News

Gee, I wonder what else could be scraping content from all these websites?

To be fair, the archive indeed got heavily abused into simply reading without paywalls. I know this is a controversial opinion, but seeing comments on other threads like "Remember to support news media", then "use archive to bypass paywalls" then anger towards said companies for caring about getting paid or growing, makes one question where exactly does Lemmy draw the line between pirating and paid content. Or are we simply altogether against sites like 404Media just because of paywalls?

"This isn't letting us shape reality, that's our entire business model, we are working tirelessly to shape people's reality so this is definitely a no-go."

Remember to support your local library. Only physically written words are going to be safe in the coming age.

They think AI companies are using it as a "backdoor" to scrape their content. Which is patently ridiculous, but that won't stop them.

They think they want their revenue streams

Yah it's a problem for their agenda of manufacturing culture, social discourse and consent for hundreds of millions of people.

Awesome, this is the best paywall hack I have ever seen!

I'm probably screwing it up here, but neither of these are working for me

https://www.nytimes.com.2026/02/04/us/politics/supreme-court-california-congressional-map.html

https://www.nytimes..com/2026/02/04/us/politics/supreme-court-california-congressional-map.html

Why does this work? Is it a deliberate bypass on the NYT's part?

All of these companies only benefit from AI being employed to manufacture consent, alter reality and shape people's social trends and habits. This is why they don't want their data archived, they want to be able to use mobs of AI agents disguised as people to shape narrative and decide what people think is true.

It's already in massive progress across Reddit because it's so easy to disperse undercover AI instances and create conversations to influence people.

Even if you think yourself to be a critical thinker and reasonable, if you go into a huge, popular post and everyone in there is saying how the sky is green, and you ask what they're talking about because you know the sky is blue, and then dozens of people pile on you, downvote you, call you names and insult you for believing in false facts and calling you naive and easily programmed, you're really going to question reality and you may even go outside to take a second look at the sky.

Of course, they wouldn't do anything this bold, they will instead make far more subtle forms of "common knowledge" sentiments, able to change the minds of people who are otherwise smart and logical, but like every person, everywhere, just wants to fit in. So if those people see constant messages like "Of course it's not a genocide, that was obviously manufactured propaganda, I have a brother over there and he's saying..." etc, etc. That will absolutely change public perception of events and issues. To a cataclysmic degree.

It's already happening and it's even happening here. Everyone needs to get a lot more skeptical and a lot less online.

Well, Reddit's got a contract for AI companies to scrape their content, so pig boy Spez is getting paid, he don't give a fuck

about 1 out of every 5 posts is an advertisement in disguise, and about 15% or more of users are actually bots.

All of this is expected as a consequence of partnership with AI companies and google, and the site is basically walking dead, just a shell of corporate interests, manufactured conversations, algorithmically fed bait posts and so on... but it is a tad creepy how many of the AI bots keep making posts in "explain the joke" subreddits. We are so fucked.

FYI, any data on Lemmy can be used for the same for free. The federation infra can even be used to give AI models more direct access than even reddit is likely giving them. Just in case anyone is assuming that because this is community-run that it means the data isn't being sold. It's not, but it is being accessed by the same entities, if they want it.

The LA Times also blocks the Internet Archive unfortunately. I'd recommend PBS NPR ProPublica or some other nonprofit organization for your US paper of record.

I just got a gift subscription to the NYTimes, for the first time since I quit in 2018, and it's really gone downhill. I am learning about more big scoops from the guardian from lemmy posts than I see in their paper. I think Israel's final solution for gaza here broke their brain, they had an identity crisis and sided with Israel and fascism over all the fourth estate democracy mumbo jumbo.

They haven't broken a single big story that I recall in the past year. Not a single one, even the wall street journal published epstein's birthday letter from the president. The NYTimes gave up, they are no longer the paper of record, whatever problems before they covered events more thoroughly and had courage to break big stories, and now they don't.

If you have a concrete suggestion as to the stack don't hold back 😃