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Comment by kermatt | Hacker News Reader

23 pointskermatt5 comments

Why would the NYT help Facebook? I thought the "old media" companies were angry at Facebook for owning the discussion space for news. Most people get their news via Facebook and comment about the news on Facebook. And let's be honest: how many people don't even bother to RTFA and just comment based on the headlines?

(Or does Facebook have an undisclosed investment in NYT?)

Folks hate Thiel for his politics. The article referenced by TFA was posted here, about half the comments were just ad hominem attacks on Thiel rather than attacking his argument.

That's somewhat disingenuous. People hate Thiel because of his personality and his actions - i.e. what he says and does - not only his politics. Saying somebody is hated because of their politics alone implies that they are simply hated for being an outspoken democrat, republican, libertarian, etc; and that that person has done nothing that would reasonably provoke the reaction they receive.

Thy aren’t necessarily helping Facebook. Giving a loudspeaker to a tech competitor helps their anti tech agenda. I mean, there’s almost a daily anti-tech op ed or some type of piece on NYT. Not once a month, not once a week, not once in a while when some new revelation comes out, but just about daily.

I’m not even disagreeing with the substance of these articles.

NYT is competing with these companies. Just keep that in mind. It’s awfully convenient to go specifically after your competitors.

Had to level the playing field post Cambridge Analytica and the Netflix documentary about it, ha.

Tldr; the documentary basically concludes very blatantly C.A. (and Facebook) manipulated elections worldwide. though I won’t be touching that/stating my own take on it. (That said, I would be a little less facetious about this, if it was someone else than Thiel. But maybe I’m wrong in not seeing him as primarily an agent of Facebook. It’s just not necessarily what he represents to me as a public figure.)

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