I will just add, the author of the NYT piece has a book out on this subject. The book is decent, has some cringe worthy descriptions of technical things if you are a technical person, but overall I learned a huge amount reading it.

A lot of the commentary, accusations, and opinions in the comments here would be addressed or better colored if you're interested enough to read her book (https://www.amazon.com/This-They-Tell-World-Ends/dp/16355760...).

Also, just to be clear, one of the reasons I like the book is because it's written by a person that doesn't understand all the deep technical aspects of these things.