
I think the interface involves pageviews and subscriptions.
With subscriptions, the right strategy would be to threaten to unsubscribe if NYT proceeds with the story. I heard that the process of unsubscription is quite complicated, so publishing a step-by-step manual would be a nice threat.
With pageviews, it is more complicated. The strategy “let’s make the entire internet angry about doxing Scott” could easily backfire. NYT could simply publish a story without doxing Scott, which everyone would obviously carefully read… then another unexpected story about Scott, again without doxing him, again many readers… and again… and again… and when the stories would no longer get enough pageviews, then they would publish another story where they would dox Scott, so again tons of views… and afterwards some meta-stories like “why we believe it was ethically correct to dox Scott”… heck, even stories “reader’s opinion: why it was wrong to dox Scott”, the opinion doesn’t matter, there are pageviews either way… etc. This is why online advertising is such a force of evil. It is not obvious to me whether losses from subscriptions would outweigh the gains from views.
To be fair, they also have a feedback page where you can type stuff.
To me, this seems like a strong counterargument—I’d think that petitions are an interface to the NYT the same way that they are to me, that is to say an unwelcome one.
Also relevant: The Asshole Filter.